Twenty-sixth annual convention

LEWIS B. STILLWELL: The practice of calling upon the president-elect to appear before the members of the Institute at the convention and let them look at him appears to be of strictly modern origin. I have been wondering, while sitting in my chair and awaiting the summons which I knewr was to come, what the first president of the Institute did when he presented himself. I tried to learn something in regard to this procedure, which is a new one to me, by consulting two of the past-presidents, remarking that I thought the practice of requiring the outgoing president to make the address and tell what he has done rather than to ask the man who is coming in to prophesy and tell what he expected to do, was another illustration of the fact that those gentlemen who from time to time have improved the Constitution and By-Laws, had spent a great deal of time thinking the matter over carefully. One of the past-presidents whom I consulted said : “It is all right to go ahead and prophesy,” and he added “but be sure not to fix any date.” The other one whom I consulted said: “Well, you are not the president until the first of August, and August is a hot month and a long month, and before the autumn comes they will forget whatever you might say.”