THE “ANGLO-SAXON” SHIBBOLETH CONDEMNED.
BY HON. WILLIAM McADOO,[[4]] NEW YORK CITY.
Mr. President and Gentlemen:
I came here to-night simply to excuse myself for not being able, as requested, to read a paper which I had promised your committee on “Immigration to the United States from the Province of Ulster in Ireland.”
If I am still honored by your Society, I will be glad to read it at a future meeting, with a view to showing not only the influence of this immigration on the history of the United States, but the fact that these immigrants considered themselves Irish without any qualifying clauses, and were so regarded in America, England and Ireland.
Modern political exigencies are playing sad havoc with ethnology. If an Irishman becomes distinguished at home or abroad, in field, forum, market or shop, he is immediately made an Anglo-Saxon; but if he brings up in the police court he is simply a common Irish Celt. The “Anglo-Saxon” race is claiming everything good in the world, and they are bent upon leaving not much of the world for anybody else.
It is very fashionable now to be an Anglo-Saxon, even if you had an Irish father and a Russian mother. If by some divine miracle and phenomenal transformation, all men and women with Celtic blood in their veins could wake up in the morning with some startling demonstration of the fact, such as green hair and yellow eyes, there would be frightful consternation in the ranks of Anglo-Saxondom, even in the great city of New York, and in some of the back settlements into which the first immigrants from Ireland wandered, and where even their names have been transformed.
If one could run all races other than the “Anglo-Saxon” out of the United States it would not be worth England’s while to form an alliance with what remained, and she would treat them in that kindly, patronizing, contemptuous way that she does the ultra-loyal Canadians. It needs no learned historian to show us the splendid record of the Irish in America, nor how enduringly they have stamped their highest and noblest racial impulses on every page of American history. Some of their critics sneeringly point to the apparent fact that they have been almost altogether too conspicuous on the field of military action, and more or less lacking in the more patient and plodding ways of commerce and business. They assert that they have attained more in the intellectual diversions and pleasing arts of speech and hand, or in the mere drudgery of unintelligent labor, rather than in those achievements in agriculture and manufactures, which is said to be a marked characteristic of the heavenly Anglo-Saxon.
This is gross libel on the Irishmen of America. We have here to-night at our board, such a thoroughly representative business Irishman who in vast enterprise, splendid achievement, industry, and dogged perseverance, crowned with the highest success, can give the best Anglo-Saxon in the states or England, in any venture from building railroads to managing them, the sharpest competition of his life; and yet Mr. John D. Crimmins of New York is but one of a splendid army of men of Irish birth or descent who are in the very forefront of the great industrial armies as captains and generals of those tremendous forces which nowhere play so important a part as in the United States, and which nowhere have competition among them more keen, nay, more deadly, nor requiring higher talents and greater courage. Why, in this very metropolis you cannot point to any great field of action—leaving out the learned professions in which the Irish race is most markedly conspicuous—in banking, manufactures, commerce, shipbuilding, and all kinds of industrial and railroad enterprises, in which Irish names do not appear in the directorates, fill the managers’ offices, plan and execute the great battles of modern finance. I say we need not speak of the learned professions, because there the keen wit, the bright, sharp intellectuality, wonderful racial adaptability, breadth and grasp of mind, and love of learning, have given them most commanding influence; the same is true of congress, in legislatures, municipal bodies, and in every court-house of the United States. The same is true of the professions of medicine and teaching, and on the press, where they used to say that Mr. Bennett’s pay-roll on the Herald read like the roster of the Fenian army. At any rate, there is no newspaper office in New York where they have not conspicuous places.
Politically, I claim for them that impulsively, by reason of their history and experiences, they are the very best of Americans. They oppose entangling alliances because they know better than any one else, by reason of a long, bloody, and painful history, how false are international promises, how hypocritical and treacherous even the great and seraphic Anglo-Saxon can be when he once gets the upper hand. Henry II made with them the first Anglo-Saxon alliance, and Cromwell completed it over the graves of murdered millions; over the ruins of castle, cabin, and church, until its climax was reached when the greatest orator of Ireland said that the instruments of government had been simplified to “the tax gatherer and the hangman.”
Is it any wonder, therefore, that the Irish element in the United States should be the first to raise the cry of alarm against the plot to make this great Republic in the very hour of its triumph a mere colonial dependency instead of a regnant and invincible nation? For myself I yield to no man living or dead in the quality of my Americanism. I came to the Republic and have received with unstinted hand the usufruct of its noble freedom, its generous institutions, its magnificent and dazzling opportunities held out to him, however humble, who cultivates the civic virtues, is able, industrious, courageous and honest. I yield to the Republic no double allegiance. I stand for the United States in its vast and tremendous interests here and everywhere against all other countries’ fatherlands and motherlands, without stint, without reservation or hesitation.
