MASONIC RECORD

Initiated: February 18, 1909. Brother Taft was made a “Mason at Sight” within the Body of Kilwinning Lodge No. 356, Cincinnati, Ohio, by Grand Master Charles S. Hoskinson. His father and two brothers were also Members of this Lodge. Brother and President Taft addressed the Brethren, saying, “I am glad to be here, and to be a Mason. It does me good to feel the thrill that comes from recognizing on all hands the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.”

Initiated: February 18, 1909. Brother Taft was made a “Mason at Sight” within the Body of Kilwinning Lodge No. 356, Cincinnati, Ohio, by Grand Master Charles S. Hoskinson, in an Emergent Lodge called together for the purpose. His father and two brothers were also Members of this Lodge. Brother and President Taft addressed the Brethren, saying, “I am glad to be here, and to be a Mason. It does me good to feel the thrill that comes from recognizing on all hands the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.”

At five O’clock in the afternoon Grand Mast Charles S Hoskinson personally administered the obligations and esoteric instructions. That evening Taft witnessed the Master’s degree conferred by Kilwinning Lodge No.356, of Cincinnati, which elected him to membership April 14, 1909.

Crescent Lodge No.25, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, elected him an Honorary Member June 5, 1918. On April 22, 1909, he visited Temple-Noyes Lodge No.32, at Washington, D.C., of which his close friend and aide, Major Archie Butt, was a member and for whom, after the Titanic disaster, Temple-Noyes Lodge held an elaborate Memorial Service which Brother Taft attended as one of the Chief Mourners.

He visited the famous American Union Lodge No.1, at Marietta, Ohio, June 15, 1910; Alexandria Washington Lodge No.22, on Washington’s birthday, 1911; May 9th of the same year he posed for a picture in Washington’s Masonic regalia at the White House; May 13th he visited St John’s Lodge No.1, Newark, N.J., to help celebrate its 150th anniversary; on December 27, 1914, he addressed the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and on June 5, 1918, he spoke to Crescent Lodge No.25 of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Brother and President Taft visited the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania on the occasion of a Special Communication held in the Masonic Temple (One North Broad Street), on March 12, 1912.