The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-01-28

OF the song you could raise: We are
coming, Father Gladstone, fifteen mill
ions strong How the British lion would
hide his diminished head!"
A gentleman, an invited guest, capa-
BILE of delivering that speech to an Irish
audience can scarcely be said to possess
the savoir faire needful in diplomacy.
And a gentleman entertaining such SEN
timents is not qualified to represent this
country at the British court. The senti-
ments are In high favor there, no doubt,
but Americans are still sympathetic
with Ireland's unQuenchable passion for
freedom, and are sufficiently acquainted
with history to understand how much
reason England has given Ireland for
hating her rule.
President Mckinley will, we think,
hardly outrage American citizens Of
Irish blood by appointing Mr.. Choate to
St. James. He will hardly venture to
launch upon the troubled waters of di-
plomacy gentleman who finds play for
his humor in a breach of hospitality that
would outrage the sense Of propriety of
the humblest peasant in the land for
which Mr.. Choate feels so profound q
scorn.
Leaving Ireland out of the question
altogether, that equally ill-timed and in
solent speech should bar Mr.. Choate
from any ambassadorship, and most of
ho 1,oc II fo
Britain.
The offensive address by Mr.. Choate
was delivered on March II, 1893, and ap-
peared in the New York Sun and other
metropolitan papers on the following
day. He made subsequent speeches Of
the same character, but not as a guest
of any Irish society, for he has never
been the guest Of any of them from that
day to this. Commenting on his ap-
pointment, the Irish World says of
him:
If there is more virulent enemy of
the Irish name than Joseph H. Choate,
we do not know of him. What the
Orangeman is to our race in Ireland,
what the Know-Nothing was a genera
tion ago, and what the A. P. A. is today,
that is Choate. The evil spirit that
troubled them possesses him. The man
really acts like demoniac. In other
things he seems rational, but when Ire
land and the Irish are touched on, the
man acts like mad. He hates the Irish
as the devil hates holy water. His
malevolence is not confined to any class
or section of Irish. He abhors them all.
He hates the Republican Irishman quite
as much as he does the Tammany Irish
man. He tells Irish Republicans that
"the Republican party can get along
without them" He would have all Irish
Americans, with their wives and their
children, and their children's children,
betake themselves out of this country
and go back to Ireland And he as
sures them that "the Republican party
the party to which I belong'-will "re-
joce at their departure"
Whenever occasion offers to spit his
venom at our race he has done it, ana
when no occasion offers ITSELF he makes
it. 1t matters not what the subject un-
der discussion is, when his cue comes he
must let drive at the Irish. To crafty
this devilish spleen he will accept an in
vitation to speak on any platform. He
would accept an invitation from the
Irish themselves in order to insult them.
For the dinner the Friendly Sons of ST.
Patrick of New York gave him, Choate
paid them back in his own black vomit.
Of course there is no possible excuse for
the misconduct of this blackguard at
that table; but whilst the blood boils at
the indignities offered to the race on the
occasion, we are not sure but that
those Anglicized coteries got what they
deserved.
1t is in the rascal's blood. From the
serpent's egg will come serpent.
Choate was Matched in the witch city of
Salem. He comes from the murderous
and fanatical Puritans, the quintessence
of whose religion is hatred and intoler-
ance. Joseph Choate at the close of the
Nineteenth century is in spirit what
John Endicott, of the town of Salem,
was at the beginning of the Seventeenth
century.
And this man is now about to go to
England. He is nominated by President
Mckinley to represent the United States
government at the court Of St. James.
Mr. Mckinley knows the manner Of man
he is sending. His animus toward the
Irish race, who constitute full third
Of the white population of this country,
is well known to him. Surely there
were not lacking fit and proper men,
men who know how to be decent as we'll
as diplomatic; why was not some such
man selected? Scores of names were
suggested for the mission within the last
two months, but it was not until the
name of Joseph H. Choate was present
ed'-so the Washington dispatches say
that the president seemed specially in
| terested."
What need, therefore, is there for a
formal Anglo-American alliance? The
appointment of Choate is sign and
pledge that, so far as lies in the power
of this administration, the alliance is al