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Description
From a collection of Photographs of various grand officers Photograph on paper stock, sepiatone Samuel E. Burke Dentist Elected Grand Master in October, 1921 Sunset Lodge No. 352 B. 2/13/1870 D. 2/14/1961 Burke had a very unusual Masonic career, notably being involved in the so-called "Masonic Whitewash Committee" of 1914 -an independent committee that investigated the bogus oath of the Knights of Columbus. This committee, comprised of Burke, Motley Flint, William R. Hervey, and Dana Reid Weller, caused an uproar during a period that was defined by a rising anti-Catholic sentiment and fervent Protestant evangelism that, in 1915, would give rise to a new Ku Klux Klan. By 1921, the KKK had shown itself in California and it was Burke who would have to deal with them. See Adam G. Kendall, "Freemasonry and the Second Ku Klux Klan in California, 1921-1925", Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol. 2.1, 2011 http://www.equinoxpub.com/JRFF/article/view/10043 An essay, also by Adam Kendall, chronicling the Whitewash Committee debuted at the 2011 International Conference on Masonic History and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the European Journal of American Culture.
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