Page 330 - Cornelius Hedges Story

317 The Cornelius Hedges Story

jurisdiction. It was an enjoyable year for the Grand Master, with
no difficult questions to solve or disagreeable duties to perform.
Brother Gould was in his element at Masonic banquets and was a
brilliant after-dinner speaker. No new Lodges were created during
the year, and the net gain in membership was only eighty, the total
reached 2,706. The dues paid were $3,714, the mileage and per diem
were $1,985.15.
The Grand Lodge Charity Fund amounted to over $5,000, and the
Trustees were instructed to loan the same. The Grand Secretary was
instructed to furnish badges to members. The proposition to remit
further payment of dues after twenty-five years was not favorably
considered. And the motion to reduce the minimum for thedegrees
from $50 to $35 was tabled. Grants for charity were made to the
extent of $300. Lodges were allowed to work U. D. till constituted
under charter. They were required to send in annual report at
least thirty days before the meeting of Grand Lodge. Objection to
advancement except for good cause shown to be disregarded by two-
thirds vote. Recognition was voted to the Grand Orients of Greece
and Italy. Brother E. C. Day of Livingston Lodge No. 32 was chosen
Grand Master, and Helena selected as the next place of meeting.
The fortunes of our Grand Lodge reached high-water mark in 1898,
when our Thirty-fourth Annual Communication was held in Helena,
September 14-15, under the administration of Brother E. C. Day,
an able lawyer, in the prime of life, with the native eloquence of a
Kentuckian, an accomplished ritualist, a devoted Mason, willing to
devote time and talent to the duties of his office. During the year of
his administration no less than five new Lodges were organized, one
at Chinook on the Great Northern R. R., two in Lewis and Clarke
County, one at Marysville, only twenty miles north of Helena, and
the second at Augusta, still further north The other two were on the
line of the Northern Pacific, one at Big Timber, east of Livingston,
the other at Forsyth, still further east. The gain in membership
was 144, and the total reached 2,850, and the receipts from dues
exceeded $4,000. There were three specials, at each of which the
Grand Master presided; one was to perform the funeral honors over
the body of Past Grand Master, J. R. Boyce, Sr., our seventh Grand
Master, in his eighty- first year.
He had formerly lived in Helena, though latterly in Butte, and he
was brought to Helena to be buried by the side of his first wife. At
another special, the corner-stone of the State University was laid
in Missoula. And in August the new hall of Cascade Lodge was