T.R.'s View of Certain Immigrants

This is an interesting read from 1911:

THE AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY - VOLUME X - PUBLISHED: NEW YORK NY 225 FIFTH AVENUE BY THE SOCIETY - 1911

THE IRISH ELEMENT IN AMERICA - An Address by Ellen Ryan Jolly

About 150,000 men of Irish birth and descent were engaged in the Union armies during the Civil War. The first shot fired in that war was by an Irishman Patrick Gibbons at Fort Sumter. The first officer to reach Little Round Top [Battle of Gettysburg] was Col. Patrick O’Rourke, who fell at the head of his regiment. One of the first officers to raise the Union flag in Virginia was the gallant Michael Corcoran. The record of Phil Sheridan, son of Irish parents, is so well known that it needs no mention here. The Irish Brigade at Gettysburg under the gallant Col. Kelly made a charge on Pickett's men the flower of the Southland. Never was a greater struggle. The flag of Ireland was carried that day by the Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and there they stood a bleeding, fighting, struggling mass never yielding an inch until Hancock came to their relief, and like an avalanche swept the confederates from the field.

The 116th Penn. Regiment [my g-g-grandfather's regiment] also carried the Irish Flag under Gen. St. Clare Mulholland. In that war the flag of Ireland was carried by the 69th of NY, the 63rd NY, the 9th Mass., the 83rd New York, the 28th Mass, the 35th Ind., the 69th Penn., 116th Penn., the 23rd, 111th, and the 10th Ohio, and never did the green and gold of Ireland wave beside the starry emblem of this nation whose cradle we rocked but it brought forth curses from the brave fellows on the other side who knew that where that green flag waved stood brave men who did not know how to show their backs to any foe. From east to west the sons of Ireland poured into the armies of the nation.

In the history of our country the Irish have produced governors, senators, and representatives and judges and mayors galore. In statesmanship, in finance, in law and medicine, in educational matters, in science and engineering and construction, in business and athletics, everywhere and in every path of life the Irish element in our citizenship has attained eminence. Theodore Roosevelt has publicly proclaimed that the people who have come to this country from Ireland have contributed to the stock of our common citizenship qualities, which are essential to the welfare of every great nation. “They are a masterful race of rugged character,” he says, “a race the qualities of whose womanhood have become proverbial, while its men have the essential indispensable virtues of working hard in times of peace and fighting hard in times of war.”

The Irish of the present day are still marked by these sterling qualities. They love Ireland with a child's devotion to a tender mother, and they love America with the kind of love which makes them ready to offer their lives in the hour of danger which God grant may be far distant. I will close by expressing the wish of every true Irish Heart. God save Ireland, and God bless the United States.