Evening star., 1904-02-22

| w IN. Butter 7 eats.
| lin, and one of the foremost men in the
new Celtic world. Mr.. Yeats, although but
tEirty-six years old is looked upon by Ire
| land of her stanchest patriots and
| one of her most convincing and persistent
| exronents of patriotism. He came to Amer
| lea at the request of the Irish National So
| ciety for the purpose of telling Irishmen
| in America of the progress of the national
| movement and the recrea ton of the Ireland
| ante-fampe days through poetry and
| dramas written in the Irish tongue. His
! talk was of absorbing interest because of
| the unique idea of accomplishing national
| independence, not by force of arms nor
! radical politics, but by the gradual wean-
| ing of Irishmen from English customs and
| the English tongue. The folk lore of the
| early part of the nineteenth century is be-
ing revived. said the speaker, and every
time the old Gaelic songs are sung the
| power of England is weakened.
| Mr Yeats is the son of Mr.. j. 3. Yeats
| Tor many years a celebrated artist of Dub
| lin and London. The son studied art for
awhile, but deserted the brush for poetry
and has written several volumes of poems
| which are popular wherever there is left
an ember of Irish patriotism His most
/ effective work, however, has been done in
! the founding of the Irish Independent The
ater, in Dublin, where the true Irish folk
lore is portrayed. and by means of which
! Mr.. Yeats and his co-workers hope to re-
create the land of Erin. He will return to
IraDand March . He was introduced last
evening by DR.. Shahan of the Catholic Uni
| versity.
| America Near to Ireland
| ITO begin with said Mr.. Yates .I can
| tell you something which / know will be
| welcome to all Irish ears on this side of the
! Atlantic. Notwithstanding our respective
| geographical, positions, America is much
nearer to Ireland than is England. l have
pnnn int t1,o
| the peasants reading American newspapers
| and commenting in their own simple man
ner of American affairs. ] know that these
| peasants have never seen an E,ngl sb news
| read a Dublin paper. Their friends and
| relatives go to America and send back
| these souvenirs. which are mighty factors
| in Irish sentiment. Before that dreadful
| famine of a half century ago there existed
| the Ireland of wit; the Ireland of humor.
and today there are many patriots in and
out OF ireland who make themselves believe
| those old conditions still exist. 1t is not So
! Our politics different but the greatest
| deterioration is to be noted in our ltera-
| ture.
| Following the famine came the invasion
| OF English industries We imagined we
ought to wear English clothes, abide by
tongue. The power of imagination in ma
terial things is greater than most men are
willing to give it credit for. With the
adoption of English clothes came the
adoption of English thought and the Eng
| l1sh alphabet. Old Irish customs and those
who spoke the Gaelic tongue became OBJ
jects of ridicule We sent to England for
shoddy cloth instead of wearing better ma
terial Of home manufacture. We sent to
Munich for the worst stained glass the
world has ever seen. We got everything.
our religion, our thought. the essence of
our very life, from England The worm
has turned, and the reaction, begun about
ten years ago is now in the full bloom OF
prosperity. may not live to see that ulti-
mate success. but success is inevitable
That our theology has been affected is evil
denced by story heard just before / left
for America. A little girl, coming home
from school. ran up to her mother. crying:
Mother. I must be taught Irish, be-
cause everybody in heaven speaks Irish,
and If l can't speak 1t l can't get in
A Recreation of Erin.
Through the establishment of our thea
ter our Gaelic drama and our Gaelic folk
lore, we have compelled sentiment look
ing toward complete recreation of the
land of Erin. Old men and old tales are
honored again, and the hills and the vel
leys are echoing once more with the sweet
music of the Gaelic togue. This battle on
intellectual issues is the life of the people.
The literary revival movement is supported
by that proudest aristocracy of the earth,
the ariStocracy of artists, the only aristoc-
racy which has never opposed the people,
and against which the people have never
risen. The folk lore poems of DR.. Douglass
dyQc nave attained d WlOe popularity IN
the country towns and among the COM
mon classes. The country Ireland which
is most Irish is winning over the urban
Ireland, which is least Irish, and the time is
coming when the English tongue will have
been expurgated. Long silent mills are
humming again. We have our own stained
glass factories and manufacture a product
medieval and traditional in character and
better than anything that ever came from
Munich. We are accomplishing this, not
by display of arms. but by undermining
Irish dependence upon England through the
Gaelic drama and the simple tuneful verses
which describe old Irish life.
How the Common People Are Reached.
IT am one of those few men who look to
printed books for no great things The
common people will never get culture out
Of printed books They must be reached
by poetry and song that can be rehearsed
at work and at play: something the plow-
man can sing as he follows his plow, or
that the housewife can sing as she sews or
drives her spinning wheel. Lyal Johnson
a man of great intellect, whose poetry and
prose rank with the most learned literature
In the world, is after ALL only printed
book poet. His poems cannot be sung by
cannot effect the culture.
"Lyal Johnson is a noble Irish patriot, but
he will never rank with DIR. Hyde because
the latter poet talks to the common people
In simple Irish folk lore. DR.. Hyde inspires