of which any one might be proud to devote his life.
Let us illustrate what we mean. There are, at least, two and a half millions of Irish in the United States, the great majority of whom, for very sufficient, if not obvious, reasons occupy socially and pecuniarily a very inferior position to that which their natural abilities would entitle them, yet we see how little effort is being made by their countrymen, of more education or larger wealth, to assist them. The Catholic Church has done much, but the church, necessarily, can only attend to their spiritual wants and to the education of their children; the temperance and benevolent societies are good in their way, but their power is limited, and their sphere of action very restricted; but we look in vain for an organization that will take by the hand the bewildered and uncertain stranger as he lands at Castle Garden or in the harbor of Boston, shield him from the temptations and villany which mark him out as a victim from the moment his foot touches the firm earth and his battle of life commences, find him employment in the great centres of trade and commerce, or conduct him safely to the broad spreading fields of the free and fruitful West. If he be a farmer or agricultural laborer, as the majority of Irish immigrants are, what society of his countrymen is prepared to defray his expenses to the rural districts, where labor is always in demand, and wages high, or help him to locate on the Western lands, which can be had almost for the asking, and where he can bring up his family in comfort and happiness? If half the money and one-quarter the time and labor which were recently so foolishly expended in futile efforts to free Ireland and invade the British dependencies had been used for
the benefit of the poorer class of our Irish immigrants, how many thousands of them might now be enjoying happy homes in our fertile Western states and territories, instead of infesting the purlieus of New York, underbidding each other for precarious and unhealthy employment. How many victims of disappointed hope or mistaken confidence might have been rescued from the slough of despondency and degradation into which they have fallen, and placed in a position of at least comparative independence. The liberation of Ireland through the instrumentality of her exiled children is an old and a splendid dream, but it is only a dream so long as the present relations exist between this country and England. We yield to no one in appreciation of all that is noble in that pious and gallant nation, and would, perhaps, sacrifice as much as the most enthusiastic of her sons to see her not only independent, but in the enjoyment of the fullest liberty; but no person who has ever casually studied the relative strength and resources of England and Ireland, and who has had any practical experience of the enormous expenditure of life and money so unsuccessfully incurred by the people of the South, even when military training and available population were so evenly balanced, can for a moment believe in the success of any attempt of the people themselves to separate forcibly one from the other.
But whatever the people in Ireland may see fit to do or dare, the organization of armed men in this country to assist in that purpose is most reprehensible and fraught with the greatest mischiefs. For any person within our limits to attempt to levy war on a country at peace with the United States is clearly illegal. If he be a stranger, it is a criminal
abuse of our hospitality; if a citizen, he disregards his oath of allegiance. Such a movement gives color to the assertions of the worst enemies of all foreigners, the Know-nothings, who accuse Irishmen of not becoming citizens in the true spirit of their oath, but merely pretended ones, whose object is to use this country as their point d’appui for ulterior objects. Besides, such societies have a tendency to unsettle the minds of the people, and divert them from the main objects of their self-expatriation—free homes and altars. But even if Ireland were to-day independent, not one-tenth of the Irish in America could or would return. The mass of them are permanently attached to America by affection, association, or interest; their children are growing up around them, naturally imbued with a love for this, the country of their birth; their property and business are here; some are too old to be retransplanted, and others young enough to prefer seeking fortunes in our stupendous and but yet only partially developed commonwealth, to spending a lifetime in the necessarily limited sphere of enterprise presented by so small a country as Ireland under the most favorable auspices. True patriotism should, therefore, dictate to the Irish-American the wisdom of promoting the welfare of this large majority of his countrymen who, for good or evil, must pass their lives with us. And what a vast and enticing field is thus presented to the successful merchant and ardent Irish nationalist! If they cannot free Ireland, they can by their money and their intelligence free tens of thousands of their countrymen from the slavery of poverty and dependence, from the vices of the cities and the degradation of the factories and the coal-mines. Such an effort, judiciously
made, apart from the benefits it would confer on so many poor and deserving citizens, and the unanswerable argument it would present of practical, disinterested sympathy, would, if the occasion should ever present itself, enable the persons so benefited to assist in their turn the cause of true Irish nationality. There is nothing so successful, it is said, as success, and while the sympathies of most nations, particularly of our own, are easily enlisted in favor of an oppressed nation like Ireland, there is generally observable an implied doubt that she is misgoverned because her people have not the capacity to properly govern themselves. At home, they certainly have not been allowed to try the experiment, but here, with free institutions already firmly established, vast mineral, agricultural, and commercial industries to invite their labor and excite their ambition, and with an area of unoccupied land almost beyond conception, a people incapable of profiting by these advantages, either as individuals or by mutual co-operation, expose themselves to the suspicion of being deficient in that organizing faculty and mental grasp which create and sustain independent governments.
Without intending to draw an invidious distinction between one class of citizens and another, we may point to the German immigration to this country as an admirable example of the benefits arising from organization and mutual support. It is this harmony of purpose that has given to the Teutonic element, though by no means the strongest in our population, a preponderating influence in several of the Western states, and the proprietorship of innumerable farms on both sides of the Mississippi River. Coming from a self-governing country, and leaving behind an extensive trading and manufacturing connection,
the German immigrant has of course many advantages over his Irish fellow-voyager, but those who have closely watched the progress of both races in America assert that it is to the admirable system of mutual help and protection enjoyed by the former that his great industrial progress is mainly due.
We are satisfied that there are many wealthy citizens of Irish birth in this city and elsewhere who would gladly contribute of their super-abundant means to assist their less fortunate fellow-countrymen, were any feasible project inaugurated by which they could do so practically and efficiently, and we trust that there are among us adopted citizens themselves—persons who, abandoning chimerical schemes of conquest and invasion, would devote their time and ability to assist those of their helpless countrymen who have come and are coming among us. Every intelligent agriculturist that can be planted on the virgin soil of our now waste public lands, every ingenious mechanic that is furnished with employment in our workshops, and, we may say, every stalwart laborer that is removed from the overstocked labor market of the East and assisted to the towns and smaller cities of the South and West, adds to the general wealth of the community, increases the strength and glory of our republic, and conduces to its growing intelligence and morality.
The pursuit of wealth, however important, is not of course the primary duty of man, considered either as an individual responsible being or as a citizen. Religion, in its proper practical sense, is not only the source of happiness for mankind in this world and the next, but is absolutely necessary for the preservation of all well-regulated society, and it is on this account among others that so many