Brother Gerald R. Ford
Gerald R. Ford was in Congress for 25 years and from 1965 to 1973, he was House Minority Leader. He was born in 1913 and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He starred on the University of Michigan football team, and went to Yale, where he worked as assistant football coach while earning his law degree. During World War II he rose to lieutenant commander in the Navy. After the war he returned to Grand Rapids, where he began the practice of law, and entered politics.
Brother Ford was initiated on September 30, 1949, Malta Lodge No. 465, Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Fellowcraft and Master Mason Degrees were conferred by Columbia Lodge No. 3, Washington, D.C., on April 20 and May 18, 1951 because Brother Ford was a member of Congress and spent much of his time in Washington. He was made a Sovereign Grand Inspector General, 33°, and Honorary Member, Supreme Council A.A.S.R. Northern Jurisdiction at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, in 1962. Brother and President Ford was unanimously elected an Active Member of the International Supreme Council, Order of DeMolay and its Honorary Grand Master in 1975. Brother Ford held this post until 1977.
But to really understand a man, we must see him in the context of what was going on around him during his finest hour.
It was October 10, 1973 and Spiro T. Agnew, the vice president of the United States had just resigned after pleading nolo contendere to bribery and tax evasion charges for acts that occurred while he was governor of Maryland. Still fresh in the public mind were the Kennedy assassinations, the Martin Luther King assassination, race riots, the carnage of the Viet Nam war, the war protests and the killing of students at Kent State by the National Guard. The economy was in recession and lines at gas stations reflected an energy crisis the likes of which this country has never seen. The Senate public televised, hearings on Watergate, which began in May and recessed in August, had been postponed to February 1974. To many it seamed like the country was being torn apart.
In the mist of all this strife and dissention, President Nixon chose Gerald R. Ford to be a heart beat away. He could have hardly imagined the chain of events called Watergate that would lead to his own resignation (the first and only president to do so) and the ascension to power of the only president never chosen in a national election. On August 9, 1974, Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office of President of the United States, and said; "I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.” Thankfully, when his country called, Brother Gerald R. Ford answered.
President Ford was in every sense a peacemaker. Early in his first and only term, he issued a total pardon to former President Nixon. As he said at the time and repeated 30 years later, it was a practical solution to start the national healing and allow the government to get on with the business of the people of the United States. And he did just that, using his veto power some 68 times. He would later say that he did so for the good of all the people, not just any particular constituency. Most of the vetoes were upheld, even by a congress dominated by the opposite party.
He probably lost the ensuing election because he did what he believed was right and best for our country. . "I have to say that most of my staff disagreed with me over the pardon," Ford commented. "But I was absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do." His principle and sense of right was more important than his personal political expediency.
"My greatest disappointment was that I couldn't turn the switch and all of a sudden overnight go from an economic recession to an economic prosperity," Ford remembered. "That was the greatest disappointment domestically." Ford's greatest success as President was in conducting government, decently administered by responsible people. He said, "I hope historians will write that the Ford administration healed the land, that I restored public confidence in the White House and in the government."
After former president Nixon left for the last time, President Ford recollected; “I had of course almost immediately the responsibility of going into the East Room, where I had to be sworn in and where I had to make an acceptance speech. And I couldn't prepare my speech until twenty-four hours or less beforehand, because up until the last minute we weren't sure what President Nixon was going to do. And I had a wonderful speechwriter, Bob Hartman, and he handed me the copy and I read it. He had a knack of saying what I would say. It came to one sentence. I said, 'Bob, we ought to strike this.' And it was the sentence, 'Our long national nightmare is over.' And Bob Hartman said to me, 'If you strike that, I'm quitting!' So I left it in and it turned out to be the most memorable line in my remarks-and it was a wonderful line."
Two other quotes pointedly reveal the man and the Masonic lessons he knew so well.
“As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate. “
“My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed. My conscience tells me that only I, as President, have the constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book. My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquility but to use every means that I have to insure it. I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy. “
Rest in peace Brother Gerald R. Ford, 38th President of the United States, Master Mason. So mote it be.
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