The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1906-01-06

That Jersey City should have pro-
.duced Mark Pagan is tribute of glory.
But that Mark Fagan, grave, kind and
very brave, should have been able, as
Mayor, to make Jersey City what it is:
u beginning of better things all over
this land Of ours, that is stranger, in
deed. And no man there pretends to
understand it. Lincoln Steffens states
I'm McClure's, says the Boston Repub-
lic.
Mark-as they call him, the men, the
women and the children-was born
Sept 20, 1869, in the Fifth ward, where
he lives now. His parents were poor
Irish, very poor. They moved over to
New York when Mark was child
ana the father died. Mark sold .lews-
papers. The newsboy dreamed dreams
and fought fights. He claimed a cor
ner, Twelfth street and Avenue A, de-
veloped a good trade, ami when COM
petition came, he appealed 10 the man
in the store to say if he wasn't there
first. The man in the store wouldn't
decide; he told the boys they must
fight it out among themselves, so they
laid down their papers and .hey fought
it out. Mark held his corner. "Iife IS
one long fight for right" he says now,
this very gentle man, who fights and
holds his corner
The newsboy's dreams, like his
Gghts were very simple affairs. When
I pried into them, I expected to hear
of driving locomotive or the Presi-
dency, at least. But no, it seems that
some men said roughly that they
didn't want to buy a paper, others
said it kindly. Mark made up his
mind that when he became a man he
would be like the kind men. Some
times the nights were cold and the
newsbcy felt hungry and lonely; pass
ing houses where the family sat in the
basement room, all lighted up and
warm, with plenty Of smoking hot food
before them, Mark stopped to look in
and he dreamed that when he grew up
he also would have a home. He
couldn't go to school; he had only six
months of it all told. But he didn't
like school; it was indoors, and he has
dreamed that he would like to have
in Jersey City, schools on large plots
of ground, so that part of the teach
ing might be done in the open. But
this dream came later.
The next period made the boy a
man. His uncle, an undertaken ir
Jersey City, offered Mark a job, and
he moved with his mother and siste,
back there to take it, Now this busi-
ness often has a demoralizing effect
upon men. They see dreadful sights
and they harden or take to drink
Mark saw dreadful sights; you car
see that he sees them now when be
recalls those days. But they softened
they sweetened Mark Pagan. He saw
homes where the dead mother lef
nothing but a helpless child-nothing
you understand, but the child. HI
saw that the poor suffered greatly
from the wrongs of others, not alone
of those above, but Of those who alst
were about them, and yet, the poo
were great in charity for the poor. &c
came" he says, in his quiet, leve
tone, II came to have pity for tn,
poor and-admiration." You hear tina
Mark, the undertaken, cared for tn
living child as we'll as the deat
mother; he stayed with his job afte
the funeral, and by and by peopl
came to the undertaken with the bust
ness of life. His explanation is tina
he could write and fix up insurance
and things like that" Others coul,
write and fix up insurance; the poin
was that they trusted Mark to do II
all his neighbors, all nationalities, al
ages; and he did it. One Of the odt
branches of this odd undertaking bust
ness was to fix up marriages. l
seems that, among the poor also, ther
comes time soon after the wedding
when husband and wife fall out; low
turns to what looks like hate, ant