Books: Irish Race in the Past and the Present

A >> Aug. J. Thebaud >> Irish Race in the Past and the Present

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It would seem, then, that those first English regulations, by
which British ships were to pass muster at Liverpool before
sailing, were not very efficient; the figures of mortality
quoted by Mr. Maguire are too eloquent; and it would be a
pleasure to us to be able to say with certainty that the more
stringent and better executed laws afterward enforced did not
proceed from the Commission of Emigration, which originated in
New York with some generous-hearted Irish-Americans.

Our readers will have noticed that, even in 1848, with all the
apparent desire on the part of England to save the remnants of
the Irish nation, the mortality on board British ships was more
than three times that on board American vessels, and nearly four
times greater than that on board German ships. Why this
difference? And why should it be so enormous?

It is possible that to the Legislature of New York State chiefly,
and soon after to the Congress of the United States at
Washington, which enacted stringent laws for the protection of
immigrants at sea, belong the chief honor of saving hundreds of
thousands of Irish lives, and that England, whether urged by the
effects of good example, or for very shame, soon followed in
their wake.

But, whatever the cause may have been, it is a heart-felt
pleasure to record the fact that from 1849, when an act of
Parliament, entitled the "Passengers Act," imposed on ship-
owners and captains of vessels strict conditions for the welfare
of emigrants, government control on this subject became every
year more immediate and severe.

Not only were the vessels, provisions, water, medicine chests,
etc., more carefully examined, but the passengers themselves
were compelled to undergo a careful inspection as to their
health and wardrobe.

And, a thing which had never been done before, the space
allotted to each emigrant on deck and between-decks was
determined and subjected to serious control, so that no
overcrowding of passengers should take place. The penalties,
also, on delinquents became even severe; heavy fines were
imposed, and in some cases transportation to a penal settlement
was decreed against the more offensive outrages on humanity.

If all abuses failed to be corrected by such laws, it is because
the most stringent enactments can, to a greater or less extent,
always be evaded by those desirous of evading them; but there is
every reason to believe that the legislators were honest in
their intent of remedying the glaring evils which previously
obtained, and, to a great extent, their efforts met with success,
as is evidenced by the fact that the mortality on board of
British vessels has shown yearly a remarkable diminution since
that time. According to the "Twenty-fourth General Report," the
mortality was: In 1854, 0.74 per cent., already a very
remarkable diminution on previous averages; in 1860, it was
reduced to 0.15 per cent. This was the percentage for vessels
going to North America only.

The first operation of the missionary people was to plant the
living tree of Catholicism in the United States, and so
powerfully forward its growth, that other spiritual plants of a
noxious kind, and weeds that go by the name of creeds, should
gradually be choked up; finally, let us hope, to disappear.
While speaking on this subject, and laying before the reader the
necessary details, we desire not to be held forgetful of the
efforts made in a like direction by Catholic immigrants of other
nationalities. A word has already been said of the early
influence of the French in the North and of the Spaniards in the
South, in establishing the Church in North America. The German
children of the true Church, though at first not so conspicuous,
have for a long time taken, and are now particularly taking, an
active part in the dissemination of the faith, and there can be
no doubt that, with the daily increase of German immigration,
their large numbers must in course of time make a lasting
impression on the territory where they settle. But the French,
the Spaniards, and the Germans, must forget their language
before they become widely useful in the great work before them;
and thus the Irish form the only English-speaking people on whom
the brunt of the battle must fall. Moreover, we treat only of
the Irish race.

The wonderful history of the spread of Catholicity in North
America by the Irish, in the northern part of the United States
particularly, would call for an array of details which it would
be impossible to furnish here in extenso. An imperfect sketch
must suffice.

First comes the consideration that, when the wave of immigration
touched the continent, it might have been feared that, by its
absorption into a dry and parched soil, the aggregate loss would
have reduced to a mere nothing the ultimate gain. There were no
churches for the new worshippers, no priests to administer to
them the sacraments of Christ, no Catholic school-teachers to
train their children. That is to say, these means of
preservation and of propagation were so few and so far between,
that many of the newly-arrived immigrants were forced to
establish themselves in places where they could find none of
those, to them, priceless advantages.

The spiritual dearth was not indeed so great as that previously
described. The zeal of bishops and priests, and teachers from
regular orders, had been so active in its labors, that, aided by
the liberty which the institutions of the country afforded,
results, astonishing indeed, had already rewarded their efforts.
But, after all, what were these compared with the demands so
suddenly laid upon them by such a rapid increase of numbers? It
might be said with truth of multitudes of immigrants, that the
position in which they then found themselves was very little
different from that of their predecessors at the beginning of
the century.

As late as 1834, Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, wrote:
"There are places in which there are Catholics of twenty years
of age, who have not yet had an opportunity of performing one
single public act of their religion. How many fall sick and die
without the sacraments! How many children are brought up in
ignorance and vice! How many persons marry out of the Church,
and thus weaken the bonds that held them to it!"-- (Annals of
the Propagation of Faith, Vol. viii.)

To the same annals, three years later, Dr. England, of
Charleston, sent the long letter in which he detailed the
innumerable losses sustained by the Church in America in
consequence of the want of spiritual assistance. The letter was,
in fact, a cry of anguish wrung from him by the sight he
witnessed.

Such was the universal feeling among those who could rightly
appreciate the fatal consequences of the rush of Catholics to
the New World without any provision prepared for their reception.
And yet all these laments and apprehensions preceded the vast
inpouring of immigrants subsequent to the year 1846. What must
have been the consequent losses then? Yet, looking now, in 1872,
at the present state of the Church in the Union, who can say
that this inpouring and rush, unprepared as the country was for
its reception, was not one of the greatest means devised by
Providence, not only for establishing the Catholic Church in
this country for all time, but likewise as a preparation for
further developments, not only on this continent, but on the
part of many a nation now sitting in "the shadow of death!"
Deplorable, indeed, were the losses, but permanent and wonderful
the gain.

The first effect of the great calamity which occurred along the
St. Lawrence and its tributaries, in 1847, was to reduce the
immigration to Canada to insignificant numbers, and,
proportionately increase that to the United States in a
quadruple ratio. Massachusetts and Connecticut, in New England,
and the great States of New York and Pennsylvania, were now the
chief places of resort for the new-comers; and from New York,
principally, they began to pour, in a long, steady stream, away
by the Erie Canal, westward to the great lakes.

All along these lines, congregations were, providentially,
already formed; and, in the passage of the stream, they were
immediately, as by magic, increased in some instances, to a
tenfold proportion. The labors of the clergy were
correspondingly multiplied, and efforts were immediately made to
obtain new recruits for its ranks. Then appeared a very strange
fact, which, at the time, was remarked upon by everybody, but
has never been satisfactorily explained. Wherever the number of
worshippers in a church induced the chief pastors to have
another constructed in the neighborhood, upon the completion of
the new edifice, the old one seemed to suffer no diminution in
attendance, and the congregation attending the new one gave no
evidence of having hitherto been uncared for. This very
remarkable fact was of such frequent occurrence that it could
not be a delusion, or an exceptional case having its origin in
some extraordinary cause; it was evidently a providential
dispensation, akin, in a spiritual sense, to the miraculous
multiplication of loaves, twice mentioned in the Gospel.

There have certainly been numerous examples of this, in the city
of New York particularly, for more than twenty years; and
probably the same thing is occurring at the time of the present
writing.

