E. H. ADDINGTON

GRAND LODGE F. AND A. M. OF LOUISIANA. 23
above all the medium through which are shaped the policies of our
Institution. The initiative remains with the constituency; the executive
with the central body. Nor is it conceivable that a Grand Lodge
or a Grand Master could be so bold as to subvert the rights and privileges
of the constituent Lodges. But to revert to Louisiana.
What are, my friends, a hundred years in the history of any institution?
Measured by the number of days, hours and minutes, stupendous
as the figures may be, they are but as a pebble in the path of
Time. Eternal as Masonry must be, our Grand Lodge is but in the
infancy of its life. It is like the tender nursling at its mother's breast,
having before it its allotted life to live. What shall it be? Judging
of its future by its past it is not my purpose again to relate its history
its usefulness has barely begun. It has before it its greatest endeavors
to put forth, its greatest work to perform. The future is pregnant
with possibilities, as Masonry will ever be the exponent of Wisdom,
Tolerance, Peace, Good Will and Universal Fraternity among men.
Cosmopolitan in its constituency, it is to the consummation of the
latter ideal to which the Grand Lodge of Louisiana must devote itself.
Here we are living in peace and harmony, notwithstanding our racial
differences. A more heterogeneous and a more harmonious family than
that of your Grand Master cannot be found throughout the length and
breadth of this land. With a family record of nearly three hundred
years in America—in these United States for 120 years—I cannot
claim a single drop of Anglo-Saxon blood. To my right is your Deputy
Grand Master, whose sharp, aquiline features are ' characteristic of his
Yankee lineage. Nothing against him but the fact that in coming
South he forgot his carpet-bag. The Grand Senior Warden is a lineal
descendant of Eric the Red, the Norwegian Viking, discoverer of
America. His piratical face indicates his origin—"tenacem propositi
virum." Our Grand Junior Warden is Scotch-Irish. Our Grand Secretary
a pure, unadulterated son of Erin. Our Grand Treasurer, German,
and the diversity of race and nationality continues down the line from
the Grand Chaplain to the Grand Tyler, who claims Portugal as the
native land of his fathers.
But to be serious, it is" this very cosmopolitanism of the Grand
Lodge which blasts the way for its future usefulness, which indicates
to it its mission. Is it not clear to all of us that our glorious work
lies in the demonstration to the world that universal brotherhood must
not continue to be a theory—that it is a living fact, and that to its acceptance
by the Masonic world we must bend our untiring energies?
May the coming years realize the fruition of our hopes in that direction.
This is our mission as a Grand Lodge. Let us be true to it.