TTIE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN. PORTLAND. SEPTEMBER 29, 1912.
Many Executives, From Jackson to McKinley, Came From Sturdy Race
of Ulster. Another of These Scotch Irishmen Will Go to White House
if Woodrow Wilson Is Elected.
Kir
s'
& .Ire'
m
as
mm
:-W.-i;L--
I
.:
1
T dwellers in the South of Ireland
who love him not at all. he Is
known as the black Northerner,
while the English. . who hare ruled
Terr unjustly oyer his destiny lor
aeveral hundreds ot years, call him
the Ulstennan; but we of America,
who call him the Scotch-Irishman,
hold him In such great esteem
that we hare formed the habit of elect
ing; him. every few years. President of
these United States. We began with
Andrew Jackson, then came Polk,
Buchanan, Johnson, Arthur and Mc
Kinley, all of Ulster stock, while Grant,
Benjamin Harrison and Cleveland In
herited from their mothers a strain of
Scotch-Irish blood; and Woodrow Wil
son, our very latest candidate for
Presidential honors. Is of that same
hardy Presbyterian race of Ulster.
It la a far cry from the native Irish
ruler. Con O'Neill, who governed with
what little power the English left him
a part of County Down. In the year
160J, to Woodrow Wilson, Democratic
candidate for President of the United
States In 1911; but It Is Just as well to
hark back to the convivial old chief
tain and to a certain historic banquet
he gave to some of his relatives, for
thereby hangs the tale of the first in
vasion of Ireland by the Scotch Low
landers. The O'Neill was entertaining,
and In the course, of the banquet its
principal Ingredient gave out. where
upon Con sent servants Into the Eng
lish settlement to get a supply of wine
ordered from Spain. The English sol
diers refused to give up the wine until
a tax should be paid upon it. Now
Con had not been informed of the tax.
so he commanded his servants to have
at the soldiers. As a result, one soldier
was killed, and the English commander,
accusing Con. In the offhand way that
has always distinguished British gov
ernment of the Irish, of 'levying war
against the Queen," condemned him to
be hanged and confined him In Car
lickfergus Castle. Con connived with
some Scotch friends, who arranged a
melodramatio escape for him and final
ly obtained his pardon from the Eng
lish ruler for the price of two-thirds
of his estate.
Hear Inning of Scotch Plantation.
These Scottish friends then brought
over many Scotch Lowlanders, whom
they "planted" on their newly acquired
estates so plentifully that they spread
over the most of County Down. So
there came to be Scotchmen In that
part of Ireland whence Woodrow Wil
son's family comes. County Antrim, to
the north, had already many. Scotch
men, wild, warlike men, from the
Islands and the coast, who had given
the British much trouble until about
this time, when their leader threw Is
bis lot with th English government
and encouraged peaceful Scotch and
Englishmen to settle and cultivate the
lands. Then the two other powerful
Irish -chieftains of the North were com
pelled by the English to flee for their
lives, and after that sorrowful "Flight
of the Earls" their lands were confis
cated to the Crown. So that the re
maining conntles of that northern part
of Ireland, known as Ulster, were open
to further "plantation." Then came the
"Great Plantation of Ulster," the work
of James the First. English settlers
who had been planted in Ireland hith
erto had become more Irish than the
Irish themselves; Scotchmen from the
coast were too warlike; James would
have Lowland Scots, peace-loving Pro
testants from "the inward parts of
Scotland." It was part of the plan that
the natives should vanish before them
as the Indians have since vanished In
America. The peaceable Scots came.
Their numbers were swelled by the
Covenanters, persecuted In Scotland,
and by another plantation under the
powerful CromwelL So it came about
that practically the whole of Northern
Ireland had a population of Scotch
Presbyterians.
They were thrifty, industrious, serious-minded
people. They prospered,
they raised cattle, wove cloth, tilled the
soil, planted potatoes lately Introduced
from America spread over the prov
ince and mingled but little with the
native Roman Catholic Irish. It seemed
that they were to possess the land.
. Trouble Befalls Scotamesu
Trouble, however, fell thick and fast
a, hails tacts upon .the jjewli -settled
n L li
m
4
I
W'i
iff
3
;.4si'
Scotsmen. The fortune of Ireland has
gona up and down, from bad to worse,
from worse to bad (never rising to
good), like mercury In a thermometer,
according: to the whims of the rulers of
the British Isles. The native Irish
have had always the worst of It, but
the transplanted Lowlanders, separated
from their old home, surrounded by
men of a different religion who knew
them as usurpers, had troubles enough
of their own to make of them prac
tlcally a new race. They found them
selves then, and are to this day, be
tween the devil and the deep sea. The
English, having placed them there,
turned a deaf ear to their complaints.
Tou have only to read the daily papers
now to realize that the deaf ear Is
still turned toward them, an ear too
deaf to hear even with the aid of a
speaking trumpet. The English passed
laws forbidding them to export cattle
from their vast grazing lands; English
commercial Jealousy utterly crushed
the thriving manufacture of woolen
materials; there were ruinous land
wars, rents were raised, tenants evict
ed, and the Presbyterians were perse
cuted by misguided bishops of the Irish
Episcopal Church who caused their
ministers to be Imprisoned and exiled.
Rebellions followed and devastating
famines.
Migration to America.
