tion of these required and have been given careful consideration in the 525 letters written. I have received and filed 250 papers supplemental to original application papers, containing evidence relating to additional ancestors than those named in the original. I beg to offer cne suggestion as to the administration of the office. It seems of sufficient importance to present to your honorable body the necessity for carefully filing press copies of all records or letters emanating from the various departments of this office. This would go far towards preserving and perpetuating much of the early history of our Society, valuable to posterity, besides giving to the successive incumbents of the office a guide and opportunity for consistency in its administration. I therefore respectfully recommend that the Congress will act on this suggestion.

In conclusion, I beg indulgence for some expression of my gratitude for the co-operation which has been extended me in the administration of my office as Recording Secretary General.

To the President General, to each and every member of the National Board of Management and to all officers and members of the Society with whom I have come in official contact, I would say I have been inspired by their zeal, encouraged by their promptness and courtesy, aided by their intelligence, until my sometimes arduous duties have been rendered not only possible, but positively pleasant.

Respectfully submitted,
(Signed)

ALICE PICKETT ÅKERS, Recording Secretary General.

PRESIDENT GENERAL. You have listened to the report of the Recording Secretary General. What will you do with it? MEMBER. I move that it be accepted.

Seconded.

PRESIDENT GENERAL. All in favor of accepting this report will please say "aye;" contrary, "no." It is accepted. The Corresponding Secretary General, Mrs. Henry, will report. Mrs. HENRY:

Madam President and Daughters of the American Revolution in Congress Assembled: In laying before you the summary of the work done by your Corresponding Secretary General, since our last Congress, I do so with the confidence that you will discern in the dry statistical tabulation evidence of the substantial growth and advancement of our Society. This progress and development is due not alone to the individual efforts of our members, nor to their efforts in organized Chapters, nor yet alone to your National Officers, but each with a unity of interest brought into harmony by the centralizing influence of the National office has contributed equally to this consummation. At the beginning of my incumbency the duty of distributing appli

cation papers, Constitutions and Officers lists, which, although properly belonging to the duties of my office, had for want of the necessary clerical assistance been assigned to the Curator. Upon the recommendation of my predecessor, and realizing the necessity for such assistance, the National Board of Management immediately upon the adjournment of the last Congress authorized the employment of an additional clerk to be assigned to the Corresponding Secretary General, and since then all the legitimate work of that office has been given prompt consideration.

The following table shows the work done for the fiscal year ending February 20, 1899:

The foregoing table does not include the Ancestral Blanks distributed upon application and of which no record is kept.

Many of the letters received are of such a nature as to require their reference to other officers for answer or to the National Board of Management for action, and of the latter all resulting instructions are formulated and promulgated by this office.

The war with Spain was the signal for the Daughters of our first war to rally to the support of the government their fathers had established. It was my good fortune to be designated as secretary of the War Committee. This brought with it a vast amount of correspondence not strictly within the scope of the constitutional duties of the Corresponding Secretary General, but none the less imperative in the cause to which the Daughters of the American Revolution had pledged their support. In this additional work I wish to speak of the very efficient assistance rendered by Mrs. Charles O'Neil, Vice-President General, who acted as secretary of the Sub-War Committee during the entire summer, and who ably performed the onerous duties assigned her in this capacity. Ten thousand circulars and twenty-five thousand pledges were sent out within a week and a record kept of all supplies consigned to the War Committee.

By order of the National Board of Management the duty of sending

out notices of proposed amendments to the Constitution and By-Laws was transferred from the office of the Recording Secretary General to the Corresponding Secretary General, and in conformity with the provision of the Constitution there were sent to the several Chapters of our organization upwards of two thousand proposed amendments to the Constitution and By-Laws.

In conclusion, I cannot refrain from calling the attention of the Congress to a matter which in the conduct of my office has been forcibly and frequently brought to my attention. We have in our Society two hundred and seventy-five daughters of men who fought in the American Revolution, "Real Daughters" we call them, all of them are old, many destitute. I am advised that congress has made no provision for the pensioning of the children of revolutionary soldiers that can be of benefit to these Daughters of our Society, and it would seem meet that we, as an organization, should interest ourself in their behalf and ask appropriate legislation at the hands of the national government. All of which is respectfully submitted.

(Signed)

February 20, 1899.

KATE KEARNEY HENRY, Corresponding Secretary General.

Miss MILLER. I move that this report be accepted with thanks.

Miss HETZEL. I second that motion.

PRESIDENT GENERAL. It is moved and seconded that this report be accepted with thanks. All in favor will please say "aye;" opposed, "no." It is accepted. We will now listen to the report of the Registrar General, Miss Hetzel.

