Although repeated at other times heretofore, I beg to make the following suggestions to our members, not only for their benefit, but for the convenience of the Society’s administration as well:
1. Annual dues should be paid promptly because upon these and the life membership fees we depend for the payment of our obligations.
2. Biographical sketches should be furnished when requested by the Secretary-General, and a member should not permit any feelings of personal modesty to interfere with the desire of the Society to have in its archives as complete a statement of the life and works of each member as he or his friends can give to it.
3. Upon learning of the decease of any member, immediate notice should be sent to the Secretary-General by telegraph, in order that the attention of the President-General may be called and a committee appointed to attend the funeral of the deceased member or to do whatever may be needful or advisable under the circumstances.
4. Current local history is as much part of the work of the Society as is the delving into ancient records, and any newspaper clipping or account of any public or private affair that, in the opinion of any member, is of interest to the Society or its work should be promptly sent to the Secretary-General, who will gladly receive, index and place it in the archives of the Society, where it may be referred to in a convenient form at any time.
5. It is intended that the correct address of every member shall be recorded in our files, and when a member changes his address he is respectfully requested to notify the Secretary-General of that fact, so that future communications may not be misdirected.
6. Suggestions as to the management and improvement of the Society in its membership, line of work or in any other way are most earnestly solicited, and any such suggestions, if sent to this office, wall be brought before the Executive Council, which meets frequently, and carefully considered by it.
7. State Vice-Presidents are strongly urged to recruit in their respective states the ranks of the Society, and to this end they will find active and hearty coöperation. Vice-President Moloney of Illinois set the pace this year in obtaining fifty-one applications for membership, all from persons who have made their mark in life and with whom it is a pleasure for us to associate. Vice-President McCaffrey of Pennsylvania, Vice-President O’Hagan of South Carolina, Vice-President Corbett of North Carolina, Vice-President Connolly of California, and Vice-President McCarrick of Virginia have all done notable work and set a good example, while Georgia, under the guidance of Vice-President Flannery and Dr. J. Lawton Hiers of the Executive Council, proposes to return a significant number of applications within a very short time.