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DENIES PETITION FOR RECEIVERS JUDGE WADDILL RULES FOR TRUE REFORMERS AS AGAINST CLAIMANTS. After hearing extended argument by counsel, Judge Edmund Waddill. Jr., in the United States District Court, late yesterday afternoon declined the application made last week to have receivers appointed for the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers. Representing about thirty beneficiaries under death claims, Attorney Conway R. Sands and John A. Lamb asked the federal court to appoint receivers. Former Governor Andrew Jackson Montague, R. L. Montague and Richard Evelyn Byrd, together with J. Thomas Newsome, the colored general counsel of the Grand Fountain, argued against the appointment of receivers. The application for the receivership was fought on the ground that the court has no jurisdiction and also on the merits of the case. On the question of jurisdiction the attorneys for the True Reformers claimed that the amount of no one of the several claims involved was sufficiently great to permit of the matter coming into the United States Court. They also argued that the matter being in the Chancery Court, the executive committee of the True Reformers having deeded a large part of its property to the Savings Bank receivers, appointed by Judge Grinnan in that court, the State court should be left in control of the case. Arguing the question on its merits and without reference to the question of jurisdiction, counsel for the True Reformers contended that the appointment of receivers would benefit nobody and would injure every one concerned. The attorneys for the petitioners met the argument as to jurisdiction by pointing out that although no single one of the claimants had a claim amounting to the two thousand dollars necessary to come within the rederal jurisdiction, the comeined claims of the petitioners amounted to $8,000 and that all of these claims were of the same class, and could fairly be regarded as a single claim. Judge Waddill. in rendering his opinion, said that his court had jurisdiction and that the claimants had a right to unite their claims. But the Chaffcery Court having taken charge of most of the property of the True Reformers and the majority of the individuals interested in the order being averse to the appointment of receivers, he said he would have to decline at the present time to appoint receivers. He said that the petitioners would have the right to renew the application later on if they chose. Judge Waddill's refusal to appoint receivers was regarded as a great victory by the officers of the True Reformers. and they claim that their victory is accentuated by the fact that Judge Grinnan in the Chancery Court last week also declined to appoint receivers. They claim that If given a fair chance to work out their financial problems they will be able to solve them successfully.
