The Irish standard., 1902-01-18

amounted 10 S,UUU,uUU people. IL was
ascertained by official inquiry in Eng
land that these immigrants were send
ing home the enormous sum of $1,000,
600 every year to enable father and
mother and brother and sister to fol
low them to their new country, or tc
live in comfort in the old. When we
think of the poverty Of that people
and their scant wages, building oul
railroads for us at GO cents a day,
believe there can be found no Other
like example in the world of a gener
osity so magnificent.
If there be one lesson in which all
authorities are agreed, it is that the
greatest nations are made up of a
mingling of races. If you leave out
the negro, our country is made up of
about the same elements, in about the
same proportions, that made Great
Britain when the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth. The Celt not only had
kept the purity of his blood in Ire
land, but, in spite of Saxon and Nor
man and Dane, he was still the largest
single part of England.
Now. in this mighty chemistry, whose
processes are age long, whose caul-
drons are continents the elements do
not mingle without effervescence and
strife. Conflicts of religion, the struggle
for political mastery, the hatred Of race,
the scorn of the gentleman for the
inferior, the sullen anger of poverty
toward wealth, all keep the great
mass in what, after all, is healthy
activity. But still. time, the great
reconciler, does one sure work. Then
the nation becomes one people. They
have common interests and common
loves and common fears. The same
stars look down on them. They wor-
ship the same God. They hope for the
same heaven. Sunset and sunrise,
spring and autumn, summer and WIN
ter, speak the same lesson to the soul,
The noblest of human passions, love
of country. burns alike in every bos-
ON.
The boys and girls go to the same
school and the same college. prosper
ity and adversely. hope and fear. joy
and sorrow, come to all alike. AS
civilization and wealth grow, they
come to read the same books and to
think the same thoughts. They fol-
low the same flag They stand side
by side on the same battletields. The
kindly charities of life melt the ice.
The touch of nature that makes the
whole world akin makes one family of
them also. And then the magnet
which is in every boys bosom sets the
needle trembling in the bosom of the
girl, the same needle that responded
to the same magnet when Adam saw
his bride on waking from his first
sleep. Cupid is ever the strongest of
the gods. The races intcrmarry
Now. ! think we cam affirm without
doubt, il history teaches us anything.
that the greatest and strongest M
tons always have been and always
will be those that are constantly get
ting new blood from an ,lnbrokcn
stream If immigration.
The great races assert their great
qualities. no matter how adverse in
the beginning may he their conditions.
The peasant, the serf. the newer OF
wood and the drawer OF water the
lower social stratum. not the gentle
man of blue blood, not the ruler, not
the aristocrat. gives character to the
nation and i'm the end becomes the
dominant power. The staying and
growing and mastering quality has
been shown by the Celtic race, wher-
ever it has been found. If the Celt
has been oppressed in Ireland the Cclt
has given very largely the strength to
England that has enabled her to op-
press him.
Our anxiety as to the permanence
of the republic has gone by. 1t would
he presumptuous to make n confident
prediction for the future of anything
in this world. But If there be any
thing that will abide, we have right
to hope that the republic will abide
II has already outlasted Kingdoms and
thrones and dynastics and forms Of
government in the old world. The
simple mechanism which is ut the bot
tom of our New England communities,
the town and the parish, whose origin
no man can discover, have performed
the same important functions of gov.
eminent in simple democratic majesty,
now for nearly 800 years. while the
map Of Europe has many times chang
ed. Empire has succeeded republic,
and republic has succeeded empire.
deem the two most gracious ac-
tions in our history, and among the
most gracious actions in all history,
the declaration of our own indepcnd.
.ence, and the raising Of Japan to her
feet among the nations of the earth
No man, no people, lives to it's ideal
always. We have fallen sadly short
of ours. The centrifugal forces seen
at work just now. But am very con
fident that the attraction of the eter
nal gravitation will assert it's power
again, and that tho natiOn in its larger