The Society has been true to the principles on which it was founded. It has helped the needy and distressed, and has been the means of cementing lifelong friendships among its members and among those who participated in its festivities. From the Society grew the Irish Emigrant Society and the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. Uniting to the charitable and humane the friendly and social feelings, it seeks to keep ever vigorous the love of Ireland and of the Irish character. It celebrates the festival of St. Patrick as a national and immemorial custom, to commemorate the glory of Ireland, to drop a tear upon her sorrows and to express a hope for her regeneration. It has entertained illustrious and distinguished guests at its banquets. Among those of recent years may be mentioned President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, and president-elect William H. Taft in 1908. A notable dinner was given on May 29, 1902, to the French Governmental Mission attending the Rochambeau Monument ceremonies, in acknowledgement of which the Republic of France presented to the Society a magnificent Sèvres vase, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the Society’s members have been many of the great merchants, business and professional men of the city. To pass over the living, on its rolls appear the names of Alexander Macomb, Hugh Gaine, William Constable, Dominick Lynch, DeWitt Clinton, John Caldwell, Thomas Addis Emmet, Robert J. Dillon, Joseph Stuart, Richard Bell, William Kelly, Joseph P. Kernochan, John Haggerty, Ogden Haggerty, William Sampson, David J. Graham, Charles O’Conor, James T. Brady, John R. Brady, Dr. Robert Hogan, Dr. William James MacNeven, Very Rev. Dr. John Power, Thomas W. Clerke, Daniel Devlin, Henry L. Hoguet, Eugene Kelly, Joseph J. O’Donohue, Richard O’Gorman, John Savage, Jeremiah Devlin, William Whiteside, Thomas Barbour, Hugh J. Hastings, Thomas Francis Meagher, James R. Cuming, Charles P. Daly, Frederick Smyth, William R. Grace, William L. Brown, Peter McDonnell, C. C. Shayne, Frank T. Fitzgerald, George C. Barrett, Samuel Sloan, James S. Coleman, John Crane, Vincent P. Travers, John Stewart, Daniel O’Day and Hugh Kelly. Grover Cleveland was an honorary member. Of these, Dr. William James MacNeven and Thomas Addis Emmet, whose names are indelibly written on the pages not only of Irish history, but on the history of New York city and State, became members of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1815. Facing Broadway, in the graveyard of historic St. Paul’s, are reared the columns upon which are noted their services to their native country and to their adopted land, flanking on either side the tablet which perpetuates the memory of that other great Irishman, who fell at the siege of Quebec, General Richard Montgomery. Free from all religious and political characteristics, it is the representative Irish society in the city of New York. In 1827 it was incorporated by the following act of the Legislature of the State of New York: