Hon. William McAdoo: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I fear that sometimes many of the elements that go to make up the very cosmopolitan population of our country think that we of the American-Irish Historical Society are too insistent upon the part which our people played in the formative period of the Republic.
Now we have an affectionate feeling towards our Motherland because she much needs the help of her children. If Ireland were a great and powerful country, like Germany, rich with an army and navy of its own, with its ambassadors and representatives in every land and with its great universities spreading German ideas among the people; if Ireland had all those accessories she would have made her claims felt in the history of the United States without the need of societies like this; but Ireland, “Erin, the isle of sorrows,” is an unfortunate country, subjugated, impoverished, despoiled and misrepresented and when, therefore, the membership of this Society, these gentlemen who have given to it such unselfish labor, discovered the errors and mistakes and the indifference and sometimes the prejudices of historians of the United States in regard to Ireland in America, as so well pointed out by Mr. Dooley, they organized this Society for the purpose of doing justice to those brave Irish men and virtuous women who came here, especially prior to the Revolution, and who did so much to make this a great and free country.
Now the trouble with most of us Irish Americans—I am Irish in the first degree, having been born in Ireland while most of you are probably only second-class Irish or even third or fourth—is that when we are serious and in deep earnest we are taken to be play acting, and when we are jocose or humorous and contributing to the “gaiety of nations” we are taken to be most in earnest. It is hard for an Anglo-Saxon to understand an Irish Celt. One of the greatest difficulties between England and Ireland is the fact that the mental attitude of the two races is far apart, the intellectual agility of the one and the slow, if certain, processes of the other are obvious to any one acquainted with both countries. Let me illustrate it by a little story:
There was a party at an English country house, and they had been passing a rather dull English winter afternoon by proposing and guessing at riddles; and finally one of the guests turned to the host and said, “Sir Charles, why don’t you propose a riddle?” He said, “Really, now, I’m not half clever enough to do such a thing as that. I couldn’t really do it, don’t-cher-know.” “Well, you might try; you don’t know what you can do.” Finally Sir Charles said, “Well, it stands on one leg and it has feathers and it barks like a dog.” So they all guessed and guessed, everything in the animal and vegetable kingdom, and they finally gave it up; and Sir Charles said, “Why, really, I had no idea I was so clever; I thought you would easily guess it”; and they said, “It is impossible to guess.” And he said, “Well, that’s easy; it’s a stork.” “Well,” they exclaimed, “but surely, Sir Charles, a stork doesn’t bark.” And Sir Charles replied, “Well, that’s the cleverest part of it; I put that in to make it hard.”
And when we come to our Scotch friends we can readily understand how hard it is for a Scotchman to thoroughly comprehend an Irishman. A friend of mine was telling this story in Glasgow to the Board of Trade at its annual dinner: He said an Irishman was coming down the Bowery in New York late one night and met a policeman, and he said to him, “What time is it?” and the policeman replied, “It’s two o’clock.” And the Irishman said, “I’m a bit deaf and I didn’t hear you; would you mind repeating it?” and the policeman yelled at him, “It’s two o’clock.” “Very queer,” says the Irishman, “but really I didn’t hear you. Would you mind saying it again?” and thereupon the policeman (one of my former companions in arms) took his constitution-preserving stick and hit him on one side of the head and said “One,” and then he hit him a clip on the other side of the head and said “Two.” “Did you hear me that time?” “I did, begorra, and I’m glad I didn’t meet you at twelve.”
A friend of mine, a Scotchman by descent, told that story to the Glasgow Board of Trade, and there sat those Scotchman in solemn black around the festive board, and there wasn’t a smile in the room. And finally one old Scotchman, by way of defending the storyteller, said, “Weel, now, I dinna blame the policeman so much; it’s very aggravating to be asked the same question so often.”
Now this Society was formed, among other things, for the purpose of clearing up the underbrush in American history, or, in other words, “laying” the Scotch-Irish ghost. (Applause.)
There was a ghost in my native county of Donegal called the “Fanad Ghost.” It was said to have been raised by a free mason skilled in the “Black Art” while in an hilarious mood, but after it was up the mason couldn’t put it down and the ghost began throwing things around—the delft on the dresser, the noggins, the pots, the stones on the chimney—pulling out the scobes in the thatch on the roof, and raising Cain generally. The Presbyterian minister came in and prayed until he had corns on his knees, and the ghost took a day off. The Catholic priest was called in and did the best he could, and the ghost acted “dacintly” for two days, at the end of which time he was more vigorous than ever. Well, finally they sent to the city of Derry and got a delegation of free masons, and they labored one week, night and day—with refreshments—and at last one morning, when the refreshments were running low, the head mason came to the door with perspiration streaming off his face and his legs wobbly, and said, “Get a black cock without a white feather and another keg of Charley Oge’s poteen, and with the help of Heaven we’ll lay him before morning.” And as the last crow went of the cock and the last drop out of the keg the Fanad Ghost was laid forever with a whiff of sulphur up the chimney and a trembling of the kitchen floor. (Laughter and applause.)
And so this Society is looking for the white cock of Truth to crow soon over the Scotch-Irish ghost, for if ever there was a veritable ghost it is the Scotch-Irishman in America. (Applause.)
The “Scotch-Irishman” in America, Mr. Dooley has told us, had his historic origin about the time of the great famine period in Ireland, when almost one-half of the inhabitants of that unfortunate land, starved, diseased and in rags, were huddled in cargo ships and treated worse than any negro slaves that ever came to this country. They died by thousands and strewed the bottom of the Atlantic with their bodies.