The Irish standard., 1910-12-10
Only by Noblest Human Qualities
Have the Irish Sustained
Their Struggle.
Beautiful Generosity of Irish Exiles
Admired all Over the
World.
The Peculiar Glory of the Race is
That it Will Never be
Subdued.

Mr.. e. w. Thompson, commenting
on the recent tour of T. P. O'Connor
in Canada, pays beautiful tribute to
the generosity of the Irish. He writes:
Listening to Mr. O'Connor, one who
could not hear him very we'll natur-
ally fell into a condition of reverie on
the causes Of the imminent Irish VIC
tory, and perception of those to whose
pertinacious devotion it will have
been truly due. Burke, Grattan, Car
ran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Daniel
O'Connell, Moore, Meagher of the
Sword; Isaac Butt, Parnell, Edward
Blake, Redmond, O'Leary, Stephens,
Gladstone, Morley, all the orators and
the singers Of Erin, her long-hunted
bishops and clergy, John Boyle
O'Reilly, even the great and present
Mr.. O'Connor, who has won the whole
journalistic world by his accurate and
good-tempered news letters, were con-
spicuous and yet essentially minor fig
ures in the enormous procession.
The ExiIes Ever Faithful.
Behind them ragged and lowered
ever higher innumerable millions of
the sons and daughters of Erin, ever.
faithful to her cause at home or
abroad, deported, Immigrant; despisea
or welcomed, 1aborious, chaste, win
ming by their valor what was denied
to their brogue, never too unthrifty to
lack a penny or a dollar for the Old
Sod's liberation, servant girls, common
laborers, men rising to mechanicians
wherever opportunity offered, men
ascending to managers places, farm
ers, bog-trotters, miners. great cap
1ains and admirals and generals, Sher-
idans. O'Donnels, statemen, rulers
even in Boston, every man and wom-
an Of them carrying in their hearts
the dream of Ireland, the passion, that
devotion which is a religion rather
than a political sentiment.
The suffering nation, the tried in
what Iery furnaces, the brayes of the
brave and merriest Of the merry, the
maligned, the impatient yet immem-
ORALLY steadfast, the race whose deep
heart bore not SO much hatred for
the oppressor as the anguish of the
misunderstood, the outraged soul of
the good fellow wronged!" That
visionary throng seemed to the dream
er to constitute one of the very few
great peoples Of the earth, SO that
one could rejoice anew with pride
in being the son of the Irish mother.
It is by the noblest human quail
ties that the Irish have sustained
their struggle, in which they have
long been detained from victory main.
ly by the passionate excess in the
same. To be crucified for patriotism
doth work "like madness in the
BRAIN" In armies the man under
going punishment is permitted to
say what he will, to rave, to threat
en-, to curse his commanders. It Is
only for his sins when at liberty that
he is condemned. And the Irish have
had no liberty for many generations.
They were always on the triangle,
always under stripes, and always
blamed for swearing revenge aloud
under the torture. Did they, let
loose for 4 little, as in the time Of
the Volunteers, show elf-command
and march toward prosperity, straight
away they were strung up again as
too dangerous to the neighboring is
land.
They were long rack-rented for the
crime of thrift They were dragooned
for such political associations as all
wise rulers encourage. They were
damned as liars for protesting their
goodwill. They were jeered as buf-
foons for jesting in their misery.
Their wish to manage affairs which
they alone understood was not fair
self-respect and elf-confidence-it
was presumption and disloyalty. Their
procreation in honest marriage was
considered as a devilish device to
become numerous and strong. Their
submission to religion was the super