Part 7

either nearly all the Irish were killed in action or died soon after—or possibly there has been some legerdemain in the nomenclature of the survivors. But that there were some Irish in the Revolutionary forces who fought well and died, history has recorded, and American historians have admitted it, but have not chronicled the fact with any wealth of detail or enthusiasm.

As the eighteenth century ended, the Irish began coming hitherward in greater force than had marked the preceding years, and continued coming in increasing volume during the succeeding fifty years, until about 1847, when their numbers grew enormously. From that time on, until 1890, immigration statistics show that about 4,000,000 Irish came to America, which is one of the greatest race movements, if not the greatest in the history of the world.

Up to the beginning of this great exodus from Ireland, with the exception of that period during which the Alien and Sedition laws were passed and repealed, the Irish had grown into the fibre and woof of the nation with slight friction and with little open objection, but when every port of our eastern shore became a haven for ship after ship bringing emigrants from Ireland, the country paused and wondered. But they came and continued to come until wonder turned to anxiety, which was but a step from hostile alarm, and this eventually took shape in the formation of patriotic societies all over the thickly settled parts of the country, for the purpose of having laws passed restricting immigration and the granting of political rights. This situation was further complicated by the great mass of the invaders being unlettered and untrained in the common avocations of life, whether as tillers of the soil, mechanics, or clerks.

As we look back to the events of that period, it is not surprising that the people already here viewed with aversion and fear the presence of this vast army of aliens.

[Illustration:

HONORABLE THOMAS F. WALSH.

Of Denver and Washington.

Vice-President of the Society for Colorado.

Copyright, 1909.

By J. Knowles Bishop. ]

The impossibility of assimilating this large influx of Irish, even if assimilation had been desired, and the possibility of the Irish eventually assimilating their not entirely voluntary hosts were questions that deeply moved men of earnest convictions, but perhaps of limited vision.

Unfortunately, it was just about this epoch that histories of an ambitious and standard character began to be written, and some taking on the passions of the time and the prejudices of the author’s environment, have not given the Irish the place that their services and devotion to the country’s welfare entitled them to hold. It is further to be deplored that full recovery from the bitterness of those days has not been hastened by incidents growing out of political and other conditions.

Even today, when calm, cold reason has had had time to resume her sway, it is largely magazine writers who are delving into the historic past, and presenting to the people a panorama of national life which displays upon its unfolding roll, not only the original settlers and their descendants, but also the pioneer Irish and their sons who had their

## part in the upbuilding and maintenance of the nation. But the healing

touch of time will change, let us hope, if it does not entirely cure, that obliquity of vision which distorts much that it sees or fails to see that which it may not distort.

When some full, adequate chronicle comes to be written of the Irish race movement to this country due consideration will be given to the influence it has had on the manners and customs of the country, and it will not be complete if it takes not into account the contributions of brawn and brain, labor and energy that it has given to our national progress.

The versatility of talent and the buoyancy of spirit and the native wit and humor which distinguish this people, have diffused themselves through American life and infused themselves into it, softening its severe, rigid lines, and helping to lift the gloom, that often concealed the splendid qualities of the Puritan whose spirit has spread over the land carrying to its uttermost limits the blessings of self government and radiating an influence for the uplift of mankind.

While I am on this subject, permit me to digress for a moment, to speak of a thing which is, perhaps, outside the range of this paper, and that is the insensible, subtle change that I believe the Irish have wrought in our Eastern section in the voice and accent of the descendants of the first settlers. The sharp nasal tone, so common half a century ago, has almost entirely disappeared in the cities and is fast disappearing in the country. This is probably due in great measure to the fact that most of the immigrant Irish brought with them the rich, rare brogue of their fatherland, and the others the cultivated voice of the educated Irishman, both full of music and “sweet as the dying note of a broken harp string”—a music, whose soft, pervasive tones have added an indescribable charm to the spoken word that the stern hills of New England rarely knew, but which in time they have felt the touch of. Today it is difficult to tell the origin of the speaker, whether he be a tenth generation Puritan or a second generation Irish, in communities where the latter abound.

The scope of this paper is general and not personal, and for that reason I have not gone through the gamut of names of Irish origin whose owners merited well of the country. Their fame is secure and permanent—and while in some instances overshadowed and lost sight of through the neglect, or let us call it the caprice, of the historian—it is safe.

Its single purpose has been to fathom the causes of the total or partial eclipse of a great body of people whose achievements entitle them to shine among the greater or lesser luminaries of this Republic, if not among the greatest.

