The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-02-04

west, pluck the apples of gold that grew
in the gardens Of their dreams, and
TgVel in the joy Of lifting the load that
for years has bent to earth their toll
ing fathers and sOTTowing. mothers
For to all these euligTants America is
and always has been, the land of golden
hopes; they cannot reelize the disap-
pOin5ments, failures, heart burnings
weary, weary toll and heaTtbreajdng
struggles that their kith and kin who
have gone before have had to endure
again ana again in the promised land.
Through the years of their youth the
one great and constant ambition is TO
secure their passage ticket to America,
and they take no thought for the NOR
row that must follow.
To one who considers the childish,
joyous optimism that inspires the irish
youth whose eyes are bent on the
states, and having been here, realizes
the circumstances and learns the trials
and troubles and the struggle that
await his brethren, the matter has a.
deeply pathetic side. True, Dennis
BIcCalliog and Owen Gallagher, and
some others whom 1 might reckon Ou
my fingers. after ten years sojourn in
the states, have gene home with
81, 900 or $500 and bought a
farm and built a house and married
q pretty girl and settled down for the
rest Of their lives, rich and prosperous
men, but against Dennis and against
Owen l might county twenty who never
went back, twenty who struggled all
alone here almost as sorely Is they had
struggled at home in Ireland, and are
STILL after ten and twelve and twenty
years, hoping and hoping to stTlke that
streak OF good luck which viii enable
them to go back to Ireland wealthy
men and proud. Their path, alasi Will
never cross this streak Of luck; yet
they VIII Wrestle on hopefully to the
bitter end, and far less happily than
their struggling brothers in Ireland. By
the SUCCESS Of the two or three or ten
lucky ones who have gone home with
their wealth the youth ct home are
( ent bugasA while they wilifully close
that twenty, fly. 100 whom they
knew, and whom they saw sail off in
/ the track OF the western sun, have not
returned, becaUse they are still in
+ pursuit % thOsa elusive hopes that
+ beckOnod them away.
! The Ne'er-de-weIls.
There come hitler from Ireland also,
/ as, indeed, suppose, from other cOUn-
/ tries. z small percentage of an unwel-
/ come class. When one of our people
/ with little more money than his fell
/ lows reaTs up a son in comparative
/ ease and luxury, and when this son
/ turns out (as often he dOes) a ne er-dO-
well spendthrjft and vagab0nd. and
when his father has tried in vain ali
/ other methods to make him a useful
/ member Of the community and of some
use to himself, the deTnier resort IS
i ever and always, Billy must 90 TO
( America; he's no good here either for
] king OF country" What the conception
/ Of America is in the mind OF this man,
[ I am puzzled 20 determine. but casually
/ looked at it would seem that he regards
( It as some such perfect place as the
world 90 come, where ell things right
+ themselves; or else thinks that the
Americans stand in particular need of
Togues and vegabOnds to run the ma
+ ton
The risks and dangers which fifty
! years ago emigrants underwent on
I landing here are not today, for now
every boy and every girl coming from
Ireland has before him or her a
brother or a sister. a cousin or an in
innate friend. who meets and looks af-
| ter the emigrant And this is a very
necessary thing. for the simplicity
which prevails among very many Of
those who come from remote and
mountainous parts Of Ireland is aston
ishinei and would render them an easy