The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-04
GREAT COUNCIL FIRE TO GLOW
 MAY [ AND 8
Retiring Great Sachem E. T. Buckingham to be Made
 Great Prophet
John Oetzel, Great Senior Saga more, to Succeed Bucking-
 ham as Great Sachem

Hartford, May 4.-Representatives of the Improved Order of Red Men from throughout Connecticut, and men high .-, the Great Council of the United States, will gather in this city next week for the 26th and greatest annual convention of the Great Council of Connecticut of the I. O. R. M. The convention will be held on May and 8th. Owing to the dispatch which characterizes the business of the Red Men, comparatively brief time will be occupied in the actual business of the convention, and on the evenings of May and 9th, ample time will be found for the exemplification of inn portant degrees of the order.
 Several hundred Red Men many of wives and families will attend the con- vention Headquarters will be estab- ushed at the Hotel Garde, where will be displayed the insignia of the order As we'll as the national cOlors. Old Glory is the emblem of the I. O. R. M, and the national colors in flag and bunting will be conspicuously displayed, to- Gether with Indian heads of all shades of copper hue, decorated in the green blue and red, the colors of the Red Men.
 Putnam Phalanx hall will be the scene of the convention. On Tuesday evening, following conferences of the various committees, when will be held the usual discussion of the Qualifica- tions of various candidates, the Red where the chiefs degree, or third degree will be conferred on a class of IS candidates by Sonquassen Tribe, of Ea-tford. Again, the following even ing, at the same place, Sicaogg Tribe, of Hartford, will confer the adoption class of candidates. These will be the chief purely fraternal events of the state gathering.
 Following the custom of former years, the hour of formally opening the convention will be 10 o'clock, Wed- nesday morning. In absence of Cover nor Baldwin who will be occupied in fulfilling previous engagements, Lieut.. Governor Dennis A. Blakeslee will formally institute the 26th annual con- vention. His brief address of welcome will be followed by a welcome to Hart ford by Mayor Louis R. Cheney. Great Sachem Edward T. Buckingham, head of the Great Council, and former May or of Bridgeport, will respond fit tingly.
 The brief interchange of courtesy be- tween aborigine and white having been completed. a number of novel features will precede the kindling of the council fire, as the opening of the business of the convention is charac- terized in Red Men parlance. Chief or these WILL U0 lHG TcHulllOIl Ol dp- propriate songs by Criterion quar- tet, an organization of Bridgeport singers, George Lush, Lewis c. Fenron, George H. Tordoff and James Holt, Jr,. Among these numbers will be an orig ;inal song from the pen of Frank Braithwaite, of Bridgeport. All are members of Wowompon tribe of that city These features will be open to he general public. At this point, how ever, the convention will take a tenn porary recess to allow it to convene in executive session.
 Great Sachem Buckingham and his chiefs will then kindle the council fire. Past Sachems not members of the great council will receive the Great Council degree, making them eligible to sit with the council. The roll call will be followed by the report of the last great council, in Waterbury. in 1911. Then will come the long talk of Great Sachem Buckingham, with his recapitulation of the progress of the order for the year. telling of the in- stitution of new tribes, increase in the numerical strength of the order, re- port of his visitations to the various tribes and his recommendations.
 Other reports will be those of Will. liam Saunders, of Naugatuck, great chief of records; O. s. Culver, of New Haven, great keeper of Wampum; the report of the deputy sachems appoint ed to raise up elective and appointfve chiefs of the various tribes: the state ments of the doings of the Great Coun-