Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 3 (of 7)

by Theodore Roosevelt

ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDLY SONS OF ST. PATRICK, DELMONICO’S, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 17, 1905

It is, of course, a matter of peculiar pleasure to me to come to my own city and to meet so many men with whom I have been associated for the last quarter of a century—for it was nearly that time ago, Judge, that you and I first met when we were both in the New York Legislature together—and to be greeted by you as you have greeted me to-night. I wish to express at the outset my special sense of obligation—and I know that the rest of you will not grudge my expressing it—my special sense of obligation to Colonel Duffy and the officers and men of the Sixty-ninth, who were my escort to-day. I shall write to Colonel Duffy later, to give him formal notice, and to ask him to give the regiment formal notice, of my appreciation, but I wish to express it thus publicly to-night.

And now, before I begin my speech proper, I wish to read a telegram which has been handed to me as a sop to certain of my well-known prejudices. It has been sent up to me by one of the members here to-night, who when we came into the dining-room was only a father, but who at this moment is a grandfather. This telegram runs as follows:

“Peter McDonnell, Friendly Sons’ Dinner, Delmonico’s. Patrick just arrived. Tired after parade. Sends his regards to the President. He is the first on record since the President attended the Friendly Sons’ dinner. He is a fine singer. No race suicide in this family. Weighs eight pounds, looks like the whole family. The mother is doing well. Robert McDonnell.”

And, gentlemen, I want you to join with me in drinking the health of Patrick, Peter, Robert, and above all, of the best of the whole outfit, Mrs. McDonnell, the mother.

Now we will pass from the present to the past. The Judge has spoken to you of the formation of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in Philadelphia, in colonial days. It was natural that it should have started in Philadelphia and at the time of which the Judge spoke. For we must not forget, in dealing with our history as a Nation, that long before the outbreak of the Revolution there had begun on the soil of the colonies, which afterward became the United States, that mixture of races which has been and still is one of the most important features in our history as a people. At the time, early in the eighteenth century, when the immigrants from Ireland first began to come in numbers to this country, the race elements were still imperfectly fused, and for some time the then new Irish strain was clearly distinguishable from the others. And there was one peculiarity about these immigrants who came from Ireland to the colonies in the eighteenth century which has never been paralleled in the case of any other immigrants whatsoever. In all other cases since the very first settlements, the pushing westward of the frontier, the conquest of the Continent has been due primarily to the men of native birth. But the immigrants from Ireland in the eighteenth century, and those alone, pushed boldly through the settled districts and planted themselves as the advance guard of the conquering civilization on the borders of the Indian-haunted wilderness.

This was true in Northern Maine and New Hampshire, in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas alike. And, inasmuch as Philadelphia was the largest city which was in touch with that extreme Western frontier, it was most natural that the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick should first be formed in that city. We had, I wish to say, in New York, frequently during colonial days, dinners of societies of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, but apparently the society in New York did not take a permanent form; but we frequently had dinners on March 17 of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick here in New York City even in colonial days.

By the time the Revolution had broken out, the men of different race strains had begun to fuse together, and the Irish among those strains furnished their full share of leadership in the struggle. Among their number was Commodore John Barry, one of the two or three officers to whom our infant Navy owed most. I had the honor in the last session of Congress to recommend that a monument to Barry should be erected in Washington. I heartily believe in economy, but I think we can afford to let up enough to let that monument through.

On land, the men of this strain furnished generals like Montgomery, who fell so gloriously at Quebec, and like Sullivan, the conqueror of the Iroquois, who came of a New Hampshire family, which furnished governors to three New England States. In her old age, the mother, Mrs. Sullivan, used to say that she had known what it was to work hard in the fields carrying in her arms the Governor of Massachusetts, with the Governors of New Hampshire and Vermont tagging on at her skirts.

I have spoken of the generals. Now for the rank and file. The Continental troops of the hardest fighter among Washington’s generals, Mad Anthony Wayne, were recruited so largely from this stock that Lighthorse Harry Lee of Virginia, the father of the great general, Robert Lee, always referred to them as “The Line of Ireland.” Nor must we forget that of this same stock there was a boy during the days of the Revolution who afterward became the chief American general of his time, and, as President, one of the public men who left his impress most deeply upon our Nation, Andrew Jackson, the victor of New Orleans.

