of the city council of Minneapolis, who will welcome you in place of the mayor who is unavoidably absent. (Applause.)

Address of Welcome.

BY HON. A. E. MERRILL, PRESIDENT OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF MINNEAPOLIS. Gentlemen, we are glad to greet you. We feel that these men who are assembled here are representatives of a great association, and I consider this association of public accountants as one of the most eminent bodies that has ever met in our city. A few years ago we heard of the great benefits accruing to the city of Chicago in having its public accounts rehabilitated and reorganized. Of course, Minneapolis wishes to be in the front rank with any city in the country, so we invited certain public accountants to come here and lay out the work for us, and found among your number men of eminent ability to do this work required. Under the old plan every department had the receiving and the disbursing of the funds accruing to it itself. Your plan was to bring everything to a great center, and all the moneys received by the city treasurer every year were disbursed from the city treasury instead of by the various departments as had been the custom. Everything is running smoothly now. You had to be engineers, diplomats and lawyers to do all this. The departments did not wish to come under one common, central head, and owing to the limitations of our charter we could not control the matter. Our board of education, the board of charities and correction and our board of park commissioners were independent of our council, but we wanted to get all of these departments into one common group and have everything unified and put into the best shape possible. These accountants secured this end, but, as I said they had to be men of diplomacy and men of tact. When they had the work ready they had to keep within the limits of the charter, and when they got ready to act they had to keep within the ordinances so that the accounting should be authoritative as to figures. The business was complicated to some extent and you threw around the officers who received and disbursed the funds of the city and county every safeguard which would prevent a deficit, or so it would be known at once if anything of this kind occurred.

Responses were delivered by Mr. Thomas L. Berry (Md.) and Mr. Seymour Walton (Ill.).

THE PRESIDENT: We have a new treasurer, whom I have much pleasure in introducing.

Address.

BY H. T. WEStermann, TreaSURER, ST. LOUIS.

I have been impressed more than I can tell you with what the association has accomplished. You are all aware of it and though you are enthusiastic now over the results, I want to emphasize the fact that as we leave the beautiful Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and go out into busy life again, that we do not forget what has been accomplished here to the extent that we lose our interest and enthusiasm, and to the extent that we shall again need a revival of it. The duties and responsibilities of a new year are now before the old officers that have been reëlected and myself as the new incumbent, and I feel that it is of the highest importance that we realize this, and that the members realize one more thing, and that is that the work and responsibilities of this association should not all be put upon the officers and the Board of Trustees. I can see clearly that much has been accomplished by the efforts of a few, who got the members in line and who lent support in a practical way. It

is my fault that I have not attached sufficient importance to the communications and pleas made by the secretary and the board of directors, accepting their suggestions on this, that and other matters; so the one thought I feel should be emphasized is that we should remember what has been accomplished at this meeting of The American Association of Public Accountants, the most important meeting we have had in its history. And it is particularly with this thought in mind that I appreciate the compliment you have paid me at this time, and I want to assure the members of the association that I shall discharge my duties as treasurer and make myself as efficient as possible during my incumbency in office. (Applause.) THE PRESIDENT: Is there any new business to be brought before the association before adjournment?

MR. TEMPLE: I want to introduce at this time, if it is in order, a resolution or a motion looking to the American Association preserving in some desirable form in the Year Book or in some other suitable manner, the records of this meeting. We had some excellent speeches and there were some on the progromme that we did not hear. I think we all appreciate the spirit in which these speeches were prepared, and I feel that it is due to those who participated that the record should be preserved in some form. I move you, therefore, that the officers or board of trustees or executive committee be authorized to receive subscriptions for the publication in the form of a Year Book, or in any suitable form, of the proceedings of the 1907 annual meeting, and the subscriptions be received up to five hundred volumes, and that the executive committee be and are hereby authorized to proceed with the production of this Year Book.

THE PRESIDENT: It occurs to me it would be better to fix the price of that book.

MR. H. M. TEMPLE (Minnesota): I will accept that suggestion and modify my resolution to the effect that it shall not cost more than one dollar and that the edition be at least five hundred copies. I think that is sufficient.

THE SECRETARY: Will this be in addition to the Year Book?

MR. H. H. TEMPLE (Minnesota): It will be under the jurisdiction of the executive committee. We want this in a bound volume.

The motion offered by Mr. Temple was duly seconded and, being put to a vote, prevailed unanimously.

MR EDWIN E. GANO (New Jersey): I believe this is the proper time and place for making a motion that thanks be extended to the chairman especially, and to the Minnesota Society of Public Accountants for the royal welcome and hospitality shown to the American Association during their stay in St. Paul and Minneapolis. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Will you all rise to second that motion? The motion is unanimously seconded and the vote of thanks will be spread upon the records.

COL. FRANKLIN ALLEN (New York): I desire to supplement the resolution adopted by moving that a committee of three be appointed to put in a literary form the expression of this association in acknowledgment of the grand and royal time we have experienced here, and when these

resolutions are submitted to the board that they be suitably engrossed and presented to the Minnesota society. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: The chair, without waiting for a formal second, desires to announce that the resolution is unanimously carried. The chair will appoint as such committee Col. Allen, as chairman, Mr. Gano and Mr. Roberts, the secretary, and this committee will proceed to draw suitable resolutions.

MR. THOS. L. BERRY (Maryland): We are not only indebted to Mr. Temple and the Minnesota society for the royal welcome and hospitality we have received, but also to Mrs. Temple and the ladies' committee. (Enthusiastic applause.) I therefore move a vote of thanks and appreciation to the ladies' committee and to Mrs. Temple.

THE PRESIDENT: The resolution is unanimously adopted. (Laughter.) MR. THOS. L. BERRY (Maryland): I would like to make a further motion, to the effect that a vote of thanks be tendered to the board of governors and members of the Commercial Club for the use of their rooms during the sessions of our association.

