The place of the Irish race in the making of America, Michael J. O’Brien, chief historiographer for the American Irish Historical Society, sought to establish in A Hidden Phase of American History. It proposes to set forth “Ireland’s Part in America’s Struggle for Liberty” and to lay bare “the heart of the Irish race in Ireland during the War of Independence as beating in sympathy with the revolted colonies in America,” to narrate the story of Irish contributions to the Revolutionary army, and to establish a place of preëminence for the Irish in the building of the Republic.[710] It runs, in its twenty-four chapters, the gamut of the history of most of the colonies, depicting the part played by the Irish. It is offered as an antidote to Bancroft, Henry Cabot Lodge, and other American historians, and concludes its narrative with a chapter on “America’s Debt to Ireland” in which is set forth the plea for American aid for Ireland in her struggle for independence.[711]
Of this book the Irish World speaks with enthusiasm: “The most repulsive snake in popular opinion is the cobra, famous in stories of East Indian life.... Yet a little animal of the ferret type can kill him in a brief fight, ... a frail but daring creature known as the mongoose.... In the historical order we have the cobra, the repulsive serpent who makes history a fountain of lies, whose fangs poison the human race for centuries, whose history of the so-called Reformation is the cobra of the past four centuries. The Anglo-Saxon history of this continent is a cobra of the same species. It has poisoned the life of the American people.... All the Anglo-Saxon writers from Bancroft on, suppressed, ridiculed where they could not suppress, mutilated where they could neither suppress nor ridicule, everything Irish in American history. The Universities of Harvard, Yale and Columbia have been conspicuous in spreading the poison, for that matter in cultivating and intensifying its virulence, as their historians are the best illustrations of the cobra’s viciousness and malignity. The Catholic faith at this moment cannot get a hearing from them.... It is pleasant to announce that the mongoose has arrived and is already at work. His name is Michael J. O’Brien ... [who] has brought out a book ... called ‘A Hidden Phase of American History.’” His first battle is with George Bancroft, “looked upon as our great historian, our most dignified, honest and truthful writer.... Saturated with the poison of the cobra George Bancroft could no more see and tell the truth about the Catholics and the Irish than Sir Edward Carson or Tom Watson,” but O’Brien “will kill the Anglo-Saxon cobra in this country. He is more important than twenty cathedrals and one million orators. He should be provided with a pension of one hundred dollars a week and let loose upon the libraries and records of the Anglo-Saxon....”[712]
During 1921 and 1922 the Knights of Columbus, acting through an Historical Commission, promoted a movement for original studies in American history by offering prizes for original research. The purpose of the society was “to encourage investigation into the origins and achievements and the problems of the United States, to interpret and perpetuate the American impulse, the impulse of the patriots who founded and who through their successors, have preserved the Republic; to promote American solidarity; and to exalt the American ideal.”[713] The session of the Supreme Assembly which launched this project was held May 28, 1921, at Chicago. According to John H. Reddin, Supreme Master, it was their “aim to enlist a commission of leading historians of diverse racial extraction and religious denominations” to prepare twenty-four pamphlets “covering critical periods in the nation’s history; the matter to be written direct from original sources,” and the pamphlets to be distributed “in millions of copies to schools and colleges, legislators and newspapers throughout the country.”[714]
The Thirty-Ninth International Convention of the Knights of Columbus, with twenty thousand delegates in attendance, met at San Francisco on August first. Among the activities which were endorsed was the movement for a “propaganda proof” history at the cost of one million dollars,[715] by which, if necessity demanded, every town in the country could be flooded with pamphlets telling “the true tale of America’s great origin and America’s greatness” and “stripped of all manner of European or Asiatic coloring.”[716]
Shortly following this announcement of the plan of the Knights of Columbus, Edward F. McSweeney, Chairman of the Historical Commission, issued the following statement: “The Knights of Columbus history movement aims at only one thing—the preservation of truth in the writing of American history. Many of the textbooks used in our schools are utterly unreliable on important phases of the nation’s story and totally disregard many cardinal events and personages. The Knights of Columbus oppose the cause of no other nation, they are simply aligning the 800,000 members of the order in the production and distribution of a straight-forward story, free from propaganda of any kind as to the origin and development of this country.”
“An attempt is even now being made,” continues the statement, “and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, announced his advocacy of it recently in London, to promote the celebration of the signing of the Magna Charta in English-speaking countries. The anniversary of the Magna Charta coming late in June, and being the object of the celebration as the basis of liberty, which it is not, would necessarily eclipse our own Independence Day, which, I believe, is the ultimate object of the movement.... The Knights of Columbus believe that the Declaration of Independence is an infinitely more important and conclusive document than the Magna Charta.” Under the compulsion of this belief they registered their opposition to “this and other forms of un-American propaganda.”[717]
In December the movement for “Americanized” histories was furthered at a meeting held at Washington, D. C., and the announcement was again made that the Knights of Columbus would offer $7500 in prizes for monographs in American history, the first prize to be $3000.[718]
According to Columbia, the organ of the Knights of Columbus, their history program was attacked with “virulence” by “certain organizations, dedicated to creating better Anglo-American relations.” Thus, from the Loyal Coalition of Boston emanated the following protest: “The obvious intention of a certain group, with the approval of the French ambassador, to rewrite the history of the United States, is an issue of the hour. Our whole educational system is seriously menaced because of the influence of certain instructors who react to aliens of hyphenated influence.”[719] The British-American Association also showed their opposition by offering “a prize to be known as the John Adams Gold Medal for the essay best setting forth the most instances of the friendship of Great Britain toward America from 1600 to 1920.” This hostility was clearly evident to the Knights in the statement of the organization: “To offset the work of the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus Historical Commission, whose Chairman, Edward F. McSweeney, has declared that the English people, so far as they had any voice, were substantially unanimous in their attitude, opposing the aspirations of the Colonists for freedom and backed up by the King and Parliament in continuing the fight for Colonial Liberty.”[720]
Yet not all Catholics gave unqualified endorsement to the Commission’s activities. January 1, 1924, Mr. McSweeney’s chairmanship ceased. In commenting upon the changed personnel of the Commission, The Fortnightly Review, a Roman Catholic periodical, expressed the hope that reorganization would “result in a more economical programme and one that will really advance the cause of history.”[721]
“The organization of this Commission in the first place was a most extraordinary procedure,” stated the Review. “A man whose work and training had never been in the field of history, was chosen before the members of the Commission were selected, and was given a salary that amounted to more than twice the pay of a full professor of history in our larger universities![722] When the personnel of the Commission was announced, it was found to contain the name of but one professional historian....[723] Unfortunately, the early statements appearing under the imprint of the Commission, some utterances of the Chairman, and some articles published in Columbia, were not calculated to remove the existing impression that the Commission had no constructive programme, ... and that the Chairman at least was willing to follow ‘the historical expert’ of the Hearst syndicate in the unjust, unfair, unmerited, and uncalled for attack on certain history textbooks.”[724]