The Irish standard., 1902-11-29
JoHNL,BoYLE o'REILLY.
His Biographer Defends the Pee
and Patriot.

| The following defense of John Boyle
O'ReiIly from the unreasonable attacks
on his memory by Rev. Peter G. Yorke
appeared in last weeks Pilot, from the
pen of Mr.. James Jeffrey Roche:
The San Francisco Leader Of Nov.
says:
'"Thc Leader has been attacked freely
because of statement to the effect
that the late John Boyle O'Reilly was
one Of the greatest enemies Irish Ire
land ever had. 1t is easy enough to
attack, but it is not always that writ
ers in Catholic and Irish newspapers
are able to give good reasons for their
bad temper.
"John Boyle O'Reilly represented
English Ireland. Whatever fame was
his came to him because of his pro-
ficency in the tongue of his country's
tyrants. He knew nothing of the
spirit of the Celt from which Irish
Ireland must be built up. If he were
alive now he would probably lie in the
same boat with the Fords and the
Roches and the Richardsons-passi
round the hat for the modern Irish
patriots"
Passing the suggestion that Mr..
O'Reilly would, if alive today, prob
ably be Gin the same boat with
the editors Just mentioned, to whom
no higher compliment was ever paid,
it is curious to know how the deceased
poet could be called by any sane man
zone of the greatest enemies Irish Ire
land ever had" He gave all his man.
ly life to the service of Ireland but
he won all his fame "by his proficien-
cy in the tongue of his country's ty-
rants" In which respect he was as
great an enemy of Ireland as Emmett
or Fitzgerald or Grattan or even Par
nell. O'Connell. who spoke Irish, was
equally an enemy of his country when
he used the Sassenach speech in the
House of Commons, thereby winning
Catholic emancipation when he might
have lost it by pleading it's cause in
tongue which not one of his hearers
understood. Father Yorke himself is
open to grave suspicion of disloyalty
when he uses English, however lamely,
in his flamboyant editorials. He
should he watched. But. says our es-
tcemed contemporary:
"Our business with O'Reilly now is
not as a patriot. The Irish are past
masters in the art of hero worship, and
of late years Irish heroes have not
been numerous or very heroic. This
may account for the laurels that have
been thrown at small men. O'Reilly
was one of the small Irish heroes, but
it is fact that the Irish people in
America for years looked upon him
as giant"
"O'Reilly was at his best only
third-rate literary man." adds our
Frisco critic crushingly, and proves
the statement to his own and our satls-
faction. Nobody ever claimed that
O'Reilly was in the first rank, with
Homer or Shakespeare or Dante; nor
in the second, with Byron or Schiller
or Camoens; to quote at random. But
if he was in the third, with Poe and
Lowell, and Longcellov-, to mention no
others. he was in very good company,
@vocpst no otlor vorCoo
The Eastern States, whose opinion
our Western critic shifts at, have hon.
ored good many literary men whose
worth has been recognized by the
world Of letters. California may cher
ish loftier ideals, too lofty, indeed, for
the liberation Of anything short Of the
first class. That may be why it gave
such scant encouragement to the few
bards who went frtln other States to
give some honor to it and get none
frAm it. Bret Harte Of New York and
Joaquin Miller Of Indiana did more for
the glory of their adopted State than
all the railroad kings and mining mag
mates Of whom it boasts. But we are
sure that this is only because California
will have nothing to do with any liter
airy stars of lesser magnitude than her
own justly famous "big" trees and
''big" mountains. and "big" potatoes,
pears and peaches. She is waiting for