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By some error it has been
announced that Dr. Patton was to be present, and would make an address at
this meeting. He was desirous to come, but Providence has prevented him.
He has been lying in sickness and is now recovering, but for a month or
two yet he will be unable to do any work. Although not a Scotch-Irishman,
he is half of one, and we are trying to make him one at Princeton College,
which is a Scotch-Irish institution, and he is very much interested in our
movement. I never would have come to this meeting and left my work at the
busy season of the year had it not been for Dr. Patton, but I don't know
whether that is a privilege to you or not. [Laughter.]
Another thing I want to
speak of is a personal matter. In the old country I was rather in the
unfortunate position of a Scotch-Irishman whose ancestry had all run away
to America. About thirty years before I was born my grandfather came to
Charleston, S. C, and from that time on I was anxious to hear about these
American relatives. I was so alone in the world that I have come after
them, but it is only one of them that I have found. I have not found my
grandfather. I suppose there is a presumption of law that he is not at
this time in existence, but I am not sure of that, especially in this good
climate where there are so many very aged men. But this is my position. I
have never yet met the right man by the name of McClure, for that was his
name, or of Hemphill. My heart beat fast when the name of Hemphill was
called yesterday, for I don't know but that your Mayor might be a cousin
or some other relation of mine. I may also state that my friend, Col.
Adair, who gave us the address yesterday, in mentioning the part that
Scotch-Irishmen have taken in the building up of this community, omitted
to give the name of Mayor Hemphill as one specimen of these Scotch-Irish
journalists. I want to say a word about evolution which affects the
different species of animals and plants, and according to whose principles
new varieties of the human race can be developed through circumstances
that are going on in the world. My subject is an abstract of a scientific
lecture on the evolution of the Scotch-Irish race. In discussing this
subject I will not begin with China, though I understand that the Emperor
of China is learning Scotch-Irish. [Laughter.] The newspapers say he is
learning English under a Scotch-Irishman, and we know what kind of English
that is. [Laughter.]
I begin with Iceland. In
Reclus' book on the geography of the world, it is averred that Iceland in
ancient times was colonized by people from Ireland; that the crosses and
the bells and the ecclesiastical remains of Iceland bear testimony to the
Irish colonization. Also one of the fiords of Iceland is called Patrick's
Fiord, a good name and one that I like, as symbolized by the colors of
this badge which the local committee have prepared. I like to see the
orange and the green coming together, showing that we are all Irishmen.
[Applause.]
In the old time we had what
we call, in the language of modern science, the primordial or generalized
condition of the race. They were not yet specialized as to what part of
Iceland they came from, and there were Scotch-Irishmen, or rather Scots,
of the North of Ireland, also of North Britain, for the people of Ireland
and Scotland alike were called Scots in those days. They were in a very
generalized condition, to put it in a scientific style. Prom that time we
must come to a period marked by violence and contending forces. It was the
old principle of the struggle for existence. In this struggle for
existence there were many external factors of oppression; a hard time it
was. Our President told us something yesterday about the emigration from
that country to this during those times of trial and oppression, and it is
astonishing how great some of them get to be over here. First, Francis
Makemie, sent to a New York prison for preaching the gospel, was a case of
the struggle for existence; and now John Hall, with his fine Fifth Avenue
church, in the same city, exemplifies the survival of the fittest. In that
time there were trials in various forms, and the real hero of the siege of
Derry was a Scotch-Irishmen. This was Adam Murray, who led the forces in
their sallies against the besiegers, and though he was cheated of the
honor because he was a Scotch-Irishman and not an Englishman, we should
not forget his achievements. "We have had wrongs to suffer for a long
time, and still we have to struggle. But if our environment was rather a
trying one, it proved to be really wholesome, for it taught us the way to
our liberty and to our God. You have seen this in America, and have seen
the difficulties overcome here. You can imagine how I feel when I see over
here my old friend, back again, great in position and in stature. When I
look on so many stalwart representatives of the race, I ask: "How do you
come to be so big in these places?" How is it that these Scotch-Irishmen
have come to be so tall? I must consider this as one of the problems and
one of the puzzles. But as I saw here one of the great-grandsons of John
Starke my heart went back to his grandfather, John Starke, who was a great
hero; and yet there was a greater hero in his time, and that was John
Starke's Scotch-Irish wife, that used to write letters to him when he was
fighting for his country's liberty, telling him that he was laboring in
God's cause and let his heart not fail, for God would be with him and give
him the victory. It was in this way that these Scotch-Irish men and women
all fought the great battles of this struggle for existence. What we
wanted then and want still was existence; that is to say, a healthy
development, a healthy, hearty existence, that we should not be cringing
under the feet of tyranny, but that we should be free men, and yet
law-abiding men, but not that we should have any ascendency over others.
