FAREWELL REMARKS OF MR. JUDGE
ON THE VICE-PRESIDENCY
[ Copy of a letter from Mr. Judge to Col. Olcott]
Dear Colonel,
Last June and July I laid before you the point that I was never elected
Vice-President of the "Theosophical Society," consequently that office was
then known to you to be vacant. The decision then arrived at by you, Mr.
Bertram Keightley, and Mr. George R.S. Mead that I was Vice-President was
invalid, of no effect, and quite contrary to the fact. The original
notification to the public that my name was attached to the office was merely a
notice of your selection, without the authority of the Society you are the
President-Founder of, and without any election by a competent, regular and
representative convention of that Society. I also informed you in July that no
notice was ever given to me of the said invalid selection.
A long and bitter fight has been waged by Mrs. Annie Besant and others, one
of the objects of which is to compel me to resign the said office which I do
not hold. I have refused to accede to their requests, and would refuse even did
I hold that I was legally the Vice-President.
But as I have worked a long time with you in the cause of Theosophy, and am
with you one of those who helped H.P.B. to start the American movement in 1875,
as I would aid you in all proper ways, and since I hear that you are to be in
London this summer to "settle the Judge case," as you have proclaimed, I now
beg to again point out to you that I do not hold and never have held the
office of Vice-President of any Theosophical Society of which I am a member,
and that you can consider this as my declaration that I cannot and will not
oppose you filling the said so-called office in any way you may see fit, either
arbitrarily or other wise.
While on this point I would say to you, that my signing my name hitherto
as "Vice-President" was in ignorance of the important facts since ascertained,
showing conclusively the de facto character of the act. Should you ask
why then I raised the objection so long ago as July, I reply that the Master
whom you think I do not hear from directed me to do so, and at that time I found
only the fact of non-election in support of it.
Fraternally,
(Signed) William Q. Judge
May 8th,1895
The Vahan June 1, 1895
The Irish Theosophist
June 15, 1895
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