Extracts from Letters Received.

The following are extracts from letters of regret:

From Mr. John J. Rooney, New York City: “My Dear Mr. Murray: I am exceedingly sorry I cannot be present at the American-Irish Historical Society dinner tomorrow night. I have a heavy case in court and cannot get away. Kindly express my regrets to all. Sincerely, John J. Rooney.”

From the Hon. Felix Carbray, M. R. I. A., Quebec, Canada: “I duly received the notice for the annual meeting and dinner. I deeply regret that distance and heavy business cares will make it unable for me to be present. I hope you will have a large gathering and a successful celebration.”

From the Hon. Patrick J. McCarthy, mayor of Providence, R. I.: “Dear Sir: Your letter in regard to the dinner of the American-Irish Historical Society received, and I regret to state that owing to previous engagements in Providence it will be impossible for me to attend. Wishing you a successful meeting, I remain, respectfully yours, Patrick J. McCarthy.”

From the Hon. Patrick J. Ryan, mayor of Elizabeth, N. J.: “Many thanks for your circular letter announcing that the American-Irish Historical Society is to have a reception and dinner in Boston on Thursday, January 24, next. I appreciate the notice I assure you, and regret to say that I will not be able to attend owing to a press of other matters here. I hope and trust the meeting will be a success in every way.”

From the Hon. Franklin M. Danaher, Albany, N. Y.: “Dear Mr. Murray: I have your notice of the annual meeting and dinner of the American-Irish Historical Society in Boston on Thursday, January 24, 1907. I have always been able to attend the annual meetings of the Society because they happened in New York coincident with my presence there on official business. Whether I can be in Boston on January 24th is somewhat problematical, but I will do so if I can. Do you expect President-General McGowan?”

From Mr. Edward J. McGuire, New York City: “My Dear Mr. Murray: It seems ungracious not to attend the Historical Society’s dinner at Boston on Thursday evening, you Yankees have been so generous and loyal in coming to New York, but for me it is absolutely impossible to be present. I am engaged in a number of most important and engrossing professional matters, and I have in addition but recently returned from a week’s absence in the South. I am sure you will make my excuses. I hope that you are entirely recovered from your illness and that everything prospers with you and the Society. With kindest regards, Very truly yours, Edward J. McGuire.”

From the Rt. Rev. Mgr. Dennis J. O’Connell, M. A., S. T. D., rector of the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C.: “Mr. T. H. Murray, Secretary-General, Sea View, Mass. My Dear Sir: I desire to thank you very cordially for the notice you sent me regarding the annual dinner, and to say at the same time with sincere regret that I am afraid I cannot assist, for the following day, January the 25th, is the feast of our Faculty of Theology at which I must be present. Wishing all a pleasant time, I remain, Very sincerely yours, D. J. O’Connell.”

From the Hon. Edward A. Moseley, Washington, D. C.: “I regret very much that it is impossible for me to attend the annual meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society. I really wish that the Society would have its next meeting in Washington; I believe it would be a good plan from every point of view. I had fully intended to get to the coming meeting on the 24th, but I went to Boston over the holidays, and the result is that I have as bad a cold as I ever had in my life, and I am afraid to leave Washington. Do have the next annual meeting in Washington, and I will contribute in every way to make it a success, and will devote myself to the work. With all cordial regards, sincerely yours, E. A. Moseley.”

HISTORICAL NOTES AND PAPERS.

IRISH ABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES.[[2]]

BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE, LL. D., BOSTON, MASS.

[2]. This paper appeared originally in the Boston Pilot.

The Irish race, both here and in the old world, has suffered so much in the way of misrepresentation at the hands of English and pro-English writers, its merits have been so minimized and its defects so magnified, that it is almost a hopeless task to attempt the refutation of even a tithe of the falsehoods.

It is only when a writer offers an easily accessible authority for his statements that the general reader can take the time and trouble, if so disposed, to investigate the reference and verify the accuracy or honesty of the author who professes to have quoted truly.

Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge has written, and the Century Magazine has published an article on “The Distribution of Ability in the United States,” in which he exalts the English race at the expense of some others, and depreciates the Irish race, with or without malice prepense, in a manner which is, to say the least, remarkable.

Mr. Lodge deals in some general statements easily susceptible of disproof, as when he says that “there was virtually no Irish immigration during the colonial period, and indeed none of consequence until the present century was well advanced.”

He offers no authority for this absurd statement; so it may be assumed that he ignorantly believes it true. Perhaps he also honestly believes in the race called “Scotch-Irish,” whom he defines as “descendants of the Scotch and English who settled in the North of Ireland.” Let these things pass. We are concerned only with the accuracy and honesty of Mr. Lodge’s quotations when he refers to a specific authority for facts and figures and professes to be governed by that authority.

In order to classify the distribution of “ability,” Mr. Lodge says that he “took Appleton’s Encyclopedia of American Biography in six volumes, one of the largest and most recent works upon the subject, and classified the persons mentioned therein who were citizens of the United States according to occupation, birthplace and race extraction.”

Mr. Lodge says that he found the work large and laborious. We can confirm that statement; for we also have taken the six volumes of Appleton’s and have gone conscientiously through the 14,000 and odd names therein recorded, to see if that otherwise valuable publication had really given the Irish race such an astonishingly poor record as Mr. Lodge’s tables show. We find that it has not. We find that Mr. Lodge and his authority differ so astoundingly, on almost every point, that his deductions are absolutely worthless because his statements are so utterly untrue.

In the matter of quantity, Appleton’s gives to the Irish race a list nearly one hundred per cent greater than Mr. Lodge professes to have found in its pages. On the score of quality, taking Mr. Lodge’s own test of merit, Appleton’s gives about 300 per cent more to the race than Mr. Lodge accords it.

Mr. Lodge classifies race by the paternal side alone, which is probably fair enough for practical purposes, and says:

“In a large number of cases, especially where the extraction is not English, the race stock is given in the dictionary. In a still larger number of instances the name and the place of birth furnish unmistakable evidence as to race. That error should be avoided in this classification is not to be expected, but I am perfectly satisfied that the race distribution is in the main correct. Such errors as exist tend, I think, here as elsewhere in these statistics, to balance one another, and the net result is, I believe, so substantially accurate as to have very real value, and to throw a great deal of light on what we owe in the way of ability to each of the various races who settled the United States.”

He counts as original settlers all who came to this country before the date of the adoption of the Constitution, A. D. 1789; those who came after that date are classified as “immigrants.” Taking the Encyclopedia as his authority, he examines the birth or race extraction of 14,243 persons therein named as having achieved sufficient distinction to deserve mention. As a result he finds that over 10,000 of the number should be credited to the “English” race.

It is not worth while to inquire into the accuracy of that estimate, since Mr. Lodge’s treatment of another race sufficiently disproves his claims to accuracy on any score.

In Tables “D” and “H,” covering respectively the original settlers and the immigrants, he gives the number of men of the Irish race who have achieved the distinction of a place in Appleton’s. Nowhere, apparently, is any allowance made either for the distinguished descendants of the original Irish settlers, distinguished or obscure themselves, nor for the distinguished children of undistinguished immigrants since 1789.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton is, we suppose, credited to the Irish of pre-Constitution days, and Thomas Addis Emmet to the “immigrant” class, but where does Mr. Lodge place the distinguished descendants of both? Where does he place the distinguished sons of obscure fathers, such men as Andrew Jackson and Robert Fulton? Certainly not among the race to which, according to Appleton, they belong, for they have no recognition in his “double star” table, to be described hereafter. Do they go to swell the ranks of the 10,000 English or those of the mixed and mythical “Scotch-Irish”?