I think it right to say in
this Congress, at the present time, that whilst I do not enter into
politics, and whilst I have taken no sides in the contest for home rule
and kindred matters, because I am an American citizen, and not an English
subject, yet I know that the men who are to-day against home rule in the
North of Ireland are the same men who, a generation ago, fought for the
rights and liberties of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen; they are
not bigots, they are not fanatics, they are not men who want an ascendency
of their own party, but they are men who are afraid of an ascendency
rising up in the place of the old one that after long struggles they have
gotten rid of, and now they are wanting to preserve this principle of
fairness and freedom, and I say it is a struggle for existence, it is not
a struggle for domination, it is not a struggle to rob anybody of his
rights. Here also in the United States the Scotch-Irish do not wish to
lord it over any other class. We want to carry on our own work and do it
fairly and well, and to enjoy the existence, to enjoy the privileges which
God has given us. Now we come to the survival of the fittest, and I need
not be required to give a certificate to show that we are the fittest to
survive. [Laughter and applause.]
A young lady told me that
it would be a good course to make a speech on the bad things of the
Scotch-Irish, and we could find plenty of them, both at home and in
America, plenty of disgraceful acts which they have done. I was rather
indiscreet a short time ago in telling my class in college that if the
boys would be quiet and behave themselves nicely it would be a pleasant
thing for the Faculty, and our work would be greatly lessened, but there
would not be much good out of students of that kind. The students that
have no mischief in them have little good as the world goes. [Applause.]
And so it is with the older men as well. I may state for the other side
(the ladies), where there is not much mischief, there is not much
pleasure, not much spice; and whenever you find a tendency to develop
anything that is bad, you may be sure that there is an opportunity of
developing something good there, and as a scientific man I like to hear
discussions, even though they are sometimes on the wrong side. I sometimes
teach my boys that a great deal of the discovery that is made in the world
is made by people going in the dark and making blunders, and if I were in
a big wood and did not know the way out, I should think it was better to
go some way than to sit there and do nothing. These Scotch-Irishmen
accordingly, sometimes, when they do not know the right way take the wrong
way, and they have been trying to find out their mistakes and improve
themselves. I am not going into practical illustrations of that, even if I
had time, and I am limited to fifteen minutes. I can go over the field and
show you how the ground lies. Even their activity in wrong directions has
often proved their fitness to survive.
These Scotch-Irishmen have
been an irrepressible set, as their masters will tell you. Why did they
shut up the gates of Derry? Some of the wisest and most prudent men of
Derry told them to keep the gates open and let the invading army into the
city. Why did they shut the gates on the troops of the king and seek to
prevent them from entering? Why wore not, these people content to sit down
and become clodhoppers instead of fighting for their liberty? Why was it
when they came to America they gave much trouble to the British
Government? Why did our brethren from Boston—those noble Puritans whose
memory we revere—throw the tea into the harbor and do rascally things of
this kind? Why did you fight such battles for freedom, knowing that the
greatest naval and military powers of the world were against you, and that
your success was hopeless? It was this: there was mischief in these
Scotch-Irishmen, they could not be put down, and there is the hope of
something good in it. This is not the first Scotch-Irish Congress that we
have had in Atlanta. There was a great Scotch-Irish Congress here in
Atlanta twenty-seven years ago under the joint presidency of Hood and
Sherman, and why did that congress go into all that fighting and
quarreling when its members were brothers? It is the mischief that was in
them; there must be potency of good in a people that have so much
mischief, and our business is to try to encourage and bring out that good,
that something may be done. This is a scientific line of evolution, and if
you would submit the case to a body of scientific men they would tell you
that these principles are sound, that it is in this way good races have
been developed.
