Colonel Finerty delivered the Washington oration at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, February 22, 1891, and received an ovation from both the faculty and the students. He was also a principal speaker at the James G. Blaine and John A. Logan memorial meetings in Chicago.
In 1890 he published his personal narratives of the Sioux Wars, entitled “Warpath and Bivouac,” which was favorably received and had a large sale in the United States, Canada and England. He had another book in course of preparation at the time of his death. Mr. Finerty was a veteran lecturer on American, Irish and cosmopolitan subjects. He never used notes or manuscript, but having made himself familiar with his subject relied upon his memory for words fitting the subject.
During his journalistic career he reported the lectures of Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, Carl Schurz, Edward Everett Hale, Father Tom Burke and many other celebrities, and became convinced that the speaker who did not use manuscripts took best with the American people.
No one could be intimately acquainted with Colonel Finerty without becoming fondly attached to him for his many noble qualities of head and heart. He was a fascinating conversationalist, a brilliant writer and a truly eloquent orator. The great storehouse of his mind unfolded itself in private conversation with the freshness of the running brook, in his writings with the diction and elegance of the classics and in his oratory like a mountain torrent.
Although a firm believer in the Catholic faith himself, every human being who loved justice and liberty and had the courage to avow it he regarded as his brother, no matter in what creed he saw fit to dedicate his thoughts to the Almighty.
In the death of John F. Finerty, Ireland has lost as devoted and self-sacrificing a son as was ever born upon that sacred soil, and the United States has lost as loyal and patriotic a citizen as ever fought either in the defense or in the assertion of American freedom; and the friends of liberty the world over have lost as true and generous an advocate of universal freedom as any country has ever produced.
At the big John F. Finerty memorial meeting, held in the new Seventh Regiment Armory, Chicago, in November, 1908, Hon. P. T. Barry presiding, Hon. Bourke Cockran delivered a most eloquent address in which he said in part:
“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: If there could be the slightest doubt in the mind of anyone here as to the effect and power of that gift (oratory) which the chairman has described in terms so glowing, he himself has illustrated it in the highest degree. (Applause.)
“I know of no person who has presented the subject, for which a gathering has assembled, in terms so glowing, with an eloquence so splendid, with pathos so tender and with a feeling so true and sincere. I have come tonight to add the tribute of my admiration, my sincere respect and my affection as an Irishman to the memory which we have gathered to commemorate and honor. (Applause.)
“Listening to the words of your chairman, I feel most deeply that a great light has been extinguished which had lit for many thousands and hundreds of thousands the pathway of duty and of honor. A mighty oak under whose umbrageous shade many had been refreshed on the long, trying journey from aspiration to accomplishment, who otherwise would have fallen and fallen forever. A watchman, upon the tower of liberty had been relieved, who had never slumbered at his post. The earth had taken unto her bosom him who had been the embodiment of manly virtue, of manly faith and manly courage while he trod her surface—John F. Finerty lies in a Chicago cemetery. (Applause.)