The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-12-14
FATHER eYRNE, ADMINISTRATOR
OF THE DIOCESE, KNEW ARCH
BISHOP IRELAND INTIMATELY
AND WRITES IN AN INTEREST
ING VEIN OF HIS BELOVED sU.
PERIoR AND FRIEND.

What has long been dreaded has
come to pass.
Death has robbed the Archdiocese,
the country, the world of one of its
greatest men. John Ireland, church
man, statesman, patriot, man pre-
eminent among men, has passed away.
MoTtally stricken about year ago,
but retaining all his mental powers
to the last, he has TRANQUILITY drifted
into the last haven of rest as good
ship which has passed through stormy
seas folds its sails and glides into
port. The tireless spirit at last rests.
The gain is all his; the loss is all
ours. Who can tell what that loss
is? All words fail; all description
falters.
His was a genius that attracted
while it dazzled, a force, that without
breaking swept away all barriers, an
energy that never wearied, person
atty so many-sided that he was ever
disclosing new realms of thought and
action which he had mastered. His
was a lofty mind all aglow with feel
ing. If, like snow-capped Tacoma
above the plains he lowered above us,
like snow-capped Tacoma flushed with
the glow Of the dawn he appealed to
all our sentiments of admiration and
love.
The Churchman.
AS churchman he was endowed
with q clear vision to see the right
course to pursue and with the indOm-
liable will to enter upon it at once.
Hence to the less endowed he ap-
peared visionary and blameworthy,
but time indicated his forecast and
justified his judgment. He was right
in promoting social reform, in pushing
colonization, in keeping the doors of
the Church open to the organized
workingman, in advocating the fusion
OF natiOnalities, larger cultivation
of the countrys language, and the
absolute severance of nationalities
from all foreign, political influence, as
all today admit. But when most OF
these topics were the burning ques-
tions of the hour they brought him
daily into the arena of combat. They,
however, never distracted him from
his peculiar charge, his beloved do
cese of st. Paul. Practically all its
institutions owe their inception and
growth to his initiative and fostering
care. Year after year he was ever
picking up the slack ends of the work
and pushing and pulling to keep all
things abreast. He had long hand
and the frontiers of his diocese felt
his authority often more than the
center. 1t was not, however, the do
cese of st. Paul that made him ia
nous, but he carried the name of ST..
Paul around the world. Travellers
again and again have asserted that
the name of st. Paul at once prompted
question concerning its great Arch
bishop.
A Statesman and Patriot.
Had Archbishop Ireland been born
here he could not have loved America
more than he did. He loved the coun-
try, its institutions, its ideals. He
loved particularly the men and women
who in the religious, political, COM
mercial or literary world had helped
to make America great. Because he
was a patriot, achievement enrap-
tured him and whether it was at a
banquet or a funeral, whether in pay
ing tribute to a living empire-builder
or to a dead hero he poured forth his
encomiums without stint or reserve.
He cared nothing for the rabble or
the demagogue when there was ques-
ton of giving credit and honor to
whom credit and honor are due.
His first act on entering public life
was to go to the war to preserve in
violate the Union; his last public act,
to save the country from invasion, was
to speed our soldiers to France with
words of patriotic fire. 1t was in
obedience to his sense of patriotism
that he spoke out for a stable cur.
rency and against those political eX-
periments which are rather revoIu-
tionary than evolutionary of the ira
ditional system of our country. His
confidence in the molding powers of
the country was unbounded. He there
fore thought that five-year soiourn
in the land was enough to test the
candidate for citizenship and that the
Captious literacy test should not be
adopted, at least in the case of the
brawny Slav and the art-loving
Italian. In the present crisis the mar
velous outburst of patriotism from the
sons of millions of immigrants has
justified his opinion. No one saw
clearer than he the deficiencies of any
human institution, whether a school
system, an association or a govern
ment. But he preferred to appreciate
the good in them rather than to pa
rade their shortcomings. The Divine
Master it is said, without denouncing
the popular ideal of the restoration
of Israeps kingdom, made it the start
ing point of His preaching and gradu-
ally purged it from the dross with
which it was overlaid. If this saying
be true, in the treatment of popular
ideals He had not for nineteen cen.
turtles more faithful disciple than
the Archbishop of st. Paul.