The Irish standard., 1905-08-19
The High Ideal Of Righteousness Which He
Has Faithfully Carried With Him
Wherever He Has Wandered.
Has Qualities That Help Immensely in Heal
ing the Evils and Abuses Now So Com
mon Throughout the Land


wave of revelation which has swept
over the country in the past year that
the still, small voice of the thinker
who constructs is scarcely heard, says
a writer in the Boston Republic. The
rage for exposure has left the nobler
passion for upbuiiding kicking its heels
in the ante.chamber of public opinion.
Yet to know that there are rascals
about us avails little. Miss Tarbell
gently purrs in the pages of McClure's
Magazine that John d. Rockefeller's
father was reputed horse thief and
quack doctor. Thomas w. Lawson
hacks and hews at the flanks of Stand
ard Oil and Charles E. Russell, in
Everybody's magazine, exposes the
rottenness of the beef trust. These ef-
forts toward removing the lid ana
showing the noxious things that crawl
beneath are excellent so far as they
go. But the remedy-aye, there's the
rub! Exposures of abuses that are
not as quickly heaied as the irritating
shell of circumstances permit are apt
to tester.
Reform must not only speak through
the pages of the popular-priced maga-
zines. 1t must speak in the accents
OF heroic deeds-or it is little better
than the itch of sensationalfsm.
On the constructive side of reform
the Celtic temperament should yield
an abundant harvest to American ci-
vilization. The Celt has splendid
and glowing imaginative talent that is
better adapted to large synthesis than
to accurate and minute analysis. He
has, too, a high ideal of personal right
eousness, which he has carried with
him wherever he has wandered. Those
qualities should help him immensely
in healing the evils that have led to
the recent carnival of exposure OF
abuses In the high places. Archbish'
op Ireland is pre-eminently con.
structive thinker. His imagination
seems to hold in transfgured form the
future toward which this country Is
being impeLed. He has been defined
as "the Northwest in trousers!" The
characterization is excellent. He has
the limitless energy and the vitalizing
force that has made of the teeming
Northwest the granary of America.
A few years ago 1t was as bleak as
a forlorn child crying on doorstep
Today it is pulsing with many-fibred
life. Only yesterday, it would seem, II
was without well-organized civic life
Today it's fair cities, with their we'll
shaded streets, abundant water supply
and extensive per capita wealth, have
added materially to the actual wealth
of the United States.
There are few scandals attaching
to the administration of the cities O.
the Northwest. It is not going be
yond the limits of the literal to state
that this is due in large measure tx
the personality and effective force O
Archbishop Ireland.
remember most vividly the frs
time I saw him-himself the epitomt
of the great region of which he is {
sort of spiritual over-lord. He was
walking along street, in Washing
ton, in company with Bishop o'Gor
man of Sioux Falls, strong figure il
clothes that looked as though they hat
been dropped on him. There was :
faint touch of red in the cheeks, ant
the keen, alert face, with the powerful
Jaw and gray eyes that suggested
strength and purpose and determine
tion. AS he turned into the well-f1llet
corridors of the Ebbit House man!
turned-for, though you had never lait
eyes on him before nor known him b!
reputation, you could no more resls
turning for a second glimpse at thu
ungainly figure with the eloquen
glance and gestures and thrillingl!
vibrant voice than you could resis
turning your head If some one salt
that the president of the United State!
was passing.
Archbishop Ireland cannot be up