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Show . j I l Progress TDadt Bp the Irish ; : . -t- I ; BY SEUjKAS MACMAMTJS. ' ; Of an old American plutocrat, who hated the Irish like poison, it is told ; that crossing the Atlantic for the first ! time he desired the steward to be sure j to awaken him in the early morning on which they were due to sight the Irish roast in passing. Though the morning1 was both wet and wild, and c-omft rtless and odd. the poor old fellow fel-low gathered hir garments about him an, wont out on dock and leaned over the bulwarks and took a good look at the green isle. And as he shullled back over the deck agai'i he said: "Thank God that I've lived to see one country the Iiish don't run!" And it is not only once, nor only fifty times that it has boon said of us, "The Irishman is the best soldier that gcs into a battlefield anywhere out of Ireland." In America, anyhow, the Irishman has he-en a marvelous success as a fichttr. as a worked and as a I was going to say ruler, but shall content : myself with politician. I have a Rus-i Rus-i sian friend who says he was only a ' short time in America till he concluded that in this country every Chinaman was a washerwoman and every Italian an organ-grinder, but the Irish puzzled him to classify. At one time he thought every Irishman kept a saloon, then that he wa? a public prize fighter, next that he was a lawyer: in quick succession suc-cession after that he was a policeman, a municipal officer, a navvy, a soldier, a ward boss, a judge, a servant girl, a city mayor, an orator, a criminal, a clergyman and-a man pulling the wires of the universe. In his dilemma, he 'Fays, he appealed to an Irish friend for guidance. "Hash!" said his friend. "Why. at home we're every mother's pan a king." "And that.'' said my Russian Rus-sian friend, "is the only blessed thing not one of you is in America." "Never mind." said he. "Perhaps we'll remedy rem-edy that yet." I After looking about me in America, I saw conclusive proof that my eoun-m eoun-m trymen were not. by Providence, in tended for merely one or for merely thirty-one vocations. All arts, all trades, and all tricks, from California t to Connecticut, have their large and faithful following of Irishmen; yet I ' modestly admit that he seems to fit best into his niche where he is dominating dom-inating the crowd, and has yoked to his car the German, the Scandinavian, the Hun, the Dago and the American. You . ; may see a fresh Irishman, as green as they grow them, one day granted a job with the pick for God's sake: pass that way a twelve-month later and the odds are that you find him not only managing his former comrades, but bossing the man that employed him. There is a strong and assertive individuality indi-viduality about the Celt, and it is intolerance in-tolerance of restraint more than ambition am-bition of advancement that makes him push for the top. A flashlight on his character in this respect is the story of the Irishman who landed in a strange country when a political fight was raging, and who, on being surrounded by both parties and questioned, "What side are you on?" replied, without any hesitation, "I'm agin' the gover'ment." For there is only one rule under which he will cease to chafe his own rule. This chafing, then, supplements and sometimes some-times supplies the place of abstract ' ambition. The German, the Dago, and the American are all right, he acknowledges, ac-knowledges, in thf spheres for which their Creator meant them. Than he. there is no man more heartily pleased to see them prosper in their proper pphere. But my countryman in Amer- ica feels an uneasiness in his conscience until he has repressed them into that sphere. The Dago is a tolerable hand ... at the pick, and the German and ! American, with the Jew. were born for the drudgery of commerce. Xo Irishman Irish-man is so narrow as to deny them ; their privileges here, and none so un generous as" not to acknowledge their brilliant abilities. But. then, he oan-j oan-j not let his generosity run away with j justice and permit them to try their inexperienced lands at a thing they know nothing about and are not adapted for to-wit, ruling a city or a state. In Milwaukee, the most Ger-' Ger-' man city in America, there is a ward ; that boasts only one Irishman, yet he is "boss" of the ward. Yet he is far from being intolerant or tyrannical here. He will permit the German and the American to clamor against him and against the laws- he has framed for their benefit and protection: he will let them curse him. if it does them ' any good, and fill their papers with rank abuse of him. Knowing that abuse of a benefactor is one of the purest zoological signs that mark the genus man, he magnanimously smiles and keeps straight on benefactoring. Your Irish political leader is the Cin-Cinnatus Cin-Cinnatus who has been, by Providence, called from the spade to lift the reins rtf