Early TLS, four pages, 8.5 x 11, September 30, 1964. A fascinating letter from Clinton to the Director of Activities in the International Supreme Council of Order of DeMolay, a national Masonic organization for character building and leadership training for young men. As master councilor of his Hot Springs chapter, the 18-year-old Clinton presents a detailed summary of his chapter’s activities as part of the application for “The Past Master Councilor’s Meritorious Service Award.” In part: “The Master Councilor performed the Initiatory Degree three times and the DeMolay degree twice from memory. A carboned program was presented to the membership of the chapter…The chapter observed Patriot’s Day…a back-to-school swim party and dance was held at Belvedere Country Club…As a civic project the DeMolays, in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce, put out dolls and posters to publicize the Miss Arkansas Pageant…DeMolays sold handy, card-carrying billfolds for fund-raising…Twenty Hot Springs DeMolays journeyed the 110 miles to El Dorado, Arkansas to put on both degrees for the Blue Lodge ther [sic] to encourage institution of a DeMolay chapter there.” Clinton has made several spelling corrections throughout the text. In very good condition, with scattered creasing, wrinkling, and mild toning a bit heavier at the edges.
Although Clinton rose to the rank of master councilor of his chapter, the ideology of the Masons was not something he firmly adhered to, nor a path he continued to tread after entering college. He talked at length about his involvement in DeMolay in his autobiography, ‘My Life,’ and the aspects of the organization that he enjoyed most, including “the camaraderie, memorizing all the parts of the rituals, moving up the offices to be master counselor of my local chapter, and going to the state conventions.” On the flipside, he also noted the aspects he did not subscribe to: “I didn’t buy the idea that its secret rituals were a big deal that somehow made our lives more important...I didn’t follow a long line of distinguished Americans going back to George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere into Masonry, probably because in my twenties I was in an ant-joining phase, and I didn’t like what I mistakenly thought was Masonry’s latent anti-Catholicism, or the segregation of blacks and whites into difference branches.”
The rituals and rallying activities described in this particular letter draw a map of what Clinton found most engaging about the legendary Masonic organization, which may have even influenced the free-thinking, rebellious ethos that Clinton would adopt during his years at Yale University. This letter is particularly intriguing because it speaks from Clinton’s most formative years, placing the future president in the infamous secret society that so many presidents before him had pledged allegiance; but in true Clinton fashion, we see him veer from the path most traveled, forging his own road to presidential greatness. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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