![The Program Cover for the 200th Anniversary Dinner was based on the cover of the 100th Anniversary Dinner Program in 1912.](Graphics/BicentennialCover.jpg) Irishmen, inclined as
they are by nature to good fellowship and charity, should not forget, in a
foreign land, the duties they owe to themselves, their national
character and their distressed countrymen. These obligations are the more
important to Irishmen, because, during the long period of their
oppression, Irishmen have been useful to themselves, their country, and
their brethren, only in proportion to their exercise of those generous,
charitable and sterling traits with which it has pleased God to
distinguish them among the people of the earth. Every motive, too, presses
itself upon the heart of each true Irishman to foster an affectionate
attachment for his native land, a country the more particularly
unfortunate because her destiny has been unmerited, and therefore the more
entitled to the tender consideration of her own sons, and of the good, the
generous and the enlightened of other nationalities.
Driven from unhappy Erin by
unrelenting tyranny, afflicted and persecuted Irishmen seek an asylum in
this favored republic, endeavoring to find, under the auspices of liberal
institutions, the only consolations that can remain to exiles thrust out
of a beloved home by want and oppression. To these it becomes the duty of
their more fortunate brethren settled in this free country, and enjoying
the benefits of its hospitality, to reach out the hand of friendship, to
tender the aid of a delicate charity, and to offer any other assistance
which fraternal, manly and kindly feelings may inspire. |