“Of course, of the hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who have lived and still live with their descendants in the great city of Chicago, it is not possible for me to give more than a passing glance, and say that they are among the leading business men, lawyers, doctors and financiers of that great metropolis. Volumes might be written about them.
“There were not many professional men among those early emigrants. There was one, however, who deserves special mention. His name was E. G. Ryan. He was born in Dublin and came to Illinois in the thirties. He practised law in that State and was recognized at once as being among the leaders of the bar. He afterwards moved to Wisconsin and there became Chief Justice of the Court of Last Resort of that State. He was a profound lawyer, a regular encyclopædia of learning. He was probably the greatest jurist of the West, and there are those who say that he would bear favorable comparison with the great John Marshall. He has been dead for some few years.
“Very many of the descendants of those pioneers entered the different professions. In law and medicine they easily hold their own in the West. The ablest, all-around lawyer I ever met was Thomas A. Moran of Chicago, for a time Judge of the Circuit and Appellate Courts in that State. He, too, has passed out into the Great Beyond.
“Another who made history might also be mentioned.
“In early days, as we say out West, one John H. Mulkey, then about twenty years old, came to the southern part of the State of Illinois from the State of Tennessee, as an itinerant Methodist preacher. Being a man of good sense, he soon abandoned the ministry and took up the study and afterwards the practice of the law. He met with great success. He had a splendid career. He was elected to the Supreme Court and served as an honored member of that body for a number of years. In 1896, while I represented the State, he came to my office (he was then practising law) and sought a continuance of a case in the Supreme Court. I readily consented, and he dictated to my stenographer the agreement for a continuance. While he was doing so it occurred to me that he had a very peculiar name indeed, and when he got through I said rather abruptly, I confess: ‘Judge, where in the world did you get that name? I can’t think to what nation your ancestors could have belonged.’ He looked at me, laughed, and said, ‘I am as Irish as you are, but an ancestor changed the good old Irish name of Mulcahey to Mulkey, and’ he added, ‘he didn’t improve it.’
“Mulkey had a high sense of honor. He had a solicitous regard for the reputation of his profession. He was a scholarly man, a conscientious jurist. He detested a dishonest man and especially a dishonest lawyer. Apropos of this, it may not be uninteresting if I relate a few of the circumstances attending a dissenting opinion which he wrote while on the Bench. It seems that two men, one named Hughes and the other Appleton, were neighbors and both practised law in Chicago. Hughes conveyed the title to a piece of property worth eight to ten thousand dollars to Appleton, without consideration. The latter was merely a trustee. Appleton disposed of the property and converted the proceeds to his own use. The Attorney-General of Illinois filed an information in the Supreme Court setting up these facts and asking for the disbarment of Appleton. On a final hearing that Court denied the application on the ground that the relation of attorney and client did not exist between them. Mulkey not being able to agree with the majority of the Court wrote a unique dissenting opinion, in which among other things, he said: ‘This defense so forcibly reminds me of the old story of the profane bishop who had the good fortune to be a duke also, I cannot refrain from telling it. An acquaintance who happened to overhear him using profane language asked him how it was that he, being a bishop, could be guilty of swearing. “Ah, my friend,” replied his reverence, “I swear as a duke and not as a bishop.” “But,” retorted the other, “when the devil comes to get the duke, what will become of the bishop?” So, in this case, when his Satanic Majesty calls for Appleton the trustee, I should like to know what will become of Appleton the attorney.’ I might add that some years after his admission to the bar, he became a Catholic, and died in that faith.
“I wonder how many Irish names have been mutilated like that of the good judge. I fear too many.
“In the management of railroads, our people have excelled in the West. The children of two Irishmen, brothers, named Egan, born within about thirty miles of where I reside, have been important, if not chief factors in the management of many railroads. They have been connected with the Grand Trunk, the Illinois Central and other roads. I remember well, in 1894, when the great strike, almost an incipient insurrection, occurred in Chicago, that one of these Egans was selected by the officers and directors of all the railroads centering in that great city, to take entire control of their properties and manage them during the strike. This was quite a tribute to the son of a poor Irishman. Another, still comparatively young, might be mentioned. He was born in the town I live in. I remember him as a poor boy, a brakeman on a branch line running through our city. His name is Patrick Houlihan. A brochure has been written on his career and is entitled, I believe, ‘From Water Carrier to General Manager.’ He has on different lines, successively occupied the positions between that of water boy and superintendent, and is now general manager of the Toledo, St. Louis & Western and the Chicago & Alton Railroad Companies, with headquarters at Chicago. He is bright and brainy, with years of usefulness before him. He is a credit to our race.
“In literature, we have fairly well held our own. I do not mean to say that we have written as many novels, good bad and indifferent, as others, but the Rileys, the Finnertys, the Sullivans, the Clearys and Dunns, and men and women of such names have left their impress upon our literature. Many of you no doubt have met and all must have with pleasure, read that Western product, the discoverer of Mr. Dooley and Archie Avenue road, that droll, inimitable writer of ‘dialect’ a philosopher in his way—Finley Peter Dunn, who like other good men, has recently gone wrong, in having against the advice of Greeley and all the sages of the republic, migrated backwards as it were until now Gotham claims him for her own.
“And now a few words as to the tillers of the soil.