Part 8

With such an inviting field of labor spread out before us, this society not only supplies a long-felt want, but also a means of inspiration. Each member can contribute to the common fund of historical data, and the sum total of these contributions will go to make up a work of great value.

The need of such an organization as the American-Irish Historical Society being demonstrated, and its scope clearly defined, all that remains to be done to perpetuate its success is to continue in the work already so auspiciously undertaken.

The following letter was read from President Andrews of Brown University:

PRESIDENT’S ROOM, BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R. I., Nov. 10, 1897.

MY DEAR MR. MURRAY:—Your American-Irish Historical Society meeting is sure to be a most interesting one, and but for the condition of my health and the numerous engagements for this month to which I am already pledged, I should certainly attend. As it is, I can only send you this testimonial of my interest in your organization and in the important phase of our American history which it is designed to investigate and expound.

The society can, and no doubt will, perform a most valuable work. The researches concerning the men whom I call the Irish Pilgrim fathers—the earliest representatives of the Irish race in New England—which you, yourself, sir, have so well begun, ought to be carried to the utmost attainable completion.

In early southern history Irishmen were a factor of the utmost importance. The Irish settlers and settlements in North Carolina and early Kentucky furnish an attractive subject for historical study, which, I believe, has never yet been adequately dealt with.

The American-Irish Historical Society will certainly prompt some of the numerous and brilliant youth of Irish descent, now coming forth from American colleges in such numbers, to turn their studies in the direction named.

Yours with sincere esteem, E. BENJ. ANDREWS.

The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, who were in session in New York on the previous evening, sent the following:

NEW YORK, Nov. 15, 1897.

TO THE AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

GENTLEMEN:—The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of New York, an association of Irishmen and Irish-Americans coeval with the founding of this government, sends to you its heartiest fraternal greeting through your representative, Mr. Lawler. We fully appreciate the great value of the work you have undertaken—a work that involves the preservation of the record and achievements of men of Irish blood in the building and preservation of the American Republic.

The record of our race on this continent is glorious with patriotism and self-sacrifice; it is a record of honest toil, of love of freedom and religion, of devotion to God and country.

In preserving an authentic account of these achievements, the American-Irish Historical Society is performing a work of justice to the Irish race and an invaluable service to American history.

With every wish for your success, we remain fraternally yours,

MORGAN J. O’BRIEN, President, Friendly Sons St. Patrick, by John J. Rooney.

Hon. P. A. Collins and Gen. J. R. O’Beirne dissented, courteously but firmly, from the proposition that justice is to be won from England by patience and a campaign of education. Recalling Parnell’s first visit to Boston, General Collins told with impressiveness how Wendell Phillips attended the great meeting, in order, as he said, “to look upon the man who had made John Bull listen.” We must make John Bull listen, was the theme of General Collins’s eloquent address. Though he had come unprepared to speak, he was in excellent form and showed no diminution of his old-time vigor and clearness of expression.

General O’Beirne, whose erect, soldierly figure and noble countenance “showed him no carpet-knight so trim, but in close fight a warrior grim,” spoke with burning words of the cause that is defeated but not lost, and never can be lost while Irishmen preserve their racial character. History for seven hundred years has shown their undying fortitude, and he predicted that it would record the same through all the years to come, whether Freedom come soon or late.

Admiral Belknap, U. S. N., Rev. Edward McSweeney, of Bangor, Me., and other gentlemen made brief impromptu remarks, and the meeting adjourned after passing a vote of thanks to Mr. Robertson for his entertaining discourse.

