last recommending the abolition of the Office of Corresponding Grand Secretary and the title of Recording Grand Secretary, have considered the matter and report as follows: Section 9 of Part I, Article VIII, reads

"The Corresponding Grand Secretary shall, if required by the Grand Master, answer under his direction any foreign communication made to the Grand Lodge; and when present, if desired by the Grand Master, read all such communication to the Grand Lodge. It shall also be his duty from time to time to lay before the Grand Lodge such matters of Masonic interest as may come to his knowledge."

The provisions of this Section can be carried out by any member of the Grand Lodge designated by the Grand Master at any time for the purpose. Prior to March 9, 1801, there appears in our records the office of Assistant Grand Secretary and Deputy Grand Secretary, but on this latter date the Grand Lodge voted that the Assistant Grand Secretary shall cease, and a standing law was passed that the Grand Master appoint a Corresponding Grand Secretary. Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., Junior Grand Warden in 1800, was appointed to the new office each year for many years thereafter. In 1811 the Grand Constitutions as adopted contain the title Grand Corresponding Secretary which afterwards returned to the old title as it exists today. All the work performed by this officer in the early days has for generations been performed by our Recording Grand Secretary, and the position has been an honorary one. The Brothers appointed to the position have generally

been selected for their intellectual and literary attainments and, as in the case of our Brother Dr. Richardson who last year declined a re-appointment to the office, have honored the Grand Lodge by their association with its work.

As the constitutional requirements are either carried out by the Recording Grand Secretary or may be by any Brother designated by the Grand Master, the office of Corresponding Grand Secretary may be abolished, and we recommend the adoption of the Amendment proposed as follows:

Strike out from the Grand Constitutions Section 9, Part I, Article VIII, and the words Corresponding Grand Secretary in

Part I, Article II.

Part I, Article V, Section 1.

Part III, Article VII.

and from the Stations of the Grand Officers in the Grand Lodge. Renumber all Sections following and affected by such striking out.

Respectfully submitted,

CHARLES T. GALLAGHER,

FRANK VOGEL,

W. H. RIDER,

Committee.

The report of the Committee was accepted and the Amendment unanimously adopted as recommended.

CHANGE IN TITLE OF RECORDING GRAND SECRETARY.

R.W. Brother Frank Vogel presented the following report:

IN GRAND LODGE, June 9, 1915.

To the M.W. Grand Master, Wardens, and Members:

The abolition of the office of Corresponding Grand Secretary leaves but one Secretary whose title should be, as in other jurisdictions, simply Grand Secretary.

We therefore recommend the adoption of the amendment proposed as follows:

Strike out the word "Recording" in the title of the Recording Grand Secretary wherever it occurs in the Grand Constitutions, as in

Part I, Article II.

Part I, Article V, Section 1.

Part I, Article VI, Sections 1 and 2.

Part I, Article VII, Section 3.

Part I, Article VIII, Sections 8 and 10.

Part III, Article I, Sections 1 and 2.

Part III, Article V, Section 1.

Part III, Article VI, Section 3.

Part III, Article VII, Section 1.

In Part V, Section 19 of the miscellaneous Regulalations and in the Stations of the Grand Offi

cers in the Grand Lodge.

Respectfully submitted,

The report was accepted and the Amendment unanimously adopted as recommended.

COMMITTEE ON CORRESPONDENCE.

M.W. Brother Charles T. Gallagher presented the following report:

IN GRAND LODGE, June 9, 1915.

To the M.W. Grand Master and Brethren:

As requested by the M.W. Grand Master we have considered the question of the creation of a Committee on Correspondence and respectfully report as follows:

In an elaborate and carefully prepared article by the then Grand Master M.W. Brother Sereno D. Nickerson, for so many years our efficient Grand Secretary, which appeared in the New England Freemason of the year 1874, our Grand Lodge's position on this subject was stated. Forty years' experience since then shows no reason to change that policy and your Committee sees none now.

The work done by Committees on Correspondence in other Jurisdictions is substantially what might have been done by our Corresponding Grand Secretary during the past hundred years if the work had been needed or called for. The work in the various Jurisdictions is seldom if ever performed by a Committee but almost invariably by one man, the others being what Mackey in the article hereinafter referred to calls "sleeping partners," and there is little if any correspondence either foreign or domestic, neither does it report as a Committee so that its work may

be accepted or approved to become the authorized expression of its Grand Lodge. To call it Committee work seems a misnomer. The work done is a review in digested form of the work of other Grand bodies and if a name is needed it should be called that of a Reviewer. The question of creating such Committees has been the subject of reports by various Grand Bodies and many convincing arguments have been used against the adoption of the plan.

Such reports are found in volume 12 of Moore's Freemason Magazine, page 271; volume 20 of Moore's Freemason Magazine, page 101; and volume 28 of Moore's Freemason Magazine, page 133; while an extended article in the New England Freemason of 1874, exposing the absurd historical statements published by one Reviewer, recalls the dangers that may arise from review work done by an incompetent person. These references are made not to support our position but to show some of the views of different Grand Bodies in the past.

The subject is considered, though not fully treated, by Mackey's Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry under the head. of Committees on Foreign Correspondence, page 176. In the historical statement, a sample case is given showing that there were small reports of progress up to 1830, that these reports had become eight to twelve lines in 1837, increasing after that date until 1842, when three pages appeared; in 1857, forty-six pages, and since then the reports have been more voluminous. Mackey speaks of the writers as a "reportorial corps" and says the Chairman should be a man of education and talent, conversant with contemporaneous