ALBERT PIKE
Man of Fire
By: James H. Tresner II
Dr. Jim Tresner has a Bachelor of Arts Degree
with majors in Theatre, Communications,
Psychology, and English Literature; a Master of
Arts Degree in Communications with a second
major in English, a Master's of Business
Education Degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy
in Communication Theory.
Masonically, Bro. Tresner is serving as Master
of Albert Pike k)dge #162, Guthrie, OK; and is
also a member of Garfield Lodge #501 of Enid,
OK He is a lifelong student of Albert Pike, his
life and works. Bro. Tresner serves the Scottish
Rite, S. J. in Guthrie, OK, as Director of Work.
This STB as been extracted from the book
Albert Pike: The Man Beyond the Monument
and is reprinted by permission from the publish-
er M. Evans and Co.; the Supreme Council,
Scottish Rite, S. J.; and James Tresner.
The book Albert Pike: The Man Beyond the
Monument costs $19.95 (U.S.) and is available
in hardcover through most major bookstores, or
can be ordered through a bookstore.
ISBN #0-87131-791-5.
Editor
Albert Pike
Mun of Fire
I'd like you to meet a friend. His name is
Albert Pike, and he knew how to live!
Generally, people seem to react to Albert Pike
in one of three ways. One group (which usually
has not read Pike) says "Ah, Pike!" and then
assumes a pose of silent rapture, supposedly at
Pike's overwhelming greatness but actually so
no one can ask them anything about him.
The second, larger group, says, "Uck, Pike!"
and then stomps off. They haven't read Pike
either, but everyone' s told them he' s too hard to
understand, so why try?
The third group has read Pike, and they say,
"Wow! What a man!"
Albert Pike suffers from too much plaster.
He's been cast as a plaster saint--the unapproachable intellectual giant who created the
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and its present
form in the Southern Jurisdiction, USA, the
mind so vast as to be incomprehensible. Busts
in bronze or marble (as well as plaster) portray
him as the patriarch, penetrating of eye and
stern of brow whom one cannot understand, but
can only admire in awe-struck wonder. Or sneer
at in contempt.
There was much of the patriarch in Pike,
although less than subsequent generations have
invested there. But there was far more than
patriarch, far more than marble or bronze or
plaster. There was fire.
The Pike we need to know better is not the
patriarch but the pioneer, the friend, the crusader for justice for Native Americans (well
liked enough that one tribe paid him the almost
unheard of honor of making him an honorary
Chief), the practical joker, the poet, the teacher,
the cook, the social lion, the reformer, the
explorer referred to by the historian Grant
Foreman as "one of the most remarkable and
interesting characters in the annals of the
Southwest"--we need to know the man.
And man he was! He was dashing and handsome, and a genuine heartbreaker in his earlier
years.
He was a powerful man, six feet and two inches tall, finely formed, with dark eyes and fair
skin, fleet of foot and sure of shot, able to
endure hardship, greatly admired by the
Indians.
He was known as the best shot in town. His
laugh was so famous it was written about in the
social columns of the Washington, D.C., newspapers. He always had a new joke or story to
tell his friends. He was considered one of the
best dancers in the capital, and society hostesses
fought to get him as a guest at their parties. If
General Pike were there, the party was sure to
be a success.
He wore his hair long, when it was not the
fashion, and it gave him an extra air of the exotic. He hardly needed it--he was naturally an
exotic in almost every sense. He was an accomplished violinist, and he sang in a beautiful
voice--and it's quite possible that not all the
songs were for mixed company.
He organized hunting and camping parties
lasting many days, and served as the cook for
the expeditions (he was famous for his stews of
game and vegetables). Indeed, the leaders of
Washington fought to be included as guests on
those trips.
He made and lost fortunes. The story is told
that he literally partied away a large sum of
money on a steamer trip up the river from New
Orleans to Little Rock. Allsopp suggests that,
even if the story is apocryphal, the spirit of it is
true.
He had hundreds of devoted friends. Once,
while he was away from Washington, an erroneous report of his death reached the city. A
great wake had been planned, and, when a very
much alive Albert Pike suddenly appeared in
Washington, D.C., his friends decided to go
ahead with the wake anyhow. Rather like Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn, Pike got a chance not
only to observe but to participate in his own
obsequies. The event, recorded in the press,
nearly turned into a riot. Some of his friends
tried to match him drink for drink, and that was
a mistake.
But, with all that, he was a student. He lived to
learn and loved to share what he had learned.
His friend, Thomas Hatch, wrote of Pike shortly after his death:
He would spread out the stores of his knowledge with such infinite tact and grace that the
ignorant man would not feel oppressed by the
contrast between them, and the learned would
listen to him, wondering at his wisdom.
Education was, for Pike, a life-long process.
