ve land, while his
heart is stirred by memories of her wrongs and of her glory.

What a splendid contribution Ireland has made to the world's galaxy
of great men! In the realm of poetry, Goldsmith and Tom Moore; of
oratory, Sheridan, Emmett, Grattan, O'Connell, Burke, and in later
years Charles Stewart Parnell, whose thrilling words I heard a
third of a century ago, pleading the cause of his oppressed
countrymen.

The obligation of America to Ireland for men who have aided in
fighting her battles and framing her laws cannot be measured by
words. In the British possessions to the northward, in the old
city of Quebec, there is one spot dear to the American heart--that
where fell the brave Montgomery, fighting the battles of his adopted
country. What schoolboy is not familiar with the story of gallant
Phil Sheridan and "Winchester twenty miles away?" Illinoisans will
never forget Shields, the hero of two wars, the senator from three
States. It was an Irish-American poet of a neighboring State
who wrote of our fallen soldiers words that will live while we have
a country and a language:

"The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more of life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few."

The achievements of representatives of this race along every pathway
of useful and honorable endeavor are a part of our own history.
We honor to-day the far-away island, the deeds and sacrifices of
whose sons have added so brilliant a chapter to American history.
From the assembling of the First Continental Congress to the present
hour, in every legislative hall the Irishman has been a factor.
His bones have whitened every American battlefield from the first
conflict with British regulars to the closing hour of our struggle
with Spain.

The love of liberty is deeply ingrained into the very life of
the Irishman. The history of his country is that of a gallant
people struggling for a larger measure of freedom. His most precious
heritage is the record of his countrymen, who upon the battlefield
and upon the scaffold have sealed their devotion to liberty with
their blood. With such men it was a living faith that--

"Whether on the scaffold high
Or in the battle's van
The fittest place for man to die
Is where he dies for man."

With a history reaching into the far past, every page of which
tells of the struggle for liberty, it is not strange that the
sympathies of the Irishman are