Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-11-08
0GONNOR on
IRISH CAUSE.
Great Leader Made Interesting
u Speech Before Gathering
in New York.

-f~1 - Inv
Publishers Association. His address
was in part as follows:
There Is a comradeship between
men engaged in journalism and liter
ature almost closer than that between
men in any other occupation. No
man, in my opinion, is a true jour
nalist or a true litterateur who is not
to a certain extent cosmopolitan In
spirit. l remember the very first les
son | got in that liberation of all
kinds of opinions, which is the begin
ming of wisdom, especially for news
paper men or men of letters. The
very hrst lesson / got in that very
necessary part of a journalists edu-
cation was when | became a reporter
~ being a Catholic and a Nationalist
-on an intensely Orange, ultra-Pro-
testant and Conservative newspaper
in Dublin. (Laughter.) l found that
other gentlemen were getting the
same kind of broadening education In
a different way, because there was
then, as there Is now, a strongly Cath
Ollie and Nationalist organ known as
THE Freemen's Journal" The head
reported of that was a tall. dark, vel
low skinned, black browed Presby-
terrain from the north of ireland, who
looked the very embodiment of all the
dourness and grimness of a race thai
is called by the name of Scotch
lrish,' a term4that l am bound to tel,
Won ic nntfpatxy Nf ran,sao ., tpxtnpt;A,,
and American use (laughter); and.
many of his colleagues on thus ultra
Catholic paper and ultra-Home Rule
paper were either Pr~esbyterians or
.Protestants. | may say that this
b~lack-browed Presbyterian to whom /
have alluded was one Of the kindest
hearted and most genial of men, and
he still remains In my memory, moro
than a generation after he has disap-
peared, as n of the pleasant and
sympathetic figures of my early days
as a journalist.
! have always held, gentlemen, that
literature should be regarded mainly
as an interpreter to mankind, and
that it's function, It's best function and
its highest duty, was as an interpreter
between classes which, without its in
tervention, would not be able to un-
derstand and realize each other. If
you examine the differences between
the creed and the creed, b-SHRD
the creed and the creed, between the
nation and the nation and between
the race and the race you will gener-
ally find that it largely begins in the
fact that one side is not quite able
understand or realize the position
of the other. Literature comes in,
and if it be true literature, it knows
no distinction of creed, it knows no
distinction of class, it knows no dis
tinction of race
You see a people upon the stage,
and while in the real world outside all
the attention and all the respect, and
all the servility are concentrated on
the man who stands higher in wealth
in position that other men, you
find in the mimic world of the stage,
that very often the central figure Is
some loyal man or loyal woman, an
outcast, a beggarman, a monarch de-
throned in power and dethroned In
reason, like Lear, or a husband mad
dened by jealousy like Othello. You
find there that all the commonplace
and usual distinctions which divide
men in the world of reality are over
come and obliterated in what / per-
haps may call the higher and nobler
world of fiction and of imagination.
And If l have endeavored in my liter
airy and journalistic career to follow
n ideal more faithfully than anoth-
er, it has been to try to interpret peo-
pie to each other.
/ stand, as you know, for a very
difficult and a very momentous cause,
a cause that has gone through many
vicissitudes, even in my W lifetime.
To that I will return after a moment.
But | Just wished at this moment to
make that observation with regard
TO it. that If l have succeeded in adj
vocating that cause, without, l hope,
hurting the susceptibilities of the peo-
pie among whom / live, who are not
my own people after all, and in a land
where I live, which is the land OF my
adoption and not of my birth-if i
have succeeded in doing that, 1t is be-
cause I have felt that I would be I'M
true and unjust to the highest func-
ton of my profession, if did not fol-
low the lines of making the n race
understand the other and of seeking
TO make our cause acceptable and
popular with other people, by trying
to reveal its inner and unknown
meaning to those outside of it.
But before l say anything about my
politiacl opinions and political mis-
sion to this country, / should like TO
say a word to you about the pursuits
which are common to you and TO me
/ regard my existence, as a weekly
Journalist, to a certain extent as a re-
proach to the daily journalism Oh
| Great Britain. I understand tna'
some of the journals of the kin WIN
which I am associated are not pos
sible in this country, and believe, II
hat he so-of course cannot speak
with any authority upon that-if that
he so. ii is because your daily Journals