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Show THOMSON CITES 1 HIS AUTHORITY I (Defendant in Alleged Ma-! Ma-! sonio Fraud Case Testified Testi-fied in S. L. Court SALT LAKE, May l Alflrmln I his olaims to lrltimate. Maaonlc orle-( orle-( Jn and tracing the sources from where !he testified, ho got his authority to onfan;7e the American Miionic- "fed- 1 Ipn loderet ami confer Masonic de- v;r--s Mafthfvi M, Hl.-.m Thomson was the principal wltneH In the United Statea district court yesterday. H with Dominic Bergera. Thomas Parrot Par-rot and Robert Jaraleson. promoters I lnf tho Amcrlc-in Masonic federation are -,n trial, charged with using the, I inaiiM to defraud. Bergera testified to having visited iv.lf a dozen lodges ii Europe two in Scotland, one m lndon. one in Pari ' and several in Italy, where h was ad'- I Imltted after passing the usual examination exami-nation and Where he found the .Masonic .Ma-sonic work to correspond closely to that carried on In the lodges of the American federation. rilc Ts INTEREST It was lnho testimony of Thorn- I Ron that proat.'st Interest Tva I festeci yesterday, and when he took Ithe stand the courtroom was crowded I I with the largest gathering which has I attended the trial since it began i May l J Thomson. 6S years of age, heavily I bearded and wearing a patch ovr hi-right hi-right cyo. the sight of which he recently re-cently lost, took the stand after Bei -gera and J. v Kecnan, vice gi 'and commanders of the federation, had I been excused. He answered Quickly ' and surely, in a si;iurous vmce tlii questions put him on direct examination examina-tion by M E Wilson of defense counsel. coun-sel. After tracing briefly his personal history, from his birth at Ayr, Scotland, Scot-land, to the present time, the eiami- i nation was directed to his Masonic history. He took his first degree in 1874 m Scotland ami since then, he said, lus been an enhuslustlc Mason." When Thomson left Scotland, he 1 held degrees of Masonry to the thirty-third thirty-third in the Ancient and Accepted Rites, to the forty-si eond . n the Eut iv Grand Scottish Kite, to the ninetieth ii the rite of MlsraJm and the ninety-fifth ninety-fifth in the rite of Memphis, according accord-ing to his testimony. After taking his demit from the Scotch lodge and moving to the I'nit-od I'nit-od States. Thomson became a member mem-ber of the gland lodge of Monti elier, Idaho, and as such beeanx grand orator ora-tor of the grand lodge of Idaho. There differences arose. Thomson testified over degrees members of Hv- King Solomon Sol-omon lodge, including himself, had taken from the Grand Council of Kites of Scotland. Shortly after the difficulty with the grand lodge of Idaho. Thomson testified testi-fied that when some Masons in Mont-peliei Mont-peliei stated that "Mormons were clandestine Masons." Thornton took h I Q rirmtt hitn L'ln QaIam lj (and shortly afterwards began the formation of the, organizations which j led up to the American Masonic fed-i fed-i '-ration ami Us constituent body, the Confederated Supreme Council. i rider the patent which he had obtained ob-tained from the Grand Council of Rites of Scotland, Thomson testified that he was empowered to confer .Masonic d - j igrees from the fourth to the thirty-' thirty-' iecond. This Grand Council of Jtlt s, i ; lit said, was an outgrowth of a body I which had practiced higher degrees of j ! Masonry in Scotland from late in the j eighteenth century. A new orguni-cation orguni-cation from the Early Grand Xatlonal I Scottish Kite bou was formed in I parts in itc'i;. one practicing the degrees de-grees from Knights Templar down the I others the Grand Council ot Kites of the higher degrees. EXPLAINS I'll FEREM E Differentiating between his kind of Masonry and that practiced by other American body. Thomson stated that his is I ni versa! .Masonry, " and dlf-Cexi dlf-Cexi from tin slate grand lodge organizations or-ganizations in thai L'nivorsal Alasonry recognizes no bars of creed or religion ' or of politics requiring only that the candidate be "a good man and a true i man." Bergera testified to an Interview he is alleged to have had with the late Christopher Diehl former ifrand secretary sec-retary of the grand lodge of L'tah, winch resulted from a circular letter all ged to have been broadcasted by Dlehl iniwhlcb the latter called upon j Masons to "crush the Interloper in the , incipiency of his organisation." Ber-! gers staled he tried to stage a dobati at Helper between representatives of ! the grand lodge of l'tah and Thorn- j son, but that Dlehl declined, princl- i pally, Bergera said, on the grounds that Thomson as a Mormon. This religious part of the statement was stricken from the testimony on order of Judge Wade, w ho sustained objection objec-tion b I'haiies M. Morris, United States district attorney, that the trial i y ...ic ...f fraud; not of religion. |