nrnvpr in Ainp-ricn tev irtiard vnn and to look after your destinies. There are in the new island (aswe call America in our Gaelic) at the present day some thousandF of influential politicians who. if they had by' accident remained in Ireland, would now be daily plying a turf spare or swinging a fir hatchet and nightly philosophizing to eager fireside circles, and whose names for I wiselom and knowledge would be fa- ' s mous for half the length of their own glen. 1 call to tnind three men who as young fellows in tears quitted the same hillside in Ireland on the same day. The landlord, the pinch of poverty and The paternal rule of England sent them forth. They were truculent villains, said the landlord, and would not raise their caps to him: they were seditious scoundrels and a burden to the earth, raid the British officials: Ireland had nothing to offer them, poor fellows, said poverty. Today one of them is a high-jy high-jy respected judge, another an influential influen-tial congressman and the third returned home a rich man ten years ago and married his (deceased) landlord's 1 daughter. And this is not a strikingly exceptional incident. ; The Irishman in America, while he lias acquired new. seldom loses many of the old qualities which distinguished him at home. An Irishman is nothing ; if not fluent and vloqucnt. I have seen : and heard, unlettered old men in the : mountains of Donegal who could put to biush professed orators; but in the American climate they grow (from ; greater practice, I suppose) yet more : eloquent. If you want an impromptu speech at any time on any subject under the sun, a speech that will de- J ceive the listener into the idea that it is a really fine one and that the speak- or knows what he is talking about, call j upon an Irishman, some one has said I to me, adding, "and the less he knows I shout the subject the more eloquent lie will be." That, despite the hard facts of life which he is continually knocking against in America, lie never I'isr-.s the poetry of nature, which is in liim in Ireland, is seen at once when i one touches the reminiscent chord in i the breast of the Irish-American. He has, I think, no le-.-s wit than his j trother in Ireland; the simpler and more naive humor is less apparent, I ;dmit. but. on the other hand, his caustic caus-tic quality has gained more point and fore, and he can make it score like a rap'cr. When ui Irishman retains the naive and combines it with the caustic, he has an effective weapon indeed. Not a it w of our people hore are possessed of this. A lady, told me of an Irish tramp I .would like to think that the pouius is rare) who', having been helped to her house, went on to t'io next, whose mistress, though wealthy and lavish, habitually rcfuni to encourage alms fcekers, schooling the maid to inform iill such that "they had not anything eatable in the house." The broken Irish- man getting refusal, plodded his way back to the house at which he had been helped, and he said : "Ma'am, you'll excuse, me for troubling' ye a second j j time for help, I never do such a thing, but this poor family over the way is in i sore need, I think, and if ye wouldn't mind givin' me a hunk of bread or piece I of pie to fetch to them, goodness will : not forget ye if (as God forbid!) you I should happen to fall into the same I disthress." The old faction spirit still clings to our people abroad as well as at home, and our ill wishers are fond of saying say-ing that you cannot leave two irishmen irish-men in a room alone or one would kill the other in vindication of his method of freeing Ireland. And so they tell us that this want of cohesion, of agreement, agree-ment, of unity is one of the big defects of our nature in America as well as at home. The people who call it a fault because we do not always agree regarding re-garding ways; and means are superficial thinkers. 'Some one has said that the curse of our Irish nature is accentuated accentu-ated individuality. That this is the key to the problem I admit, but that individuality indi-viduality accentuated is a curse I deny. Other nationalities there are, and successful suc-cessful ones, who let one man or two men think for them and crowd like a Hock of sheep wheresoever the driver drives them. They are successful. Con-tenterl Con-tenterl sheep will grow fat. But every Irishman sets a value too high a value if you like on his own intellect, and thinks for himself, and thinks that he can think as well as his neighbor, if not better. And though, collectively, this is a misfortune, it is an admirable ! trait individually. j From the ordinary worldly what you i call the practical point of view, then, Irishmen may be unfortunate in their natures-, but looked at from the moral level, as good men should look at such, they are specially blessed. Once two of my countrymen disagreed about the right and wrong of a subject, and at length came to blows. When one of them "knocked out" the other (if you will permit me lorrowing from the language of your ring), he bent over j his fallen friend and asked, "Have ye got enough?" "Plenty. Lord knows." "Who's right, then?" "You're right, of course though the divil take me if I believe it." "Then give us a shake of your fist, ar.d ye're free to believe what ye choose, so long as ye don't want to shove it clown my throat." That was an empty illustrative combination of asr-ertive individuality and moral tolerance. toler-ance. For. though the Irish-American does not get proper credit for it, he-is'a very tolerarat individual much more , tolerant now than before he quitted home. Even the North of Ireland Orangeman, who, with the possible exception ex-ception of Mohammed's henchman, is the most tolerant individual that ever stalked over the earth, grows brc ad, liberal and Irish in America. Yet among us northern Irish the old feeling of party animosity takes long killing, I admit. On one St. Patrick's day an linp-rapinllo mivni- rfllcfl(l tllo vio-l-it rf having the green floated over the city hall. An indignant northern Irishman was. to an American, group, rating the contemptible mayor at a grand pace. One of the Americans interposed: "But, Charlie, if he granted you Irishmen such a privilege on this day, the Dutch would ask to have their flag hoisted on a day of their celebration." "Certainly, "Certain-ly, an' why shouldn't they?" said the just Charlie, hotly "Oh. but then the French would ask to have th.eir.fiag. too. hoisted on their" day." "An',-, of course, so it should,'.' Charlie assented. "And then the Swedes would look for the same privilege."- "Certainly, why not?" "And you'd let the Dagos have theirs, too." "Justice is justice, evpn if a man is a Dago," and Charlie looked about him with a bold, challenging air. "And you'd give the Greek and the Jew the same right?" "The Greek, the Jew and the Turk." assented Charlie. "And on the 12th day of July, of course, the Orangemen would fly their flag on it?" Instantly Charlie placed a fearful fist under his questioner's nose, and said: "I would br'ak the nevk of the man who would propose it." The partial disgust and disJike with which, at one time, the southern Irish and the northern Irish in America viewed each other are much mitigated in these days. I think it was principally principal-ly because of the non-Celtic element, or, at least, non-Irish, for which the north was noted, that the southerners detested us, the Far-downs. It will be remembered now, when the greenhorn tumbled down a dark sewer and the Kearyman hailed him to know if he was far down, the poor fellow fearfully repiied: "No, no, thank God, I'm only from Limerick." Even between the purely Celtic and Irish northern and the southern there is an interesting difference dif-ference of characteristics. Whether or not it is from his long association with the Scot I know not. but our northern Irish Celt represses his emotions and is distrustful of strangers, whereas the southern Irishman is1 a jolly comrade, and has told you the history of himself and all his kin on an hour's acquaintance. The northern north-ern Is slower in friendship and I think, truer. He is not nearly fo brilliant as his southern cousin, but he is a sounder reasoner and a brainier man. The northern will never make as accomplished a gentleman as the southern: and he will never win his way so fast or ro well. Yet he has more tact and more eelfihness than his neighbor. Not only are my kin to be found in every possible and impossible corner and calling in the United States, showing show-ing their adaptability and versatility, but they ofttimes are found in odd and ludicrous situations. In a big western town once I wandered into a show to hear a. ransomed Circassian girl, who had been long enslaved by the Turk, detail her wonderful experiences. Her early life in Circassia, with all Its loveliness love-liness a-nd joy, was as beautifully and graphically detailed as her after years with the Mohammedan, and both the j pretty girl (for she was pretty) and hei wonderful tale were dmihlv wonderful j and interesting to me, inasmuch as I discovered that Circassians speak English Eng-lish with an excellent County Galway brogue. I am fond of little crowds, and loitering along State street in Chicago, one night, stopped on the skirts of a little gathering which had congregated around an earnest looking Kentuckian preacher, who was peeking from the Christian .Chicagoan help for missionary mission-ary work among the benighted heathen of h'.s -Kentuckian town. This good man preached at his audience audi-ence and prayed for them by turns, and a haggard, big framed fellow who stood by the preacher, bearing a standard, stand-ard, punctuated his master's prayers with intermittent, long drawn, "Praise God!" which was given with such an exquisite Irish brogue that rpy curiosity curios-ity was very much awakened, for I had never seen an Irishman in such -an office before. I saw well that Patrick I had fallen upon evil times. Both his I countenance and his clothes showed it. i and the gapes in his boots spoke loudly j to the same effect. His eye met mine at length, and the humor of the situation situa-tion proving too much for me. I smiled, I fear, a rather quizzical smile. The lines about the poor fellow's mouth instantly relaxed, and smiling, tod, at being caught, he dropped his eyes to the ground. I edged around to where lie stood, though he tried to frown me off. "Hard luck?" I whispered in his ear between responses.