Then, another fact occurred, deplored by many, chiefly by Mr.
Maguire, in the interesting work already quoted from, yet,
evidently of a providential character also, and consequently
eminently fruitful, and, it may be said, adorable in its depth.
The Catholic immigrants, although in their own country
agriculturists for the most part, forgot the tilling of the soil
as soon as they reached their new home, and settled down in
great numbers in all the large cities, on the line they pursued
toward the West. Many special evils resulted from this, detailed
at length by those whose wonder it excited, and who strove, for
excellent motives, to thwart this providential movement. But the
immense good which immediately followed from it, and which,
within a short time, was to be greatly increased, was never
mentioned in reply to the reasons advanced by these well-meaning
complainants. The first result of it was the sudden and
necessary creation of many new episcopal sees in all large
cities, where churches were being rapidly built, or had already
been erected in astonishing numbers.

Suppose the Catholics had, following the old bent, turned
themselves chiefly to the tillage of the soil, and buried
themselves away in scattered country villages and farms, how
long would the creation of those new sees have been delayed? Who
is ignorant of the effect of a new see on the propagation of
Catholicity? Cities which otherwise would have numbered among
their population only a few hundred Catholics, scarcely
sufficient for the filling of one small edifice, saw at once one-
third, one-half, or even the larger portion of their population
clamoring for a Catholic bishop, and all the institutions a
bishopric brings in its train. It is unnecessary to furnish
examples of this; they are around us.

Yet one difficulty seems to cast some doubt on this view of the
subject, and strengthen the opposition of those who ardently
advocated the country as the true home for Irish Catholics; and,
as the point involves a universal interest, it is better to
discuss it at once in its chief bearings.

At the time when those wonderful events were being enacted, any
one opening a copy of those general State Directories, with
which New England is particularly blessed, wherein not only the
great commercial and industrial enterprises of each State are
enrolled, but also correct lists of the educational
establishments and various churches of all cities, towns, and
villages, are given --a cursory glance, even, would show him the
striking fact that, as far as the great centres of population
were concerned, Catholic churches, educational establishments,
and primary schools were found in respectable numbers; but many
a page had to be turned when the reader came to places of lesser
importance, to rural populations chiefly, before he met with any
indication of the Catholic Church entering yet upon that large
country domain. This experience was encountered by the writer at
the time, and caused him a moment of doubt.

But beyond the reflection that, in matters of this kind (of the
propagation of a doctrine or a creed), the first thing to be
looked to is the centre, and that this, once mastered, will in
course of time draw under its influence the outer circles; that
all things cannot be effected at once, and the best thing to be
done is to begin with the most important; that, moreover, those
statistics are often incorrect with respect to Catholic matters,
whether from malicious design, or inadvertence, or want of
knowledge, on subjects to which the compilers attached very
little importance, so that, if their statements be compared with
Catholic official intelligence with regard to the same places,
it will be found that many towns and villages which, according
to the State Directories would seem to have been altogether
forgotten by the Church, were actually in her possession, at
least by periodical or occasional visits; apart from all these
considerations, there is one more important remark to be made,
which includes in its bearing not only the present point of
consideration, but, it may be said, the whole life of the Church
from the beginning; so that it is really a law of her birth,
existence, and propagation.

To illustrate our meaning, let us see how the Christian religion
first forced its way in heathen lands, throughout the whole
Roman Empire, whether in its Oriental division where Greek was
spoken, or among its Western, Latin-speaking populations.

All the apostles fixed their sees in the largest or most
important cities of the ancient world; St. Peter, under the
special guidance of God, taking possession of the capital and
mistress of the whole. All the bishops ordained by the first
apostles did the same by their direction; and it is needless to
add that the like law has been followed down to our own times
whenever the Church has had to spread herself in a new country.