The Revolution was the first great crisis of our history. The Civil War was the second. And in this second great crisis the part played by the men of Irish birth or parentage was no less striking than it had been in the Revolution. Among the three or four great generals who led the Northern Army in the war, stood Phil Sheridan. Some of those whom I am now addressing served in that immortal brigade which on the fatal day of Fredericksburg left its dead closest to the stonewall which marked the limit that could not be overpassed even by the highest valor.

And, gentlemen, it was my good fortune when it befell me to serve as a regimental commander in a very small war—but all the war there was—to have under me more than one of the sons of those who served in Meagher’s brigade. Among them was one of my two best captains, both of whom were killed, Allen Capron, and this man Bucky O’Neill. Bucky O’Neill was killed at Santiago, showing the same absolute indifference to life, the same courage, the same gallant readiness to sacrifice everything on the altar of an ideal, that his father had shown when he died in Meagher’s brigade in the Civil War.

The people who have come to this country from Ireland have contributed to the stock of our common citizenship qualities which are essential to the welfare of every great nation. They are a masterful race of rugged character, a race the qualities of whose womanhood have become proverbial, while its men have the elemental, the indispensable virtues of working hard in time of peace and fighting hard in time of war.

And I want to say here, as I have said and shall say again elsewhere, as I shall say again and again, that we must never forget that no amount of material wealth, no amount of intellect, no artistic or scientific growth can avail anything to the nation which loses the elemental virtues. If the average man can not work and fight, the race is in a poor way; and it will not have, because it will not deserve, the respect of any one.

Let us avoid always, either as individuals or as a Nation, brawling, speaking discourteously or acting offensively toward others, but let us make it evident that we wish peace, not because we are weak, but because we think it right; and that while we do not intend to wrong any one, we are perfectly competent to hold our own if any one wrongs us. There has never been a time in this country when it has not been true of the average American of Irish birth or parentage, that he came up to this standard, able to work and able to fight at need.

But the men of Irish birth or of Irish descent have been far more than soldiers—I will not say more than, but much in addition to, soldiers. In every walk in life in this country men of this blood have stood and now stand pre-eminent, not only as soldiers but as statesmen, on the bench, at the bar, and in business. They are doing their full share toward the artistic and literary development of the country.

And right here let me make a special plea to you, to this society and kindred societies: We Americans take a just pride in the development of our great universities, and more and more we are seeking to provide for creative and original work in these universities. I hope that an earnest effort will be made to endow chairs in American universities for the study of Celtic literature and for research in Celtic antiquities. It is only of recent years that the extraordinary wealth and beauty of the old Celtic Sagas have been fully appreciated, and we of America, who have so large a Celtic strain in our blood, can not afford to be behindhand in the work of adding to modern scholarship by bringing within its ken the great Celtic literature of the past.

My fellow-countrymen, I have spoken to-night especially of what has been done for this Nation of ours by men of Irish blood. But, after all, in speaking to you, or, to any other body of my fellow-citizens, no matter from what Old World country they themselves or their forefathers may have come, the great thing is to remember that we are all of us Americans. Let us keep our pride in the stocks from which we have sprung, but let us show that pride, not by holding aloof from one another, least of all by preserving the Old World jealousies and bitternesses, but by joining in a spirit of generous rivalry to see which can do most for our great common country.

Americanism is not a matter of creed or birthplace or descent. That man is the best American who has in him the American spirit, the American soul. Such a man fears not the strong and harms not the weak. He scorns what is base or cruel or dishonest. He looks beyond the accidents of occupation or social condition and hails each of his fellow-citizens as his brother, asking nothing save that each shall treat the other on his worth as a man, and that they shall all join together to do what in them lies for the uplifting of this mighty and vigorous people. In our veins runs the blood of many an Old World nation. We are kin to each of these nations and yet identical with none.

Our policy should be one of cordial friendship for them all, and yet we should keep ever before our eyes the fact that we are ourselves a separate people with our own ideals and standards, and destined, whether for better or for worse, to work out a wholly new national type. The fate of the twentieth century will in no small degree—I ask you to think of this from the standpoint of the world—the fate of the twentieth century as it bears on the world will in no small degree depend upon the type of citizenship developed on this Continent. Surely such a thought must thrill us with the resolute purpose so to bear ourselves that the name American shall stand as the symbol of just, generous, and fearless treatment of all men and all nations. Let us be true to ourselves, for we can not then be false to any man.