“Immigration! Do you know that as the years have gone by they have witnessed immigration from many lands? Germany has furnished us with some of the best bone and sinew of its country. England, through her unwise laws, through her erring principles of justice, exacted from the Irish people something that they would not give—taxation without representation, and surrender of civic and religious liberty. Deprived of everything that men in common hold dear, deprived of education, of religious worship, they were driven from the shores of Ireland and found the arms of Columbia extended and ready to receive them as children. We came here, and we thank England for sending us here. If it hadn’t been for the conditions of a hundred and fifty years ago, we might be toiling there today. It is a wise Providence that directs and overrules conditions. We came, and this asylum was beautiful, the flag of freedom and union waved for us, everything was lovely compared with what we had left behind. Friends and kindred, religion and society grew up within our own experiences. The warm heart of the Irishman broadened; he grew, and when the country rang out the alarm, when the country announced that it was menaced with danger, in that Irish boy’s ears rang the traditions and the wrongs of ages. He buckled on his belt; he took down the flintlock from the wall; he marched forward anywhere, everywhere, under the command of Washington and Sullivan,—Washington, the ideal, and Sullivan, the son of an Irish exile. These were the traits exhibited.
“‘Theirs not to reason why—not to make reply—but to do and die.’ These men made it possible for you and for me to live to enjoy the conditions of today, to be here in this temple of local pride.
“I am reminded of the story so beautifully told in Roman history of the mother who once paid a visit to a wealthy matron of that glorious republic so many centuries ago. After dinner the matron said, ‘Now I must show you my beautiful jewels.’ They were carefully guarded, but she displayed them to the eyes of her visitor, and then remarked, ‘You must show me your jewels when I go to your house.’ In turn she called upon the mother, and stayed a little longer than is usual, awaiting the exhibition of jewels. Finally she inquired, ‘Have you forgotten to show me your jewels?’ ‘Oh, no,’ the mother replied. ‘Come this way,’ and as she threw open a door five beautiful children were revealed. ‘These,’ she exclaimed, ‘are my jewels.’
“People of Rhode Island, these noble patriots and these scarred flags are your sacred jewels. Guard their memory, defend it, and, as your blood has the rich central vein of patriotism, so sacrifice all you have to keep these jewels sacredly enshrined in your hearts forever.
“I would that Sullivan could get a day’s leave from his sacred parole. I would that he could come back to us today, that he might obtain from the St. Gabriel of St. Peter’s Gate a day’s leave of absence to look at these pillars and to gaze about these corridors. We almost hear the whisper, can almost note the footfall of a strange presence here. It is the spirit of the Revolutionary hero that communes with us; it is the lofty emotion that emanates from him, though unseen, and which commends our spirit of patriotism and ratifies our act, not to him individually but to the noble band of which he was Captain.
“This is a great day for Rhode Island. This is a great day for America, because this afternoon and tomorrow the wave of thought that is ours will extend beyond us and be carried everywhere to receptive minds. The sunlight will dash it into every possible nook and corner of the land; the rivers will take it down to the Mexican slope; the whole country will vibrate with it. You who know the history of the man we honor, cherish it in your memory, and when you recall these exercises, congratulate yourself that in assisting at them you have fulfilled a duty; one and all, you have paid the homage of a great and noble State.
“One moment more, my friends. I have tarried long. This page stands out alone in the history of this Society of which I have the honor and rare privilege of being the Executive. Ladies and gentlemen, that Society has one purpose; that purpose is written between the lines of today’s event. We want to know the men who have lived, who have fought, who have bled, who have given everything to the cause of the American people. We want to record their deeds in order that the womb of the future may bring forth a race, generations distant from us, that will stand up and say, ‘I, too, am Irish, although I have six generations separating me from that blood,’ a race that will cherish everything Irish and will extend the open hand of welcome to everyone who bears the hall mark of Ireland, whether his religion be Catholic or Protestant.
“We are broad, we are honest, we are liberal. We want to attack no man, but when we peruse the pages of American history, when we turn over volume after volume, chapter after chapter, page after page, and search paragraph after paragraph, line after line, syllable after syllable, and see no recognition of the services of Irishmen, our hearts bleed because the omission is culpable and not due to the fact that the historian could find no achievements to make good his lines.
“We claim our place in this Republic. We have sacrificed everything in the world for it. We would go further tomorrow and pledge every security, sever ourselves from home, to protect our freedom and these flags. The United States is ours, whether on the shores of California, Maine, Texas, or Washington. There is one freedom, one brotherhood of man.
“I could detain you longer, friends, but the time allotted me forbids. I have lingered longer than I should, but I know of no sentiment with which I might more fittingly conclude than that of one of your great New England worthies, the man who is enshrined in the sanctuary of your hearts, John Boyle O’Reilly. He says, in his own peculiar but grand way: