376 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE OS. Doc. 



stanza of it, and you will all recognize it as a good, clean Irish 

 song. Yesterday 1 heard the grind organ playing. I looked at the 

 man and he was an Italian ; I spoke to the man on the corner, who 

 was listening, and he was a German, but they all knew that tune; 

 it w^as "Kathleen." What does it mean? It is a home song, and a 

 heart song, and it was written more than a hundred years ago, and 

 while a simple ballad, it is a right kind of a song. Although an 

 Irish-born song it has lived and will live because all nations love 

 and sing it. 



I had been on the boat seven days. I was with the others in the 

 dining room the last night, — that is the night of the captain's dinner, 

 and on that night we are all asked to sing our country's songs, and 

 there, that night, I learned a lesson I like always to tell because it 

 was distinctly a lesson to me. You know the substance of it already; 

 but let me remind you. It w^as this w^ay. The Germans were asked 

 to sing, and oh, how they rolled out their song. The French sang 

 their song, and it was as beautiful as silver trumpets, and everybody 

 of the French folk knew it. It came time for the English and they 

 all sang: "God save the King." Then came our turn, and we were 

 the major part of the passengers. We all began to sing "America." 

 We finished the first stanza, and tried the second, but some began 

 the second and some began the fourth, and some began the third, 

 and we giggled and looked at each other, and then we quit. I had 

 training in singing and was going across the sea with my passport 

 to protect me as an American citizen, but I could not sing America's 

 National Hymn. I walked the deck afterw^irds with an Englishman, 

 and this Englishman said to me something about the song which we 

 (fid not sing, and I apologized or tried to: I said: "We don't sing 

 it as frequently as you do." (You know they close their theaters 

 and the like with "God save the King"), "And you know, we are 

 a now country." He replied: "\''es, indeed, very very new, indeed." 

 And I never since have apologized to an Englishman for not knowing 

 America, every word and every stanza. I learned it, and on the re- 

 turn voyage we did not break down singing America, 



But we are still on the boat, where an old priest has said to me: 

 "So you are after songs, — then you must come to our country and 

 come to our part of the country; it is the bonniest place in all 

 Ireland." The song and the place was "Killarney." The man who 

 drove me could drive, smoke, and sing at the samo time, and I 

 learned from him the genuineness of the Irish heart in singing folk 

 pongs. I learned that all Ireland knows her songs. I met an old 

 turnpike keeper, (who also had his pipe,) and could talk and sing 

 without removing it. He told me he had a lot of songs, and he 

 began singing one, to w^hich I said: "I know that." I remembered 

 away back how T had learned it, how my ol.Iest brother had brought 

 it from college. The old man said: "Do you know Tom Moore?" 

 He sang: "Those Evening Bells," and he pointed out the bells, and 

 he said : "Tom Moore wrote the song right under the shadow of 

 those bells." T was sorry to leave Ireland; a warmer-hearted jieople 

 never lived and they have, know, and love their songs. 



But let us cross into Scotland. We say that "blood is thicker 

 than water." My mother is Scotch, and remembering the Tom Moore 

 of Scotland, — "Bobby Burns," T went to the place where he is 

 buried, — Dumfries. I was traveling in the care of the Kings Arms 

 Hotels, and finding their bus at the station, I sat therein and looked 