He taught himself languages, history, philosophy, theology, and law. His ability in the law
was sound enough for him to become one of the
best-known lawyers in the South and to serve as
a Justice of the Supreme Court of Arkansas during the Confederacy. On March 9, 1849, he was
admitted, with Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal
Hamlin, to practice before the U.S. Supreme
Court. He also was an educator, and in 1853, he
was elected President of the Board of Trustees
of St. John's College, of Little Rock. Nor did
Pike's talents dull with age. As Moore points
out:
After he was seventy years of age, he learned
the Sanscrit language and translated from it
into English the Veda, that source of the
"World-Old" Philosophy of the Hindoos
[Hindus].
The sheer excitement of information breaks
out again and again in Pike's writing.
He wrote extremely well indeed. The contemporary Canadian scholar Wallace McLeod,
writes of him:
He had a sound instinct for right and wrong,
and (in Coil's words) "a profound belief in an
all-wise, moral, and beneficent God " And, oh,
he could write! He could recognize essential
truths on which all good men agree, and
express them clearly in such a way that they
sound fresh, compelling, and even inspiring;
you find yourself li.stening, and inwardly nodding your head.
He loved good food, good company, travel,
justice, the feel of a quill pen in his hand, and,
perhaps above all, his pipe.
Critics who don't know Pike have saddled him
with a reputation as an ivory-towered intellect,
remote from and indifferent to the "real world."
The image tits well with the plaster patriarch,
but it doesn't fit reality. There are few ivory
towers on the battlefield, and Pike was a general. Ivory towers were even rarer on the frontier
where a man ate only if he could hunt his dinner, where he was at constant risk of death from
bandits and marauders, where there was often
the danger of dying of thirst in the desert or
freezing in a blizzard, and where losing one's
horse could mean a 500-mile trek to the nearest
outpost. All those things happened to Pike. As
Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, wrote:
There was little known of the vast regions
lying West of the great Mississippi River. They
were covered with primeval forests, arid plains
and forbidding mountain ranges, over which
wild...animals roamed to the menace of life and
limb of anyone whose hardihood these venturesome fastnesses impenetrable wilderness-
es I attracted. New Mexico at that period (1831)
was far beyond the frontier of our country and
between the two lay a veritable "Terra
Incognita" into which few ventured with any
hope of return.
Pike's thoughtfulness and introspection did
not come from ease and comfort. As he wrote:
I have acquired, by wild and desolate life, a
habit of looking steadily in upon my own mind,
and of fathoming its resources; and perhaps
solitude has been a creator of egotism.
Not egotism, exactly; but since Pike arrived at
a position only after considerable thought, he
was not easily swayed. He was always willing
to discuss his opinions, however, and could be
convinced, with sufficient evidence, when he
was in error.
So who was this man?
As a teacher, he commanded an immense
knowledge of both classical literature and history. As a lawyer, he offered such legal expertise and personal honesty that he became one of
the most respected counsels of mid-l9th-century America. As a pioneer, he traveled extensively and recorded his impressions vividly. As
a general, he was a leader. As a writer and
poet, he transformed the literature of our
Scottish Rite.
Truly, Albert Pike was a multidimensional
man. His special genius was the ability to infuse
every endeavor with absolute commitment. He
had faith in himself and, as importantly, in
America. Love of country motivated him and
freedom was his unswerving guide.
So wrote C. Fred Kleinknecht, in 1986.
Similarly, near the beginning of this century,
Fred Allsopp wrote:
When the mass of the output of the brain of
this man Pike is considered, is it any wonder
that Judge John Hallum exclaimed that his
labors equalled Bonaparte's in another field ?
Think of his activities! He performed as much
creative writing as most authors do who devote
their lives to literature. Yet he served altogether perhaps three-fourths of the mature years of
his life on the editorial tripod, in the field as a
soldier, as a lawyer at the bar, and as Grand
Commander of the Supreme Council, Southern
Jurisdiction, of the Scottish Rite--and excelled
in every line of endeavor.
He was all that, and he was more. He was a
profound student of philosophy--who loved
the sight of a pretty face, a well-prepared meal,
and a belly laugh. He was the principal
expounder of the Scottish Rite for the Southem
Jurisdiction--who got fired from a teaching job
for "playing the fiddle on Sunday," ate horse
meat when starving in the prairie, wrote satiric
verse, and provided the entertainment at his
own, premature, wake. He was a great lover of
peace and supporter of the Constitution--who
was a General for the South in the Civil War
and fought in the last duel ever held in
Arkansas. He was a lover of nature and beauty
and wilderness--who was one of the first, if not
the first, to suggest a railroad linking the East
and West coasts and who tried to convince the
South to industrialize.
He was, in short, a man of great imagination,
daring, creativity, and determination who never
lost his love of a practical joke.
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