For Easier Use

In the beginning and formative years of the Short Talk Bulletin, classification was unnecessary and use was necessarily restricted. Today with three hundred eighty-four Bulletins in print and available (ALL Short Talk Bulletins are kept in current print), so great a wealth of material is presented that without some assistance, even the enthusiastically inquiring brother may find difficulty in satisfying his curiosity completely.

For the previous eleven years, the December issue of this publication has included an alphabetical index, with dates attached, and a classification under various headings, in the belief that these might be of assistance to those looking for more light upon a particular subject.

It has, however, become increasingly evident, as each year added twelve more Bulletins on twelve new subjects to these monthly papers, that classification under twelve headings was not sufficient to give all the fight necessary for the inquiring brother.

Many Bulletins have titles that are so obviously self-explanatory as to need no classification in order that the seeker may find; such titles as “Charter-Warrant,” “Grand Master’s Powers,” “Green Dragon Tavern,” “Benjamin Franklin, Freemason,” etc. disclose completely the contents of the pages they head.

Many Bulletins, however, have titles that, no matter how well they fit the contents, are not expository of that information; such titles as “Mummies,” “Masonic Dream,” “. . . Returns Again to the Fountain,” or “Rock that Abides” do not disclose adequately what they are about. Such Bulletins as these — and there are many — must be classified if the seeker is to find what he wants.

The classifications themselves are, to some extent, general because so many Bulletins cannot be confined wholly to one classification. For instance, the Bulletin entitled “Dew Drop Lecture” could be classified under Ritual, or Fellowcraft Degree, or Poetry and be at home under any. Will you classify “Sts. Johns’ Days” under Entered Apprentice Degree, or Religion, or History, or Inspiration?

The twelve classifications made are:

About Individuals
Body of the Craft
Bypaths
Civil and Patriotic
Historical
Inspiration and Charity
In the Lodge
Literature
Philosophy
Religion and Ethics
Symbols and Symbolism
The War and After

Doubtless the Editor might find difficulty, if called upon,in defending his putting some Bulletin in one classification when to a reader it might easily fit the better in another. “Making a Mason at Sight” (classified in Body of the Craft) might properly go under the classification In the lodge, except that the practice belongs to the Craft as a whole and not to any lodge except the “occasional lodge” usually required for the ceremony. “Freemasonry and the Sea” might as easily been classified as Historical, as under Bypaths, except that in the latter have been put the “side excursions” on which Freemasonry occasionally wanders and the proportion of Freemasonry at sea is small indeed, if at one time important.

However faulty either the choice of classifications, or distribution of nearly four hundred Bulletins in these twelve corrals may be, it is the best that has so far been devised. Therefore, the suggestion is made — and with all humility that any suggestion of the kind should be necessary — that until a more detailed and comprehensive catalog can be constructed (the project is on the agenda for 1955) the reader looking for a particular subject should turn first to the alphabetical index; then to the classifications and look beyond one classification to another if what is wanted is not to be found in the first.

A new, simple and, it is hoped, effective plan is here added for those who seek light on the three degrees and their content, to read to or give to their newly raised brethren.

All Short Talk Bulletins, of course, are concerned only with Freemasonry. All but a very few (“Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,” “Royal Arch,” “Masonic Postage Stamps,” “Women Freemasons”) are concerned with Symbolic or Blue Lodge Masonry.

However this may seem to simplify classification, it is of little help, as Symbolic Masonry is the great bulk of all Masonry and its ramifications apparently infinite.

Hence the “new device,” the picking of certain Bulletins that appertain particularly to the Entered Apprentice, the Fellowcraft, and the Master Mason Degree.

These follow; they are not exclusive. The attempt has been made herein to gather “birds of a feather” in small flocks for easy use.

Bulletins here classified under the names of the three degrees, also appear in the following more general twelve classifications.

Entered Apprentice

Fellowcraft

Master Mason

Now follow the twelve classifications of all 384 Bulletins - these twelve, of course, also put the Bulletins newly (and additionally) added above under Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason.

