The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1903-03-28
England, Weary of Her Many Miserable
Failures, Determined to do
Justice at Last.
Faction is Already Dead and Home Rule
is Now In Sight, Says the
Noted Correspondent.

At banquet given under the aus
pices Of the Irish Fellowship Club,
Walter Wellman, the famous corre-
spondent of the Chicago Record-Her-
aid, whose letters from Great Britain
and Ireland to that journal have COM
manded universal attention, delivered
the following brilliant and eloquent ad-
dress at the Auditorium, Chicago, on
the night of the 17th before large
and enthusiastic audience. He said:
ireland is to-day one of the most in
teresting countries in lne world.
There history recalls wealth Of the
wonderful events of the past; there
the present is an hour of expectancy
and change. and there, hope and be-
lieve, the near future promises an ex-
traordinary political and Industrial de-
velopment. All signs in the skies are
of good portent-they tell of the COM
ing Of a new Ireland, an Ireland of
contentment and prosperity, free Ire
land, an Ireland governed by Irishmen.
sit is not for me to claim to know
much of Ireland, nor to be able to
tell such an audience as this much
that it does not already know. am
not an Irishman, nor an Englishman,
but an American. My knowledge Of
Ireland, small as it is, was gained
first, through sympathetic watching
and studying OF the wondrous career,
the long struggle, the great wrongs,
the heroic endurance, Of the Irish peo'
pie. What lover of liberty has not felt
his soul drawn toward the ever green
isle? And, second, through recent
tour of investigation in my role of
journalist. That tour was all toe
short, but it was long enough to re-
move certain previously formed i'm
pressions, and to plant others IN their
place. The first Of my earlier i'm
pressions to disappear was the theory
that Ireland is a conquered country.
That it is a conquered country we
Americans have heard all our lives.
"But, gentlemen, did not find a
conquered country in !. Ireland. In
stead I found a country which has
never been conquered, and which, in
my opinion, never can be conquered.
''It is true that the English long
time ago took Ireland, but they have
never taken the Irish. Until you take
the people of a country you have not
come within million miles Of getting
the country-you have not got any
thing that is worth having or holding.
''The people of Ireland are as dis
tinctively Irish now as they were 500
years ago, and as they will be 500
years hence. They have not been An
gliciZed, and they never can be Angli-
ciZed. 10 take Il country physically
by conquest is only taking of the
flesh. What matters that if the spirit
remain unbroken, dauntless, uncon-
quered, unconquerable?
''To my mind there is nothing finer,
nothing more inspiring, nothing more
glorious in the annals of the human
race, than the manner in which the
Irish have kept their homogeneity as Il
people-have kept their national ira
ditions and aspirations alive-have
kept their country love warm and
glowing-have kept themselves. This
they have done through storm and
stress, through suffering and DEATH
through time and through troubles
through the darkness of the famine
and the shadows of even the most
prosperous years. Throughout it al
the attitude of the Irish people has
been: You may take our goods ant
chattels, but you cannot take us. Yol
may take our lands, but you canno
take our hearts. BY force you ma.
take the flesh. but the spirit is for
ever beyond your reach
Courage for day or year is ad
mirable, courange for decade or {
generation is splendid, but courag
that runs through scores Of genera
tions, through century after century
defying hunger. defying power, defy
ing decay, defying time, defyinl
avprythinp-iS sublime