I will close by telling you
what I did with a few of our Scotch-Irish students that have been in
Princeton. They come over sometimes for their education. They are all
extreme Presbyterians; they have some liberality, but still they look at
things very much from a Presbyterian point of view, and people must
forgive them for a slight narrowness in that respect. I told them that I
was coming to the Scotch-Irish Congress and wanted a subject, for I knew
that Mr. Bonner had a trick of calling on me sometimes, and I asked them
to tell me the state of matters in the old country. The first thing they
told me about was the recent prosperity of the country, the prosperity of
the farmers, and the wonder of that prosperity is that it is in the midst
of the greatest difficulties they have ever experienced. The flax crop,
which used to be a great crop, is gone now. The causes of it I need not
explain. But for all that the farmers have, many of them, become land
owners, and even the farmers who have not yet been able to become land
owners are sharing in the general prosperity of the whole country. Affairs
should not be changed, but they should be let alone as they are. The
country is going on in prosperity; it is the survival of the fittest.
Another thing they told me
is that Belfast is becoming a great place for shipbuilding, and it is
advancing more than any other seaport in the British Isles, I think, with
two or three exceptions, in some respects more than any other. It has
recently got a feather in its cap of which it may be proud. The queen is
very jealous— not the queen herself, but her ministers—of giving favors to
certain places, and Belfast was never much favored by the government, but
the queen has made the Mayor of Belfast a Lord Mayor. London has a Lord
Mayor; Dublin, from time immemorial, has had a Lord Mayor; York has had a
Lord Mayor, because it was the old historic center of Northern England,
and now Belfast has the fourth Lord Mayor, and he is a Scotch-Irishman.
[Applause.] One of our Belfast teachers was Dr. Thompson, whose arithmetic
and geography we used to learn in the schools, and his son went over to
become a teacher in Glasgow, and became celebrated in laying Atlantic
cables and has been raised to the peerage and made Lord Kelvin. He was one
of the Belfast school-teachers, and as an old Belfast schoolteacher myself
I rather feel proud that these things are going on.
Another thing these young
men told me was the great advance of temperance that is going on at the
present time in the North of Ireland, so that many places where the
drinking used to be a reproach to the country are now becoming remarkable
for sobriety, and I am glad to be able to say that the Roman Catholics and
Methodists and Baptists and people of all denominations have joined
together in fighting in the British Parliament for sobriety and the
observance of the Lord's day in their country, and it is a good sign that
on a recent occasion the Roman Catholic Society in Dublin invited the
Presbyterian assembly to a breakfast in the cause of temperance. That
shows the fraternal spirit that is amongst the people, notwithstanding the
differences in creed and politics. With all this prosperity there are
financial difficulties, and yet the Church of Christ is advancing in
Ireland, and advancing especially in the missionary spirit. These young
men tell me that the Irish Presbyterian Church is at the present time
sending missionaries into all parts of the world as they never did before,
and William Park, my old friend and pupil, who has been their Moderator
lately, is now proposing that they shall imitate St. Patrick by sending
large bands of students to China and India and other heathen countries.
The last thing I have to
speak of is the advancement of education. At the College of Belfast this
work is progressing, and the degree that is conferred by the medical
department of that college is now being recognized over the world as the
highest degree which any college can give. I find in the Northern states
in this country an impression that the young women in the South are better
educated than the young men. They say that you women are better educated
than your brothers and sweethearts, and you ladies should not permit that,
you should insist on their being as good scholars as you. The women of
Ireland have been taking the honors of pub-lie occasions more than anybody
else. Thus we learn that the whole country is advancing in all these
things: in prosperity, in manufactures, in education and missionary spirit
to be a blessing to the world. I think we may thank God and take courage
for our race. [Applause.] |
