One from office but continued its devoted friend until the end. of his last acts was to give his check for $1,000 to the fund for its permanent foundation, within a few weeks of his death. He was buried from St. Patrick's Cathedral, his life long friend, His Eminence Cardinal Farley, officiating. An eloquent eulogy was preached by Right Reverend Monsignor Michael J. Lavelle, the Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of New York, before a congregation that filled the vast edifice. In it were representatives of all the people of New York of every race, creed and condition gathered to testify to their respect and honor for this good man who truly had fought the good fight and kept the faith. His body was placed beside that of his beloved wife in the mortuary chapel erected by him in the Monastery of the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration at Hunts Point, Bronx, New York City. He was survived by his five sons, John D. Crimmins, Jr., Martin L. Crimmins, Thomas Crimmins, Cyril Crimmins and Clarence P. Crimmins and by his five daughters, Susan B. Jennings, Mary C. Crimmins, Constance Childs, Mercedes Crimmins and Evelyn Patterson. Certainly in John Daniel Crimmins was found a man who honored the race from which he sprung, the faith in which he believed and the country in which he was born and in which he spent a long, useful, devoted and honorable life. ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN-IRISH HIS TORICAL SOCIETY, HELD AT THE WALDORF- MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL. Mr. Joseph I. C. Clarke, President-General in the Chair, called the meeting to order, and after routine business and the election of new members, Mr. Edward H. Daly, Secretary-General took the floor. MR. DALY: I wish to report that the will of our beloved fellow-member, the late Mr. John D. Crimmins, has been offered for probate, and I will read paragraph third of that will, which relates to a bequest to this Society. (Reading.) MR. CLARKE: I have a communication from the National Security League, requesting that we appoint three delegates to the National Congress at Chicago. I presume the best way to deal with that is to instruct the Vice-President for Illinois to appoint such committee to attend the meeting there. MR. O'BRIEN: I move that the matter be referred to the Chicago Chapter, with instructions to appoint the three members as a committee. (Motion carried, and meeting adjourned.) The annual meeting of the Society was now called to order, and the reading of the minutes and calling of the roll being dispensed with, Mr. Clarke read as follows: REPORT OF PRESIDENT-GENERAL. The United States at war, and the great energies of the nation fiercely centered on its part therein a war upon the predatory imperial power of Germany to save democracy to the world, is the spectacle that we face to-day in contrast to the peace and waiting neutrality of a year ago. It is a wonderful, surprising spectacle, and into the spirit of which the American Irish Historical Society enters heart and soul. As in every war for American rights and beliefs and principles our race is represented in the ranks by thousands, nay in this war by hundreds of thousands, of Irish birth or descent. As it has absorbed the nation's manhood, the nation's energies, it is absorbing the country's wealth without a murmur. In civil life, in charity organizations and philanthropic undertakings, in manufacture, in transportation, men and women join in the necessary work, the blessed work, all in a fine passion of patriotism. In all these activities as well as the purely military our race is taking large and active part, indicating that when the story comes to be written the American Irish Historical Society will have an enormous and thrilling subchapter upon its hands. It will claim nothing that is not ours, but it will see that no prejudiced or ill-informed writers rob us of an atom that is our due, as so many have done flagrantly before. In such an epoch it should not be wonderful if a society like ours devoted to tranquil study, much of it in the past, should suffer diminution and loss. But the story of 1917 is not retrogade as far as concerns our Society. It is firmer, stronger numerically, better off in every way. Where the Society falls short is in its expectations and the splendid promise to fulfill them which we entertained a year ago. The Society is firmer because its resources are increased and consolidated. Its present membership of 1,321 is the highest in its history. During the year 116 new members were elected, 5 life members and III annual members. Against that increase we recorded the deaths of 27 members, the resignation or dropping of 68 members in the course of a drive for the dues of delinquents by Mr. Alfred M. Barrett, our very efficient Treasurer-General, which drive I may say extracted $1,500 from some couple of hundred of reluctant pockets. Our net gain for the year was 21 members, but in these times we are in no condition to complain. As in the trench warfare, any advance is a victory. We hoped a year ago for a great advance in numbers. May