ADDRESS TO THE SOCIETY BY PRESIDENT-GENERAL McGOWAN.
The following address was issued early in the year by President-General McGowan:
To the Members of the American-Irish Historical Society:
Gentlemen: Permit me to express my gratitude for the honor you have done me in electing me to be your president-general for the ensuing year. I accept the office, and will discharge its duties and responsibilities to the utmost of my ability.
To be the official head of a society such as ours is a position any man, no matter how exalted his place in life, should be proud to hold. My distinguished predecessors in the office—Meade, Moseley, Gargan, Crimmins, McAdoo—have ably presided over the Society’s affairs in the past and have reflected honor upon the organization, as honor has been reflected upon them in virtue of their being chosen to that high station.
The American-Irish Historical Society is now in its tenth year of existence. It has accomplished a vast amount of good, and the practical work it has so abundantly performed is of permanent value and utility. No organization was more needed and none has a broader or more glorious field in which to work.
The Irish chapter in American history is one of the most important and interesting in our career as a nation. It was a strong and important chapter in America for even a century before we became a nation, and has gone on increasing in importance and potency, in value and interest, as generation has succeeded generation, until today it stands unsurpassed in the respects mentioned.
As John Boyle O’Reilly once wrote,
We slight no true devotion, steal no fame
From other shrines to gild the Pilgrims’ name.