COLORED LODGE HEADS VISIT AT WHITE HOUSE. MEMBERS OF THE COLORED BRANCH OF ELKS, (I.B.P.O.E.W.) VISIT PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AT THE WHITE HOUSE JULY 31 TO INVITE HIM TO REVIEW THE PARADE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ON AUGUST 27, DURING THEIR NATIONAL CONVENTION HERE. DR. CHARLES B. FISHER, GEN. CONVENTION CHAIRMAN, EXTREME LEFT, AND J. FINLEY WILSON, GRAND EXALTER RULER (SECOND FROM EXTREME RIGHT) LED THE DELEGATION TO PRESIDENT'S OFFICE

Freemasonry's impact on America is more significant than anything that speculation would hold. A movement that emerged from the Reformation, Freemasonry was the widespread and well-connected organization. It may seem strange for liberal principles to coexist with a secretive society but masonry embraced religious toleration and liberty principles, helping to spread them through the American colonies. In a young America, Masonic ideals flourished. In Boston in 1775, Freemasonic officials who were part of a British garrison granted local freemen of color the right to affiliate as Masons. The African Lodge No. 1. was named after the order's founder, Prince Hall, a freed slave. It represented the first black-led abolitionist movement in American history. One of the greatest symbols of Freemasonry, the eye-and-pyramid of the Great Seal of the United States, is still on the back of the dollar bill. The Great Seal's design was created under the direction of Benjamin Franklin (another Freemason), Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Freemasonry principles strengthened America's founding commitment to the individual's pursuit of meaning. Beyond fascination with symbolism and secrecy, this ideal represents Freemasonry's highest contribution to U.S. life. Freemasons rejected a European past in which one overarching authority regulated the exchange of ideas. Washington, a freemason, in a letter to the congregation of a Rhode Island synagogue wrote: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens..." Freemasonry's most radical idea was the coexistence of different faiths within a single nation.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Wilson earned a PhD in political science at Johns Hopkins University, served as a professor and scholar at various institutions, as President of Princeton University. In 1910 he was elected the 34th Governor of New Jersey, serving from 1911 to 1913. He became the first Southerner elected as president since Zachary Taylor in 1848. He became the first Democrat since Andrew Jackson elected to two consecutive terms. He oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Wilson maintained a policy of neutrality and his second term was dominated by American entry into World War I. During the war, Wilson focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving military strategy to the generals, especially General John J. Pershing. Loaning billions of dollars to Britain, France, and other Allies, the United States aided their finance of the war effort. Following years of advocacy for suffrage on the state level, in 1918 he endorsed the Nineteenth Amendment, whose ratification in 1920 provided an equal right to vote for women. Early in 1918, he issued his principles for peace, the Fourteen Points, and in 1919 he traveled to Paris, promoting the formation of a League of Nations, concluding the Treaty of Versailles. A devoted Presbyterian, Wilson infused morality into his internationalism, an ideology now referred to as "Wilsonian"—an activist foreign policy calling on the nation to promote global democracy. For his sponsorship of the League of Nations, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, the second of three sitting presidents so honored. "Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), commonly known as FDR, served as the 32nd President of the United States, from 1933 to 1945. Roosevelt was born in 1882, to a prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County, New York. He attended the elite Groton School and Harvard College. He married Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had six children. Roosevelt fought with polio since 1921. He entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president with presidential candidate James M. Cox, but lost to the Republican ticket. He successfully ran for Governor of New York in 1928. In 1932 Roosevelt successfully defeated Republican president Herbert Hoover to win the presidency of the United States. In his first hundred days in office, Roosevelt initiated an unprecedented legislation and issued a number of executive orders that instituted the New Deal programs. He created numerous programs supporting the unemployed and farmers, encouraged labor union growth while more closely regulating business and Wall street finance. The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 helped FDR to win re-election in 1936. The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937 but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. As World War II loomed after 1938, with the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and the United Kingdom, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy", which would supply munitions to the Allies. In March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, United States declared war on Japan and, a few days later, on Germany. During the war, unemployment dropped to 2%, relief programs largely ended, and the industrial economy grew rapidly to new heights as millions of people moved to wartime factory jobs or entered military service. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy. As an active military leader, he implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and the development of the world's first nuclear bomb. His work also influenced the later creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods. Roosevelt's health seriously declined during the war years, and he died three months into his fourth term. "If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time."