-. "The divil s own luck Praise God!" Of our people in America, oftentimes the least iadieal change' takes place ar.-r,g the poorest and the hardest working. They very often retain all the beautiful, unsophisticated traits which, barring the sparse contents of a little red bundle, were the only wealth they brought with them to the new island is-land the island of hopes and dreams. Somewhere before, perhaps, I told the story, which will bear repeating, ai the two Irish navvies, who, on a cold and ! dirty February day, their bones prob- ably aching and their clothes certain-j certain-j ly soaked with sleet, after a scanty lunch in the shelter of a wall smoked , in silence the pipe of peace and content. con-tent. At length one of them broke the i silence with: "Jimmy, I'm tour the ' imp'ror of Jarminy never smokes!" ; Jimmy puffed for still another few mo-; mo-; ments, reveling in the luxury, j Then he spoke the sentiments of both "Poor divil!" and both relapsed into i blissful peace again. Rank and riches and the other things of this world are not all-in-all to the soul of the Celt, no matter how unlettered he may be or , unfortunate his lot. One who had been i very poor and hard pressed in Ireland, ; but was comparatively prosperous here, ' on being asked: "Well, Mat, this is the country for you you never had as ; happy times in Ireland?" "Well," Mat said, deliberately, "as; regards that, i Americay (may God prosper it!) is a i fine country entirely. But as for me-i me-i self well, I may get a better bite to I ate, and am sure of it, an' better duds i to wear, an' a sounder roof over me, ibut that's all." That they very, very seldom forget i those that they left behind them in Ire-i Ire-i land does them infinite credit. And if, I by chance, an Irish boy goes ashaugh-! ashaugh-! grin (astray) here and ceases to help his father at home, bad and bad as this I boy may be or grow, he makes heroic efforts to keep his fa!l from the knowl- edge of the father and mother in Ire-! Ire-! land, whose hearts, he knows well, would break if only they knew. And as he thinks chiefly of saving them, so they, in turn, like not for their loads to rest upon "the poor boy who is away." Because of my position as district dis-trict school teacher in my county of Donegal my services were frequently requisit'oned as amanuensis when a father wished to write to his boy in America, and often the most beautiful and touching thing about these let ters was what they refused to put in them. Once, I remember, a poor man whose struggle for existence sore wished fome help from his son in Georgia, in case the boy could easily spare it. "There's another year's rent comin' due." iaid he, "so I'll have to let him know that the yalla cow died lpst Sunday Sun-day night." "But," I said, "didn't pome one tell me that you sold the other cow on the Fairday of Donegal?" "So I did so. I did. I had to" and the poor fellow's eyes were suffused. "Then you have not a cow at all left?" "Och, I know that, thank God. But ye needn't tell Neil that don't mention it, plaise." "Don't mention it!" said I. severely. "Oh, no; oh. no," the poor man pleaded; "that would be putting it too bare!" All the world's herces are not killed in battle. My countrymen in America have, despite de-spite desperate disadvantages, asserted their solid wort'h.and sterling qualities. and compelled the American, the German Ger-man and the Jew to acknowledge and esteem that worth and those qualities. The Irish navvy of yesterday is a man of position and power today, who has J helped to gain for our race the respect i it has richly merited. It is a pleasure and a pride to find in every big enterprise, enter-prise, every big undertaking, every big newspaper, in every big store, from Seattle Se-attle to South Carolina, Irishmen almost al-most invariably holding the posions of trust and responsibility. And it is remarkable that even Uhe very shrewd Jew, everywhere over the states, must have hie right hand man Irish. For a confidential position, for a position requiring re-quiring dominating powers, for a position po-sition requiring exceptional executive ability, an Irishman is the choice. For, my countryman carried with him to America and has used to good purpose pur-pose his old battle cary, "Fag an bea-lach!" bea-lach!" (Clear the way.) SEUMAS MACMANUS. |