The Irish Race in the Past and the Present Part 49

Before entering upon the extent, nature, and effects of this second Irish immigration--which may be studied from doc.u.ments existing--it will be well to say a few words on the elements which const.i.tuted the Catholic body when first organized. We are concerned, it is true, with the new element introduced by the great movement of which we begin to speak; but we are far from undervaluing other sources of life, which not only affected the Church at its birth in the United States, but have continued to act upon her ever since with more or less of energy. The reader should not imagine that, by not speaking of them, we are unjust or blind to their efficiency; they simply lie without the scope of our plan.

In the North the French, and in the South the Spanish missionaries, had imparted to Catholicity a vitality which could not be extinguished; but its operations were almost entirely confined to limits outside those which circ.u.mscribe the field of our investigations. The French element, however, grew into prominence even at the outset within those limits, either through the acquisition of Louisiana, or in consequence of the French immigration during the terrible revolution of last century. It is only necessary to open the pages of Mr. R. H.

Clarke's recently-published "Lives of the American Bishops," to be struck with the importance of that element. It may be said that, for the first twenty-five years of the republic, French prelates and clergymen, together with several American Marylanders, were intrusted with the care of the infant Church.

Ireland seems to have had scarcely any office to fulfil in that great work, save through the humble exertions of a few devoted but almost unknown missionaries; so that, when bishops of Irish birth were first chosen, they were either taken from Ireland itself, as was Dr. England, Bishop Kelly, of Richmond, or Conwell, of Philadelphia, or from the monasteries of Rome, as were Bishops Connolly and Concanen, of New York. Bishop Egan, of Philadelphia, can scarcely be called an exception, as he had only spent a very few years in this country when he was elevated to the episcopal dignity. The German element showed itself only in Pennsylvania.

It was under circ.u.mstances such as these that that stream of desolate people began to flow, spreading gradually through immense regions, and bringing with it only its unconquerable faith.

From the "mustard-seed" a n.o.ble tree was to spring up; but as yet it was only a weak sapling. In 1785, Bishop Carroll made an estimate of the Catholic population of the States: "In Maryland, seventeen thousand; in Pennsylvania, over seven thousand; and, as far as information could be obtained, in other States, about fifteen hundred." New York City could not yet boast of a hundred Catholics.

Like all things durable and mighty, the first swelling of that great wave was slow and silent, and scarcely perceptible, until little by little the ripple spread over the vast ocean.

The first apparent causes have been well expressed by T. D.

McGee, in his "Irish Settlers:" "The breaking out of the French War in 1793, and the degrading legislative Union of 1800, had deprived many of bread, and all of liberty at home, and made the mechanical as well as the agricultural cla.s.s embark to cross the Atlantic.

"Hitherto the Irish had colonized, sowed and reaped, fought, spoken, and legislated in the New World, if not always in proportion to their numbers, yet always to the measure of their educational resources. Now they are about to plant a new emblem - -the Cross--and a new inst.i.tution--the Church--throughout the American Continent. For, the faith of their fathers they did not leave behind them; nay, rather, wheresoever six Irish roof-trees rise, there you will find the cross of Christ reared over all, and Celtic piety and Celtic enthusiasm, all sighs and tears, kneeling before it."

Let us look at a few particular signs of the coming of this great wave in its first scarcely perceptible movement.

"John Timon was born at Conewago, Pennsylvania, February 12, 1797, and baptized on the 17th of the same month; his parents, James Timon and Margaret Leddy, had quite recently arrived in this country from Ireland, and were from Belturbet, County Cavan.

A family of ten children, of whom John was the second son, blessed the Catholic household of these pious parents."--(Lives of American Bishops.)

"Francis Xavier Gartland was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1805; he came to America, while yet a child, and made his studies at Mount St. Mary's, Emmettsburg."--(Ibid.)

"John B. Fitzpatrick was born in Boston, November 1, 1812. His parents emigrated from Ireland, and settled in Boston in 1805."-- (Ibid.)

What did the parents of the future bishop find on their arrival at Boston? In the year previous, the first Catholic congregation was a.s.sembled in that city by the Abbe La Poitre, a French navy- chaplain, who had remained in America after the departure of the French fleet, which rendered such powerful a.s.sistance in the struggle for American independence. In 1808, four years before the birth of him who was destined to wear the mitre, the Catholics had obtained the old "French Church" in School Street, which was probably a Calvinist meeting house.

