The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-05-07
A KNOW NOTHING IN CONGRESS.

A KNOW NOTHING IN CONGRESS-.
After having been thoroughly routed
by Bourke Cochran the Hon. John
Dalzell descended to the plane of per-
sonal abuse and the utterance of the
following knownothing sentiments:
IF there be any 'hoodlums' among
us, they are not the product of the
American soil, American institutions
or an American civilization. They are
to be found among those Adventures
who, having left their own country for
their country's good, find in the field
of American politics u prolific source
Of notoriety and pelf; men who, with.
out conscience and without convic-
tons, find an opportunity now with
one party and now with another to Sc
cure market for their peculiar wares,
among which is not responsibility"
These remarks We're in answer to
speech delivered by Cochran, in which
the New Yorker handled the pet of
the protected interests without much
regard to his high standing as a Re-
publican leader in the house. 1t is a
good many years since knownothing-
ism was a live question in this coun-
try. Healthy-minded Americlns-and
most Of our people are such-have little
patience with people who still harbor
these belated ideas. Bigotry of that
kind has fortunately for the most part
disappeared. Americans are altogether
too well Informed and too we'll &C,
uuainted with each other to harbor
such opinions. Race bigotry exists to-
day only in men of small minds and
little knowledge. Even if this were
lot Il cosmopolitan country, the facilities
for travel and the ready means for ac-
quiring knowledge through schools and
the public press would make it i'm
possible for Il knownOthing propaganda
to succeed at the present day. The
Hon. Mr.. Dalzell, however, .angered
by his rout at the hands of Cochran,
betrayed himself into giving expression
to his sentiments. He also gave the
Hon. John Sharp Williams an oppor.
tunity to show the contrast between
the two men. But perhaps Mr.. Will
lams has had greater advantages than
the Pittsburg congressman. We know
that Mr.. Williams lives in a district
where almost the entire population is
native born. If there are any hood
lums in Mississippi they are not for
eigners. Yet Mr.. Williams has tray
eled over all Europe. He has lived
there. His knowledge Of literature is
not confined to the Mckinley and Ding.
ley tariff schedules. 1t is not strange,
therefore, that he was able and felt
called upon to correct the less favored
member from the steel mills of Penn
sylvania in the following language:
"Who are your bravest and boldest?
', 40 made the twenty-mile ride down
the valley-wonderful, but the subject
of Overboasting? Phil Sheridan, ain
Irishman. Who is the one man in the
Federal infantry whom Stonewall Jack
son ever met with nearly equal forces
that he did not rout in almost no time?
Shields, at Front Royal, with his irish
men. My friends, where are the great
orators Of the world-Bourke and Cur
ran? Where are the great writer's of
the world-Goethe and Schiller and
Racine and Fontaine and Leasing and
Dante and Petrarch and all the balance
of them? Its great painters, scup-
tors, architects-are they all Ameri-
cans? There is nothing, in my opinion,
more foolish than the notion that be-
cause you happen to be Il German, or
because you happen to be a French
man, or because you happen to be an
Englishman, or because you happen to
be an American, thereby you are bet
ter than anybody else. You are better
if you are better, and you are not if
you are not. Within certain great, broad,
indelible race lines human nature is
the same from the mouth Of the Hud-
son to the mouth of the Danube
Wherever peoples are within the lines
OIL mutual assimilation God has
marked them practically the same. He
has laid down meets and bounds and
race characters within certain broad
lines, but no more than that Now,
my friends, the party of restriction,
the party of chauvinism, the party
which regards foreigners as necessarily
more or less enemies, is the party that
you represent"
There is nothing Of the small gauge,
shriveled up, pusillanimous make about
Williams. He comes from that section
of the country where the white popu-
lation are descendants of the early
English emigration to this country. In
the South you find your Anglo-Saxon