OP: Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick: One Hundred Twenty-Fourth Anniversary Dinner
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Rogers & Company, Chicago, 1908. Hardcover. Very Good. Signed by William Howard Taft.
The Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, founded in the 1770s, began as a charitable organization in aid of Irish immigrants to the US. The Society continues today with a broader scope of charitability and cultural emphasis.
An invitation to the Society’s annual anniversary dinner (held on St. Patrick’s Day, of course) is both coveted and prestigious. For many years, the organization published luxurious yearbooks after the dinner with the menu, transcripts, and music. We offer here the 1908, 124th anniversary book, the dinner for which was held at the Delmonico’s (a frequent selection—at the restaurant’s many locations—over the years) on 5th Ave and 44th St.
Also included are the attendees and the tables where they sat, a two-page glossy photograph insert of the tuxedoed members seated at the dinner, and a list of where the dinner was held every year since the New York branch’s inception in 1784.
What makes this particular copy exceptional is that it is signed by William Howard Taft (1857–1930) who was in attendance and a speaker. At the time, Taft was serving as the US Secretary of War and campaigning for the presidency (an office he won and took the following year). The inscription is to a Miss Hazel Morse “With the congratulations and best wishes of William H. Taft,” dated June 1927.
Affixed to the front pastedown, on US Supreme Court stationery, is a letter and envelope addressed to Morse who had apparently written to Taft, many years after the dinner and the book’s publication, asking if he might sign her copy. The letter here is his affirmative reply, asking her to send the book to his residence. It is also signed by Taft. (Taft had become US Supreme Court Chief Justice in 1921.)
The book is in Very Good condition, overall. Very light wear and soiling to the book block. There is a faint stain to the frontispiece and the title page from high acid paper once laid in and now gone. Handsomely half bound in green cloth and paper with black and gilt title and decorations. The case is lightly scuffed with a stray pen mark to the front. Housed in a custom clamshell case.
