Page 217 - PGM Compendium

Our good brother began his Grand Lodge service at the Grand Communication held in Seattle in 1903.
Most Worshipful John Arthur was pleased to appoint him a member of a special committee for the
consideration of the Standard Work of Washington and the Grand Lodge Lecturer System. In 1905, he
acted as Senior Grand Deacon, and from this time forward he participated in an official capacity at every
succeeding Grand Lodge Communication. At the close of the 1905 Grand Communication he was
appointed one of the Custodians of the Work, to which position he was reappointed the next eight years.
Then in 1914, and again at the next two succeeding communications of the Grand Lodge, he was appointed
Deputy Grand Lecturer.

In 1917 he was elected Junior Grand Warden, and was regularly advanced until his election in 1920 as
Most Worshipful Grand Master. His year as Grand Master was a particularly busy one, and the Grand
Lodge Communication over which he presided in 1921, in Spokane, was an important one. He reported
that he had visited eight of our Lodges in Alaska. He had attended the annual meeting of The George
Washington Masonic National Memorial Association, in Alexandria, VA. He had granted dispensations
for the formation of thirteen new Lodges. As showing his desire to perpetuate the names of men who had
rendered distinguished services to Freemasonry, the names of four of these Lodges were Joseph Warren,
Daniel Bagley, Lafayette and Robert Burns, respectively.

Our Grand Master had not been at all well, and he might appropriately have given that as an excuse for
not continuing actively in Masonic work, at the conclusion of his year as Grand Master, but it was not his
will to do so. On the contrary, he accepted the appointment as Grand Lecturer tendered him by his
successor. When he reported at the next communication of the Grand Lodge, he stated what everyone
knew to be a fact: "I have willfully disobeyed the urgent injunction of the Grand Master to take further
rest and not to endanger my life by excessive exertion." At this same communication he was appointed a
member of the Committee on Grievance and Appeals. At the succeeding communication he served as a
member of the Committee on Obituaries. Then he was appointed, at the close of the 1924 communication,
as a member of the Committee on Masonic Research and Education, and he commenced what was to be
his final service to the Craft. At each succeeding communication he was continued in that capacity, having
served during the past five years as the Executive Secretary of this committee.

What M⸫W⸫ Brother Begg said relative to Masonic Research and Education in his message as Grand
Master in 1921 shows his appreciation of the importance of that subject: “This Grand Lodge has taken a
wise step in providing for a more extensive system of Masonic research and; education than was deemed
necessary in its earlier years. I trust this step will be followed and quickened from year to year, until we
can honestly boast that we have in this Grand Jurisdiction as well instructed a Craft as can be found in the
entire United States. To carry out this worthy purpose, it will be necessary to increase the facilities thus
far provided, for the necessity is growing space. We are taking into our Masonic body an immense number
of worthy young men, and to them we owe the duty of furnishing all possible means for their education
in our mysteries and in the mission and philosophy of our great universal institution. You have already
manifested so clear a conception of this paramount duty that there is no need to do more than barely
mention it in this message."

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