Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-11-14
THAT RAILROAD q COURT.
A Communication About the Warm
Times Among the Good Templars.

Times Among the Good Templars.
EDS. RECORD UNION: 1t is a we'll estab
lished fact that for long time past certain
individual members of the |. o. 6. r. have
been engaged in assailing and defaming
the Grand Worthy Secretary and other off.
GERS of that institution. At the recent ses
sion of the Grand Lodge, which was held
in Los Angeles, the whole matter was in.
vestigated, with view to ascertaining the
facts in the case, the investigation being
had at the request of the Secretary.
The Grand Lodge resolved itself into a
Committee of the Whole, and q number OF
the statements and quasi charges made by
the opposition during the past year were
taken from the publications controlled by
these people, and they were required to
prove the assertions made, and in this they
utterly failed.
The Committee of the Whole was pre-
sided over by William H. Mills, and, after
thorough investigation, the committee
agreed upon and presented report con.
Guiding as follows; After due considera-
ton and investigation and taking of testi-
mony, they find the charges to be unsus-
tanned and unfounded in fact" This report
was unanimously adopted, and there the
duties of the Committee of the Whole and
its Chairman ended.
Subsequently proceedings were inaugu-
rated against the authors of these "unsus-
tanned and unfounded allegations and
accusations" and as a result Messrs. Albert
d. Wood and George Morris were found
guilty and expelled, and w. D. Gould was
suspended. These proceedings, however,
were entirely different from those before
alluded to.
Now comes the Censor, published at Los
Angeles, and edited by Albert d. Wood
and it attempts to produce the impression
that Mr.. Mills presided also at the latter
trial, and meanly insinuates that in the
court run by railroad officials nothing
could be proved but what suited the court :"
etc; the intimation being that Mr.. Mills
as such court" or presiding officer, made
unfair rulings etc.
= 1t is but an act of Justice to say that
neither the statement nor intimation have
even the semblance of truth, and that, as a
matter of fact, Mr.. Mills was not present at
the Grand Lodge session during the t, ial of
Gould, Wood and Morris, and not being
present, he could neither have presided nor
made any unfair rulings.
Mr.. Mills had obtained leave of absence
and was about to leave the session on the
morning of the third day, when he was de-
tanned by subpoena from the defendants,
and at the commencement of the trial the
official organ of the Order, the Rescue, re-
cords the fact that -" by consent, he being
about to leave, the first witness was called
for the defense. w II. Mills was then ex-
amined, and at the conclusion of his exam
ination the Grand Lodge took a recess. -
Mr.. Mills was then excused and returned to
San Francisco by the afternoon train of
the same day. Subsequent to his leaving
the trial proceeded, with the result already
known.
And while upon the subject. it may not
be amiss to correct another point sought to
be made, not by Captain Wood himself for
he knows better, but by his over-zeaious
defenders, who gravely intimate that he
was the originator of the Good Templars'
Home for Orphans at Vallejo and that he
made large donations indeed, that he do
mated the land upon which the Home
stands, etc. Captain Wood was neither the
originator nor founder of this magnificent
charity, nor did he ever donate or deed it
an acre of land without full value being
paid for. Upon the contrary, one hundred
and three acres Of land was purchased from
him and his associates, and they were paid
for it at the rate of 500 per acre-$10, 300
the same land for which he paid S25 per
acre, leaving a comfortable profit of $75,
out of the 800 per acre.
He did, in a fit of generosity, three years
ago, when homestead lots were being do
mated at session of the Grand Lodge,
agree to donate four or five lots valued at
$40 each, but when he was called upon TO
execute the deeds to make his donation
effective he neglected to do it, and the mat
ter of his donation still so stands
Such are the facts concerning these
would-be railroad martyrs" VERITAs.