we be able to report it next year. On another side, and a most important one to the future of the Society, namely the raising of the Foundation Fund for a permanent home, we have gratifying advance to report-a partial advance, it is true, and leaving very much to be desired, yet of great promise. There are two great desiderata in the make-up of a historical society: (1) Zealous students devoted to research and of fair and honest mind, and (2) the assembling in convenient quarters of all the books, pamphlets, documents, manuscripts, records, statistics that bear upon the society's special subject. Now we have hundreds of valuable historical books that belong to the Society, but they are of necessity held in storage and out of reach. There should be a home, modest if you please, where they can be safely housed and always available for every member of the Society. Moreover, through the lamented passing of our beloved, high-minded and open-handed fellow-member and former President-General, who was a strong American and a lifelong lover of Ireland, the land of his father and mother, John D. Crimmins, we have become the devisee of his valuable library of Irish and Irish-American books and the sum of $1,000. To possess these books the only condition is that we must provide a place for their safe-keeping that will satisfy his executors. In addition, I may say that the Society is the devisee of a highly valuable library of Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet who in his ninetyfirst year still enjoys their story of the Irish race. We must be worthy of our opportunities. In the matter of providing a permanent home, here is what has been accomplished. Last year you will recall that the Foundation Committee had a programme of raising a Fund of $100,000. It started well, but before any appeal could be made to the entire membership and our race at large, the imminence of war and then its declaration supervened. It was deferred. The limited canvass for substantial subscriptions served, however, to show what might be expected in less nervous times. The apparently limitless appeals that came in every mail from the hundreds of warcharities, most of them so admirable, did not better matters for our Fund. Nevertheless, the following sums were added to the $5,000 in New York City Bonds which the Fund owned last year: Liberty Bonds from the Society surplus.. John D. Ryan.... Eugene M. O'Neill.. Thomas Zanslaur Lee. Thomas Fortune Ryan.. Clarence H. Mackay.. Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, of Boston. J. I. C. Clarke.. Michael Dooley.. James Thompson, of Louisville, Ky.. Frank S. Gannon .. Total subscribed.. $2,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 500 500 500 500 100 100 25 $5,225 These sums are almost entirely invested in Liberty Bonds with accruing interest and adding in anticipation $1,000 from the estate of Mr. Crimmins show us a total of over $13,000 principal for our Fund. Now that the war financing has settled into definite channels and men have learned that they are not the poorer for lending their money to the soundest government on earth, that is, subscribing for Liberty Bonds, it is probable that the Foundation Committee will continue its work and on broader lines. Our members must in sheer pride push on this Foundation Fund for a permanent home. It is calculated that with an income of $3,000 a year a good beginning could be made, floor-space in a fireproof building in a central location leased, and a secretary-librarian paid a decent wage. This is not much as libraries go, and it is felt that with say $1,000 available from the Fund and the Society, at least $2,000 could be raised annually from the New York members until the Fund had reached proportions to take over the entire expense. The Committee will shortly announce its decision on this matter, and I ask for it a generous, hearty, helpful reception. It may now be said that when our Historical Society possesses in our Historiographer, Mr. Michael J. O'Brien, a true historian, worthy of every support, that the zeal of his appreciators and admirers will not be withheld and that followers of his example and his methods will rise from our ranks. His report of his work in the past year is the story of great discoveries, taking out of the nebulae of fable and tradition and putting in the realm of solid facts matters of the highest import in "the Irish chapter of American history." He is doing truly great work. It is highly gratifying to report the fine advance of the Illinois chapter, of the recrudescence of energy in the Massachusetts chapter, in the fine work and progress of the California chapter and the good word from Wisconsin. It is planned to organize the New York chapter with special regard to the Permanent Home of the Society which it will have so completely at its disposal for meetings as well as research. The issues of the quarterly JOURNAL while of high quality and interest and providing news of events in the Society closer to their occurrence have drawn many complaints of the practical difficulty in a modern house of preserving paper bound books of maga |