Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-08-30
HOW WILL THE IRISH VOTE7
a Clear and Succinct Analysis of Irish
American Politics.

The Irish vote, as is generally known,
has been until recently solid phalanx
and cabaled annex to the Democratic
party, the exceptional Irish republican
to be found here and there only the more
sharply denoting the rule This NAV
not be cause for congratulation, but
we are now in the region of practical
politics and have to do with facts That
the elements constituting the Irish vote
should on occasions feel called upon to
express themselves distinctively respect
ing political measures and movements,
calculated to affect interests common to
them as men of the same race or religious
faith, Is not unnatural In this respect
the Irish are not unlike other people.
But why the Irish vote should ever have
been solid vote, and why it should
have been so long held as a permanent
asset of the Democratic party, is ques-
ton the answer to which, if not alto
gether satisfactory, would form most
interesting chapter in work devoted to
the curicsities of American politics.
Any political force in this country
which is organized, or held intact, on a
racial or religious basis is un-American;
and any solid vote which wears even
the semblance of foreign complexion is
lntolerable. This country is not a con-
federation of colonies nor a conglomera-
ton of alien clans. 1t Is a nation, with
the organic life and spirit of nation;
and it is most desirable that all the ele-
ments o. our population should, as
speedily as circumstances will allow, as
simulate themselves to the distinctive
American type. This national unity
does not. of course, imply agreement in
all political views. Differences there
will be and must be- But American
citizens ought to think and act in Ameri-
can affairs as Americans. and not as
Irishmen or Germans and Englishmen, if
they put themselves forward as such,
must be regarded as foreigners, and
foreigners must have nothing to do with
American affairs.
| do not want to pander to vulgar pre-
judice. [ have no respect for that loud
and offensive Americanisms which,
whilst it assumes to be the exclusive
guardian of all national interests, is it.
self too often the offspring of race and
religious bigotry. The spurious pa
triotism which forever cants about the
foreigner" is itself foreign to the true
spirit of true Americanism. He who
natural, and loyalty to the genius of
American nationality enjoins nothing
that IS repugnant to nature or manhood.
My contention is that Americans of
Irish birth ought to be just to themselves,
as they are loyal to their adopted coun-
try, and justice to themselves requires
that they should, like other Americans,
agree to disagree in politics. This is the
h In 70 4 h.
will be found the wise thing also.
Now, Irish Americans were not just to
themselves SO long as they were a solid
vote. The most intensely American
element of the population, they suffered
tn emselves to appear in semi-alien
character; loving liberty, they were
made to assume an attitude of seeming
hostility to the friends of human free
dom; the victims Of British tyranny and
avarice, Irishmen in America became
the strong, blind steadfast supporters of
British Free Trade, which laid the in
dustrie6 Of Ireland in ruin, and forced
her children to seek bread and a home
beyond the seq! Into these Inconsistencies
they were lead by superstitious allie
glance to party management
In the fifties the spirit of nativism
Cpb ONCI AZ anu
an ayowed Knownothing, was elected
governor of the state. The Montgomery
Guards. an Irish American military
body, was disbanded, and other affronts
were put upon men of the Irish race
and the Catholic faith. The republican
party was then in its incipicncy, and as
it was organized Massachusetts took her
place in the column of Republican
Stotn fo ~ 10 1T1,t,@ C
preceding events. prejudiced the re-
publican party in the minds of adopted
citizens; and for years after demagogues
on the Democratic stump, and to hold
the Irish vote in the Democratic party,
sought TO identify republicanism with
knownOthingism- tried to make the
masses believe that the republican party
was but new cover for the old pro
ecriptlve organization. The truth is
that, while the democratic and the re-
publican parties, as such, were then as
now free from the charge of bigotry,
both democrats and republicans were
tainted more or less with Knownothing-
ism, and democrats more so. The in
suits offered to Catholics and Irishmen
in the city of Boston were shameful,
but they paled before the anti Catholic
and anti-Irish outrages perpetrated in
Baltimore, Louisville and New Orleans.
In 1856, when the Native-American
party put national ticket in nomina-
ton, Maine cast but three per cent Of
her popular vote for the KnownoUhing
candidates, while Virginia cast forty
seven per cent of her popular vote for
them, and Maryland, which has been
ever antl-republican, gave to the Know
nothing nominees its entire electoral
vote. What is the spirit that has actuat-
ed H0Tper'S Weekly, the New York Times,
Puc&. and the E0e11ing Post, if it is not
the knownothing spirit? And this
spirit, by which the genius of the Ameri-
can system has been exercised out of the
Republican body, now dominates the
Cleveland democracy and sorely torments
its victims.
am not arraigning the democratic
party for its sins of commission or omis-
sion, nor do l hold it responsible for
the acts or words of individuals affiliated
with it. There are, as it is to be ex-
pected, narrow minded men in both
parties; but the charge Of bigotry
against either political organization is
not tenable, and Irish Democratic poll
ticians who in the past gave currency to
the fiction that one half the American
people were the sworn foes of Irishmen
and Catholics were engaged in very
small work, of which, it is to be hoped,
those politicians are now ashamed.
With the progress of education, and in
the light of the knowledge of the facts
here presented, the Irish vote, once
solid, is now in state of solution.
Irish Americans of to-day are practical
and inquiring. They are not to be
amused by fairy tales; they ask what is
the living issue of the day, and the man
or the party that tries to brighten them
with the ghost of Knownothingism in