The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1914-11-21

thing a crowd of people is anyway"
John Sergeant remarked casually, to
the world in general. He was stand
ing at the window of his private office
in the plant of the Milton Machinery
Company, looking down at Harry
Loyd's funeral procession as it took
it's slow way past the mill and up the
River Road to the hills and the Cath
olic cemetery. His secretary was
standing little in back of him, look
Ing over his shoulder; but as the re.
mark was not addressed particularly
to him he did not volunteer any com.
ment.
"Just now that crowd is engaged
in the business of mourning. They
wouldn't turn aside from that for any
other business in the world. If you
could get his attention long enough,
any one of them would tell you with
a curse that was responsible for that
boys death. Yet if they knew that 1
was up here in this window, they
wouldn't turn away from their morn.
ing's work of mourning, even to shake
a fist at me.
"And they have to stage. a pageant.
They couldn't get expression for their
grief any other way. Why do they
have to go back to primitive things
the moment they are in earnest about
anything? don't mind the Poles.
They probably saw things like that
when they were growing up in the old
country. And the Italians just natur-
ally fall into procession, for the sake
of the thing. But two.thirds of those
people are Irish-Americans of the Sec
ond or third generation. They never
saw anything like that. They're more
sophisticated, with their talk and their
reading and Socialism and all, than
the average Yankee American. If
anything. they're more American than
he is. Yet there they are, giving that
boy just such a funeral as an Irish
martyr would have had six genera
lions ago.
They never saw it done; but you
see they know how. That's why they
never really change. At bottom
they're the most powerful conserva-
tive force in the world. Their minds
change and their talk changes, but
their atavistic instincts never. And
they are really governed by those.
Il guess won't need you, after ALL"
he said, switching abruptly to Hilton,
the secretary. "You needn't wait"
Hilton started almost guiltily. He
had not been listening to what Sar-
gent had been saying. He had lately
been interesting himself in the idea of
thought transf&suce or control-the
influence which many minds thinking
the same thought may have upon the
mind of one person upon whom their
thought Is fixed. He firmly believed
that a number of minds thinking one
thought about given person would
make that person come to think the
same thing about himself. He con-
sidered the four or five thousand peo-
pie passing by, all thinking John Sar-
gent a murderer. And yet their
thought seemed to take no effect upon
his employers mind. He was brought
back SO sharply by Sargent's dismissal
that for an instant he was not sure
that he had not spoken his thought
aloud. But he caught himself and
turned hastily to the door.
Sargent still stood looking out of
the window.
eyes," he said, "they are wonder.
They'll never change. They're always
Irish and Catholic. And you never
can tell whether it's the Catholic in
them that keeps them Irish, or. the
Irish in them that keeps them Cath
Ollie. If they lose one they lose both,
generally. And then, we'll, then
they're nothing, they don't count.
take the old priest trudging at the
head of them there. He's wider
awake, he sees farther ahead in the
problems of today. than any man l
know. But you could set him back
three hundred years and he'd go right
along with the picture just the same.
Hell talk at the cemetery, prob
ably. l wonder what he will have to
say about me. Most likely not a
word. He'll just ding-dong away at
the old dust to dust and resurrec-
ton business. Yet If he'd take a fling
at the bloodthirsty money power, he
could have three-column leads in the
New York papers tomorrow. But he
won't. He'll just stick to his business
of burying a body and promising
Heaven to soul. And they're Just
like him. could go up there and
stand among them and they wouldn't
notice me: because they're engaged
in the single business of burying a
man."
1t was, indeed, an unusual and
striking procession, this which John
Sargent reviewed and reflected upon.
A funeral in Milton, where practic.
ally all the men and a great manv