Another wavelet of a precious kind was the following: "Bishop Lanigan was meditating" (in Ireland) "the establishment of a religious community in the city of Kilkenny, and designed Miss Alice Lalor for one of its future members. But, in 1797, her parents emigrated from Ireland and settled in America, and she felt it to be her duty . . . . to accompany them. But she promised the bishop to return in two years. On arriving at Philadelphia, she became acquainted with the Reverend Leonard Neale. . . . Feeling convinced that it was not the design of Providence that she should abandon America for Ireland, Father Neale released her from her promise to return to Kilkenny, in order that she might become his cooperator in the foundation of a religious order in the United States (the Visitation Nuns)."-- (Ibid.)

Already was the young church robbing the old of some of its best members, who were to give some weight to the Irish element in this country.

"George A. Carrell was born at Philadelphia. . . . He was the seventh child of his Irish parents, and the house they occupied, and in which he was born, was the old mansion of William Penn, at the corner of Market Street and Let.i.tia Court."-- (Ibid.)

Two short observations naturally present themselves here.

Philadelphia is the city oftenest mentioned whenever foreigners are spoken of as landing in North America at that time. It was then the great harbor of the country, New York not having attained the preeminence she now enjoys. Hence, the Church counted seven thousand children in Pennsylvania; but very few north of that city. Thither came the German Catholics, also, in great numbers to spread themselves chiefly West and South. Such was the direction then taken by the Catholic wave.

Our second remark only concerns the house in which he who became Bishop Carrell was born. It seemed only fitting that an Irish Catholic family should thus early take possession of the very dwelling-place of the founder of the colony, as the Catholic Church was destined, through the Irish element chiefly, to supplant and outlive the little church of the "Friends."

All the facts, however, just quoted are exceptional, and regard only the select few. What became of the ma.s.s, meanwhile? As usual, history for the most part is silent with regard to it. A very few words const.i.tute the only record which can afford us a glimpse of the real situation of the vast majority of those poor, friendless, obscure immigrants, on whom, nevertheless, the great hopes of the future were built.

We have, happily, some means left us of forming an opinion; and it will be seen that their situation was much the same as that of their earlier compatriots. For instance, in the "Lives of American Bishops" we read the following startling story:

"The Abbe Cheverus very frequently made long journeys to convey the consolations of religion or perform acts of charity. About this time (1803) he received a letter from two young Irish Catholics confined in Northampton prison, who had been condemned to death without just cause, as was almost universally believed, imploring him to come to them and prepare them for their sad and cruel fate. He hastened to their spiritual relief, and inspired them with the most heroic sentiments and dispositions, which they persevered in to the last fatal moment of their execution.

According to custom, the prisoners were carried to the nearest church, to hear a sermon preached immediately before their execution; several Protestant ministers presented themselves to preach the sermon; but the Abbe Cheverus claimed the right to perform that duty, as the choice of the prisoners themselves, and, after much difficulty, he was allowed to ascend the pulpit.

His sermon struck all present with astonishment, awe, and admiration."

Here, in 1803, we have almost a repet.i.tion of the death of the poor woman Glover; and, had it not been for the high character of the admirable man who hastened to their a.s.sistance, those two young Irish Catholics would have had for their only religious preparation before death a sermon from one or more Protestant ministers; and, as the great and good Cheverus could not be everywhere in New England, there is little doubt but that such was the fate of more than one of the newly-arrived immigrants.

In 1800 and the following years a comparatively large number of Irishmen landed at New York, and the future terrible scourge of their race, ship-fever, soon broke out among them. Dr. Bailey, the father of Mrs.Seton, was Health Physician to the port of New York at the time, and he allowed his daughter to visit and do good among them. She was deeply impressed by the religious demeanor of the Irish just landed. The Rev. Dr. White relates in her "Life:" "'The first thing,' she said, 'the poor people did when they got their tents was to a.s.semble on the gra.s.s, and all, kneeling, adore our Master for his mercy; and every morning sun finds them repeating their praises.' In a letter to her sister- in-law she describes their sufferings under the 'plague' in the following golden words:

"'Rebecca, I cannot sleep; the dying and the dead possess my mind--babies expiring at the empty breast of their mother. And this is not fancy, but the scene that surrounds me. Father says that such was never known before; that there are actually twelve children that must die from mere want of sustenance, unable to take more than the breast, and from the wretchedness of their parents deprived of it, as they have laid ill for many days in the ship, without food, air, or changing. Merciful Father! Oh, how readily would I give them each a turn of my child's treasure, if in my choice! But, Rebecca, they have a provider in heaven, who will soothe the pangs of the suffering innocent.'"

