The Irish standard., 1905-05-20
John B. Mcdonald, James ]. Hill, William F.
Harrity and Thomas F. Ryan as
Captains of Industry.
All Have Contributed in Marked Degree "a
the Up-building Of the Worlds
Greatest Nation.

There Is peculiar type of intellect,
arctic in bleakness, arrogant in pride,
purblind to the tints and hues of racial
difference that processes to regard the
Celt as lacking in business ability.
Narrowness of outlook is the special
quality of this sort of mind and mis-.
conception of originality and initiative
and brilliancy of business daring have
caused it to place an estimate upon
Celtic achievement along business
lines that is not at all in harmony
with the facts, says the Boston Re-
public.
The 1rishman has--not to put too
fine an edge upon the mattcr-had
difficult row to hoe in New England.
He had to make way for himself in the
financial world. In the first place, he
was not wanted here. He was regard
ed as a discordant note in the highly
organized society which the descend
ants of the Mayfower had built up-a
society, by the way, rich in a finely
favored and diversified life.
Then, too, the pilgrim from overseas
knew little Of the processes of this
closely-knit industrial world with its
bewildering newness and miraculous
development. He was, as rule, inlet
tered, bred in the school of hardship,
and his really fine qualities Of heart
did not compensate for his lack of
training In the things of the mind
The ruder work Of the world fell to
him, and at a time when the capital
of the country went into the upbuild-
ing of its railroads.&c. iron-rihl"
ministers of commerce-thel labor was
supplied by Irish Drawn. Those who
had the good fortune to come over in
1880 looked with contempt upon the
Irish hosts. They were, in their eyes,
the Huns that would leftover the gar.
dens of Allah! The Little New Eng
lander could not see where the Celt
could adjust himself to the civilization
which his Puritan forefathers had ere,
ated. He sneered at the Celt as q
captain Of industry-if the phrase had
been invented in the dusk of those
past years-and scorned to regard him
as serious factor in civic growth.
Notwithstanding jibes and jeers the
Celt multiplied until his racial strain
grew more important in numbers than
the scions of the Mayfower caste. The
Puritan shuddered-and looked with
tender longing toward the day that
was dead. The day was beyond re-
call. When a race looks too long at its
past it grows dizzy as one does who
looks at cataract too intently.
The Celt sent his children to school.
He learned all the secrets that the
Puritan had to give-and he is trying
to improve on them. He got beyond
the Little Catechism and the mere
ability to read and write. He put his
money in the bank. Times grew bet
ter. The Celt was finding himeslf,"
to quote phase used by President
Eliot of Harvard.
He had hope. He knew that the
Little New Englander would at some
enlightened day be viewed as a curl
osity-just as we look an the chain
armor of the Middle Ages.
TIL Little New Englander is If that
type whose commonest traits are a
spurious importance, bogus gravity.
You may see him in multitudes every
day on State street, and on Sunday
afternoons in the Fens. His marks
are disdain of the alien and trick Of
leaving town for the summer. He ls
extremely respectable and rarely
right. His life is spent on a pedestal
in the heart of the bastile of the old
Puritanism. When he talks, he is heed.
full to talk to, and not with you. He
lives by interests and dividends and
profits on money loaned or invested,
and would sooner see our flag the COM
mon dishclout of our world than nave
those profits threatened.
They are an excellent folk in many
ways, notwithstanding their narrow
ness, but conyersatism holds them in