The Irish standard., 1909-06-05
THE IRISH WORLD.
Its Famous Editor Going Home to Thu
Old Land.

opportunity Of welcoming one Of its
most distinguished and loyal sons. who
has risen to fame and power in the
United States. A man who by the
character has risen from a position of
Grand hoy at a few shillings a week
to one of immense influence in the re-
ligious and political world. Such a
man is Patrick Ford, editor and pro-
prietor of the Irish World a jour-
nal which has been one of the most
potent forces in the Irish movement
for the last thirty-eight years. says
the Dublin Freemen's Journal of May
%.
Mr.. Ford was born in Galway, and
at the age of eight years went to Bos-
ton. Mass. with his father. and at
tended the public schools in that city
until he was thirteen. when 1t be-
came necessary for him to go to work
to earn his daily bread: and in those
days the old Know nothing" and No
Irish-need-apply" feeling was rampant
throughout New England. and young
Ford tramped the streets of Boston
for many a day, footsore and weary
looking for position at even a dol
lar a week. The story of Mr.. Fords
early life is interestingly told by him
self in an interview published some
years ago. He said: II went seeking
work for some months, quite hopeless
~. finding constantly that the facts
that l was Irish and Catholic were
always against me. was not yet
awake about Ireland but began to
think early to read whatever l could
lay my hands on, and, when at last I
got little work l stayed up nights to
read and think over what had read,
and what I had heard. and what in
my own little life I had known: and
realised that was victim of the
condition of poverty and enslavement
In which my country was, and l be-
gan to sec that it was necessary for
everyone of Irish blood to do all in
his power to change that state of
things. l had one place little while.
then another. but never got at case
in Boston. which was the most Eng
lish and the most Irish city in the
United States.
when was about fifteen entered
William Lloyd Garrison's ONCE as a
printers DEVIL and gradually got to do
a. little on the "Liberator." Then l
struck out for myself and started the
Boston Sunday Tribune" 1t was ain
anti slavery and pro-Union paper. My
eldest brother, who went into the navy
went down with tho Cumberland; my
youngest brother went out at the age
of fourteen as drummer boy, came
back and enlisted in the navy and
served on the Mississippi. My father,
then past fifty, but bubblng with
patriotic enthusiasm. enlisted for the
Union. There were just two broth
ers left and the. one next to me In
age. We went, too. and served for two
years. We were in the engagement at
Antietam. People think that battles
and being killed arc what make war
horrible. but these things are as moth
Ing in comparison with wars real hor-
I,
months at time in bare, wretched
quarters, with nothing In your life
really suited for body or mind, without
books or cheerful companionship. with
hard, dry food and coarse. rancid fat
meat, and too little of 1t at that: with
vermn and scurvy and damp and cold,
until heart despair and pig -sty greed
are facts, and homo and dccency 4
fading dream; and then. OH the march
and after battle. to see the. dead lying
stark or being hustled while yet dying
into holes hastily dug, while a. stick
marked unknown" is damned in above
them; to see the wounded huddled to-
gcthcr. mangled and CORY in the mud
and snow, hoping, and hoping vainly,
for help: to hear their terrible means
and cries. and to have to go on about
your own business as If you saw and
heard nothing-these, and worse, are
some Of the things which teach man
what war means. and the awful re-
sponsibiity of him who promotes war
and they kept me thinking of what
war would mean for ireland.
"Shortly after the war l started the
Irish World"
The unparalleled influence which
Mr.. Ford. through his paper. has ex-
ercised over the Irish race. in America
and the world over is we'll told in ain
article written by M. w. Hazletine and
published in the New York Sun" OF
December "a. 1905. The writer says:
1.-THE man who forged the thunder
| hoItc IF tho sIr;cb uyorld, ,,,o. -,,.ooI,