What does he do with Philip Sheridan, who being neither an “immigrant” nor descended from pre-Constitution ancestors, is in a worse case than his namesake, Philip Nolan, being a “man without a race?” We cannot believe that Mr. Lodge ever intended committing such a palpable absurdity, because if carried to its logical conclusion, it would apply equally to distinguished men of all races. Mr. Lodge himself, for all that Appleton’s tells us to the contrary, never had a pre-Constitution ancestor, and has, therefore, no right to class himself among the 10,000 “English,” as he presumably does.

Mr. Lodge has a delightfully simple method of determining the relative values of great men. It is by noting how much of pictorial glory is awarded to each in the Encyclopedia. Persons whose biographical sketches are not illustrated with a portrait are not counted in at all.

Those who have a vignette portrait are classified as “single stars.” The truly great, who have full-page portraits, are called “double stars”—of these there are 58 among the whole 14,243.

Mr. Lodge confesses that encyclopediac fame is hardly just in giving double star honors to William Gilmore Simms and shutting out Hawthorne, Poe and Lowell, but Fame is notoriously capricious of her favors; which is why, perhaps, such authors as John Hay, T. W. Parsons, Theodore Roosevelt and many others are sent pictureless to posterity, while Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth and Mrs. Ann S. Stephens are immortalized in becoming wood-cuts. Mr. Lodge himself shines as a “single-star,” as does also Mr. E. P. Roe.

But even in his stellar classification Mr. Lodge makes a singular mistake, again on the wrong side of the Irish account. His “totals by race extraction” allow only one double star to “Irish.” Yet his cyclopedic authority has full-page steel engravings of the following six, all credited to the Irish race, without any hint of a mythical Scotch mixture: Chester A. Arthur, son of Rev. William Arthur of Antrim; John C. Calhoun, son of Patrick and grandson of James of Donegal; Robert Fulton, son of a Kilkenny man; Andrew Jackson, son of Andrew of Carrickfergus; James K. Polk, descendant of Irish Polk or “Pollock”; Philip H. Sheridan, race not mentioned but pretty well known.

Mr. Lodge is equally reckless of fact when he attempts to count the “single stars” of the Irish race. He finds only thirteen of these among the early settler class and eleven among the “immigrants”—twenty-four in all. Here are the names of sixty-five, given by Appleton’s, and not including such men of the Irish race as Lawrence Barrett, Lawrence and Philip Kearny, J. A. MacGahan, Commodore Macdonough and others, whose race is not specified in the cyclopedia:

Following is Mr. Lodge’s tabulated misrepresentation of Irish ability according to his Tables “D” and “H,” but not according to the facts as given by Appleton’s:

Before 1789.After 1789.Total.
Statesmen91322
Soldiers181937
Clergy2885113
Lawyers12618
Physicians224
Literature172239
Art71219
Science369
Educators077
Navy448
Business3811
Philanthropy448
Pioneers and Explorers033
Inventors000
Engineers213
Architects000
Musicians011
Actors077
Total109200309

Under the first head, “Statesmen,” Mr. Lodge “includes not only persons who have held public office, but all who as reformers, agitators, or in any other capacity have distinguished themselves in public affairs.” He allows nine statesmen to the Irish in his first list. His authority, Appleton’s Encyclopedia, is more liberal, giving them no less than thirty, including seven signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Not to answer assertion with mere counter-assertion, we have compiled the following list, from Appleton’s, including only such names as are specifically stated to belong to the Irish race, omitting all that are claimed as “Scotch-Irish,” and not even counting men of known Irish origin who are not so described in the cyclopedia.

In so doing we purposely leave out scores of Kellys, Butlers, Moores, Barrys, Boyles, etc. We do not wish to claim anything beyond the strict letter of Mr. Lodge’s authority, Appleton’s Encyclopedia. For every name in the following lists given by Appleton’s as Irish, but possibly of remoter Scotch or English origin, there will be found half a dozen other names in Appleton’s of obvious Celtic Irish origin which are not here included because not so specified in the cyclopedia. We are taking Mr. Lodge’s authority as such, in order to show how wildly he has departed from it. Following is the correct list compiled from Appleton’s: