by Michael M. Bates
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Faith and begorrah, it's that time again. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
Quick. What are Irish americans most noted for? No, not that. Or that either.
The correct answer, at least from this mostly Irish guy, is politics.
When the Irish came in huge numbers to america in the mid-19th century, they were sometimes discriminated against. There were anti-Irish riots that included the burning of churches, convents and houses.
The Irish used politics as a way to succeed. Concentrated in urban areas, sheer numbers brought them considerable political clout.
They quickly realized that getting elected to office could also give them respectability, influence, wealth and power. Using charm and wit and not a little blarney, they moved on to progressively higher offices.
One of the earlier colorful characters was Boston's John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. Elected to Congress before the turn of the century and later as mayor, he perfected a technique known as the "Irish Switch." author William Safire writes Honey Fitz was able to shake one voter's hand while talking to another and simultaneously smiling and winking at a third.
No doubt he could have developed even more innovations were his career not set back by his affinity for a cigarette girl with the charming name of Toodles Ryan.
Running for reelection as mayor, the married Honey Fitz was stopped cold by his opponent's announcement of a lecture he intended to give. The provocative title, according to PBS' "american Experience," was "Great Lovers from Cleopatra to Toodles."
Honey Fitz lived long enough to campaign for his grandson, John F. Kennedy, when he ran for Congress right after World War II. JFK was the first Irish Catholic president, but certainly not the first president of Irish ancestry.
That distinction belongs to andrew Jackson. Not that it had anything to do with his ethnicity, but Old Hickory had a fiery temper that led to numerous duels. One of them put a bullet in his chest that he carried for the remainder of his life.
Jackson is credited with--or blamed for, depending on your view--the wide implementation of patronage. Credentials and industriousness no longer mattered so much when it came to getting or keeping a government job. Who you worked for in the election was now a major determinant.
Patronage and passing out government goodies disguised as personal favors or compassionate charity have been used by plenty of Irish american politicians ever since.
There were exceptions. One congressman of Irish ancestry lectured his colleagues when a bill came up to award a special allowance to a naval hero's widow. Said Congressman Davy Crockett: "I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.
"We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."
There are few politicians of aNY ancestry who would have the nerve to make that assertion today.
More recently, we've seen big city bosses like Chicago's late Mayor Richard J. Daley. a man who insisted subordinates maintain a strict personal decency, his commitment to morality took a powder when it came to kickbacks, bribes and other forms of selling city hall.
Da Mare had a way with words and it usually wasn't a good one. One of my favorites is his complaining, "They have slandered me, they have castigated me, they have vilified me, yes, they have even criticized me."
Daley didn't have the usual Gaelic eloquence, but then we need to remember he wasn't all Irish. He certainly knew how to crank out the votes, including those essential cemetery precincts, when necessary. It's been widely reported that JFK wouldn't have won 1960's election were it not for Richard J.
Every president since Kennedy, with the one exception of Gerald Ford, has been of Irish ancestry. Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton . . . never mind, St. Patrick's Day is for good cheer.
as it always was for Ronald Reagan, who boasted of his Irish roots. at one St. Patrick's Day luncheon he said: "Our forefathers and mothers were people with a passion for liberty and justice. So, today let us remember them and live up to the great expectations they had for us and for this beloved country of ours. I came across something that is labeled as an old Irish curse or blessing: ‘May those who love us, love us. and those that don't love us, may the Lord turn their hearts. and if the Lord doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so that we'll recognize them by their limping."
(This appears in the March 17, 2005 Oak Lawn (IL) Reporter. Mike Bates is the author of Right angles and Other Obstinate Truths, which is available at Barnesandnoble.com, Booksamillion.com, amazon.com or iUniverse.com and can be ordered through most bookstores.)
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