When she wrote the above, Mrs. Seton was not yet professedly a Catholic; but how truly animated with the spirit of the Church of Christ! Happy would the poor immigrants have been had they only met with Protestants of her stamp on landing, and of her father's, who, although he prevented her becoming foster-mother to those poor children, as her first duty regarded her own child, died himself, a victim to his charity toward their parents, contracting, in the fulfilment of his office, the fever they had brought with them, which he was striving to allay!

The following fact, which will conclude this portion of our inquiry, happened a little later, but, on that very account, will serve as a connecting link with the considerations which are to follow, and will open our eyes to the real position of that already swelling ma.s.s of immigrants.

"During the year 1823, Bishop Connolly (of New York) made the visitation of his entire diocese. . . . He extended his journey along the route of the Erie Ca.n.a.l, which was commenced in 1819, where large numbers of Irish laborers had been attracted, and among whom the bishop labored with indefatigable zeal." At that time the clergy of the whole diocese consisted of eight priests with their bishop.

At last we find the "Irish people" at work. The spectacle is full of sadness; and the only emotion which can fill the heart is one of deep pity. In that vast wilderness of the West, for such it then was, along public works extending hundreds of miles, large gangs of men--such is the expression we are compelled to use--are hard at work along that dreary Mohawk River; blasting rocks, digging in the hard clay, uprooting trees, clearing the ground of briars, tangled bushes, and the vast quant.i.ty of debris of animal and vegetable matter acc.u.mulated during centuries. This was the work which "attracted" large numbers of Irish laborers. They had left their country, crossed the ocean under circ.u.mstances that should come under our notice, and landed on these (at that time) inhospitable sh.o.r.es, to find work; and they found the occupation just mentioned. We can picture the "shanties" in which they lived, the harpies who thrived on them, the innumerable extortions to which they were subjected.

Bearing in mind that, in the immense State of New York and in one-half of New Jersey, there were just eight priests with their bishop, we may form some idea of the way in which they lived and died.

How they must have blessed this bishop, who had left Rome, his second country, and the n.o.ble a.s.sociations which surrounded him in the Eternal City, to come to the succor of his unfortunate countrymen scattered away in a New World! And well did he deserve that blessing!

But his pa.s.sage along the Erie Ca.n.a.l could be nothing more than a veritable pa.s.sage--a transient sojourn of a few days or weeks at most. What became of those gangs of men after, what had happened to them before, no one has said, no one has told us, no one now can ascertain; we are only left to conjecture, and the spectacle, as we said, is too sad to dwell upon.

But, hidden within this melancholy view, lies a great and glorious fact. It was the beginning of an "apostolic mission" on the part of a whole people, a mission which will form one of the most moving and significant pages of the ecclesiastical history of the nineteenth century. Every Christian knows that apostolic work is rough work; the brunt of the battle must be borne by the earliest in the field, that it may be said of their successors in the words of the Gospel: "Vos in labores eorum introistis."

Such being the hard lot of the immigrants in the interior of the country, was that of those who remained in the cities much more enviable? On this point we are enabled to judge, at least as regards New York. In a letter written by Bishop Dubois, and published in vol. viii. of the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith," we meet with the following exhaustive description:

"At the beginning of this century, the newly-arrived immigrants were employed as day-laborers, servants, journeymen, clerks, and shopmen. Now, the condition of this cla.s.s here is precisely the same as its condition in England; it is entirely dependent upon the will of the trader: not because by law are they forced thereto, but because the rich alone, being able to advance the capital necessary for factories, steam-engines, and workshops, the poor are obliged to work for them upon the masters' own conditions. These conditions, in the case of servants especially, sometimes degenerate into tyranny; they are frequently forced to work on Sundays, permission to hear even a low ma.s.s being refused them; they are obliged betimes to a.s.sist at the prayers of the sect to which their masters belong, and they have no other alternative than either to do violence to their conscience, or lose their place at the risk of not finding another. Add to this the insults, the calumnies against Catholics, which they are daily forced to hear--a kind of persecution at the hands of their masters, who do every thing to turn them away from their religion; consider the dangers to which are exposed numbers of orphans who lose their fathers almost immediately upon landing; add to this the want of spiritual succor, a necessary consequence of the scarcity of missionaries; and you will have a feeble idea of the obstacles of every kind which we have to surmount. . . . Supposing an immigrant, the father of a family, to die, the widow and orphans have no other resources but public charity; and if a home is found for the children, it is nearly always among Protestants, who do every thing in their power to undermine their faith."

This picture of immigrant-life in New York was certainly repeated through all the other large cities. Under such a combination of adverse circ.u.mstances it is most probable that men and women of any other nation would have entirely lost their faith. Such, then, was the dreary prospect for the new-comers.

