The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1895-05-25
noted ] [ . FOR Hts C0NCBll |. | I
In This Respect the Anglo-sax'i.on on.
Looms Up Without an
III E&e 9&aE2 tn q sG:tsi .sy45 $5 sfsi ~
Equal on Earth.
No Such Race in Existence and
Never Was, Said Joseph ne-
dill in a Trenchant Essay.
Despite His Lack Of Titles, Powei
and Pelf, ,.'A MANS Man for
a THAI i'm America.

ana FSlI, IA WAN $ q NlaH lOE 5Nat
a. Thas" i'm America.
J. D. O'Connell furnishes the Wash
ington Post with the following trenchant
essay from the pen of q great editor,
Joseph Medill, in the Chicago Tribune in
January, 1858:
8.ttMy children" DR.. Johnson used to
say to his friends, deliver yourselves
from can't" Every age has its cant,
which, in some of the thousand forms of
the thing, is the prevailing rage. That
Of our own time is the Anglo-Saxon
glorihcation. Not a day passes but we
read in print or hear from the platform
the eternal hackneyed boasting about
our manifest destiny the wearlsome
ding dong about the Anglo-Saxon energy
and the rapidity with which the race is
betting the globe and supplanting the
laws, manners and customs Of every
other people. This cant has been echo
ed and re-echoed--in newspaper articles,
stump speeches, congressional harran-
gues, and even in works of ethnology--
till it has become nuisance. We are
sick Of it as ever DIR. Johnson was OF the
everlasting Second Punic War; Who
will deliver me from the Greeks and Ro-
nans?' cried in. agony the classic-ridden
Frenc1lman Who will deliver us from
the Anglo-Saxons? despairingly cry we.
K There are in the United States some
six or eight millions Of people who are
descended from the Anglo-Sazon-- d
that is probably all. That population is
to be found principally in New England,
side by side with men of every cline and
land; not a very stupendous item, is It,
out of some 100000 of men. women and
children. who think and toll between the
ST. Croix river and the bay Of San Fran
cisco 4, True, these thirty-four f millions rlst
all, or nine-te1lths. of them, speak the
language of Shakespeare and Bacon; but
this no more proves them the descend
ants Of that race which was first whipped
by few Scandinavian filibusters, and
afterwards thrashed, held by the throats,
and spit upon when they complained, for
century after century, by a handful of
Normans, than the wearing of wool
len clothes proves man sheep, or
drinking lager beer proves him a Dutch
man.
Who are the men who have btiilt, UP
this nation, and made the glorious re-
public what it is? Are they all, or nearly
all, of Anglo-saxon3 birth or descent?
Not to speak of the Swiss, the Hugenots,
the Dutch and other minor peoples. let
us look at the Irish contingent to Ameri-
can greatness. From the very first set
tlement of the country, in field and
street, at the plow, in the senate and on
the battlefield, Irish energy was repre-
sented. Maryland and South Carolina
were largely peopled by Hibernians.
Maine, New Hampshire and Kentucky
received many Irish emigrants. During
the first half of the last century the emil
grafton from Ireland to this country was
not less than 250,000. When our fore
fathers threw off the British yoke, the
Irish formed a. sixth or seventh Of the
whole population; and one-tourth Of all
the commissioned officers in the army
and navy were of Irish descent. The
first general officer killed in battle, the
first officer Of artillery appointed, the
first commodore commissioned, the first
victor to whom the British flag was
struck at sea, and the first officer who
surprised a fort by land, were Irishmen;
and with such enthusiasm did the emf
grants from esthe Green Isle" espouse the
cause of liberty, that Lord Mountjoy de-
clared in parliament: ~ ou lost America
by the Irish We will not speak of the
physical development of America, to
which two generations Of Irish laborers
have chiefly contributed, but for the con-.
stant supply of which the buffalo might
still be browsing in the Genessee valley,
and Forty -second. street be out Of
town s(speaking Hibernice) in New York;
we will confine ourselves to the men OF
brain who have leayened the mass OF
bone and sinew by which our material
prosperity has been worked out.
who were the CAROLS, the Rutledges,.
the Titzsimmons and the McKeans, Of
the revolution? Whence came Andrew.
jackson, Adds Emmet,, J. g: Calhoun,
and McDuftle Of a later day Whence
the protector of the Erie canal, the in.
Iye1ltor OF the first steamboat, and the
bull lder of the first American railway?5
Whence two OF our leading sculptors,
Powers and Crawford hence our most
DISTINGUISHED political economist Ca
rev? Whence the hero OF Winchester,
whom our city with all the cities pf the
North has recently del ghted to honor?