_New Members Admitted._

The following new members were admitted: His Excellency Elisha Dyer, Governor of Rhode Island; Hon. Joseph T. Lawless, Secretary of State, Virginia; Hon. Elisha W. Bucklin, ex-State Auditor, Pawtucket, R. I.; Hon. Wauhope Lynn, New York City; Recorder Goff, New York City; Hon. W. F. Reddy, Richmond, Va.; Col. James Armstrong, Charleston, S. C.; Col. C. C. Sanders, Gainesville, Ga.; Mr. Edward Fitzpatrick, staff of the _Courier-Journal_, Louisville, Ky.; Hon. John F. Finerty, editor the _Citizen_, Chicago, Ill.; Mr. M. J. Dowling, secretary National Republican League, Renville, Minn.; Mr. Michael Walsh, LL.D., Ph.D., editor _Sunday Democrat_, New York City; Mr. James D. Power, Washington, D. C.; Capt. John Flannery, Savannah, Ga.; Hon. Matthew O’Doherty, Louisville, Ky.; Mr. Edward L. Hearn, South Framingham, Mass.; Capt. John J. Coffey, Neponset, Mass.; Mr. Stephen J. Casey, Providence, R. I.; Mr. John B. Kehoe, Portland, Me.; Mr. Anthony J. Philpott, Boston, Mass.; Mr. William Lyman, New York City; Dr. Daniel I. O’Keefe, Jamaica Plain, Mass.; Dr. Thomas J. Dillon, Roxbury, Mass.; Dr. James E. Keating, Portland, Me.; the Rev. J. Phelan, Rock Valley, Ia.; Capt. Thomas J. Hogan, Portland, Me.; Mr. Thomas J. Lane, East Boston, Mass.; Mr. John Ahern, Concord, N. H.; Dr. Edward J. McDonough, Portland, Me.; Mr. Hugh J. Lee, Pawtucket, R. I.

Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, of Worcester, presented the following New York gentlemen as candidates for the society, and they were all admitted:

Hon. Joseph F. Daly, Hon. Morgan J. O’Brien, Hon. Frederick Smyth, Hon. E. F. O’Dwyer, Hon. Thomas S. Brennan, Col. William L. Brown, Dr. Charles J. Perry, Dr. Constantine Macguire, Maj. John Byrne, F. C. Travers, M. A. O’Byrne, John Crane, J. M. Fitzpatrick, D. P. Murphy, Jr., Robert E. Danvers, Stephen J. Geoghegan, James P. Campbell, Daniel O’Day, John J. Rooney, Laurence Winters, William Cranitch, James G. Johnson, William F. Clare, Edward J. McGuire, Daniel F. Colahan, Edward D. Farrell, William M. Penney.

On Feb. 1, 1898, the following invitation was issued to the members:

DEAR SIR:—You are hereby notified that the annual meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society will be held at the Hotel San Remo, New York City, Thursday evening, Feb. 17, 1898.

The San Remo is owned by a member of our society (Mr. Michael Brennan) and is located at Central Park West, Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth Streets. It is easy of access and excellently adapted to a gathering such as we have in view.

There will be a business session of the society at 7 P.M., at which the annual election of officers will take place. At 8 o’clock the society and guests will proceed to dinner.

Gen. James R. O’Beirne, Vice-President of our society for New York State, will preside.

The delegation from the New England states will include the Hon. John C. Linehan, State Insurance Commissioner of New Hampshire; the Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, Boston, ex-President of the Charitable Irish Society (founded 1737); James Jeffrey Roche, LL.D., editor of the Boston _Pilot_, and other prominent gentlemen.

At the business session an amendment to Article XII of the Constitution will be offered. This article at present provides that the executive council of the society shall consist of _ten_ members (in addition to the general officers). The proposed amendment, if passed, would change the language to read “not less than ten, nor more than twenty.”

During the post-prandial exercises Mr. Joseph Smith, secretary of the Police Commission, Lowell, Mass., will read a paper on “American History as it is Falsified.”

Fraternally, EDWARD A. MOSELEY, President-General.

THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY, Secretary-General.

The annual meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society was held on Thursday evening, 17th inst., at the Hotel San Remo, New York City. A large and representative gathering was present. Six states,—New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey,—sent delegations. Fifteen states were represented by letters expressing congratulations and good wishes.

President-General Moseley, of Washington, D. C., was unable to be present owing to a press of duties as secretary of the Interstate Commerce Commission, but his annual address was read to the society by Gen. James R. O’Beirne, Vice-President for New York. It was an eloquent production.

The society made its headquarters for the occasion at the San Remo, a magnificent house, owned by a member of the organization, Mr. Michael Brennan. It is situated at Central Park West and Seventy-Fifth Street, and is one of the finest hotels in the world. The banquet hall where the annual dinner of the society took place is located on the tenth floor and was lighted by over a thousand incandescent electric lamps. The scene was one of great brilliancy.

