The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-30
THREATENED MASONIC WAR.
The Rivalry of the a. and A. Orders In
vOlving the Blue Lodges in the
"Higher Degree Fight.
New York Times.

jurisdiction with any person who directly
recognizes as Masonic any body claimed to
be Masonic except such as have already been
introduced by that Grand Lodge. That
looks innocent and honest enough upon its
surface, but the true inwardness of it is that
tits a cunning device to employ the concen-
trated power of the Blue Lodge Organization
in that State to bolster up the claims of a
"higher degree body, which assumes, under
the weighty title of the Supreme Councils
of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite
for the Northern and Southern Jurisdictions
Of the United States, to divide the land for
its greater glory and profit. Henry L.
Palmer is the 'Most Puissant Sovereign
Grand Commander of the Northern
Jurisdiction of that body, and Albert Pike
the Most Puissant Sovereign Grand Com
mander" of the Southern Jurisdiction" and
the question of how they ever came to have
a semblance of right of claim to found any
such Supreme Councils is the one now
dragged in for the disturbance and djsrup-
ton of Blue Lodge Masonry.
An eminent Mason of long established
high degree in the order, and of social prom
%inence, when questioned upon this subject
by a reporter the other day, said:
81 have talked to many Masons of the
highest character and standing about it, and
find that while they are very chary of say
ing anything to convey to the profane a
sense of the gravity of the situation, there is
among them ii stern resolve not to submit to
the Grand Lodges dictation in this matter.
They claim hat it is not within the province
of the Grand Lodge to determine questions
OF origin and authority between rival aud
c~ontending organizations dealing in matters
of which Master Masons, as Master Masons
only, can know nothing. They say that a
Grand Lodge assuming to tell a Master Mason
in good standing that he shall or shall not
join bodies that are only Masonic in so far
that they recruit their membership from
among Master Masons, is guilty of imperti-
nence and tyranny; thatit might with equal
propriety order them to join or not to
join the Grand Army of the Re-
public, or Knights of Labor or
some particular base ball club.
and that there is nothing in Blue Lodge Ma
sonic law that binds Master Masons to any
such slavish obedience. 1 know numbers of
Blue Lodge Masons, past masters of lodges
and past grand officers, bright and shining
lights in symbolic Masonry, who will not al
low the adoption of any such measure as
that proposed without entering their most
vigorous protests against it, Should that
protest be unheeded sad consequences, l fear,
would ensue."
What is, in brief, the cause OF the exist
ent condition of affairs, the squabble among
the timetables, in which Blue Lodge Masons
seem about to be unwillingly involved?'
Simply this, that a certain clique of men
are seeking to usurp the authority Of another
clique of men in the control of the higher
degrees Of Scottish Bite Masonry in this
country. The first Sovereign Grand Con-
sistory of the Sublime Degrees in the United
States was established here in New York
Oct. %, 1907, by Joseph Cerneau, whose
authority was vested in letters patent given
him by Stephen NORM, of San Domingo and
Cuba, who in turn derived his authority for
such grant from the Grand Orient of the
Rite of Perfection, at Paris, as far back as
Aug. 27. 1761. In that first consistory in
New York were the Hon. De Witt Clinton, Gov
ernor of the State; Hon.. John w. Mulligan,
Cadwallader D.. Golden, mayor of New York,
and a number of others of the most promi-
nent citizens of the Empire State. The con-
sistory was consecrated by the Supreme
Council of the Grant Orient of France in
1913, recognized officially in 1916, and so on
ever since. It's second grand commander
was Hon. J. w. Mulligan (afterward United
States consul-general to Greece, and Its
third was Governor De Witt Clinton, who,
during the stay in this country of Marquis
de Lafayette, temporarily resigned to him
the Office of Most Puissant Sovereign Grand
Commander. In 1918 a person named Eman-
uel De La Motta, here in New York. bv vir-
WV VI bAAS III ~ Illl ~ bllh-
self, constituted himself a Grand Council of
Sovereign Grand Inspectors, and for some
time achieved a certain notoriety and en-
joyed q unique distinction as the most re-
markably unanimous body on the pages of
history. In about five years he faded from
sight as an organization, although having
made unto himself another Sublime Prince,
in the person of his clerk, ]. J. J.
Gourgas, and, consequently, having double
the numerical strength in his Grand Council
that he started with. The German Consis-
tory, the genuine parent body of Sublime
Degree Masonry in this country, found it
advisable in 1928 to, for a time, cease from
its labors, because of the Masonic per-
s%ecution that had broken forth the year pre-
ceding, and was not again called together
for four years. Meantime Gourgas, ingen-
iousiy conceiving that a Supreme Coun
Gil of one could be concealed from hostile
public knowledge with greater success and
far more safety to its component Sublime
Princes than could a consistory, reorganized
himself into the Supreme Council and by
a trick obtained from the Grand Orient of
France a recognition, which that body
promptly rescinded upon discovery of the
fraud by which it had been attained. Not
content with that action only, the Grand
Orient sent over here the Count st, Laurent
TO call together and reorganiZe the consis-
tory founded by Illustrlous Brother Joseph
Cerneau, the body reorganized and approved
ny II ii 1910. III lCOl SdhlIdNIOu WAS Quly
effected under the new and imposing title
of the Supreme Grand Council,
and that body has maintained
a fourishing and uninterrupted existence
ever since. But the Gouraas Council still
maintained a fitful and uncertain existence,
enough to enable it to sell degrees to d good
many people here and there, and by 1868
there were enough members in ii to enable
it to split in two parts-one known as the
Van Rensselaer, Council and the other the
Raymond Council. The latter united with
the genuine, or Cerneau, body, but at the
close of the civil war, at the instance of the
Confederate General Albert Pike, Withdrew
from that supreme grand council and re-
united with the Van Rensselaer, faction.
Then the inheritors of the works of De La
Motta and Gourgas, who had formed them
selves into two supreme grand councils, one