LETTER TO EUROPEAN GENERAL SECRETARY
144 Madison Avenue
New York, January 25, 1895
George R. S. Mead, Esq.
Gen'l Sec'y European Section T.S.
Sir and Brother:-I have received some seven requests by resolution
from Branches and Centers of your Section to the effect, (a)
that I should resign the office of Vice-President of the T.S.,
(b) that i should answer charges published against me by a paper
inimical to the T.S. or give reasons for not replying, (c) that
I should offer myself for trial on said charges; and I have also
read the full publications of these requests and other matter
connected therewith in the Vahan. I now beg to ask you
to act as the proper official channel for the general reply to
those requests, and to inform your Executive Committee also.
First. I am amazed at the undue, precipitate, and untheosophical
haste displayed in the requests to me to reply to the public
attack made on me before I could have time to do so or had refused,
when the slightest reflection would show I could not possibly
reply in sucha hurry, and when a true brotherly feeling would
seem to require that before making the demands, means should
be taken to discover whether I had an intention to reply or explain.
The Barcelona Lodge, however, asked you to inquire of me whether
the charges made in said paper were true or not. Please let them
know that I again say the charges are absolutely false.
Second. When the Judicial Commitee met in July and
when thereafter Mrs. Besant, as prosecutor, publicly assented,
in apparent good faith, to a general resolution declaring the
matter closed and dropped, she was then in possession of all
the alleged evidence now in her possession. Inasmuch as her name
and her opinions have been used in a part of the above-mentioned
correspondence, as some sort of proof of something. I draw your
Lodges' attention to the fact that she had in her possession
all said evidence at the time when she, as your public leader,
publickly assented to two statements and a solemn resolution
closing the matter passed at your Convention. It now appears
that some Lodges desire to nullify and override that action;
hence either (a) the resolution was not passed in good
faith, or (b) it was procurred through hoodwinking and
deceiving the Convention. If you and those Lodges say that they
did not have the said alleged evidence, and would not have passed
the resolution had you possessed the said alleged evidence, then
their present desire to avoid the resolution-for that is what
the requests indicate-is due to a feeling that you were hoodwinkied
into passingit. This being so, I must refer you to Mrs. Besant,
for I had no part whatever in proposing, forwarding, or passing
the resolution.
Third. In reply to the request that I shall resign
the office of Vice-President, please say that I am obliged to
refuse the request. If it is proper I should now resign, it was
just as much so in July when your leading prosecutors had all
the alleged evidence in their possession. I regard resignation
as evidence of guilt. If I resigned that office I could not be
in any way tried on any charges, and very soon after a resignation
the same persons might say I resigned to evade responsibility.
Fourth. I have replied to the public newspaper in the
only way it deserves. I have still under consideration a full
reply to the T.S. respecting the real charges, but I refuse to
be hurried until the right time, for the cogent reasons given
below. And as I have seen that new misstatements of fact and
charges are being circulated against me by F.T.S. who are keeping
up this disgraceful pursuit, I have additional reasons for waiting
until all possible innuendos and distortions shall have come
forth, even were I now fully prepared to reply.
I cannot make a proper reply to the charges until I have in
my possession a copy of the documentary evidence which it was,
or is, proposed to use in support of the charges. These documents
consist of various letters of mine on which are memoranda not
in my handwriting. Some of them are letters written over ten
years ago. They have been deliberately kept away from me, although
open enemies have been given and allowed to take complete copies
and facsimilies. No fair person would ask that I should answer
without them.
I arrived in London July 5th, 18945, and at once demanded,
first, copies of letters, and second, an inspection of all the
evidence. Mrs. Besant promised these, but did not perform. The
Council met informally on July 6, when I again demanded the evidence
and received the same promise as before with the same failure
to perform. July 7th the formal meeting of the Council took place.
The same demand was again made with the same result. Each day
until the second day before departure I made the request and
met the same promise followed by failure to perform. The Judicial
Committee met and I then made the same demand, and at the meeting
Mrs. Besant and others said, "Oh, of course Mr. Judge should
have copies of the proposed evidence." But the papers wer
neither copied nor shown me up to July 19th, almost a week after
Convention, and when I was packing my trunk. All this time until
the 19th, Mrs. Besant had the papers. On the 19th I formally
and peremptorily demanded them. She said she had given them to
Col. Olcott, who said they had been just sent off to the mail
to go to India; this I repeated to Mrs. Besant and said I would
publish the fact to the public. She hastened to Col. Olcott and
he said he had made a mistake, as the papers were in his travelling
case. He then, in Dr. Buck's presence, in a great hurry, as I
sailed on the 21st, allowed me a hasty look at the papers on
July 19th, I taking a copy of one or two short ones. But several
being lengthy, and especially the one by which they hoped to
destroy my general credibility, I could not copy them. Col. Olcott
then promised to send copies; Mrs. Besant declared herself quit
of the matter. Up to this date the promises made have not been
fulfilled. I am without copies of the documents on which the
charges are based.
Mrs. Besant, as prosecutor, never fulfilled her promise nor
her duty. I then believed and still believe that they never intended
to give me copies nor to permit inspection but hoped to hurry
me into a trial unprepared in every respect. These facts, with
the fact that they allowed Mr. Old to copy everything, will throw
some light on the matter and on the opinions of the parties.
I shall certainly not reply until I have before me the documentary
evidence or copies and know the precise offenses with which I
am charged. This is common justice.
Fraternally,
William Q. Judge
Vice-President T.S.
Path, March, 1895
The Vahan, March 1, 1895
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