In accordance with this plan, the cities of the Roman world were
the first to be evangelized, and their populations were
converted with greater or less difficulty, according to the
dispositions of the inhabitants, before almost an effort had
been made for the conversion of the rural populations, except as
they happened to come in the way of the "laborers in the
vineyard." Hence the result, so well known: heathenism remained
rooted in the country for a much longer time than in the cities,
so that the heathen were generally called pagans--pagani--as if
it were enough, when desiring to convey the intimation that a
man was a worshipper of idols, to designate him as a dweller in
the country. 1 (1 Another meaning is given to the word paganus
by some writers; but the old and common interpretation is the
surest, and is confirmed by the best authorities.) And if the
word "pagans" became synonymous with heathens in all European
countries, it is a proof that the fact underlying the name was
universal wherever Christianity spread. It is known, moreover,
that the dissemination of the Gospel in those rural districts
was a work of centuries, and that, for nearly a thousand years
after Christ, pagans were to be found in villages of countries
already Christian.

The fundamental reason which governs and regulates these strange
facts is that already given, namely, that Christianity-- that is,
Catholicity--is a growth, and follows the laws of every thing
that grows. True, its first increase is from without, by the
conversion of infidels or erring men; but even in that first
stage of its existence, its growth is the faster where the
numbers are greater; hence its establishment invariably in large
cities. But when it has passed beyond this first stage, it
increases from within, like all growths, and the work is
accomplished by the increase of families agglomerated in the
same large towns.

How true is it that the Church, once firmly planted in the midst
of one of those agglomerations of men called cities, is sure in
the end to invade the whole as "the yeast that leavens the whole!
"How easy is it to see that in the course of time those cities
of the Union, among which a large proportion of Catholics is
found, will belong almost exclusively to the true Church, if for
no other reason by the births in families, even supposing that
the flow of immigration should finally cease! If any one
entertains some doubt on this point, he has only to consult the
records containing the number of children baptized in her bosom,
and compare it with the corresponding number in families still
outside her.

Hence the really astonishing fact, whose truth is recognized to-
day in all the Northern States along the Atlantic coast, that
suddenly almost in the cities of New England, for instance,
where the number of Catholics was simply insignificant, they
took an apparently unaccountable prominence, and in the course
of a few years, increasing steadily by birth as well as by
immigration, the fact became the most curious though evident of
the times, completely changing the moral and social aspect of
the country, and foretelling still greater changes to come. For,
in the face of this wonderful increase to the ranks of
Catholicity, appears another significant fact, but very
different as to direction and energy-- the gradual disappearance
of names once prominent in those parts, and the daily narrowing
area of Protestantism in the numerous sects of which it is
composed.

At the same time a great danger was averted (or at least
wonderfully lessened and modified), from the whole country, by
the settlement of those immigrants in the large centres of
population. The manufacturing enterprises, which at that time
assumed such vast developments in North America, received among
their workers, men and women, a large proportion of Catholics,
and the fear of future political and social peril to the peace
and security of society at large could never, on this continent,
reach the extreme point witnessed in Europe to-day. The great
danger of the European future nestles principally in those vast
hives of industry with which that continent abounds. Our eyes
have witnessed, our ears have been affrighted at those
stupendous plans and projects in which, not only the great
questions of capital and labor are involved, but the whole
fabric of society is threatened with downfall. Religion,
government, property, the family, the state--all those great
principles and facts on which the security of mankind depends,
enter now into the programme of artisans and laborers enlisted
in gigantic and many-ramified secret societies, while the whole
world trembles at the awful aspect of this unwelcome phantom,
that no government, however powerful, can lay.

Suppose that on this continent the numerous bands of workingmen,
so actively engaged everywhere in developing the resources of
the country, should aim at extending their solicitude beyond
their immediate and material welfare to the reformation and
reorganization of mankind on a new basis; and suppose that, with
this aim in view, they should combine with those of Europe, and
enter into an unholy compact with them, what hope or refuge
would remain in the whole world for harmony, peace, justice, and
happiness? And when the great upheaval, so generally expected in
Europe, and which sooner or later must take place, shall come to
pass, where could those men fly, who cannot but look upon those
satanic schemes with horror? Where on this earth would be found
a spot consecrated to the acknowledgment of the only social
principles which can secure the real good of mankind, by
rendering safe the stability of society?

It is our firm belief that the vast number of true children of
the Church, occupied honestly and actively in the many factories
of the North, will, when the contest commences, even before it
commences, when the question of connecting the "unions" of this
country in a band of brotherhood with those of Europe shall be
gravely mooted, make their voices loudly and unmistakably heard
on the right side.

Enough has now been said on the locality chosen by preference as
the dwelling- place of the Irish immigrants at the period under
consideration. Let us now see those armies of new-comers at work.
They have been called a missionary people; let us see how they
understand their "mission."

In this new country every thing had to be done for the
establishment of religion, education, help for the poor, the
aged, the infirm, on a lasting and sufficiently broad basis. And,
strange to remark, it was found that the previous persecutions
they had undergone fitted them admirably for their work, not
only by giving them a strong faith, the true foundation of
Christian energy, but in a manner more curious, if not more
effective. It fitted them to give money freely and abundantly,
poor as they were! One may smile incredulously at the conceit;
but it has become a most powerful and incontestable fact.

Suppose the Irish never to have been persecuted in their own
country: suppose that they had found there a benevolent
government to supply them with churches, schools, hospitals--
homes for the poor--every thing that they, as Catholics, could
desire. Suppose them to have been in a similar position with the
Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians, of those days, how bitterly
would they have felt the inconvenience of building all these
things up for themselves in their new homes with the labor of
their own hands, by their own individual efforts, unaided by the
government! Their ardor would have been damped, their energy
cramped, their inclination to give would have fallen far below
the necessities of the time: for money was sorely needed--no
niggard offerings, but immense sums.

But happily--happily in the result, not in the fact--not only
had the British Government never done any thing of the kind for
them in their old home; not only, on the contrary, had it been
particularly careful to rob them of all the buildings and
estates left by their ancestors for those great objects; but,
until very recently, the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1829,
it had studiously and most persistently hindered them from
doing voluntarily for themselves what it refused to do for them.
There were numerous penal statutes enacted, in the course of two
centuries, to prevent them from building churches, opening
schools, erecting asylums and hospitals of their own, nay, from
possessing consecrated graveyards for their dead. Thus did
fanatic hatred pursue them even to the grave, and, as far as it
could, beyond the gates of death. Every one had to surrender the
mortal remains of his relatives to the Protestant minister for
burial; as though what the government called its religion would
snatch from them whatever it could lay hands on--the body at
least since the soul had escaped and passed beyond its reach.

But in their new country they found every thing altered. Not
only was prohibition of this kind utterly unknown, but there
existed there the greatest amount of liberty ever enjoyed by man
for acting in concert with a religious, educational, or
charitable object in view. No law devised by the old Greek
republics, by the Roman fisc, by modern European intermeddling
was ever attempted in the country which with justice boasted of
being the "asylum of the oppressed." Thus as the liberty so long
denied to the Irish was at last opened up, as no barrier existed
to cramp and confine the natural generosity of their hearts, no
sooner did they find that they might contribute as they chose to
those great and holy objects, than they rushed at the chances
offered them with what looked like recklessness.

We hope that the reader may understand, from this, our meaning
in saying that persecution had admirably fitted them for the
mighty work that lay before them. It was the first time for
centuries that they were allowed to give for such sacred
purposes.

Another thing which disposed than toward it was, the lingering
fondness for the old customs of clanship, still harbored in
their inmost soul, never entirely dead and ready to revive
whenever an opportunity presented itself. There can be no doubt
of this; the great adjuration of the clansman to his chieftain--
"Spend me, but defend me"--tended wonderfully to consecrate in
their eyes the act of giving and giving constantly, as though
their purse could never be exhausted. The chieftain has been
replaced by the bishop, the priest, the educator; the nobility
has gone, but these have come; and unconsciously perhaps, but
none the less really, does this feeling lie at the bottom of
their hearts, which are ever ready to burst out with the old
expression, though in other form: "Spend me, eat me out, but
help my soul, and save my children."