February 23rd, 1895

Dear SIR,

On January 25th, I sent to you as General Secretary of your Section, a general letter replying to several communications from some of your Lodges, so that you, as the proper officer, might communicate it. But instead of pursuing the impartial course as required by your office, you have taken up the position of prosecutor, attorney, and pleader against me, making a long argumentative reply, full of assertions and conclusions of your own, and signed officially, so that you might print it, as you say, with my letter, in THE VAHAN

Your rights and duties as General Secretary do not require nor permit such action; all that you had the right to do was to promulgate my letter or refuse to do so, but you have now made your office a partisan one in this matter, using it improperly for partisan ends.

I do not intend to controvert your intemperate letter, but I ask that this be published so that some at least of your misleading statements may be corrected.

You say that “in July you (I) argued that the charges did not lie against you (me) as Vice-President, and now you argue the exact contrary.” This is an untruth as well as absurd. I have made no such contradictory statements.

You refer me to the fact that Mrs. Besant sent me a copy of what she meant to say to the Committee, and you attempt to make it appear that that very amateur attempt at a legal brief contained the testimony and the documents I require. It did not and does not. I have it. It is a special plea full of distortions, devoid of evidence, containing scraps of documents, devoid of documents referred to, and wholly incompetent. Mrs. Besant’s intentions as to what she would say, do not settle matters. And to give instances: her statement did not contain the message I sent Col. Olcott about his resignation, nor the letter relied on to sustain a charge of forgery. Furthermore, I am entitled to have the entire contents of letters used in evidence, though she sought to introduce disjointed scraps only.

You say I demanded that my letters be handed over to my possession. This I could have done but did not. Very true, I may have privately asked Col. Olcott to give me my old letters written to H.P.B., he to keep copies, as I had both moral and legal right. But it is useless for you and others to try to obscure the fact that no inspection of the documents was given me until July 19th, nearly six days after the Convention, and that no copies have been given; and you yourself heard Mrs. Besant promise in Committee the copies to me, and Mr. Burrows say, “Of course Mr. Judge should have copies.”

Lastly, the charges have been extended far beyond those got up by Mrs. Besant, and after all the publicity due to enemies, it seems untheosophical to read your words in which you say that you will take steps so that all may know what the charges are. Do you intend to circulate anew the Westminster Gazette’s book?

Yours,
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
The Vahan, April I, 1895