MAGLRPound

From MasonicGenealogy
Revision as of 14:48, 28 February 2014 by Hotc1733 (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

ROSCOE POUND 1870-1964

RoscoePound1915.jpg

Deputy Grand Master, 1915

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1964-207:

On July 1, 1964 death came in his 94th year to Right Worshipful Roscoe Pound, our Senior Past Deputy Grand Master, and without doubt the most outstanding Masonic scholar of our day. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, October 27,1870, the son of Stephen Bosworth and Laura Biddlecombe Pound, he was a child of the Western frontier.

Although his father was a lawyer and a judge, it was from his mother that he acquired his early education, particularly in Latin and Science. He learned his Bible "at his mother's knee" from the Latin Vulgate version. Without further formal schooling he entered the University of Nebraska at the age of 15, graduating in 1888. He entered the Harvard Law School in 1889 before his 19th birthday, but one year at Harvard was his only formal legal education. Returning to Nebraska he entered the practice of law. He began his teaching career at the University of Nebraska in 1895, and he earned a Ph.D. in Botany in 1897. From 1900 to 1903 he served the Superior Court of Nebraska in a specially created capacity as Commissioner of Appeals to assist the Court to catch up on an accumulation of pending cases. The decisions he wrote during this assignment clearly demonstrated his scholarly capacity.

In 1903 he became Dean of the Law School at Nebraska. From there he became Professor of Law successively at Northwestern University in 1907, University of Chicago in 1909, and Harvard in 1910, becoming Dean of the Harvard Law School in 1916, a post which he held for 20 years. After retiring as Dean he continued to teach at Harvard for 11 more years, and in 1947 at the age of 77 he went to China where for 2 years he acted as advisor to the Minister of Justice of the Nationalist Government. Upon his return he helped establish a law school at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1953 at the age of 83 he returned to Cambridge where he worked regularly at his famed circular desk at the Harvard Law School until after he had passed his 93rd birthday.

In addition to a number of other Honorary Degrees he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor o{ Laws from at least 14 Universities, including the University of Cambridge, England. He also was a member of various learned societies in Great Britain, France, Italy and Argentina, and was awarded the American Bar Association's Medal for conspicuous service in the cause of American Jurisprudence. His professional writings are so voluminous that they have been listed and classified in a book of 193 pages entirled Writings of Roscoe Pound. He was endowed with a phenomenal photographic mind which enabled him to reproduce in his mind as if by a photographic process seemingly everything he had ever read thus enabling him to quote verbatim passage after passage citing book and page.

Brother Pound was made a Mason in Lancaster Lodge No. 54 in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1901, and became its Master in 1905, affiliating with Evans Lodge No. 524 in Evanston, Illinois, in 1909, and Belmont Lodge, Belmont, Massachusetts, in 1912. In 1923 he became a Charter Member of Beaver Lodge in Belmont. In 1922 he played an active role in the founding of The Harvard Lodge at Harvard University, of which he became a Charter Member. It is significant that as soon as Brother Pound changed his residence he immediately transferred his Masonic affiliations.

While not a regular attendant at Lodge Meetings, during his latter years he participated many times in special events, notably the 50th Anniversary of The Harvard Lodge in 1962. No one who was present will ever forget the occasion in December 1962 when at the age of 92 he participated in the Installation of our present Grand Master by taking his place as our Senior Past Deputy Grand Master in the formal procession.

He served the Grand Lodge of Nebraska as Grand Orator from 1906 to 1908, and in 1949 was elected Honorary Past Grand Master of Masons in Nebraska. In Massachusetts he first achieved Masonic prominence as a result of a series of Masonic lectures at the Acacia Fraternity at Harvard, which were attended by Most Worshipful Melvin M. Johnson. In March 1915 Most Worshipful Brother Johnson appointed him Deputy Grand Master to succeed Frederick W. Hamilton, who was elected Grand Secretary. In 1934 he received the Henry Price Medal, and in 1953 the Veteran's Medal. He was Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Nebraska near our Grand Lodge from 1929 until his death. He served our Grand Lodge for many years as a member of the Committee on the Recognition of Foreign Grand Lodges. In 1939 he received the Annual Distinguished Achievement Award from the Grand Lodge of New York.

He received the Scottish Rite degrees in the Valley of Lincoln, Nebraska, Southern Jurisdiction in 1903. Affiliating with the Scottish Rite Bodies in the Valley of Boston in 1912, he received the Honorary 33° the following year. In 1952 he was the fifth recipient of the Gourgas Medal of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite which was conferred "in recognition of notably distinguished service in the cause of Freemasonry, humanity or country".

Right Worshipful Brother Pound was a universally recognized scholar of Masonic Jurisprudence and Philosophy. His research and mastery of Masonic Jurisprudence is vividly reflected in the 1918 revision of the Constitutions and Regulations of our Grand Lodge.

In 1953 the Supreme Council collected and published the Masonic Addresses and Writings of Brother Pound, including his Address on The Landmarks, at the Grand Masters Conference in 1952. In the introduction to this volume Most Worshipful Melvin M. Johnson wrote that his accomplishments "have demonstrated that no one, living or dead, excels him in learning and in the ability to correlate and apply learning to life".

After Brother Pound's first wife died in 1928, he married the widow of one of their close friends, but she also preceded him in death, leaving him with his scholarly pursuits as his consuming interest. No Memorial to Right Worshipful Brother Pound could be complete without giving recognition to the devoted and faithful service of his long time and indispensable secretary, "Miss McCarthy", as she was known to all his associates and friends.

Funeral services were private, attended only by a very small group of associates which included our Grand Master, who was included in recognition of Brother Pound's pre-eminent standing in the Masonic World. A public Memorial Service was held on July 7th at the Memorial Church in the Harvard Yard.

Fraternally submitted,
George A. Lincoln
Frederick M. Busby, Jr.
Whitfield W. Johnson, Chairman
Committee



Distinguished Brothers