The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1910-01-22
A FAMOUS KANSAS EDITOR WRITES On
THE PRESENT CONDITION Of IRELAND
Nearly All Americans More or Less s and Not Irish by Blood
They Are by Description Of the Political and
Commercial Capital Of the Emerald Education and
the Temperance Cause

/! In letter from Ireland to his own
paper at Emporia, Kansas, William
Allen White, journalist OF national
renown, says:
| Nearly all Americans are more or
less Irish. If they are not Irish by
blood they are by temperament So
any journey to Europe pretending to
! be a visit to the home of our fore
, fathers would be a miserable failure
If 1t omitted Ireland. For Ireland's
influence is one of the big things in
our life. And We must come to Ire
land to realize it. To superficial OBJ
servers, such as we are In the very
be so much like America that one
wonders whether or not England or
Ireland is the real fatherland. In
the first place, we Americans talk
Irish as it is spoken in London. The
American can come nearer UNDER
standing the common people of Dub
lin than the common people of Eng
land. Whatever accent there is be-
tween the three of us-English, Irish.
Americans-is English. The Irish
language is full of words that the
! Americans have adapted in preference
tos English. words meaning the same
thing. For instance. the first "hard-
. ware store" we saw in Europe we
found in Ireland, though the Iron
monger" was all over England. Then
the Irish cooking Is much like the
American cooking. The Irish salt their
butter. The whole range of Irish cook
ing reminds, at least, Of home cook
ing. We have eaten more potatoes
with their jackets on in a week in
Ireland than in four months in Eu-
rope, and by the same token they were
better than q cycle in Cathay." The
Irish bread tastes like American
bread, and the Irish bacon is moro
like ours than is the English bacon.
Then, again, America is more easy
going than England. We are a bit
untidy and comfortable, as Ireland is.
England can never have been our
mother country. She is fussy old
maid. Her hedges are trimmed; her
streets are clean; her roads are kept;
she obeys the law-because 1t is the
law. She keeps books with the world.
England is prim. She pretsnds to be
much more virtuous than she really
is while we and the Irish are good
natured, pleasant-spoken and oblig-
ing; and on the whole q little more
virtuous than we seem. So Ireland,
in its influence upon our civilization,
is more than strain Of blood. Ire
land ia temperament. Therefore we
arrive at the first proposition in this
paragraph: Nearly all Americans are
more or less Irish.
! Dublin, the political and comnse1-
cial capital of Ireland, is a town of
quarter Of million people. The
. houses are set together in long, un-
broken rows, after the fashion of
European cities; so the town does not
cover much ground and does not seem
as large as Wichita. Moreover, its two
principal streets, Grafton street and
Dame street, do not seem so long nor
80 smart as Douglas avenue and the
other big street of Wichita. There
is not a store In Dublin that carriet
the stock that Rorabaugh or the Bos-
ton Store carries In Wichita, nor a
wholesale house that looks as big and
imposing as the Lee Mercan companys
, plant in Salina. For when all is said
:. and done, Ireland is a little island ano
only about 100000 people live up
. on it. Moreover, for 800 years these
people have been subject people
. They have been oppressed and rob-
bed until the commercial blood Is
sapped from their veins; and ths
wonder is that Dublin does so vel
as she does Dublin is most mar:
yelous monument to the irrepressibl'
national, political and commercial IN
!. stinct Of the irish race. She has colon
lied the world-has this 1reland-ant
n conquered the world at the head o
alien arunSes; and converted the worl'