OFFICE OF NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BUILDING.

LINCOLN, June 1, 1917.

To the Honorable Keith Neville,

   Governor of Nebraska.

Sir:
   In accordance with the statute we have the honor to herewith submit our report of the proceedings of the Nebraska State Historical Society for the period ending January 10, 1917.

SAMUEL C. BASSETT, President.

ADDISON E. SHELDON, Secretary.

   The Nebraska State Historical Society pays its tribute to the memory of Clarence Sumner Paine, who has been its very efficient secretary and chief executive officer for ten years.
   Mr. Paine, who was born in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, June 11, 1867, and died at Lincoln, Nebraska, June 14, 1916, possessed many excellent qualifications for the office which he so well administered. He was deeply interested in every event of any significance in the history of the state, and it was his great desire that all records appertaining to it should be collected, arranged and preserved among the collections of the Society.
   He assisted in tracing the important trails of travelers, explorers, and emigrants; and it was one of the desires of his life that each of these should be marked at convenient distances by monuments which should remain to future generations as evidence of these historic pathways.
   He was active in having the memorial erected in front of the college at Bellevue in memory of the early Astorian expedition up the Missouri River. He took a lively interest in the working out of all the details and until the final completion of the ceremonies.
   His alert interest in his adopted state prompted him to make an early suggestion that the semicentennial of its admission into the Union should be properly celebrated. It is our regret, as we know it was his, that he did not live to see this demonstration of our pride in Nebraska's history carried to its final culmination.
   Clarence Sumner Paine had the qualities of an investigator, and wherever he could find any relic, any document or any record that would explain or add to the value of any historic incident in our history he was restless until it could be obtained and deposited in the museum or among the archives of the Society.
   If his life had been longer spared it would have been his greatest pleasure, indeed I might add, the pride of his life, to have seen the valuable collections belonging to the Society housed in a new, commodious building, which would be a

credit to the state to which he devoted so many years of his life.
   Mr. Paine had an extensive acquaintance with the people of Nebraska and loved to mingle with them and converse with them about all local incidents that might prove of historic value. He had also established a close friendship with the men throughout the Mississippi valley who were engaged in the professional work of writing western history. These associations gave him peculiar and unusual advantages, which increased his usefulness to the Nebraska State Historical Society.
   He was always ready to extend or to receive a welcome hand, and to greet with a smile that evidenced the warmth that sprang from his heart. He was a man of generous and kind impulses. At times he may have seemed quick and impulsive in temperament, but no man was more willing or prompt than he to correct a mistake or to confess an error.
   Much more might be said in commendation, but certainly nothing less could be said and do justice to the manly qualities and useful life of Clarence Sumner Paine.

   The last preface to publications of the Nebraska Historical Society written by the present secretary was that of Volume 11 Nebraska Constitutional Conventions, published in 1909.
   The present volume contains an abstract of the business transactions of the Historical Society at its annual meetings from 1909 to 1916, inclusive, and in the sessions of its executive board from January 13, 1908, to January 10, 1917. The major part of this abstract was compiled by President S. C. Bassett and Historian Albert Watkins, during the winter of 1917, from the detailed record as found in the Society's archives. The abstract is designed to give all important business transactions of the Society.
   In addition to the record of business, the volume contains a number of important historical papers.
   A full page portrait of Clarence Sumner Paine, former superintendent and secretary of the Society, is appropriately made the frontispiece of this volume. Mr. Paine's administration as secretary covered a period of almost ten years--from January, 1907, to June, 1916. Most of the official record of Mr. Paine's administration is contained in this volume.
   Many events and controversies which cannot be here discussed have occurred in the history of the Nebraska State Historical Society during the past ten years. One only seems to call for specific mention. Ten years ago the first appropriation toward the construction of a building for a permanent home for the Historical Society was made by the Nebraska legislature, with the understanding that the building was to be located adjoining the State University campus. The close of the decade finds

the original idea of such a building at the State University adopted with the unanimous approval of the Historical Society, expressed by its executive board and by its members at the annual meeting. May this early dream of the founders of the state and of the Historical Society fifty years ago be realized during the next decade is the fervent hope of all.
   The editorial work upon this volume has been done by Mr. Watkins, who has given painstaking diligence to the verification of its data.

ADDISON E. SHELDON,
Superintendent and Secretary.

MAY 30, 1917.