ussed, and tried in all their varieties through the past ages. That
which America exemplifies in her Constitution and system of representative
government is the most modern, and of any yet devised gives promise of
being the most substantial and enduring.

It is not unusual to hear arguments against our institutions and our
government, addressed particularly to recent arrivals and the sons of
recent arrivals to our shores. They sometimes take the form of a claim that
our institutions were founded long ago; that changed conditions require
that they now be changed. Especially is it claimed by those seeking such
changes that these new arrivals and men of their race and ideas had no hand
in the making of our country, and that it was formed by those who were
hostile to them and therefore they owe it no support. Whatever may be the
condition in relation to others, and whatever ignorance and bigotry may
imagine such arguments do not apply to those of the race and blood so
prominent in this assemblage. To establish this it were but necessary to
cite eleven of the fifty-five signers of the Declaration of Independence,
and recall that on the roll of Washington's generals were Sullivan, Knox,
Wayne, and the gallant son of Trinity College, Dublin, who fell at Quebec
at the head of his troops--Richard Montgomery. But scholarship has answered
ignorance. The learned and patriotic research of men of the education of
Dr. James J. Walsh and Michael J. O'Brien, the historian of the Irish
American Society, has demonstrated that a generous portion of the rank and
file of the men who fought in the Revolution and supported those who framed
our institutions was not alien to those who are represented here. It is no
wonder that from among such that which is American has drawn some of its
most steadfast defenders.

In these days of violent agitation scholarly men should reflect that the
progress of the past has been accomplished not by the total overthrow of
institutions so much as by discarding that which was bad and preserving
that which was good; not by revolution but by evolution has man worked out
his destiny. We shall miss the central feature of all progress unless we
hold to that process now. It is not a question of whether our institutions
are perfect. The most beneficent of our institutions had their beginnings
in forms which would be particularly odious to us now. Civilization began
with war and slavery; government began in absolute despo