The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1920-12-06

carpenters, builders, stone-crushing
apparatus, sawmills and the like.
And all these things he made it his
business 10 understand personally. As
member of the committee of Sir
Horace Plunketts Agricultural Organi-
zation Society-on which he sat side
by side with Orange colleagues he
was known to be ION the run'--he
was intimately in touch with the
ideas of the cooperative movement,
and was specially interested in the
organization OF the woolen industry,
seeking to revive by modern efforts
the position il held in Michael Dryers
time in the valleys Of his native coun-
try OF Wicklow. More important
to Irish thinking perhaps than all
these qualifications was his intimate
knowledge of the ways of the country
side and its people. | have heard
him tell of how he bought a cottage
for one of his laborers to live in and
pulled ii down to rebuild in another
place because he found it stood across
fairy pathway" and its two pre-
Vious Inhabitants had gone mad. Chal-
lenged as to whe.her he believed such
things he refused to make any state
ment of belief or disbelief: he simply
replied "Its matter of business
for me; | take things and people as
find them"
To you reading in an American city
this may seem a trucking To super
stition--to the people of Ireland it
revealed a practical as well as an en-
dearing quality in the man.
For a rash speech Barton was in
prisoned in Mountjoy and made the
first and most sensational of escapes
from the illnamde prison. Then for n
year he carried on one of the most
remarkable pieces of administrative
work in Irish history. Constantly
pursued, with a price on his head, he
moved freely about Dublin, writing
innumerable letters, bringing schemes
to fruition with expert advice, inter-
viewing applicants for jobs and depu-
tations of men in search of land. All
this, more than an ordinary mans
days work (for circumstances con-
stantly forced him to combine chief
executive and office boy) together with
the constant anxiety OF arrest was
performed with a cheerfulness and
energy which amazed all those who
knew him. 1t was my privilege to
see much of him in those days and |
never saw him discouraged or bad
tempered, nor did / ever see him
wanting in high purpose or failing in
! the stern exercise of authority where
il was needed.
The problem which Barton was spe-
cally called to tackle was that Of
the redistribution Of Irish land-a
question which always comes danger
ously near to the spilling Of blood.
It was n subject he knew thoroughly,
and he tackled it with enthusiasm,
The full story Of the plans he made
cannot yet be told for the telling
might endanger some Of the results.
But il may be said that when at last
through Il mischance he was arrested
in bed and sent to serve three years
as a common felon in an English Grim
inal prison these plans were so well
established that his followers were
able TO carry them on. He knew IL
and went to his penance with the
same cheerful heart he had shown
throughout. Only the night before he
had been heard TO say that his work
was so far done that he did not care
if he was taken the next day; and
the speech was a true prophecy!
From those plans sprang the whole