e. Unfinished business.
f. New business.
g. Adjournment
12. When not otherwise provided, Cushing’s Manual shall be the authority on points of procedure at meetings of the society.
13. No part of these by-laws shall be amended, altered, or repealed, unless proposition is submitted in writing covering the proposed amendment at least thirty days before the meeting when it is to be acted upon, when, if two-thirds of the members present and voting express themselves in favor of the change, the same shall be made.
After the reception and introduction of those present, dinner was served. Hon. Thomas J. Gargan presided, having as his guest Paul B. Du Chaillu, the noted explorer, author of The Viking Age, The Land of the Midnight Sun, and numerous other works.
Upon the conclusion of the dinner, Mr. Gargan arose and said:
“In the name of the committee who have issued the call for the organization of an American Historical Society, whose special line of research shall be the history of the Irish element in the composition of the American people, I congratulate you on the success of this initial movement and bid you a cordial welcome to this meeting.
“But little has yet been done to show how much the sons of Ireland and their descendants have contributed to the settlement, to the civilization and reclamation of this country, as also to its liberation from oppression.
“In our proposed work we will discard the legendary and the mythical. We recognize that we are living in a scientific age at the end of the nineteenth century, the age of the microscope and the X-ray, and we ask for the acceptance of no historical data that will not bear the modern search-light and that is not sufficiently proven.