[Illustration:

T. E. A. WEADOCK MICHIGAN ]

[Illustration:

IGNATIUS DONNELLY MINNESOTA ]

[Illustration:

JAMES E. LOWERY COLORADO ]

[Illustration:

JAMES CUNNINGHAM MAINE ]

VICE-PRESIDENTS

Among the early arrivals were: Hon. John C. Linehan, Concord, N. H.; Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, Boston, Mass.; Mr. James Jeffrey Roche, editor of _The Pilot_; Mr. T. B. Fitzpatrick, of Brown, Durrell & Co., Boston; Mr. Joseph P. Flatley, Boston; Mr. Joseph F. Swords, Hartford, Conn.; Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, grandnephew of the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet; Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.; Hon. John D. Crimmins, New York; Mr. Frank C. Travers, New York; Capt. E. O’Meagher Condon, Washington, D. C.; Mr. Stephen J. Geoghegan, New York; Thomas Dunn English, Newark; and many others.

The business meeting and annual election took place at 7.30 P.M., and was held in the grand ballroom of the San Remo, which was comfortably filled.

General O’Beirne called the assemblage to order. Secretary-General Murray read the records of the previous meeting held by the society in Boston, and the same were approved.

It was announced that since that meeting three members of the society had died. They were: Hon. Owen A. Galvin, Boston; Hon. Charles B. Gafney, Rochester, N. H.; and Hon. John Cochran, New York City.

Committees were appointed to take suitable action on the deceased members.

The committee on audit, appointed to examine the books of the Treasurer-General, consisted of Judge Wauhope Lynn, New York; Mr. T. B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.; and Mr. Michael Brennan, New York. The committee reported the books as displaying excellent system and arrangement, and the accounts of receipts and expenditures as being in an eminently satisfactory condition. The report was unanimously approved and adopted.

The society then proceeded to the election of new members, and some thirty were admitted from New York, Virginia, Texas, and other states. Among these new members is the Rev. Dr. McComb, a Presbyterian minister of New York City.

The proposed amendment to Article XII of the Constitution was adopted. It provided for an increase of ten in the make-up of the council of the society. The new members elected to the council under this provision comprise: Hon. Morgan J. O’Brien, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court; Hon. John D. Crimmins; Mr. Joseph F. Swords, Hartford, Conn.; Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, New York; Mr. Stephen J. Geoghegan, Mr. Francis Higgins, Hon. James S. Coleman, and F. C. Travers, New York City.

In addition to the foregoing, the annual election resulted as follows: President-General, Edward A. Moseley, Washington, D. C.; Secretary-General, Thomas Hamilton Murray, Pawtucket, R. I.; Treasurer-General, Hon. John C. Linehan, Concord, N. H.; Librarian and Archivist, Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass. These are all reëlections.

After the transactions of some routine matters the business meeting adjourned.

A short time later the line was formed and marched to the banquet hall, which was handsomely decorated. In the rear of the presiding officer’s chair was a glory of flags in which the star-spangled banner and the Irish tricolor predominated. American and Irish flags of small size were also distributed adown the tables, mingled with flowers and potted plants. Overhead the effulgence of a thousand electric lights served to add further brilliancy to the scene.

In a bower composed of huge palms and smaller plants was stationed an orchestra which discoursed sweet music during the repast. The company around the board represented, without exaggeration, several million dollars. Catholics and Protestants were there, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. It was a remarkable gathering in many ways, and was indicative of the strength and representative character already attained by the society.

General O’Beirne presided, and seated on his right and left were Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, Hon. Thomas Dunn English, Hon. John D. Crimmins, Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, James Jeffrey Roche, Joseph Smith, Judge Wauhope Lynn, Hon. John C. Linehan, F. C. Travers, V. P. Travers, John Crane, and T. B. Lawler.

Also present were noted: Commissioner Coleman, New York; Capt. E. T. McCrystal, of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, New York; Dr. T. F. Harrington and Dr. George Leahey, Lowell, Mass.; Commissioner McSweeney, New York; W. F. Foley, Houston, Texas; John J. Rooney; and about one hundred others.

