PRINTED BROADSIDE. "To the M.W. Grand Master, and Members of the Grand Lodge of California, F. & A.M., San Francisco, Cal." (heading)

Lodi, Califonira: Chas. H. Gordon, 1879 Printed broadside, 17x10 inches. Backed with linen. Printed in 4 columns. Some creasing where folded, else a fine copy. Printed in Lodi, California in April, 1879. This scarce broadside, with extensive text, appeals to the Grand Lodge of California for reinstatement in the Masonic Order. Gordon was expelled c.1873 for accusing a fellow Mason of burning his house to the ground. His appeal in this printed broadside tells his side of the entire story. "One of the broadest principles underlying the superstructure of speculative Freemasonry, is the claim which it assumes of meting out justice to every member of the fraternity… but there are isolated cases where the gravest acts of injustice have been perpetrated under the cloak of Masonry; and I regret to assert that for years it has been my misfortune to be a sufferer in such a case…" As Leon Whitsell states in his important work, One Hundred Years of Freemasonry in California… "…a large number (of Lodges) have restored brethren who had been suspended for non-payment of dues. And more than may at first be imagined have reexamined their actions and restored expelled members, some many years after expulsion. A classic example of this was the action of Woodbridge Lodge No. 131, in August, 1898, when it restored Charles Howard Gordon who had been expelled twenty-five years earlier. Gordon, who never gave up his fight for restoration, was apparently the victim of a malevolent force within the Lodge, which was a long time dying out." Well, for goodness sakes, it only took the poor fellow twenty-five years!!.