James Wells, Jas. W. White, Judah Alden, Alfred Rix, J. W. Farrington,
W. L. Waters, W. F. Hall, J. T. Bowers, J. L. N. Shepard, Lucius Hoyt,
David Laville, H. A. Russell, E. Stevens, Theo. B. Cunningham, M.
McMannis, Wm. H. Gibson, Edmund Keyes, George T. Bohen, I. M. Bachelder,
R. T. Holmes, W. F. Shankland, B. Argyras, John R. Chute, John S.
Davies, James McCeny, Geo. H. Tay, Sohn Bensley, L. Bartlett, Joseph W.
Housley, Robert Wells, Samuel Fullerton, Newell Hosmer, J. J. Lomax, G.
K. Fitch, Wm. Hayes, Robert A. Parker, Samuel Soule, A. Wardwell, Isaac
E. Davis, M. McIntyre, F. E. Foote, Thomas A. Ayres, William K.
Blanchard, J. F. Eaton, J. Frank Swift, J. O. Rountree.

These names of Secretaries of the Committees of the Executive Committee
are added: On Evidence - J. H. Titcomb and D. McK Baker; on
Qualification - E. T. Beals.

First, as to the cause or pretence for the organization of the Vigilance
Committee: It is declared by its ex-members and supporters, or
apologists, that it was necessary for the reason that the law was not
duly administered; that the Courts, the fountains of justice, were
either corrupted or neglectful of their duties; that Juries were packed
with unworthy men in important criminal cases, that there were gross
frauds in elections, by which the will of the people was defied and
defeated, and improper and dishonest men, some of them notorious rogues,
were counted in and installed in public office; and that there was a
class of turbulent offenders who had the countenance, if not the support
of judges and officials in high places, and who, therefore, felt
themselves to be above or exempt from the law. Tennyson has well
remarked that there is no lie so baneful as one which is half truth. So
it is in respect to these alleged reasons for the organization of that
Vigilance Committee. It is not true that the Courts were corrupt,