Miss HETZEL:

Madam President, Ladies of the Continental Congress, Daughters of the American Revolution: When I was elected Registrar General of this Society one year ago, February 22, 1898, the Daughters numbered 23.309; on February 22, 1899, the number of Daughters is 27,432. I have presented to the Society 4.122 names. I have also signed 250 additional papers, I have issued 4,471 certificates and 1,722 badge permits. New York is now the banner State; Connecticut, which has held that position so many years, has now to take the second place.

The speaker is interrupted at this point. The Connecticut delegation rises and cheers New York, whereupon New York returns the salute; one member says, "We are much pleased at the attitude of Connecticut towards us, she having been so long the banner state."

PRESIDENT GENERAL. We of New York have reason to be proud of the very friendly greeting we have received from Connecticut.

(Miss Hetzel continues :)

After my election, as I was the first Registrar General to take full charge of the work, the Seventh Continental Congress decided by vote that an expert genealogist might be employed to assist me. I found, however, that the crganization and management of my office was so complete and my clerks so efficient that a genealogist was not needed at that time. Subsequent experience has proved to me that I was correct. Three of the applicants for genealogist: Miss Ball, Mrs. Dorsey and Miss Mickley very kindly volunteered me their aid gratuitously, should I need it, but I have not yet to call upon any one of them for genealogical assistance. Published genealogies can be verified in this office, or in the Congressional Library, as well as revolutionary service, but the unpublished genealogies should be verified by the applicants, either through the Chapter Registrar or a State or town genealogist employed for that purpose. We are too far from the applicants to examine their family Bibles, their old letters, or the old town records. Dr. McGee offered a resolution last year intended to meet this want. It was, that there should be thirteen Registrar Generals in the thirteen Colonial States, but that the States of Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio are also full of revolutionary records, and it is hard to discriminate. I think that it would be well for every State to have a consulting genealogist. Many papers come to me with attested genealogies. The Cincinnati Chapter, the Philadelphia, the Sequoia and other California Chapters, the Delaware Chapter, the Old Colony Chapte: in Massachusetts, and many other Chapters, always send papers so admirably attested that it is a pleasure to receive them. I may add that any genealogical errors are always speedily discovered by the young lady in charge of the card catalogue, who has become an expert at that work.

Madam President and Daughters of the American Revolution, I cannot but rejoice in having contributed so much to the increase of this great Society. The slur cast upon this Nation ten years ago, that we were a mongrel tribe, the descendants of the outcasts of Europe, has been abundantly and entirely disproved by the records of this Society. The descendants of the heroes of the American Revolution can prove their true Americanism in spite of one hundred years of foreign immigration. Not only the records in books, but the records of the past summer prove that the Deweys, the Hobsons, the Taylors, the Wainwrights inherit not only the blood but the courage and heroism of the Deweys, Moreheads and Piersons, of General Daniel Morgan, of dear old Benjamin Franklin. I hope that this Society may grow until every nook and corner of this great Republic may have its Daughters to fulfill the objects of this Society and prepare their children, our future citizens, for the great work before them.

Respectfully submitted,

MISS HETZEL.

Miss WASHINGTON. I move that the report of Miss Hetzel be accepted with thanks.

Seconded.

PRESIDENT GENERAL. It is moved that this report be accepted with thanks. All in favor will say "aye;" opposed," no." Carried. We will have the pleasure of listening to the report of the Treasurer General, Mrs. Hatch.

Mrs. HATCH:

Madam President and Members of the Eighth Continental Congress: Since my detailed report of the receipts and expenditures of the Society will soon be in the hands of each member of the Congress, I will confine myself to a few statements and recommendations.

As shown in the report of the Credential Committee, the membership of the Society is 27.432, an increase of 4.335 within the year. This increase in membership and consequent increase in the receipts and expenditures of the Society has greatly enlarged the work done in the office of the Treasurer General.

That you may judge of the volume of work transacted, I need only state that in addition to the regular work of keeping the various accounts of so large and ever-growing an organization, and the sending of circulars and receipts to members at large and Chapter Regents and Treasurers, 11,675 letters have been written.

I have nothing but praise for the expert accountant, having found him as faithful and efficient as the auditor in his report has stated him to be accurate; to my record clerk, I cannot say too much of her faithfulness and devotion, and yet from the volume of work, I have found it necessary to devote my entire time and personal attention to the office. In the past two years, only twenty-eight days have I been absent, and almost my entire time from nine until four o'clock has been given to my duties.

I again recommend that when members are dropped from Chapters for non-payment of dues, that it be so stated, and that they be not recorded as having "resigned."

In transmitting this report, I desire to thank the Chapters for the valuable assistance they have given me during my two years as Treasurer General.

Respectfully submitted,

WASHINGTON, D. C., February 20th.

SARAH H. HATCH,

Treasurer General.

Miss WASHINGTON. I move that this report be accepted

with thanks.

Mrs. WARING. I second that motion.