Civic and Patriotic

Historical

07-48 American Rite
05-37 Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite
04-54 Ancient Usage and Custom
10-46 Andersons Constitutions of 1723
01-36 Baltimore Convention
08—23 Book of Constitutions
07-51 Cathedrals and Masonry
03-36 Charges of a Freemason
06-51 Famous American Cornerstones
10-36 Four Crowned Ones
11-31 Free and Accepted
10-32 From Whence Came We?
04-49 Green Dragon Tavern
01-51 Have Pride!
12-45 Legend of the Craft
05-28 Legend of the Lost Word
05-51 Life in Bible Times
05-46 Little Loved Shrines
07-34 Masonic Blue
01-46 “Masonic Conservators”
11-37 Masonic History Dry?
11-24 Masonic Service Association
02-39 Masonic Service Association
06-50 Masonic Clothings
02-46 Masonry’s “Eddi of Manhood End”
10-23 Master’s Piece
01-37 Military lodges
03-33 Morgan Affair
12-28 Mother Grand Lodge I
01-29 Mother Grand Lodge II
02-29 Mother Grand Lodge III
11-34 National
08-35 Old Romance
02-43 Old Tyler Oddities
11-52 Prestonian Charges
08-46 Regius Manuscript
09-41 Relics
05-50 Royal Arch
12-33 St. Johns’ Days
06-37 Seven Famous lodges
11-53 Seven Less Than Famous
07-38 Six Masonic War Tales
06-40 “Small” Grand Lodges
03-53 Thirty-Third Year
12-52 Thirty Years
05-47 Truth IS Enough!
11-44 Twenty Years After
11-35 Universality
08-40 Westward Ho!
02-53 The Word Freemason
05-54 Your Landmarks

Inspiration And Charity

In the Lodge

10-39 The Art of Presiding
11-29 Black Cube
05-30 Candidate
09-52 Deacons and Stewards
04-42 Dignity of Freemasonry
01-50 Dispensations and the Dispensing Power
03-43 Dropped N.P.D.
09-43 Formula for L.M.W.W.B.A.O.
07-47 For The Newly Raised
08-34 Gifts of the Magi
12-24 Guardians of the Gates
10-28 Increasing Lodge Attendance
09-40 Innovations
02-45 Installation
09-30 “I Vouch for Him”
10-41 “Knock and It Shall Be Opened”
12-29 Laws of Masonry
11-26 Letter Perfect
12-27 Lodge
07-29 Lodge and Grand Lodge Organization
08-24 Lodge Courtesies
06-41 Lodge Finances
09-54 Lodge Secretary
02-41 Master
12-44 Masonic Debate
04-52 Masonic Manners
06-36 Masonic Offense
05-53 Masonic Paradox
06-44 Meet, Act and Part
06-43 Minutes Are Important!
01-33 Mother Lodge
12-39 My Son
12-53 Opportunities
02-48 Parliamentary Law in Freemasonry
01-31 Past Master
04-45 Past Master’s Jewel
02-38 “Perfect Youth” Doctrine
01-38 Petition
08-29 Powers of the Worshipful Master
12-49 “Rock That Abides”
03-39 Recognized Foreign Grand Lodges
12-36 Refreshment
01-27 Secrecy
04-26 Seeing
09-39 “Seek - And Ye Shall Find”
03-31 Summons
04-47 Tell Your Brother
05-26 Truly Prepared
12-40 The Unknown Builders
01-47 Visitors and Visitors’ Committee
02-30 Visiting Brother
04-31 Wardens
11-38 Well Balanced
11-41 “Well-Informed Brethren”
06-39 What Can I Do?
01-43 What See You?
04-38 What’s In A Name?
11-43 Why Is A Fee?
04-40 The “Why” of Initiation

Literature

Philosophy

Religion and Ethics

Symbols and Symbolism

The War and After

03-45 “. . . And Ye Visited”
03-52 “The Day of Visitation”
03-48 For Whom the Drums Are Stilled
03-46 For Servicemen and Veterans
04-44 Freemasonry After the War
01-40 Freemasonry and Totalitarianism
04-50 Hospital Service Problem
03-49 In Glory’s Lap
03-54 Masonic Samaritans
01-41 Masonic Welfare Work
04-43 Masonry Follows Servicemen
07-40 My Part
03-44 Report of Welfare Work for the Armed Forces
03-42 Right Hand of Fellowship
03-47 “To Aid and Assist”
11-40 Will Freemasonry Survive?
09-42 Your Unknown Soldier

SHORT TALK BULLETIN INDEX

Vol. XXXII No. 12 — December 1954