The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1877-10-14
Morning Star and Catholic 'essens er.
INV ukLRANs SUNDAY, OCTOBER II le97.
BEAUTIFUL AND PATRIOTIC ADDRESS
BY ANTHONY N. KELLEY.

After the Convention OF the lrlsn OAtnoho
Benevolent Union, in Richmond, Va.' last
month, there was q grand banquet st "nlcn
all the delegates and number OF the more
prominent citizens and officials attended. In
response 10 the toast:
'.The Irish Catholic Benevolent UnionNMay
it spread and prosper until its name shall be
stranger in no State or Territory of DOR land"
Music-"St. Patrick's Day"
Hon. A. NJ. Kelley responded as follows:
Tie duty of responding to toast to the
Triah Catholic Benevolent Union hos, through
the partiality Of my brethren, so often fallen
to my hands, that find myself confronted
with the danger either of wide departure
from my text on the one hand, or of q constant
repetition of the came phrases and thought on
the other.
Hitherto have sought to escape this dilem-
ma by selecting special parts of our title or
dressing my self to-such- refections as they
severally excite, and shall follow this GUS
tom tonight.
I do not need to waste q moment in this
presence, in praise of the labors, or in con-
gratulations on the prosperity of our Union
and the anomalous position occupy tonight
half host and half guest-robs me of the
happy privilege that has so often fallon to my
lot of phrasing the thanks of my brethren for
the generous hospitality of our entertainers,
who in many quarters of our country have
caused us to forget that we were not at home.
Tonight feel that all that may justly be
expected of me is that should give some ex-
of the association, in honor of which the toast
is gven-the Irish Catholic Benevolent
Union.
Elsewhere, have spoken of the power and
advantages of Union again of the pervading
obligation and glorious fruits of Benevoence;
and again of the august memories and con-
soling hopes that cluster around the word
Catholic" Be it my brief task tonight to
summon the thoughts inspired by the word
"Irish," and linger amid the memories that iii
the heart and tremble on the lip, and, alas !!
often moisten the eye as we turn the pages.
alternately of glory and of gloom, that mark
the history of Ireland.
If our country may be described by any
title which conspicnously distinguishes her
from all the Independent nations of the earth,
from all that are and all that have been-it is
as the Migrant Nation.
Others have been as free, many as prospe-
rous, many as powerful, many as populoos,
but in the composition of her people the
United States fnds no parallel in history.
This great continent it, indeed, filled from
pole to pole with governments of European
origin; but rightly viewed, with this one ex-
dependency of some particular European pow
er, which has singly SO impressed itself upon
the State that no diversity of. interest or in
fnence checkers it's destiny.
Its national name may be what you will but
in laws and language, in institutions and ira
ditions and sympsthies each bears the seal of
some one European State English or French,
Portuguese or Spanish, and no other.
But here is a nation compacted of the offer
ings of every people and cline and tongue,
venture has had q home.
Here in this Union, upon a common plat
form, all have met, and here have they fought
out their destiny in field whose prizes were
offered alone to genius and talent aud pluck
and strenuous endesvor.
In this free field how has the blood of old
Ireland shown itself, how have her children
borne themselvesS
Why, from the very dawn of Americas in
stitution to this good hour the pages of her
story bristle with the names and blaze with
the deeds of Irelands children. What tyro
in American history does not know; what
Irishman does not thrill With proGd satisfao-
roll of sous CT Erin which bind with linke, no.
BILE and deathless, the glory of Ireland with
the dawn of American Hbertyf OF all the
commissioned officers in the American Army
and Navy one fifth were Irishmep born or Irish
mems sons. The first general officer of Amsri-
ca killed in battle was Richard Montgomery,
an Irishman. The first American commodore
that flung his pennant TO the breeze was John
Barry, lrishman. The ffst Secretary of
the Continental Congress was Charles Thomp-
son, an Irishman, whose character was so ex-
allied that the Indians called him "the man of
TRUTH" and bis countrymeD in Philadelphia
when they wished to describe absolute truth
Charles Tnempson had said it, or the eight
Brigsdier- Generals. commissioned by the first
Congress, one-fourth were Irishmen born. OF
the twenty-seven delegates who answered to
their names in the first Colonial Congress
nine were Irishmen. The first officer who
captured q British fort on land was an Irish:
L u0 uE5b OIuCSr 10 W nom q br1IlbO nag
was struck in naval warfare WAS OBrien, an
Irishman.
But the other dey our fellow citizens of
Vermont were celebrating the Centennial su'
niversary of that gallant battle of BenniuR on,
which was the first reverse that England re-
ceived in the campaign of 1777-it was the he
roic deed of an Irishman's gallant boy, Gen.
John Stark, whom Congress condemned for
disobeying orders one day and made a Brigs-
der the next.
When Benjamin Franklin wrote from Eng
land The sun of liberty is Get; we must now
light up the torches of industry" glorious
Irishman responded from Philadelphis. I'VE
shall light torches of very different kind"
So when the war WAS over and liberty wes Sc
cure the same enlinence in the arts of peace
distinguished the children of Ireland.
1t was an Irishman who planned and built
the Presidenps House and the old st. Charles
Hotel of New Orleans, the handsomest struc-
ture of it's kind then in the world an Irish
man who projected the Erie Canal an Irish
man who built the fret American railway an
lrishman who wrote the first and best treatise
on political economy in America.
And thus, on land and sea, in camp and cab
met, in the professions and in the trades, the
of Erin in the free fields of m rioan an