During the last year efforts have been made to get a fuller expression of sentiment from the general membership as to the selection of officers. On a committee for that purpose Professor E. B. Krehbiel of Stanford University represented the Pacific Coast. At his request the members of the Association in the University of Washington held a meeting and by unanimous choice selected Professor George Lincoln Burr of Cornell for the position of second vice-president to be promoted, as is the custom, to the presidency. Others must have had the same thing in mind, for Professor Burr was regularly nominated and elected.
Professor H. Morse Stephens of the University of California was promoted to the first vice-presidency and will become president in 1915. That is especially fortunate as the Association will hold an extra meeting in San Francisco during the summer of that year. President Stephens will then be the chief host to the organization at his own home.
Similarly, Professor A. C. McLoughlin of the University of Chicago will serve as president during 1914, when the regular meeting will be held in Chicago.
Preparations are already under way for the special meeting in San Francisco in 1915. The chairman of the general committee is Rudolph Julius Taussig, Secretary of the Panama Pacific International Exposition Company, and Professor E. D. Adams of Stanford University is chairman of the programme committee. The programme will deal wholly with historical problems of countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean.
At the Charleston meeting the Pacific Coast was recognized further by having Professor H. E. Bolton of the University of California placed on the Historical Manuscripts Commission; F. J. Teggart of the University of California on the Committee on Bibliography; Professor William A. Morris of the University of California on the General Committee; Professor Joseph Schafer of the University of Oregon on the Committee on Nominations.
A citizen of the State of Washington on passing through Virginia will see much of interest to remind him of the great American for whom his State is named. The Virginia State Historical Society is housed in Richmond in the building used by General Robert E. Lee as a residence during the Civil War. Among the prized collections there is a musket carried to the Pacific Coast and back by a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Probably the most interesting portion of the programmes at the South Carolina meetings was that devoted to military history. There were several papers relating to Charleston's part in the Civil War and during the same afternoon the entire convention was taken on an excursion to Fort Sumter, a memorable event for the northern visitors.