The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1904-06-04
1reIand'$ HppeaI
CO Hmerlca
BY MICHAEL pAvITT.

1t Is about time ireland recognized the fact tina
most imperative duty appeals to her undyidc
energies before it is TOGO late, namely, the duty
saving Ireland to the Irish people.
This my friends, is the supreme danger nov
threatening ireland, the cause of which we are as
sembed here today to uphold and it is to empha
size the peril with which the continued emigra
ton of our people to American menace the hold o
the Celtic rarce OIL Ireland that mas manI,
brought me once again TO this side of the Atlantic
[ wa shere in this city addressing the Irish soci
cites of Chicago fifteen years ago today. Within
that time fully 100000 young men and young wo
men have crossed from Ireland to these United
Sttaes, not to return but to remain Allowing
half of these to have been ncn, the loss to Ireland
and the gain TO the republic would be quarter OF
million of the youngest and brawniost OF our
manhood In all human probability many moro
Young people wiz follow in the footsteps of these
already here during the next fifteen years
BY the end of this generation, unless tins dead
~ drain is arrested the Celts in Ireland viii be IN
minority which means that the conquest OF our
country after its hundrerds Of years OF resistance
will have been all but consummatcd
The notion obtains in many minds here IN
America that nothing would have been or could
have been done at home during the past twenty
years were it not for the unstinted monetary sup
port which has flowed across the Atlantic Thar
is delusion. 1t is not America that has beeen
way about. Forty thousand of our young people
come here from the old land every year to addd to
the wealth-producng power of the states. Econo-
micaly valued these emigrants worth $1,000
each to the industrial assets of Uncle Sam. This
amounts to the tidy sum of $40,0000060 annually
contributed to the United States stock OF wealth
producing energies by one of the poorest European
countries. Since [ spoke here last, Ireland has IN
this manner enriched this country to the extent o9
S600000,000 worth of un6arned increment of
weath-producing power. We, surely. arc entitled
to modicum of return sympathy from the land
which lrelands offspring have benefited to this en-
ormous extent.
And now, what are our own kith and kin doing,
anyhow, for the of the land of their birth!
PROFESSIONALLY, you are helping England a thou
sand times more than you aiding up, though
you doing it not with that motive intention.
Every boy and girl encouraged to come out here
IS loss to Ireland and gain to England poiltlc-
aly-that is, there is weakening of our resisting
forces, lessening the Celtic volume of our popu-
lation, which lessons aso the strength With which
we are still to carry the struggle for nation
hood. Every ocean passage paid for here and sent
to Ireland is much money paid to indnce a
young man to desert the country and
leave England with weaker Ireland to keep down.
1T is also right YOU should remember that with
this eternal drainage of the very best of our youth
away from the country. there is the double injury
done to Ireland of causing her to lose her wealth.
producers just when she has completed their edu-
cation and equipment for industrial pursuits, and
that there is no hope of their offspring being add
ed to population thus doubly weakened
Ny friends it will be one of the cruelIest IRON
les in human history if it out, it threatens
to do, that the very people whom English rule has
driven IN the past from our country to the United
States, destined to conquer for England by
ticng the remainder of the Celtic people to desert
the common fatherland.
1t is, of course held that the people who come
here from Ireland induced to come because
their prospects will be improved thereby. That
has been the case in the past, | admit. Millions
Of people have been bettered, materially, under
The conditions of freedom and progress which OBJ
tain here, and the itself has gained in strength
and fibre by the change. But there is rational
INIT to every movement beyond which an evil is
treated that more than balances the advantage
hitherto accruing. 1t is not the poor who
lere from Ireland to improve themselves, but the |
,airly well-to-do sons and daughtersr of comfort
lbe farmers. 1t is the poor who are left behind |
md here, again, is vet another dealv injury in
iicted upon our country by our OWL race, against
which there appears to be adequate remedy. | |
NOW America, | think, as well most observers
Who travel. ! am familiar with the life of your
centers, of your mines and other
Industrial avocations, and | unhesitatingly assert
hat life in Ireland today for boy girl of the
verage farming class lis better life in every way,
Il
our trying climatic conditions, and the wage
arning pursuits ow your mills and mines.
Ny message, my friends, from home is not one
f encouragement or of despair. Quite the con-
rarv; it is a message summed up in the words
'Sursum corda." Celtic ireland is neither dead
"a sleeping.
Our people are becoming more Irish in sent-
ant. action and language every day.
The agreement for the revival of the Celtic
ongue, Gaelic music and literature is one of al
lost boundless hope for the future national vel
are of our race. We are demanding fuller protec-
on for the country's homestead, better education
~ its children more opportunities for culture
ore scientific methods of industry and every en-
that be given to build up the So
al happiness of our people And if you here in
merica will not conquer Ireland for England by
to induce the residue of our population
desert their country and to make an unneces-
Try addition to the 100000 inhabitants of this
public; if you will, OH the contrary. aid us to
lily protect the homes of Ireland. and thus help
o domestic life of country with all its tradi-
onal love of faith. fatherland and virtue, to re-
lid again aur dispeoped villages, hamets and
WINS with a better educated and better equipped
elite race, no laws, or power or empire ON earrh
IN long withhold from our land the browning
L. T. / Z