The Irish standard., 1902-07-26

| adoption. (Applause.) If we can i'm
agine for Il moment some man, who
has in his heart no love for his native
land, a man who does not love in his
very soul the place where he was
born, the home of his fcrafathers, O..
his kindred, Of his race, he is selfish,
as he is Il heartless and soulless man.
He is man whom men would not
respect nor homer, but dislike; he is
sucht an one as the Scottish bard de-
scribcs as one who goes down to the
vile dust from which he sprung, un-
wcpt, unhonored, and unsung.' Cap
plause) We desire, then, to honor the
memory of Il great man; Il man who
was great by reason of his gifts and
of his genius; fen no one can question
the genius Of Moore, the Irish poet;
and the greatest and most capable
have placed him as living force
among the great, not only of our
time and all time, but AMONG the
greatest lyric poets of all nations.
(Applause.)
'When l said few words a year
ago l think l expressed the wish that
Moore's melodies would be cultivated; !;
that the young who learn music would
be taught to sing those beautiful Irish
airs to which Moores mel1 have
been adapted. 1t is not, think, gen
| orally 50; and if we try to find Il re;l-
son why we love the music of France,
of Germany, of Italy, and justly So
magnificent music-wly not love the
music of Ireland? (Applause.) We
may, perhaps, find reason in this:
That Ireland for many generations has
not been great and prosperous as other
nations, and, unfortunately, it is in hui
man nature to bow down before and
to worship material greatness and sue
cess, and men do not realize that some
thing which is Infinitely higher than
material greatncss-that greatness CT
spirit and Of soul, like the soul of Ire
land, which has never lost it's faith
and never yielded up it's spirit and
its desire for independence. (vehc-
ment applause)
"And there may be, perhaps, anoth-
er"cason. There may be some who are
influenced by the English tradition re-
garding Ireland. This tradition is a
false one. 1t would decry and make
little of everything that is Ireland's,
and some perhaps may he weak
enough to yield to this base tradition.
We know very we'll that when Eng
land. being stronger than Ireland was,
destroyed her temples and her monu-
ments, she also robbed l,cr of her jew
els and then placed upon her shoul-
dels robe of m 'ckery, am, attempted
to point her out to the derisiOn Of the
nations, and said: See how poor she
is now, and how ignorant her people
are, when she had made them so.
(Applausc) This tradition, which has
been false one for 300 years, we, in
our day. should not yield to, and the
time ought to come when all should
know better and should lcsist it hon
orably in every way they can. Cap
plause) We all believe, as we hope,
that the long, cruel night of darkness
and oppression has passed away from
Ireland We hope that we will be-
hold the dawn of day that will be
a bright one, and, in the fullness of
that day, when it comes, may we not
wish, as | trust the Irish people will
strive. to inscribe the tombs and to
build the monuments of their great
men, and that in that day Moore's mel
odies will be sung with pride all over
the earth in the homes of our music
loving people" Great applausc)