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Show UNBEATEN IRISH ATHLETE He Rules the World, a Veritable King of tha Gladiatorial Empire, Wherein Mighty Feats of Skill, Strength, Enduranca and Fearlessness are the Requisite Insignia In-signia of Honorable Membership He Is' the Pure Descendant of a Virile, Virtuous, Virtu-ous, Holy Motherhood, Born in a Puissant Puis-sant Faith, j '..j-.i7.z..&. (Written for The Infermouniam Catholic.) The Amateur Athletic I'nion of -the United States, through its president. James -E. Sullivan, has accepted the time of ! :-." seconds for one hundred hun-dred yards made lat June by Dan 1. Kelly of Spokane. Spo-kane. Kelly, with Arthur Duffy, formerly of Georgetown I'niversity. Washington, now holds the. world's record for the hundred yards sprint. That is to say. these two young IrUh-Amerieaus are today to-day the fastest short distance runners in. the world, and the swiftest the world has ever known. Early in the year a young Iridi-Canadian. AVilliam Sher-riiig, Sher-riiig, representing- St. Patrick's Amateur Athletic Club, Hamilton, Ontario, sailed unattended and without any blare of trumpets, for Greece There, at Athens, in the presence of the king, the heir apparent, ap-parent, and distinguished representatives of Europe, he met the fastest long- distance runners of th . world, ar.il von the historic Marathon race, of; twenty-five miles six hundred yards, carrying back' the championship to his city and club, so that to-j day three men of Irish parentage hold the. Avorld's records for races calling for unexampled speed ami. endurance. . . In every department of athletics, in all field exercises ex-ercises demanding a display of phenomenal strength, it is conceded by the official keepers of records that the men of Irish birth or of Irish descent hold pre-eminently first place. In fact, -if properly trained, the Irish athlete, in-line, eases out' I of ten, outclasses in every branch of athletics thosV. of any other race or country. An" Irish-Canadian, John McCaffray, tAvice in I succession won the Boston ..Marathon, and only a few weeks ago another Irish-Canadian of St. Patrick's Pat-rick's Club, Hamilton, comes OA-er to Chicago ami from a bunch of sixty crack runners romps home, winning the Chicago 3Iarathon, and practically, distancing his field. In rowing Edward Ilanlan and William O'Con-. nor of Toronto, Tom Sullivan of England, Michael Push of Australia Avere in their day champions cham-pions of the world, and noAV Edward Durnan, an. Irish-Canadian, has sailed for Australia to row. Towns for the world's championship. Three times Kelly of Oxford University Avon the diamond sculls, and two years ago Louis Scholes, an Irish-Cana-. dian, brought home the world's sculling; trophy? from Henley. Eor four consecutive years the Shamrocks ofj Montreal A-ere lacrosse champions of the world. Iat putting the shot and casting heavy weights. Elan-j ag-an, Kiely. llorgan, Sheridan and Mitchel have, no peers. Sheridan avoii the discus event at Ath-j ens in competition Avith the Avorld. and Flanagan has time and again broken all records for hammer throwing, and has lately set a mark for the sixteen-' pound hammer that for fifty years may not be-crossed, be-crossed, except by himself. .1 if. I. Sweeny of St. Xavier Club', Xew York'J holds the record for the high jump 6 feet 3 3-4j inches. From the days of Donelly, who wrestedi the championship of England from Cooper and' again from Oliver down to the present, the Irishj and Irish-Americans have been the most expert-boxers expert-boxers and turf aud ring fighters the world ha3: ever produced. I Beyond dispute, if the young men of Ireland.' today had their own universities and fully equipped gymnasiums, the time and. means to train underj expert trainers such as they have in England and; the United States, they Avould send out from their; ranks a procession of great athletes. It is not th. odd man of Irish blood who, here and there, break records that attract so much attention a3 the sur- prising number of this Irish race Avho stand in th( very front rank of great performers. At no tim was the population of the "tight little island"' moru than eight and a half millions, and today her population pop-ulation is less than that of Scotland. Since 1082 to the present time the island ha been scourged by seventeen famines, nine of Avhich ate up eight millions of her sons and daughters. The famine of 181"-b according to the Irish historian. his-torian. John Mitchel. devoured two millions and opened a river of emigration Avhich threatened ti depopulate Ireland. During these two hundred odd years the m'jss of the people lived on oatmeal, potatoes po-tatoes and buttermilk and not always on a generous alloAvance of these. They had to be satisfied with, this meager fare, for the pork, mutton and meat were sold on the hoof to pay the rent of their wretched holdings. "More than that and this is a most serious affair af-fair for sixteen hundred years these extraordinary people' have been submerged under a deluge of superstitionhave su-perstitionhave endured with singular equanimity the tyranny of an idolatrous hierarchy and priesthood, priest-hood, and for these sixteen centuries have been un-i'.-v the witheiii'.g ai d blightimT influence of th-o "Ki'i:.ih Chu-'eh. ' v iii h,, accorJ:.ii' to the testimony testi-mony of James Anthony Froud and many Protestant Prot-estant historians, bishops and controA-ersalists. paralyzes, par-alyzes, all intellectual and physical groAvth. They were miserably housed and Avretchedly clothed. Continued on Page 4. I . THE IRISH ATHLETE. Continued from Page 1. At most, there are not more than thirty mil- lions of Irish and people of Irish descent speaking the English language today, and from these thirty thir-ty millions have come more men of brawn and I muscle and speed of hand and foot than from the ! hundred and forty millions of the Engli-h speak-j speak-j ing races of the world. Well, confronted with these statements and facts which, according to all expert testimony in physiology phys-iology and psychology, make for the deterioration of a race, how do you account for the pre-eminence and superiority of the Irish in all feats exacting strength, endurance and agility? Of the daily live-of live-of the men whose names we have given and the thousand other Irishmen who have figured so conspicuously con-spicuously in field contests, we know nothing, bur. this we do know, they are descended from a 'clean race from men and women whose domestic morality moral-ity and social purity lift them unto a plane of I admiration. In fact, the purity of the Irish maid- J en and mother has crystallized into a proverb. Three dominant beliefs have from immemorial f times governed the home and religious conduct of the Irish race belief in the sanctity and necessity of confession, in the actuality of the Presenee of Our Divine Lord in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in Holy Communion, and in the holiness and in- violability of the marriage, which St. Paul calls a great sacrament and compares to the mdi-solub'e union of Christ with His church. We waive the diseussion of the influence on the national character charac-ter of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, loyalty to the Holy See and respect and reverence for the priesthood that we may emphasize the action of these three Sacraments on the moral life of thi extraordinary race. These sacraments, when unopposed by the will. I make for individual and national morality, and morality makes for individual and national strength ofmind and body. Shakespeare drew attention o this when Orl.tido's friend Adam claims to he a strong man even in his old age. "For though I look old, yet am I strong and lu-t-. j For in my youth I never did with unbashful forehead fore-head woo The means of weakness and debility." Xor was this observance of the laws of purity the practice of a few individuals who. like, the gladiators glad-iators noticed by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, "striving for the mastery, refraineth themselves from all things that they might receive a corruptible crown." ' Purity; was a national virtue inculcated to the young in the confessional, went back to the establishment estab-lishment of Christianity in the island and continued con-tinued and yet continues to mould the moral eon-duct eon-duct and even the thoughts of the Irish people. This is the secret of the supremacy oF the Irish in all feats of strength nnd agility. If there be any other explanation of the success of the Gael in the department of physical development, we have not heard of it. . i |