“So far to establish what I take to be the solid reasons which justify the existence of such a society as ours. Now let me call your attention to an absolutely indispensable condition of our success in the future, as it has been, I think, one great factor of our success in the past. It is our aim to make better known the Irish pages of American history. These pages do not refer, let us remember, to any one section, type, class or creed of Irish-descended Americans, but to all without discrimination. And this function of our Society evidently will never be, could never have been, effectively discharged without a hearty collective effort to sink all differences of religious belief and of political connections. We must continue to act, within our own body and in pursuit of our common object, independently of those sectional, religious or political ties which bind us individually as loyal citizens and as sincere Christians. From the days of Brian Boru and of Dermot McMorough down to our own time we know that that little isle where grows the ‘chosen leaf of bard and chief’ has been a prey to the invader only because the invader knew how to foment dissension among its native sons. Gentlemen, this essential quality of our organization is both forcibly and happily borne in upon us in these days when we hear that the land of our fathers is at last beginning to assert its power as a political unit by realizing that very idea of being ‘Irish first,’ that idea of national unity, her neglect of which has been the comfort of her enemies in times past. “Their proneness to dissension has been more or less facetiously accounted for by the theory that the Irish are a nervously high-strung race, who find a pleasant counter-irritant in the ‘man-enobling conflict.’ It has been said that an Irishman would rather fight another Irishman than a man of alien race, simply because he recognizes in an antagonist of his own blood the most promising opportunity of a truly exciting battle.