To repair the injustice and the cruel omissions of history, is a noble mission and as patriotic as any that ever moved men to deeds of valor and sacrifice. It is not for us to keep alive the memory of those who have their place in the imperishable annals of our country—but it is for us to rescue from oblivion the men that lived and worked and wrought, whom historical writers by accident, indifference or design, have ignored in their researches, or buried in a foot note at the bottom of a page.

If we do this, we do not come together in vain.

PRESIDENT-GENERAL QUINLAN: This “squib” appeared in last night’s paper, and was handed to me this afternoon: “The man who writes a poem does so under reasonably safe conditions. Nothing more dangerous than a bean-blower is apt to be used against him; lemons and vegetables may come his way, but this is the worst, save the scorn of the critics. But the McDonalds and McAdoos lived in the underground; they met irate landlords and the general ‘cussedness’ of inanimate things, all with smiling patience and invincible courage.”

The McDonalds and the McAdoos are famous in the annals of Irish history. Some of the McAdoos have lived and toiled under the ground; others have existed in the open. From the humblest walk of life to the highest position, next to the chamber of the Executive, one of your officials has risen. It is like naming a member of his own household to his family to present your illustrious ex-President-General, Hon. William McAdoo. (Applause.)

HON. WILLIAM MCADOO: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I fear that sometimes many of the elements that go to make up the very cosmopolitan population of our country think that we of the American-Irish Historical Society are too insistent upon the part which our people played in the formative period of the Republic.

Now we have an affectionate feeling towards our Motherland because she much needs the help of her children. If Ireland were a great and powerful country, like Germany, rich with an army and navy of its own, with its ambassadors and representatives in every land and with its great universities spreading German ideas among the people; if Ireland had all those accessories she would have made her claims felt in the history of the United States without the need of societies like this; but Ireland, “Erin, the isle of sorrows,” is an unfortunate country, subjugated, impoverished, despoiled and misrepresented and when, therefore, the membership of this Society, these gentlemen who have given to it such unselfish labor, discovered the errors and mistakes and the indifference and sometimes the prejudices of historians of the United States in regard to Ireland in America, as so well pointed out by Mr. Dooley, they organized this Society for the purpose of doing justice to those brave Irish men and virtuous women who came here, especially prior to the Revolution, and who did so much to make this a great and free country.

Now the trouble with most of us Irish Americans—I am Irish in the first degree, having been born in Ireland while most of you are probably only second-class Irish or even third or fourth—is that when we are serious and in deep earnest we are taken to be play acting, and when we are jocose or humorous and contributing to the “gaiety of nations” we are taken to be most in earnest. It is hard for an Anglo-Saxon to understand an Irish Celt. One of the greatest difficulties between England and Ireland is the fact that the mental attitude of the two races is far apart, the intellectual agility of the one and the slow, if certain, processes of the other are obvious to any one acquainted with both countries. Let me illustrate it by a little story:

There was a party at an English country house, and they had been passing a rather dull English winter afternoon by proposing and guessing at riddles; and finally one of the guests turned to the host and said, “Sir Charles, why don’t you propose a riddle?” He said, “Really, now, I’m not half clever enough to do such a thing as that. I couldn’t really do it, don’t-cher-know.” “Well, you might try; you don’t know what you can do.” Finally Sir Charles said, “Well, it stands on one leg and it has feathers and it barks like a dog.” So they all guessed and guessed, everything in the animal and vegetable kingdom, and they finally gave it up; and Sir Charles said, “Why, really, I had no idea I was so clever; I thought you would easily guess it”; and they said, “It is impossible to guess.” And he said, “Well, that’s easy; it’s a stork.” “Well,” they exclaimed, “but surely, Sir Charles, a stork doesn’t bark.” And Sir Charles replied, “Well, that’s the cleverest part of it; I put that in to make it hard.”

And when we come to our Scotch friends we can readily understand how hard it is for a Scotchman to thoroughly comprehend an Irishman. A friend of mine was telling this story in Glasgow to the Board of Trade at its annual dinner: He said an Irishman was coming down the Bowery in New York late one night and met a policeman, and he said to him, “What time is it?” and the policeman replied, “It’s two o’clock.” And the Irishman said, “I’m a bit deaf and I didn’t hear you; would you mind repeating it?” and the policeman yelled at him, “It’s two o’clock.” “Very queer,” says the Irishman, “but really I didn’t hear you. Would you mind saying it again?” and thereupon the policeman (one of my former companions in arms) took his constitution-preserving stick and hit him on one side of the head and said “One,” and then he hit him a clip on the other side of the head and said “Two.” “Did you hear me that time?” “I did, begorra, and I’m glad I didn’t meet you at twelve.”