Who at that time would have dared hope to witness the consoling spectacle which followed soon after? To begin with the dawn of that bright day, we must pa.s.s on to a new period of immigration, commencing in 1815 or shortly after, and continuing down to the "exodus" of 1846.

It may be well, before entering upon it, to look at the causes which drove so many to leave the sh.o.r.es of Ireland. From the year 1815 the number of immigrants increased considerably and kept on a steady increase until it swelled to the startling proportions of 1850 and the following years.

It is easy to demonstrate that the causes were twofold: 1. The wretched state of the vast majority of the Irish at the best of times. 2. The periodical famines which have regularly visited the island since the beginning of last century. At any time it was in the power of the English to remedy both causes by effecting certain changes in the existing laws. The first of these is evidently the necessary result of the penal laws which had converted the Irish, designedly and with the wilful intent of the legislators, into a nation of paupers. The second can only be the result of the laws affecting the tenure of land and the trade and manufactures of the country.

To attribute the pauperism which now seems a part and parcel of the Irish nation while in their own country to the indolence and want of foresight on the part of the natives themselves, as it is a fashion with English writers to do, is wilfully to close the eyes to two very important things: their past history in their own land, and their present history outside of it.

As to their past history in their own land, it is an established fact that pauperism was unknown in the island, until Protestant legislators introduced it by their confiscations and laws with the manifest intent of destroying, rooting out, or driving away the race. What has been previously stated on this point cannot be gainsaid; and it suffices for the vindication of a falsely- accused people. There might be some hope for a speedier and happier solution of the vexed "Irish difficulty" did the grandsons of those who wrought the evil only honestly acknowledge the faults of their ancestors--the least that might be expected of them; and it would not be too much to imagine them honest enough to repair those faults in these days of severe reckoning and self-scrutiny.

As to the present history of the race outside their own land, now that it has been scattered, by these grievous calamities, all over the world, whatever characteristics its children may present, indolence and want of foresight can scarcely be numbered among them, in view of the success which attends their march everywhere. And if these qualities would seem to be rooted in the native soil, they are only "importations" like the men who fastened them there, and due only to the cramped position in which their legislators so carefully confined them. Where should there be energy, when every motive that could urge it has been taken away? How is it possible to improve their condition, when every improvement only imposes an additional burden upon them in the shape of rack-rent or eviction?

In his work on "The Social Condition of the People," Mr. Kay quotes from the Edinburgh Review of January, 1850, the evidence on this point given by English, German, and Polish witnesses before the Committee of Emigration, and the proofs gathered from every source as to the rapid improvement of the Irish emigrant, wherever he goes, are certainly convincing.

As for the foolish (for it is nothing else, unless it be wicked) a.s.sertion that those frightful famines referred to are to be attributed to the sufferers themselves, it is only necessary to say in refutation that in the very years when thousands were being swept away daily by their ravages in Ireland--1846 and 1847-- the harbors of the island were filled with English vessels, loaded with cargoes of provisions of every kind to be transported to England in order to pay the rents due to absentee landlords: and all these provisions were the product of the famine-stricken land, won by the toil of the famine-stricken nation. This has invariably been the case when famine has swept over the island: the island's riches were in her harbors, stored in the holds of foreign vessels, to be carried away and converted into money that these n.o.ble Anglo-Irish landlords might be enabled to "sustain" life

Others have ascribed these periodical visitations to a surplus population; but, without entering into a discussion on the subject, Sir Robert Kane, in his "Industrial Resources of Ireland," shows that, taking the island in her present state and under the existing system of cultivation, she could support with ease eighteen million inhabitants; that, if the best methods of farming were generally adopted, the soil, by double and even triple crops, could feed without difficulty, not only twenty- five million, the figure stated by Mr. Gustave de Beaumont, a French publicist of eminence, but as many as from thirty to thirty-five million inhabitants.

But, as the same judicious writer observes, "the enormous quant.i.ty of cattle annually shipped off from Ireland to England would, in that case, be consumed in the country which produces it."

It is clear, therefore, that the pretended surplus population of Ireland is, as Sir Robert Kane says, a piece of pure imagination, perfectly ideal, and that it is its unequal and not its aggregate amount which is to be deplored.

But no one has presented the question more clearly and solved it more precisely than Mr. Gustave de Beaumont in his admirable work on Ireland, from which we note one or two telling pa.s.sages, as given in Father Perraud's "Ireland under English Rule."

"The celebrated French publicist, who was the first to present to us (in France) a complete picture of the condition of Ireland, examining in 1829 how emigration might or might not do away with all the misery he had witnessed, proposed to himself the following questions: