The Irishman today is an integral part of every large American community.  Although the restrictive legislation of two centuries ago has long been repealed and a new land system has brought great prosperity to his island home, the Irishman has not abated one whit in his temperamental attitude towards England and as a consequence some 40,000 or 50,000 of his fellow countrymen come to the United States every year.  Here he has been dispossessed of his monopoly of shovel and pick by the French Canadian in New England and by the Italian, Syrian, and Armenian in other parts of the country.  He finds work in factories, for he still shuns the soil, much as he professes to love the “old sod.”  A great change has come over the economic condition of the second and third generation of Irish immigrants.  Their remarkable buoyancy of temperament is everywhere displayed.  Bridget’s daughter has left the kitchen and is a school teacher, a stenographer, a saleswoman, a milliner, or a dressmaker; her son is a clerk, a bookkeeper, a traveling salesman, or a foreman.  Wherever the human touch is the essential of success, there you find the Irish.  That is why in some cities one-half the teachers are Irish; why salesmanship lures them; why they are the most successful walking delegates, solicitors, agents, foremen, and contractors.  In the higher walks of life you find them where dash, brilliance, cleverness, and emotion are demanded.  The law and the priesthood utilize their eloquence, journalism their keen insight into the human side of news, and literature their imagination and humor.  They possess a positive genius for organization and management.  The labor unions are led by them; and what would municipal politics be without them?  The list of eminent names which they have contributed to these callings will increase as their generations multiply in the favorable American environment.  But remote indeed is the day and complex must be the experience that will erase the memory of the ancient Erse proverb, which their racial temperament evoked:  “Contention is better than loneliness.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 21:  The immigration reports were perfunctory and lacking in accuracy.  Passengers were frequently listed as belonging to the country whence they sailed.  An Irishman taking passage from Liverpool was quite as likely to be reported English as Irish.  Large numbers of immigrants were counted who merely landed in New York and proceeded immediately to Canada, while many thousands who landed in Canada and moved at once across the border into northern New York and the West did not appear in the reports.]

[Footnote 22:  According to the Edinburgh Review of July, 1854, “Liverpool was crowded with emigrants, and ships could not be found to do the work.  The poor creatures were packed in dense masses, in ill-ventilated and unseaworthy vessels, under charge of improper masters, and the natural results followed.  Pestilence chased the fugitive to complete the work of famine.  Fifteen thousand out of ninety thousand emigrants in British bottoms, in 1847, died on the passage or soon after arrival.  The American vessels, owing to a stringent passenger law, were better managed, but the hospitals of New York and Boston were nevertheless crowded with patients from Irish estates.”]