The menu card was especially designed for the occasion and elicited much favorable comment. During the evening a copy of the first Yearbook of the society was presented to each member present.

A feature of the evening was the rendition by the orchestra of “Ben Bolt,” out of compliment to the author, Dr. Thomas Dunn English, who was present. He is now about eighty years of age, and tears glistened in the old man’s eyes at this thoughtful tribute. The post-prandial exercises were opened by General O’Beirne who, after a stirring address on the objects of the society, read the annual address of the President-General, which was frequently applauded. He then successively introduced the speakers of the evening, who were Dr. Emmet, Dr. English, Mr. Gargan, Colonel Linehan, Captain Condon, Judge Lynn, and a number of others.

A great feature of this part of the program was an able paper by Mr. Joseph Smith, on “American History as it is Falsified.” He said:

SOME WAYS IN WHICH HISTORY IS FALSIFIED.

When the American-Irish Historical Society was organized a year ago in Boston, it declared its purpose to be the investigation into, and the recording of, the influence of the Irish element in the up-building of the American nation. We said then that the work and contributions of the Irish race on this soil had received scant recognition from the writers of American history; and we announced that whether that omission sprang from carelessness, ignorance, indifference, or design was not so important as the imperative necessity of remedying such a state of affairs in the interest of historical accuracy and racial fair play. For the past year our society has been in its formative stages; in the coming years I have ample faith that numbers, funds, earnestness, and enthusiasm will enable us to do our work effectively.

American history is being rewritten; the legendary and sentimental method of writing it is growing in disfavor; a scientific age demands the truth, and under its insistence new data are coming to light and old myths are passing away. It is beginning to dawn on American minds that this republic is the child of Europe and not of England; that old man of buckram—the Anglo-Saxon—is having a hard time with that new man of straw—the Scotch-Irishman; and when science gets the latter on the dissecting table there won’t be much left of him but rags and papier-maché.

To-night I will try to direct your attention to “Some Ways in which American History is Falsified”; and by falsification I do not mean so much the deliberate perversion of facts as I do the false effects produced by evasion, distortion, wrong point of view, and the physical and mental limitations and defects of writers, which in their results are quite as mischievous as those produced by perversion and design.

I will for my purposes group my object lessons under four heads, illustrating each with a writer passing current as an historian.

1. _Mental Invalidism._ The disease of certain literary doctrinaires whose natural defects have been aggravated by education and fixed by training. Prof. John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, is a fine type of this arrogant school of dogmatism.

2. _Legend and Sentiment._ The exploitation of legends, inherited ideas, race and family myths, made current and passing into literature by the efforts of those whose faith in folklore as historical data is profound, and to whom facts and documentary evidence are unimportant. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, an amateur historian, is the high priest of this cult; he is the custodian and incense swinger of the deified Puritan, the marvel and fountain of the graces of the modern age.

3. _Imagination._ The school of writers who add to the gayety of nations, who make history from their own inner consciousness, and who record it as they imagine it ought to be, not as it is. Under this head comes that humorless horde of scribblers, the Scotch-Irish littérateurs, and the intellectual giant of Tennessee, Judge Temple, author of _Covenanter, Cavalier, Puritan_.

4. _Carelessness and Credulity._ Writers who accept any evidence stated with solemnity and the air of authority, but who subject it to no tests to ascertain its verity and genuineness. Under this head I take exceptions to the statements made by Prof. John Fiske in a recent work, a writer hitherto regarded as safe and reliable.

I will now devote a few minutes to a work entitled _Political Science and Constitutional Law_, written by Prof. John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, and designed to be a text-book for that and other educational institutions.

Mr. Burgess is a rampant type of what a coldly critical and remorselessly correct writer, John M. Robertson, of London, calls a Celtophobe—a Celt hater. The learned Professor asserts dogmatically that the Celt never has, never can, and never will amount to anything nationally or politically; and that all law, order, and scientific government have sprung from and are due to what he calls the Teutonic races. Professor Burgess is a product of German training and education, and his views have received the cordial endorsement of such a calm and dispassionate authority as the London _Times_. The careful writer in stating his theory will fortify it with facts and figures and marshal his authorities before proceeding to erect a fabric on it; but Professor Burgess isn’t that kind of a man. He states his theory with an air of profound conviction and authority and goes ahead. His theory, like a good many other fabrics “made in Germany,” looks well, is calculated to deceive the unwary and unthinking, but under very ordinary scrutiny proves to be very commonplace, shoddy.