I am proud of my Irish birth, but above all things I glory in my American citizenship. I glory in the Republic and the splendor of its achievements, and I transmit to my descendants for a thousand years as a priceless heritage, that exhibition of magnificent military courage where American arms, in spite of the axioms of military science, in spite of the handicaps under which they suffered, swept in magnificent fury and heaven-born courage upon the fire-fringed hills of San Juan, brave men dying gladly, to catch a glimpse of the blessed banner of the great Republic; ours and theirs the glory of those ships which thundered at Cervera, that lightened the gloom of barbarian Manila, and in those ranks of the marines at Guantanamo, and the heroes at Santiago.
Who of Irish birth or descent can but read the rosters on sea and shore with a discriminating eye, to find his heart aflame with pride at the splendid and unanswerable percentage of men with the hot blood of the Celt and the high patriotism of the American, and who, next to the flag of our common country, revere the fact that they draw their lineage from the historic island across the sea. Surely they were not all Anglo-Saxons in name or race who went with Hobson in his grand and heroic endeavor, which takes its place as outstripping the classic legends of Greece and Rome. Surely no one will deny that the roster call of the marines at Guantanamo and the army at Santiago fairly teems with representatives of the historic Irish soldier.
The Sixty-ninth New York and Ninth Massachusetts would be far outstripped in numbers by the thousands of units scattered throughout our army and navy, regular and volunteer, for wherever the stars of the Republic light the gloom of the battle-field, or war thunders on the deep, there, his breast bared to her enemies, whoever they be, you find the most loyal and valorous Americans in the sons of the expatriated Irishman. While Anglo-Saxon statesmen may quibble in congress and Anglo-Saxon schoolmen criticise in college, “Like lions leaping at a fold when mad with hunger’s pang,” you will find in the forefront, disdaining quibble and laughing at criticism, the hot tide of valor and chivalry which, proud to be American, is not ashamed to be called Irish. Out upon the bigots who would do it injustice! Defiance to those who would deride its power or minimize its influence!
It asks no quarter in any field of industry, learning, or strife, and is as great in peace as in war. If its more acknowledged glories are of the more sanguinary fields when Mars sows in blood and night what Minerva reaps in the dews and light of the morning, it is not because of any undue pugnacity, any animal ferocity, but because the Irish Celt, threatened with an extermination more cruel than that of our red Indians, with the schoolhouse closed to his intellect, and the church to his conscience, had to take down the stainless and invincible sword of his fathers and become a universal soldier. In every land, from the Shannon to the Tiber, from the Tiber to the Ganges, from the Ganges to the Potomac, and from the Potomac to San Juan; on every battle-field from Clontarf to Fontenoy, from Fontenoy to Waterloo, from Waterloo to Marye’s heights, where the Irish brigade climbed steeps made slippery with their blood; and from Fredericksburg to Santiago and Manila, Irish valor has gleamed a star on the pages of universal history.
A MEETING IN PROVIDENCE, R. I.,
On April 19, 1899, to Observe the Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Concord and Cambridge.
The Council of the Society held a meeting at the Narragansett Hotel, Providence, R. I., on Wednesday afternoon, April 19, 1899, in honor of the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Concord and Cambridge.
President-General Gargan occupied the chair. A communication was read from the Society of American Authors, suggesting that the organization place itself on record in favor of recognizing December 14, next, as a “Washington Memorial Day” throughout the country.
The date mentioned is the centennial anniversary of the death of the Pater Patriæ. The suggestion was adopted, and the secretary was directed to communicate this action to similar organizations interested in the anniversary.
Communications were read from the Maine Genealogical Society, of Portland; the Minnesota Historical Society, of St. Paul; the Pennsylvania Historical Society, of Philadelphia; the Presbyterian Historical Society, of Pennsylvania, and the Pejepscot Historical Society, of Brunswick, Me.
A letter was read from the Navy Department, stating that the torpedo boat O’Brien would be launched at Elizabethport, N. J., on or about July 1, this year. It was voted to hold the annual field day of the Society at that time and place, and the secretary was empowered to make all necessary arrangements for the event.
Secretary-General Murray announced that since the last meeting four members of the Society have died, viz.: Hon. Patrick Walsh, Augusta, Ga.; Hon. John H. Sullivan and Col. Patrick T. Hanley, Boston, Mass., and Hon. Eli Thayer, Worcester, Mass.
Resolutions were adopted expressive of the great loss sustained by the Society in the death of those four gentlemen, and of condolence with their respective families.
Hon. John D. Crimmins, of New York, personally subscribed five hundred dollars for the general purposes of the Society.
Stephen J. Richardson, of New York, was introduced by Hon. John D. Crimmins, and explained the plan and scope of a projected “Encyclopædia Hibernica.” He asked the Council’s endorsement of the enterprise, and the same was gladly accorded, after certain suggestions had been made regarding the work.
The draft was read of a proposed circular to be sent to each member of the Society, inviting financial contributions to assist the organization in its publication work. The Secretary-General was instructed to have copies of the draft made and one submitted to each member of the Council for approval or emendation before the circular is finally issued. After the admission of about forty new members the Council adjourned.