Thoroughly disheartened the people,
hitherto loyal subjects, saw that they
would never obtain In Ireland the lib
erty they and their fathers had fought
and worked for. The eighteenth cen
tury saw shipload after shipload of
Ulster folk sail away to America to try
their fortunes in a new land. Between
1731 and 1768 one-third of the Prot
estant population of Ireland emigrated,
and from 1771 to 1773 10,000 weavers
left. So It happens that we owe our
Presidents of Ulster blood, as we do
our National Independence, to British
misrule. Today in Belfast they will
tell you: "It was Ulster men who won
your Revolution for you; make no mis
take about that." However that may
be. It Is certain that a strong sense of
wrong flamed In the breasts of the
Ulster emigrants and their descendants.
At the time of the Revolution there
were 600 Scotch-Irish settlements whose
members stood almost to a man against
British oppression. And here we come
to our first Ulster President. It is high
time for a successful man to emerge
from that virile race.
Andrew Jackson's father and mother
came from Ulster, sailing from their
home In Carrickfergus In 1765. Car
rlckfergus Is one of the most ancient
towns In the North of Ireland. Its
historic castle, built by an early Nor
man adventurer, was long a strong
hold of the English and the scene of
several sieges. Jackson's father was
a poor Protestant tenant evicted dur
ing the land war of 1760; his mother
Is said to have been a weaver, and the
two of them must have witnessed some
of the many hangings that took place
In the Gallows' Green of the town. Soon
after they settled In America the fu
ture President was born, and we hear
of him first at the battle of Hanging
Rock, where as a mere lad he was
fired to heroic fighting. When, in 1S15.
he won the battle of New Orleans, "ev
ery blow of his arm had double force."
Opposed to him were Wellington's sea
soned troops, fresh from victories In
Europe; their leader was Packenham,
a man from Jackson's parents' own
horn county of Antrim, a member sax
21
tv
vr
. 9
5.
ft
the landlord class which had driven
them "by means of force and fraud
and foul dealing" so runs the account
to seek a livelihood in America. Small
wonder that Jackson, most patriotic of
American citizens, swore at the com
ing of the British troops: "By the
Eternal! they must have no rest on
our soil!"
Several Presidents Scotch-Irish.
Polk was descended from Robert
Pollock, who came to America from the
County of Londonderry in 1690. It is
an Interesting date, for only a year
before that time the great siege of
Londonderry took place. The Protest
ants held the city for William of
Orange against the Catholic Irish for
James II. One hundred and five days
the siege lasted, and those within the
walls died by the hundreds of disease
and famine, eating at the last scraps
of hides, raw grain, and the very rata
in the cellars. Yet they did not sur
render. Today you may see in the
cathedral yard the graves of those who
died. "They shall hunger no more,"
the inscription reads.
Buchanan's father came from ' the
County of Donegal in 1783. Andrew
Johnson was the grandson of an An
drew Johnson who left Ulster about
17S0. Benjamin Harrison's mother was
the daughter of a McDowell, who came
from Ulster" in 1718. Grant's great
grandfather was born in the north of
Ireland In 1738 and emigrated to Amer
ica. Cleveland's grandfather was a
North of Ireland man, presumably of
Scottish descent. Gavin MacArthur
Arthur's grandfather, was a Presby
terian minister at Ballymena in County
Autrun. No doubt he saw the batle
which took place there in 1798 between
the yeomanry and the United Irishmen,
as the rebels of that day were called.
' A McKinley Haniced "s Rebel.
McKinley was of Ulster stock. The
McKinley home still stands, a staunch
little farm house there In the north, In
County Antrim near the town of Bally
money. It Is perhaps the only ances
tral home still preserved abroad of any
President except Washington, and
Washington's ancestral home is a
stately English manor-house, very dif
ferent from the humble Irish farm
house. The farm lies In the midst of the
lovely Irish country the loveliest In
habited country in all the world on
the road from Ballymoney to Dervock
between the Garry bow and the Bush
River. How far away these names
sound from Canton, Ohio, or the White
House in Washington. The house was
burned once', in 1788, for the McKinley
who lived there then was suspected of
aiding the United Irishmen. Suspicion
and conviction were one and the same
thing in those days in Ireland, and
the respectable , Presbyterian farmer
wn humeed In Coleralne. His wife
burled the body In the family burial
ground, and over It placed a monument .
reading:
'Hem lveth the remains or r rancia
McKinley, who departed this life In
Coleralne the the 7th of July, 1798.
aged 42 years."
William Jttciiiniey was ocsuii-"i
from an uncle of this unfortunate man.
The McKinleys all left the place In
1838 and it Is known now as on-
agher's farm.
And so we came again no xne po-
hi President Woodrow Wilson,
whose Scotch-Irish Presbyterian min
ister father came of a family in coun- -
ty Dawn.
Today in JBeuast, tne cmei raw m
Ulster, you will find the biggest manu
factures of whisky, or Tope, oi linen,
and of tobacco, and the biggest ship
yards In the world, all built up by the .
untiring Industry of the Scotch-Irish.
You will find a profound respect for
olM learnlnz- and a most amazing
number of churches, so many that the
city fairly bristles with spires.
But I thlnK It is only in America ,
hut the Ulsterman has really come
to his own. Here Romanism and home
rule- and English unfairness are mere
words of empty meaning: here he can
be something other than prosperous
manufacturer or minister of the gos
nel according to John Knox; here his
sternness Is Boftened;: with civil and
i-aiio-ioua liberty In a country that ne
can call his own, all that Is best in him
comes to the fore, and that best Is so
good that we never tire of honoring
him with the highest position In the
land. ANNIE LAUKA Ml i.i. nin.