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PROCEEDINGS.

ANNUAL MEETING, OCTOBER 24, 1906, AT THE HALL OF THE SOCIETY IN WORCESTER.

The meeting was called to order at 10.30 A. M., Rev. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Senior Vice-President, in the chair.

Members present in order of their seniority of membership:

Edward E. Hale, Nathaniel Paine, Samuel A. Green, Edward L. Davis, James F. Hunnewell, Edward H. Hall, Charles C. Smith, Edmund M. Barton, Franklin B. Dexter, Charles A. Chase, Samuel S. Green, Andrew McF. Davis, Solomon Lincoln, Frederic W. Putnam, Daniel Merriman, William B. Weeden, Reuben Colton, Henry H. Edes, George E. Francis, G. Stanley Hall, William E. Foster, Charles P. Bowditch, Francis H. Dewey, Carroll D. Wright, Henry A. Marsh, John Green, Wm. DeLoss Love, William T. Forbes, Leonard P. Kinnicutt, George H. Haynes, Waldo Lincoln, Edward S. Morse, George P. Winship, A. Lawrence Rotch, Samuel Utley, James W. Brooks, E. Harlow Russell, Benjamin T. Hill, Edmund A. Engler, Alexander F. Chamberlain, William MacDonald, Alexander H. Vinton, Deloraine P. Corey, Clarence S. Brigham.

Opening remarks of Dr. HALE:

The unexpected death of our President, honored and beloved, makes our meeting to-day a sad one. A year ago when the American Antiquarian Society met, every one of us hoped-may I not say all of us expected-that for many

years the Society would enjoy the great benefit of his counsel and achievement in our behalf.

His death makes it necessary that I should preside to-day, until the Society makes the choice of his successor, as directed by its constitution. But you must not expect any such review of the year which has passed since our last anniversary as he would have been so glad to make. It would be simply mock modesty if I did not name among the important contributions to American history which the year has brought to light, the instructive and invaluable papers printed in our Proceedings.

The year has seen the completion of Mr. Rhodes's History of the Rebellion,' which will be the standard history of that great crisis. In his magnificent edition of Jacques Cartier's voyages, our distinguished associate, Mr. Baxter, the President of the Maine Historical Society, has presented to the world the original documents as to the discovery of the St. Lawrence, Labrador and Canada, in a form which commands admiration.

Mr. Worthington C. Ford has prepared for the Library of Congress the interesting and valuable Journal of the Continental Congress, from its meeting, Sept. 5, 1774, until its dissolution. A remark of Charles Thomson, its secretary, had led superficial readers- men like myself, for instanceto suppose that this valuable record of years of crisis, and of the first importance, had been destroyed by him. But it proves that in that matter such readers were mistaken, as they are apt to be; and the publication of these six volumes by the Government gives to us now a very valuable addition to our knowledge of those times.

The Proceedings of the Governors of New Amsterdam are, perhaps, chiefly of a local interest, and to students in the City of New York they have been accessible before now. But the reprint, in an elegant form by the Burrows Brothers Company of Cleveland, this year, enables students of history everywhere to consult these records.

The second centennial of Franklin's birth was fitly celebrated by the American Philosophical Society, by a distinguished assembly of scholars from all parts of America. The American Antiquarian Society was represented by Andrew McFarland Davis of the Council.

"History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Restoration of Home Rule in the South, 1877."

H

The most remarkable event of the year in discovery was the passage through Behring Strait southward, Aug. 6th, of the Norwegian sloop Gjöa, under the command of Capt. Roald Amundsen. He is the first navigator who has brought his vessel through the Arctic ocean in our hemisphere.

Capt. Amundsen's great success was won when he brought his little ship through the water, while his predecessors had been blocked by ice. In token of the courage and perseverance which have achieved this great voyage, the Council proposes the name of Capt. Amundsen as a candidate for foreign membership of the Antiquarian Society. It was in this way that our Society recognized the achievement of Capt. Robert McClure, whom the Queen afterward knighted in token of his success.

The suggestion was made at the Annual Meeting more than half a century ago, that every year the Antiquarian Society should provide for the issue of a gold medal, which should commemorate in its design and inscription the greatest event in American history in that year.

If in 1493 such a medal had been struck by Ferdinand and Isabella, or by the University of Salamanca, would it or would it not have signalized the arrival of a fishing boat, called the Nina, at the Port of Palos, announcing the discovery of two or three islands in the West Indies?

The Society has never found it desirable to issue such a medal, conscious perhaps, always, of a certain difficulty in our seeing the world as the future will see it.

Thus the year 1795 struck no medal to announce Eli Whitney's cotton gin, and 1807 struck no medal to announce Fulton's first voyage up the Hudson River in the Clermont. In the last summer, since I have known that I must preside at this Anniversary, I have begged one and another of our friends, distinguished in their knowledge of history and of events, to tell me which is the greatest event which has transpired since October 24, 1905.

One of them said in reply, "It is hard to write a name in water; while the tide of history is on the flow, I cannot write it as I shall be able to write it on the wet sands of the beach afterward."

I offer the subject as one for conversation, if time permits, to-day. I will merely remark that each of my advisers gave a different answer. The first said that the active

interference of the federal goverment in the direction of interstate commerce marks an era of the very first importance in American history. The second said that the PanAmerican Congress at Rio and Mr. Root's really triumphant tour in South America marked the beginning of American diplomacy, in which the whole continent, North and South unites in supporting the Monroe Doctrine, which before was nursed somewhat wearily by the United States alone. A third adviser regards Capt. Amundsen's great adventure as one of those physical facts which can be measured by the clock and put on paper, and so is the most fit subject for conversation. A fourth counsellor regards it as an event of the first importance, even in America, that the Chinese empire has this year thrown off all pretences of the exclusion, of inferiority of foreigners, and has committed itself seriously to the civilization and diplomacy of the rest of the world. A fifth, speaking for the United States particularly, says the year, 1906, will always be especially known in history as the year when the divine conscience of the people of America laid down new standards and higher ideals for what is called the business world in the management of its daily affairs.

Fortunately it is not for the acting president of this Society to weigh against each other such variable opinions of such distinguished men, but it is a pleasure to throw them into the urn of our conversation to-day. It may be possible as Virgil says, when he speaks of the various elements in compounding a salad, to make "E pluribus unum.'

The report of the Council, by SAMUEL SWETT GREEN, A. M., and Dr. EDMUND A. ENGLER was read by Mr. GREEN.

The Hon. EDWARD L. DAVIS explained the amendment to the By-laws offered by the Council, and on his motion it was adopted as follows:

ARTICLE XVI.-The Annual Meeting of the Society shall be held every year at the Library Building of the Society in Worcester, on the third Wednesday of October; the Semi-annual Meeting shall be held in Boston every year, on the third Wednesday of April at such place as the Council shall designate. The hour of each meeting shall be 10.30 o'clock A. M., unless otherwise ordered by the Council.

Moretum, line 103.

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