Los Angeles herald., 1906-03-13

visit in Los Angeles. Most of the
women who were there were carried
to the sidewalk. 1t was damp outside,
but the dampness failed to pentrate
the Irish hearts and the welcome which
was extended to DR.. Hyde was a royal
one.
All Gave Greeting
Joining hands with the Irish were
the Scotch and the Welsh, all ready to
add their greetings and to help lift
higher the hands of the master Irish
man.
The quick wit, the subtle humor, the
earnest words of man who feels that
he has a deep purpose TO accomplish,
the Irish ballads and Irish airs made
of it an evening long to be remembered.
The doctor was greeted upon his en-
trance to the theater with Irish airs
played by an orchestra. Malcolm Nc
Leod introduced Joseph Scott the
chairman of the evening, and he in
turn welcomed and introduced DR..
Hyde.
Don't be frightened, friends, I am
really not going to talk Irish all night"
said DR.. Hyde after he had said the
few words that had so pleased the little
old man and the gray haired woman.
Il am far more at home here tonight
than [ would be if I were speaking in
hall in London. In fact l am almost
as near home as if L were in Dublin
or Cork.
Initiate England
I'm Ireland we have been trying to
initiate England. We are not English
men and we never can be English. 1t
is folly, it is madness on our part this
rushing to adopt everything that is
English, not because it is good, but
because it is English. 1t has been
fatal to all of us. 1t has made our
dead, it has almost killed our music,
our customs, our dances and every
thing else that was best in us.
In Ireland we have ceased to be
Irish without becoming English. Men
leave ireland because they cease to
feel that they have country. The gar
bage of the English press-thank God
1 left those English papers behind me
the garbage of the English press, I
supposed to be our literature.
Just when we should be placing
Ireland on the map as great nation
we find that all the bricks of which
the nation should be built have been
scattered to the four winds of heaven.
Shall we bake new bricks out of new
clay? No. we must go through the
country, pick up the bricks of this
ancient editice one by one and build
the nation that is worthy to be called
Ireland.
A Revival
'It will take resolution on the part
OF the Murphys and the Kellys and
the Sullivans to carry on this revival
which has been begun, for it is no
easy task to find all those bricks. We
will have to learn from the old men
and women sitting in their cabins,
the folklore. From them also must we
learn of our music, our dances and
our customs.
1.-The Irish people are as different
from the English as any two people
could be. The temperament is differ
ent. We have not the English faculty
for making money-would to God that
we had. We cannot play cricket, ah
but sure, there is a game we can beat
them at. We cannot dance their nice
smooth waltzes as smooth as they can,
perhaps, but we can smash them any
day at jig or reel.
IN America you have a magnificent
blend of both races. The 1rishman
has been ashamed of the best that he
has. He has thrown away his language
and his music his art, his customs
and the rest that is good about him
for limitations. The Irish lads in the
schools have been taught to understand
what their mothers and fathers said to
them in Irish and to answer them
back in English. They did not even
know that they were hearing in one
language and answering in another"
Now, the Gaelic league is engaged
upon a grand reconstruction policy
the policy of creating an Irish nation
upon Irish lines. and it is absolutely
necessary for us to place our finger
upon the blots before we can begin to
reconstruct.
"Well, first of all, there's the Ian
guage question 1t is the basis o!
The whole movement. But it has q
number of other things depending upor
it which we must look at also. Anc
first, strangely enough, there is the
question of our own names. Now, Il
has always seemed to me that man:
name is, as it were, part of himself
If a man is ashamed of his name ther
he is ashamed of himself, and a mar
who is ashamed of himself is not likely
to accomplish much in this world,
During the last seventy years hun
dreds Of thousands of the Irish peo
ple have been seized with a positive
mania for changing their good old Irisf
names into something that would
sound like English. The OConnors be-
came Conyers; the O'Reillys, Ridleys
the O'Donnells, Daniels; the O'Sulli
vans, Silvans; the McCartys, Carriers
and so on.
Irishmen Change Names
"In fact, hundreds of thousands O
Irishmen prefer to drop their honor
able Milesian names and to call them
selves Groggins or Duggans o.
Smythes or Guthries or any othel
! heastly name i'm preference TO the sur
names of warriors, saints and poets
and the melancholy part of it is tina
not one single word was ever raised
about it by the Irish public press o
public men until the Gaelic League
J arose and sent out its trumpet bias