MOLLUS Wants To Keep Relics In Philadelphia By Deborah Fitts

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - MOLLUS, the Union veterans' organization that founded the Civil War Library & Mu-seum, has gone on the warpath to block a plan to send relics from the Library's Philadelphia-based collection on extended loan to Richmond.

Robert Bateman, commander-in-chief of MOLLUS's national commandery, said he would do "whatever it takes" to keep the vast collection intact and in the city where he said the veterans intended it.

"It'll be over my dead body if this stuff ever leaves Pennsylvania," Bateman said.

In legal papers filed June 21, MOLLUS claims ownership of the collection and also seeks a legal determination that the present Library board has "mismanaged the affairs" of the Library.

The national commandery and the Pennsylvania commandery of MOLLUS, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, filed the joint petition with the Orphans Court of Philadelphia County, seeking to be added to a suit filed in March against the Library by the Pennsylvania attorney general.

The Orphans Court addresses legal issues involving nonprofit organizations in the state.

At issue is an announcement by the Library board in February that it had entered into an agreement with the new Tredegar National Civil War Foundation in Richmond to loan them a substantial portion of the collection. The items would form the bulk of the Union artifacts at a $38 million museum planned for the old Tredegar Iron Works.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office is asking the court to block the collection's move, and also to order an inventory and an accounting of the Library's finances.

The involvement with Tredegar, with its promise of substantial funding, was seen as a godsend by the cash-strapped Library board.

Bateman said MOLLUS had been "deliberate" in its approach to joining the fray, but the delayed action should not be interpreted as hesitation, he said.

"It has been suggested by some people that MOLLUS did not have the fortitude to fight this," Bateman said. "I'm here to tell you there's a new sheriff in town."

Bateman, 55, has been president of the national commandery for two years and a MOLLUS member since he was 21. He asserted that it was up to the modern-day members of MOLLUS, who he said number 2500 in 20-odd commanderies nationwide, to stand up for the veterans who supplied their relics, books, letters and diaries to the Library "with a handshake and a belief that this was where the depository would be."

MOLLUS has hired an attorney to press its case against the Library board. "If I'm given the authority (by the executive committee of the Commandery-in-Chief, the national commandery), I'll spend down to the last dime to see to it that the artifacts stay in the City of Philadelphia," Bateman said.

"What will it matter if MOLLUS has money in a bank account at the end of all this and the artifacts entrusted to the descendants of the Companions [the original members] are in a museum in Richmond?"

But Michael Schwartz, president of the Library board, predicted that the court would find for the Library. "We're going to vigorously deny any of MOLLUS's accusations," Schwartz said.

"We're confident that the board has the proper documentation to run the corporation's business. Our plan of action has us on the right course."

The board's plan includes creation, in cooperation with the Tredegar Foundation, of a new museum site in Philadelphia by late 2003, Schwartz noted. The current 1805 Pine Street facility is in need of repair and off the beaten track.

MOLLUS was formed in Philadelphia by Union officers and former officers in 1865 following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In 1886 they created the War Library and filled it with a wide array of artifacts brought home from the war. Today's membership is made up of descendants of Union officers - Bateman's was a captain in the 9th Massachusetts Infantry - as well as honorary and associate members.

MOLLUS loosened the reins on the Library in 1986, when it was felt that the institution would be better able to win grants and otherwise professionalize its operations as a museum if it were not regarded as a mere adjunct to a private club.
MOLLUS put in place "a significant endowment," Bateman said, and changed the by-laws so that non-MOLLUS members could join the board. Bateman said that according to his understanding, the majority of the board was to continue to be MOLLUS members; and that MOLLUS, not the Library board, owns the collection.

But the Library was unsuccessful at fund-raising. Today there are no MOLLUS members on the board, and the $500,000 endowment appears virtually used up.

Bateman said he was uncertain what inventories exist to prove what items should be in the collection. In recent years rumors have circulated that items are missing, but there has been no proof.

The Library board's decision to form an alliance with Tredegar prompted an angry response from some powerful Pennsylvania legislators. In a joint press release in February, State Sen. Vincent Fumo and State Rep. James Roebuck, who represent the district where the Library is located, said the board's decision to send a portion of the collec-tion to Richmond represented "a desperate attempt by the current management to offset its neglect of the institution's financial health."

Fumo and Roebuck have also petitioned to enter the case. At presstime, a hearing was scheduled July 18 in Or-phans Court to resolve the petitions.

Last spring, Orphans Court Judge Anne Lazarus issued a temporary injunction ordering that items from the collection remain in Philadelphia except for conservation purposes, and then they could leave the city only with her prior approval.