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A Preface in an Unusual Place.

The preface of a book is usually written last of all yet it is placed at the beginning. Usually you have to read the book before you can understand the preface. Therefore, we have put this attempt to justify these pages of posters in the last volume.

Did you ever attempt to compile a series of volumes like these Camp-Greenville-Lodge Books? It is a big undertaking!

This series was made up, for the most part, during the month of April, 1931, a month overcrowded with extra duties.

The mistakes in these books are frequent, the construction of many sentences is awkward, the continued repitition of "friendship," "beautiful," "generous," "kindly," is tiresome, the "sermonettes" which are injected at every apportunity are forced, but within the limitation of my ability, I have tried to do my best.

Some un-reconstructed Southern friends may accuse me of Yankee bias in some instances. If the accusation is made, I must plead guilty. I am a Yankee at heart. I think slavery was un-Christian and wrong. I am glad it was abolished. I am glad we have a united country. My father was a soldier in the Union army. I am glad he was.

On the other hand, my Northern friends may complain at my Southern bias and to this charge I must also plead guilty. My uncle fought under Fitzhugh Lee. My mother went through the bombardment of Petersburg and I think she told me she made cakes of parched corn for the Confederate soldiers fighting around Richmond. Along with others, she was compelled to refugee outside the city, and General Lee passed by her tent door when he visited the refugee camp to see how the women and children were getting along.

As a boy, I shook hands with Fitzhugh Lee when he lectured in my home city. The first woman whom I ever saw in trousers was Belle Boyd, the noted Southern spy. On a lecture tour she was stranded in my home town, and my Yankee-soldier father bought some tickets to help her financially, and I heard the lecture.

I remember she related a conversation she had had with General Lee and I remember that during the course of her lecture in order to demonstrate how she rode horseback on long rides, she rolled up her skirt and stood arrayed in Confederate gray trousers. I was amazed, for at the time women wore long stockings, bloomers, skirts to their knees, and sleeves to their elbows when in bathing.

And then, these Southern folks in Greenville, have been so wonderfully kind to me that they have become a part of my heart and soul. For many years, in joy and sorrow, in deep depression and in sunshine, they have helped, aided, cheered, and drawn from me the best that was in me. South Carolina is home to me, and I hope it always shall be.

After the Civil-War questions have been settled, however, some intensely patriotic American may accuse me of pacifism. If so, I shall be glad, for I should like to do my bit toward world peace so effectively that it will stir up opposition.

Last of all, some may say, I am too severe toward United States, and have only praise for other nations. This is probably true because we are the host in this lodge and the other nations of the world are our guests. It would be|unbecoming in us as a host to criticise our friendly visitors. As to United States, I only criticise her because of love for my country. I want her to become great in soul and character realizing that she will suffer more from blindness and lack of foresight than from lack of praise and appreciation.

So here are the Lodge-Books! I hope they will do no harm. If they do some good, I shall be well repaid.

[Handwritten signature]
The Editor.

[Handwritten note at bottom of page]
This was [illegible] [c?]lose of the body. Books in 1930. Then the rocks were added and World War II was fought and [then?] pages added.