The Irish standard., 1901-12-14
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.
Hero Of San Juan Is Half Irish and
Half butch.
Already the Industrious workmen in
the Great American Myth Factory
who call themselves contemporary
historians, of whom Mr.. Maclay, the
inventor of the Battle of Santiago
fiction, is fine example, have begun
to construct an ancestry for President
Roosevelt calculated to please their
several patrons, says the Boston Pilot.
The ingenious Macarthur, he of
self-written threatening letters. was
first in the field to proclaim in the
pages of a cheap magazine that Mr..
Roosevelt is fine type of the brawny
Scot.
Another writer, IN another maya
zine of the same calibre, promptly
filed caveat declaring that the Presi-
dent is "Scotch-Irish."
Now comes a gentleman in the
Century Magazine for December, call
ing himself can Old Acquaintance" Of
the Chief Executive, and says:
Born Of Northern father and South
ern mother; commingling in his veins
the blood of the English, Dutch,
Scotch and Huguenot; reared in New
/ tytnr ont Of 1,ic Hfn IN %h0 Ro,,
York, and educated in New England;
West, and part in Washington,
where all sections meet on common
plane, Theodore Roosevelt is the most
catholic, cosmopolitan, and non-sec-
tional American in public life since
Henry Clay"
The writer last quoted comes near
err the truth than either of the other
imaginative gentlemen, save in one
most important particular. The eng
fish" strain to which he gives the first
place is entitled to no place at all in
Mr.. Roosevelt's pedigree. AS his
friend and classmate, Mr.. Francis
Lowell, said in introducing the future
President to Boston audience at
Huntington Hall on Nov. Is, 1893: "He
is one Of the truest Americans in the
country and his chief boast is that he
has not Il drop of English blood in his
veins"
The Scotch and French elements are
| NOR CTR IN hn
blood, each being merely what analy-
tical chemists call 80 trace"
President Roosevelt himself, no
longer ago than last JIne, speaking on
Commencement Day at Harvard Col
lege, said:
II am particularly glad that 1
should be allowed to speak here with
my good friend, if he will allow me to
call him such, the German Ambassa-
dor. Mr.. Ambassador, when the
president of the college was speak
ing of the part played by Germans
and Scandinavians, I felt would
like to put in modest plea for
Ambassador, the two stocks I repre-
sent are the only ones omitted-the
Dutch and the Irish. Mr.. President,
those of us who have known the Ger
man Ambassador, place peculiar
value upon what he has said today
in speaking of his people in the words
of cordial friendship to the United
States, because we know he means
every word he has said. l agree with
every word Of the appreciation of the
ties that bind us towards your ances-
tor in England Cunning to Mr.. Bel
lows. only want to make plea
that there are a great many more Of
us who are also bound by ties of
blood to other nations of the Old
World.'
1.-THE two stocks l represent, the
Irish and Dutch" 1t is splendid
mixture Of fire and phlegm, daring
and GOODNESS. Blended together, they
make an ideal soldier and ruler No
wonder the English try to claim him,
even as they claim Burke and We'll
llngton, and as their "Anglo Saxon"
cousins this side of the water claim
everybody of distinction in American
history.
The scrubby literary iackals who
camp on the trail of the holder Anglo
Saxon marauders claim every prize
overlooked by these, and many not
overlooked, rs their proper prey, which
they label Scotch Irish" Generally
they wait until the distinguished sub
ject is dead, because it is embarras-
sing even to their audacity to be con-
tradicted by the subject himself.
! The present subject has spoken
without any ambiguity on several oc-
casions. For instance. at the New
England Dinner at Brooklyn, N. Y,
on Dec. 81, 1885, he said:
Il always feel at the banquets of
| the New England Society that 1 and
the president of the Friendly Sons of
st. Patrick, whom so often find here
with me, represent at this feast the
victims who are dragged at the