The citizen of a republic who neglects to learn the fundamental principles upon which rest the laws of the land, who does not know how the country was developed and maintained, is as a blind man, and is not able to bring to the exercise of his suffrage the amount of intelligence that the country has a right to require from him. This obligation comes to us in a twofold capacity. We, as citizens of this great Republic, should study the history of our country from a patriotic standpoint, while as Irishmen, or descendants of that race, it should be not only a duty but a pleasure to learn of the deeds of Irishmen in America. Therefore, an organization such as the American-Irish Historical Society, if it had no other _raison d’être_, would accomplish a patriotic purpose if it served only as an incentive to the study of the deeds of Irishmen in America. It has become almost a maxim in historical matters that the history of events cannot be accepted as facts until the generation which lived at the time said events occurred has passed away. The passions, influences, and conditions which generate, shape, and control events lend a coloring to their recital which, deep-lined or faint as painted by the writer at the time, are toned down or made stronger by the historian of a future generation who, unmindful of passions, influences, or conditions, and with an eye single to the preservation of history by means of the truth, makes past occurrences stand out in their true light. Deeds that have received but a passing mention from writers whose minds were biased are rescued from an unmerited insignificance and placed high in the Temple of Fame, while highly extolled acts, given an undue prominence by a partisan writer, are consigned to a merited oblivion by the historian of a later but more impartial epoch. It is not often true of history that the stone which was rejected by the builder becomes the corner stone of the edifice. A member of the Society of Friends who desires to familiarize himself with the history of his sect in New England would find but little of the truth in the writings which have come from such intellectual dyspeptics as Cotton Mather and his disciples. But in the unwritten history of Quaker persecutions that have become legendary, by the purity of their lives, by their nobility of character and their Christianizing influences, the pioneers of that faith stand out in bold relief in the religious history of Puritan New England, with its dark background of scourging, mutilation, banishments, and hangings. By analogy, how can the Irish-American race expect that the history of Irishmen in New England can be presented in just proportion to the true merits of the case?