THE PRESIDENT: This resolution is moved, seconded, and unanimously carried. (Laughter.)

MR. FRANCIS GOTTSBERGER (New York): Allow me to present an amendment if it is not too late, to the effect that the resolution of thanks of this association to the Commercial Club be properly engrossed to put in their rooms.

THE PRESIDENT: Unanimously carried. (Laughter.)

MR. J. A. COOPER (Illinois): I want to say that we are greatly indebted to one feature of this entertainment, and that is what the newspapers have done. I move that the publicity bureau that has worked so hard and done so much upon the occasion of this meeting, should be included in this vote of thanks.

THE PRESIDENT: Unanimously carried.

(Laughter.)

MR. R. H. MONTGOMERY (Pennsylvania): Mr. Cooper thought he was giving us a large one, but I don't think it was large enough. I think the members of the 1907 committee who have worked so hard for the benefit of this association, should be included, and I move that they shall also be included in this resolution.

THE PRESIDENT: I should say that motion was carried not only unanimously, but enthusiastically. (Applause.)

If there is nothing further to come before us I announce the formal adjournment of this association to meet at Atlantic City the third Tuesday in October of 1908 at 10 A. M.

Banquet.

The Annual Banquet was held in the dining room of the Hotel Aberdeen, on Wednesday evening, October 16th. Covers were laid for one hundred and fifty. Col. Franklin Allen, of New York, presided as

toastmaster.

Preceding the responses to the toasts, letters and telegrams of greeting from various friends of the association were read by Col. Allen. The following responses, among others, were delivered:

The President of the United States.

HON. E. A. JAGGARD.

Our Governor has been referred to as a political anomaly, and with justice. This State was stirred to its political depths-that is not going so far down as in Pennsylvania (laughter)—by Roosevelt-Johnson Clubs. It elected by some 10,000 majority its favorite Democratic son and gave its electoral vote for president by some 150,000 majority to its hero and ideal (Applause). It is as hard to distinguish, here at least, between a Democrat and a Republican as it is to determine from the size of his hip pockets or his bibulous habits between the gentleman from Kentucky and the sockless statesman from Kansas who is in favor of prohibition but opposed to its enforcement (laughter). It would be a hard job to separate Republican sheep from Democratic goats. The average man doesn't know what he is himself. He resembles the Irishman, who had carried the pitcher too often to the well. He left his friends and joined the ranks of dividend payers in a street car. The car gave a sudden lurch. He lost the strap and was precipitated into a woman's lap. He apologized and moved up the aisle. The car lurched again and he was compelled to sit down on another woman's lap. He apologized again and in search of safety, he walked still further up the aisle and was about to take hold of another strap when another lurch threw him into another woman's lap. He was about to apologize when this woman indignantly asked: "What are you, anyway?" The man with the map of Erin on his face looked at her sorrowfully and meekly replied: "Oi don't know, mum: whin Oi came in here, Oi thawt Oi was an Oirishman, but now Oi guess Oi must be a Lap lander." (Great laughter.)

The President of the United States is two things: he is the symbol of the power of the State; he is the individual executive of its laws. The crowned king represents the glory, the pride and the splendor of an imperial empire; our president so typifies the sovereignty of man and the royalty of citizenship. He holds, however, greater power than any monarch. We respect that power. He is elected by the deliberate choice of the people he is to govern. We believe that guarantees personal merit. Our presidents have averaged better than rulers coming to a throne by heredity without controversy, and with honor deep as our natures, we pay our tribute to the great office and to every man who has borne its responsibilities and exercised the prerogatives. (Applause).

The speaker then eloquently pictured the circumstances and hardships which had created the character of the American citizen. He continued: Patriotic to the core, altruistic beyond precedent, and generous to a fault, he was as ready to obey the moral forces he rcognized just as he

rebelled against legal control of the purposes which he believed would result in success and which he knew were ultimately high and beneficial. A great judge has said, with a measure of truth, "The law became a negligible circumstance." Certainly its execution has been largely a matter of pure public opinion.

This was the condition when we chose for president, not a negative and complaisant diplomat, but a strenuous executive, an enforcer of laws, an advocate of policies, who was destined to become a pacificator of nations. (Applause). That man is not a fitting topic for harmonious discussion appropriate at a banquet. He must be a vigorously controversial subject. Seriously (laughter), I naturally feel that it would be bad taste to indulge in much ventilation of what he has been charged with having done in pursuance of his so called "impulsiveness." To place on him a halo of undeserved panegyric would be as unfitting as it would be dangerous to indulge in his abuse. Lawyers grow afraid of the results of abuse. You remember the tale of the cross-eyed, savage browed, bull-voiced lawyer, whose examinations were always cross. Not having much of a case, he once undertook to make it better by bulldozing a weak, ill-dressed boy witness. The lawyer snapped out:

"Well, now," persisted the lawyer, “isn't it a fact that you and your father and the whole family are a sort of good-for-nothing-worthless, idle lot of vagabonds?"

The boy replied: “No, I don't think so myself, but as to the old man, you might ask him, he is sitting there on the jury." (Great laughter and applause.)

A feeling of trepidation in speaking of the individual who is now our president is unavoidable. Some of my friends about me have been telling of their hunting expeditions: whereby I know it would not be tactful to refer to "nature fakirs." (Laughter.) Others have told fishing stories; whereby I know it would be infelicitous to say anything about the "Ananias Club." (Laughter.) Then there are men here from Chicago; whereby I am forbidden to mention "undesirable citizens." (Laughter.) Also I see our reprsentative in Congress, whom we have gotten into the habit of re-electing, which I hope will never break. (Applause). Congress is a dangerous subject, but a man of whom it is said that when the