Let me show you a few of the gems from his treasury:

“Only the Teutonic races have produced national states.... The National State is thus the most modern and most complete solution of the whole problem of political organization which the world has as yet produced; and the fact that it is the creation of the Teutonic political genius stamps the Teutonic races as the political nations _par excellence_, and authorizes them in the economy of the world to assume the leadership in the establishment and administration of states.”

This brilliant outburst winds up a series of equally impressive statements. Just what the Professor means by National States and political nations I do not know, nor am I sure he knows himself. At any rate, he appears to lay down a doctrine very delightful to these governments which bully nations and steal territories, if not quite so agreeable to those bullied and plundered.

Now listen to his views on the unfortunate Celt; they have the old familiar ring of anti-Irish hysteria, for which familiarity has bred Irish contempt.

“Personal attachment in small bodies to a chosen Chief is the peculiar political trait of the Celtic nations.... The effect of such a political character has always been the organization of the Celtic nations into numberless petty military States, in each of which individual rights have been ignored; between all of which civil war has been the permanent status; and against which foreign force has been continually successful.... Violence and Corruption have always marked the politics of Celtic nations.”

Let us stop for a moment to analyze this tremendous blast from Columbia University, remembering that Germany and England are Professor Burgess’s ideal Teutonic nations.

From the time of the Roman retrocession from England until the landing of William the Norman at Hastings, that unfortunate land was in the hands of one of the dullest, most unimaginative, worst-governed, and worst-governing races history mentions—the Saxons—for six hundred years; it had become a congeries of warring, military chieftainship, in which civilization was almost obliterated, learning had disappeared, religion was at its lowest ebb, life and property had no safety, the people were enslaved, and the coast harried by foreign and victorious foes. The advent of a strong conqueror—a mixed Celt and Norseman—changed all this, hammered England into a strong military kingdom, connected her with the civilization that has made the world what it is—the Latin—and did in six years what the pure Teutonic race had signally failed to do in as many centuries.

Prior to the historic event known as the Reformation, Germany had as much peace as her neighbors—which wasn’t much—and all she had she owed to her intercourse with the Latin South, to her touch with the civilization and religion of Rome. After that event Germany was torn into factions, military chiefs sprang up, petty military states were made, violence and corruption were the rule, civilization retrogressed, the people were degraded and the land devastated. Germany was without unity; her mercenaries were for sale to the highest bidder; she was terrible only to her children, the prey of foreign forces, with civil war a permanent status. The advent of Napoleon was a blessing; he hammered a lot of petty principalities out of existence and formed two or three monarchies out of the bewildering many. The fall of Napoleon saw Germany a confederation, much after the fashion of pre-Reformation days, with Austria on top. Again came wars and dissensions, and finally the strong conqueror who united Germany against a common foe and made her what she is to-day. Germany, I take it, is the highest political expression of the Teutonic race, according to the dictum of Professor Burgess. What is it?

A military despotism of the most mediæval type, governed by an autocrat of doubtful sanity, whose person is more sacred apparently than that of the Deity; a land whence the people fly to seek safety, peace, liberty; a government that is a constant threat to the peace and civilization of the earth and that embodies all the reactionary principles a free people hate.

One does not expect the German professor, his disciple, or the mole in the earth to see what is going on in the sunlight.

If we turn to Ireland we see nothing but violence, corruption, and plunder in the methods of the Teutonic race ruling there; and we observe improvement in Irish affairs only with the decrease of English influences and the increase of Irishmen in Irish affairs.

It is a favorite axiom of the Teutonic writer of the Burgess type, wherever English and German rule is a failure, that the people ruled are unfit for government. Did it ever occur to them that the shoe is on the other foot—they are unfit to govern?

The unfitness of the English to govern Ireland is historic; it was exhibited in America, as some may recall; it is notorious in India and round the earth. The best-governed possessions of England are the lands where Englishmen are least in evidence. Germany in Africa is producing the usual harvest of Teutonic “genius”—depopulation and devastation.