AN GAODHAL.
11
AMERICA.
Celto-Germanic, not Anglo-saxon — Influence of
Language on the Life of a Nation — Our Good Re¬
sulting from Europe's Evil — An Example to Be¬
ware of.
Thoughts suggested by German America Day.
Was ist das Vaterland?
So weit die deutsche zunge klingt
Und Gott im Himmel lieder singt,
Das soll es sein — das soll es sein,
Das ganze Deuschland soll es sein.
In deference to Americans who speak only En¬
glish — but not the Irish who speak every language
but their own, I translate these lines —
Where is the German's Fatherland?
As far as German speech shall ring
And hymns to God in heaven sing,
There, brother, we will take our stand,
For that's the German's Eatherland.
This leads me to say something of the influence
of language on the life of a nation and to urge
each nationality to preserve its language and with
it the glorious traditions of the race, and, as an I¬
rish bard has said:
"To Show before mankind,
How every race and every creed
May be by love combined —
May be combined; yet not forget
The sources whence they rose,
As, formed from many a rivulet,
The stately river flows."
Nations, like individuals, can be independent,
but are interdependent. 1000 years ago Irishmen
were teaching school in Strasburg, St. Gall's
Reichenan and Wurtsburg * . 800 years before Ga¬
lileo, Feargall, the Irish bishop of Salzburg, wrote
a book on the the rotundity of the earth, for which
Boniface, bishop of Mayence, had him tried at
Rome, but the Pope decided in favor of Feargall
and in our own day Zeuss, Windisch and other
German scholars have rescued the Irish language
and its priceless ancient literature from the obliv¬
ion of centuries, and opened up to the Celtic nati¬
ons the lost vista of their ancient glory.
EUROPE, NOT ENGLAND, is the mother country of
America. Europe, not England, gave us Jack Bar¬
ry, De Kalb, Paul Jones, Kosciusko, Lafayette,
Montgomery, Sullivan, Charles Thompson and
William Wirt.
Of the foreign nations which have combined to
make this the greatest and grandest nation the
world ever saw, Germans, for the past fifty years,
contributed the most: previously it was the Irish,
a nation of wanderers — justifying the name Gael,
a wanderer. The present Irish exodus began in
1691, with 19,059 Irishmen who went to help fill
the armies of other lands, from Dunkirk to Bel¬
grade." The Czar peter used some of them in the
conquest of Finland, and Frederick of Prussa had
some in his life guard regiment of giants, but Am¬
erica got most of the Irish emigrants.
The May-flower immigrants and the "F. F. V.'
were earleir arrivals, but their seed did not multi¬
ply rapidly because they raise families of two while
the Germans, Irish and others raise from ten to a
dozen and a half.
* and translating the gospels into German.
The Spaniards were earlier than the F. F. V.'s
and did a good deal for the land that an Italian
discovered — not first, however, for Lief Erikson
was there in the tenth century and found traces
of previous white adventurers on our eastern shores
which he named Huitra-manna-land — white man's
land, and the revelations of 1892 may show that
those white adventurers were monks from the king¬
dom of Kerry who had crossed the Iar Muir and
named this western world St. Brenden's Island.
Back further along the dim corridors of time we
outline the Aztec, the Moundbuilders. America wel¬
comed them all as she does us, to her bosom. There
is room and to spare, provided the fences are
removed, for European, Hindoo and African — for
all who will make good citizens; but there is room
in China for every Mongolian, and the young em¬
peror (long life to him) was every Chinaman to
stay at home. We don't want them; like the Col¬
orado beetle, they come but to defile and destroy.
AN AMERICAN LANGUAGE.
America is a young giantess; as she grows she
will formulate a language of her own from the En¬
glish, German Irish, Scandinavian and Romance
languages together with her euphonious native di¬
alects, a language worthy of herself, capable of
expressing her ideas.
Nations which permit their language to die are
never long lived, nations which preserve a health¬
y tongue cannot die.
Greece, after 2000 years of captivity, was awa¬
kened by the voice of Byron singing in her ancient
language, in 1821, and is now a growing and vig¬
orous little nation — a democratic nation, without
an aristocracy.
Americans who travel in foreign lands are clas¬
sified according to their speech. South Americans
and Mexicans are "Spaniards," Franco-Canadians
are "French," Yankees are "English," and the
Irish and Scotch, having almost lost their ancient
speech, have no social standing — neither a coun¬
try nor a language, but luckily they are realizing
that disgraceful fact.
TEST OF A TRUE MOTHER.
Before closing I would show a coincidence bet¬
ween certain nations, in the matter of assistance
to Johnston. —
Ireland sent
$14,478
Germany,
14,304
Canada.
4,437
England,
2,000
The Queen
her sympathy.
These figures constitute a most eloquent lecture
on ethics. Oh, America, your true mother is eas¬
ily distinguished! Europe stretches out her two
arms to you in your trouble, as you to her. Gene¬
rous Germany, heavily taxed to guard against two
possible enemies, hands you $14,000 — prostrate,
manacled Ireland — her purple hills and golden
vales the spoil of the robber — her ruined cities in
decay, her plains solitary and marked with ruined
homes, saves up for you another $14,000, and your
proud, prosperous stepmother doles out $2,000
And your grandmother cables her sympathy. God
save the Queen! I say it in all reverence and sin¬
cerity, 9,000,000 of Irish were starved, evicted or
exiled in her reign, yet she is the best sovereign
that ever filled the throne of the son of the Nor¬
man robber since A. D. 1066.
Why are we here — we who love our native land
as a mother, but America as a bride — we who are
as loyal to our State and Nation as our sons who