A friend of mine, a Scotchman by descent, told that story to the Glasgow Board of Trade, and there sat those Scotchman in solemn black around the festive board, and there wasn’t a smile in the room. And finally one old Scotchman, by way of defending the storyteller, said, “Weel, now, I dinna blame the policeman so much; it’s very aggravating to be asked the same question so often.”

Now this Society was formed, among other things, for the purpose of clearing up the underbrush in American history, or, in other words, “laying” the Scotch-Irish ghost. (Applause.)

There was a ghost in my native county of Donegal called the “Fanad Ghost.” It was said to have been raised by a free mason skilled in the “Black Art” while in an hilarious mood, but after it was up the mason couldn’t put it down and the ghost began throwing things around—the delft on the dresser, the noggins, the pots, the stones on the chimney—pulling out the scobes in the thatch on the roof, and raising Cain generally. The Presbyterian minister came in and prayed until he had corns on his knees, and the ghost took a day off. The Catholic priest was called in and did the best he could, and the ghost acted “dacintly” for two days, at the end of which time he was more vigorous than ever. Well, finally they sent to the city of Derry and got a delegation of free masons, and they labored one week, night and day—with refreshments—and at last one morning, when the refreshments were running low, the head mason came to the door with perspiration streaming off his face and his legs wobbly, and said, “Get a black cock without a white feather and another keg of Charley Oge’s poteen, and with the help of Heaven we’ll lay him before morning.” And as the last crow went of the cock and the last drop out of the keg the Fanad Ghost was laid forever with a whiff of sulphur up the chimney and a trembling of the kitchen floor. (Laughter and applause.)

And so this Society is looking for the white cock of Truth to crow soon over the Scotch-Irish ghost, for if ever there was a veritable ghost it is the Scotch-Irishman in America. (Applause.)

The “Scotch-Irishman” in America, Mr. Dooley has told us, had his historic origin about the time of the great famine period in Ireland, when almost one-half of the inhabitants of that unfortunate land, starved, diseased and in rags, were huddled in cargo ships and treated worse than any negro slaves that ever came to this country. They died by thousands and strewed the bottom of the Atlantic with their bodies.

A friend of mine in a thriving Western city the other night met a man who is today one of the leading citizens in that place, and he said to my friend, “I am the sole survivor of five of my family who came over in those diseased and hellish ships in which England sent our people in the black days of the famine. My sister and my brother lie in the unfathomed caves of the Atlantic Ocean; my father and mother followed them. Twelve thousand of our race lie beneath the monument which the Ancient Order of Hibernians have erected on Groose Isle in the St. Lawrence below Quebec.”

And these unfortunate people, libelled before they landed, without means, without education, without knowledge of the people among whom they came, were not received with open arms. The resulting Anti-Irish feeling in the United States at that period has been most delicately and diplomatically pointed out by Mr. Dooley tonight. Men and women otherwise honest and unprejudiced stood appalled at the thought of nationally assimilating this wretchedness, and in that period the bitter prejudice against the Irish in America took root.

It was at this same time that American history began to take form, and the omissions, which are as criminal as some of the things they tell, crept into the books which our children read in school. And it is due to those omissions, Gentlemen, that this grand, painstaking and justice-seeking Society was formed.

If ever you want to get the white cock of Truth to crow over the Scotch-Irishman, take a look into the history of North Carolina. There is scarcely another state in America to which so many of the Northern Irish went before the Revolution as to North Carolina, and to no other state before the Revolution did so many Scotchmen go.

After the battle of Culloden, where the Scottish clans had so valiantly fought for Charles Edward, a number of them were given the privilege of leaving Great Britain and coming to America, first taking the oath of allegiance to the English crown. A great number of these broken clansmen came to North Carolina and they were there at the outbreak of the Revolution; but they had been preceded by a large number of Protestant Irishmen from the Province of Ulster.

If the Scotchman who went to Ireland in 1610, and from that until the seventeenth century, if he still remained obdurately a Scotchman, breaking the rule of all other races in Ireland, would he not have fraternized and made common cause with the Scotch people he met in the new world? On the contrary, when the Revolution broke out the broken clansmen, the MacDonalds, the MacNeils, the MacIntoshes, and even Flora MacDonald herself, the great heroine of story and song, became the most desperate loyalists and Torys in that state. They organized armies, they fought with courage and tenacity, and their leaders were guilty of horrible atrocities in putting down the Northern Irish, who were all patriots and Whigs and who are now called the “Scotch-Irish.”

