The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1912-12-21
WHAT IS MEANT
BY ANGL0.SAXON?
Centuries Before Columbus Sailed
on His Voyage of Discovery, the
Race Was Extinct
Calling This or That Man Anglo
Saxon Today is Simply Nonsense
Says E. A. Freeman.
A Spicy Letter to the N. Y. Globe
Which Was Refused Publication
by Managing Editor.

We frequently hear of the bravery,
prowess, culture and superiority of
the Anglo-S SaNons, but who are they?
We understand who the Anglo-Amer-
leans are The dictionary says they
are descendants of English ancestors
born in America, or the United States.
"It is quite correct" says Freeman.
the historian, ''to call Ethelstan King
of the Anglo-Saxons, but to call this
or that subject of Ethelstan an Anglo
Saxon is simply nonsense" Ethelstan
reigned in the sixth century.
Mr.. Jacob Backes of New York City
recently wrote to the Globe calling
attention to the misnomer as applied
to Americans, and his letter found its
way into the waste basket. He sent
it to the Irish World which printed
the rejected letter with preface from
the writer as follows:
AS You doubtless are fully aware,
efforts have been and are being con-
tinually made in certain quarters to
place all of the people of this country,
their ancestors and their present ac-
tivities and developments under the
heading "Anglo-Saxon."
Convinced that such attempted clas-
sification and implication accord nci-
ther with your individual view of
what is historically or radically we'll
founded, nor, in particular, with your
idea of what is justice to the Celtic
element among us when American an
nails and achievements are named or
brought under review, permit me to
direct your attention to my recent
protest in the Globe of this city.
l send it to you, not with the idea
that it's contents have for you any of
the charms Of novelty, but merely to
inform you Of the fact that such pro-
test was then and there and so made.
Respectfully yours,
JACOB BACKEs.
Mr.. Backes' Protest.
One might easily recall the time.
during September 1909, when the
London papers We're agog with en-
thusiasm over the ''fact that the finis
of DR.. f. G. Cooks Polaric peresrina-
tions shed additional lustre on the
"Anglo-Saxon race" which ardor, in
hn o%
odicals, but thinly yelled the intima-
ton that the story of such an achieve
ment belonged naturally to the "An-
glo- o-Saxons," being too great, too in
tense, to enhalo a mere Latin, Celt.
Hebrew, or Slav. However, close fol-
lowing further revelations on this
Arctic enterprise, the knowing Lon
doners decided that DR.. Cook after all
could not be a genuine "Anglo- Saxon"
because, said they, he was doing
things to which no real "Anglo-Sax-
on would stoop. Consequently, from
being the pride and glory of "Anglo-
Saxondom" the Doctors drop to be-
ing merely another one of those
bloomin' h'American buffers was
quick, sudden and conclusive.
Centuries before the Americans be-
came a Nation, even long before Col
umbus was born, such racial head
erectness as the real Anglo -Saxons
ever enjoyed was submerged in de-
feat, the submergence involving such
social and political secondariness as
Immediately in those days became the
fate of any Nation whose warriors,
denying themselves the "joy of bat
tie" when the enemy became real an
cry, discreetly accelerated their de-
parture from the field of conflict.
We Are Not Anglo. .Saxons.
Considering that even today an
American is hard put to it to make
head or tail out of Yorkshire or
Cockney conversation, it is probable
that If one of those real Anglo Sax
ons came to life and spoke in his ma
tive idiom not one American could
understand him, nor would the revis-
liant be able to connect with any con-
ception of his own anything addressed
to him in American. If the Anglo
Saxons of old, instead of the Scandi-
navians and Latins. had discovered