The Irishmen in North Carolina, largely Presbyterians in religion, were unanimously patriotic as Americans from the beginning, and they did not assimilate with the Scotchmen, who came direct from Scotland. Flora MacDonald, whose story we all know, her five sons and her husband, entered the British Army and continued throughout the Revolution; that is, such of them as were not taken prisoners and expatriated to Nova Scotia, where her descendants are today most vigorous supporters of English rule. Her husband was early taken a prisoner of war and confined at Halifax, Virginia, and in 1776 Flora went back to Scotland, where she was afterwards rejoined by him.

To Worcester, Massachusetts, in the early Colonial days came three hundred Irishmen from the Province of Ulster, probably many from my own county of Donegal, to dwell among those ever hospitable and warm-hearted gentlemen, the Puritans. Here was a fine combination—a “Scotch Irish” Presbyterian meeting a Puritan, a Calvinistic Reunion! But how did they act when these three hundred men and women from Ulster arrived in Massachusetts? Perhaps some of you may think they were received with great hospitality. Well, they were not. They were received, says a “Scotch-Irish” historian, with marked aversion and bitter prejudice against them as being Irish. A gentleman writing in favor of the so called “Scotch Irish” in America says the New England colonists could not differentiate these _Irish Protestants_, though they were different in religion from the mass of Irishmen. Is not that a delicious confession in the papers of the Scotch Irish Society? The Puritans could not understand that they were anything but Irish; they recognized them as such and did everything to make it unpleasant for them (and they were artists in that work), and to get them out of the community as soon as they could, short of inviting a physical controversy, for looking at these stalwart Irishmen they made up their minds if it came to a fight, they could, in the language of the Bowery, put up a “peach” of a one. (Laughter and applause.)

The first man who died on the battlefield for American liberty, south of Mason and Dixon’s line, was a great “Scotch-Irish” Anglo-Saxon named John Grady; and when Grady died the captain of his army, Thomas Gove, a family well known to any Donegal man, took off his sword and deposited it with the body of Grady as a mark of respect and love for so brave and patriotic a man.

Now our great American historians, from Bancroft and Motley and Parkman down to Henry Cabot Lodge, have quietly ignored the Irish in America, or have given all the credit for their achievements to this myth, the “Scotch-Irishman.” It is a singular thing, when you read the things this Society puts before you, the absolute facts of history, that no American historian of Anglo-American ancestry has had the fairness and the courage and the sense of justice to do for Ireland what so many of them have done for other nationalities.

Mr. Motley wrote a whole library about the Dutch Republic, constituting a standard work among the Dutchmen of today of the history of their people and achievements. Mr. Parkman’s history of the French in Canada is unexcelled. Even that good historian, Mr. John Fiske, never rose above his environment; and I say it is no credit to American historians of the highest class that they have not seen fit to do justice to the patriotism, the sacrifices, the intellectual efforts and the financial contributions which the great body of the Irish people made to secure liberty to the United States. (Applause.)

Wouldn’t it have been a splendid and a generous thing if Motley had written a little of Ireland as he wrote of the Dutch Republic and the New Netherlands; if Parkman had done for Ireland in this country what he did for the French in Canada? And yet, from the earliest times, there came an unending stream to this country from Ireland of the cream of its chivalry and virtue, courage, industry and intellect, and sacrificed it most generously and without hope of reward at the altar of American liberty. (Applause.)

But the “Scotch-Irishman,” as considered, let us look at him. Now we will never understand the history of the Irish in America unless we go back to Ireland. I have a lot of friends among Americans of other stocks who undertake to appreciate the part the Irish have played in the upbuilding of this nation, but they can’t estimate it correctly unless they know something of the history of Ireland itself.

Every race that came to Ireland was assimilated. The Danes came, and those not driven to sea quickly became converted to Irish ideas. The Normans came, and they, too, became assimilated; and the Scotchmen came to Ireland, to the Plantation of Ulster, a subject too broad to be discussed now.

Commencing in 1610 and from that on to the end of the seventeenth century, the Scotchman came to Ireland, and he hadn’t been there long before he became civilized, smoothed, rounded, the heart of him given free play—in equality with the head; he joined the revolutionary societies such as the Irish had in those days, took pot shots at the landlord, and cultivated a sense of humor, conspired against English rule, and, coming to America, became a most bitter Rebel and a valiant soldier in Washington’s army.

Now I intend, at the request of your worthy Ex-President, Mr. Crimmins, who has done so much for this Society, to prepare some facts with reference to the settlement of Ulster, and what the immigrants from Ulster did in America, especially in the Revolutionary War. And I assert tonight, without fear of contradiction from any historian, American or English, that the blundering, unjust and criminal acts of England in Ireland, and especially in the province of Ulster, did more to fill the armies of George Washington with brave soldiers than almost any other cause. (Applause.)