Immigration is not the problem - history of anti-Irish behavior reflecting on the Chechnyan bombs in Boston

Senator Patrick Leahy.

They came from a foreign land with deep religious convictions.  They had ties to people willing to use violence to achieve political ends.

They felt alienated in America and were ultimately accused of committing heinous acts of terrorism, undoubtedly influenced by events in their native land.

I speak, of course, of Donegal native Alexander Campbell.  Campbell and a dozen other Irishmen were accused of waging a campaign of terror in 1870s Pennsylvania. 

They supposedly belonged to a secret society with ties to Ireland known as the Molly Maguires.  They were charged with murder and hanged.

Naturally, in the wake of the Molly Maguire trials and executions, there were calls to seal up the American borders.  Too many immigrants from Ireland and other places were bringing their problems to America, many believed.

Not for nothing did famous anti-Irish cartoonist Thomas Nast depict an ape-like Irishman holding a club in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other while sitting on a keg of gunpowder with the caption: “The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things.”

We are hearing the same thing now that two bloodthirsty brothers from Chechnya set off a bomb at the Boston Marathon, killing several people, maiming hundreds and sending police on a wild chase that could have killed and injured many more.

There’s no way at all to defend these killers and their apparent hatred of America and Americans.  At least the Molly Maguires only hated wealthy bosses.

As for the killers in Boston, they are always identified as the men who targeted the marathon.  But I don’t think it is any accident that they chose Patriot’s Day as the day to unleash their bloody mayhem. It may turn out that their hatred of America is even more vile that we can imagine.

But the fact remains that both the Molly Maguires and the Tsarnaev brothers spurred a backlash against immigrants and immigration. 

Many Americans, then and now, believe terrorists exploit America’s historically liberal immigration policy, which (they believe) makes it easy for killers to stroll into the U.S.  Look at 9/11, they like to say, before adding: Just build a wall and keep everyone out!

Imagine how many Irish Americans would not be with us, would not have helped make America the most prosperous nation on the planet, if we did just that following the Molly Maguires fiasco? 

Of course immigration is complicated and difficult.  Yes, some immigrants are going to commit crimes, and some may even become enemies of the very nation which has adopted them.

But much more often than not immigration is a solution, rather than a problem, for America.

From the Irish and the Italians and the Poles to the Koreans, Mexicans and Pakistanis, waves of immigrants have resurrected dying neighborhoods. 

New York, for example, in the 1980s was a war zone.  Rudy Giuliani and his crime-fighting ways are typically credited with the New York revolution.  But it was immigrants who were willing to put down roots on once crime-plagued blocks that also changed the city.

Across the country, cities and towns that are willing to embrace immigrants thrive, while those that don’t tend to sputter.

And yet, the Boston bombing and its immigrant ties have some singing a neo-nativist tune, even down in Washington.

The Boston bombing came just as the Senate was about to begin debating a sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration policy.  Now, some senators and House members have suggested immigration reform should be altered or shelved entirely.

This earned some harsh reactions from supporters of immigration reform.

"Late last week opponents of comprehensive immigration reform began to exploit the Boston Marathon bombing," Senator Patrick Leahy was quoted as saying.  "I urge restraint in that regard. ... Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous acts of two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hardworking people."

Well said.  Current immigration proposals would actually help identify the small number of America’s enemies among the nation’s millions of undocumented immigrants.  Let’s not return to the days of Thomas Nast.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

The good old anti-British days - Margaret Thatcher haters and spats in New York during World War II

A graffiti sign on the Falls Road in Belfast last week.

Shaemas O’Sheel probably would have wondered what all of the fuss was about.  A fellow like Shaemas -- and, yes, that is how he chose to spell his name -- probably would have been outraged that some people chose not to celebrate the passing of Maggie Thatcher last week.

The former British prime minister, of course, will be buried this week with much fanfare, at great expense.

In some circles, the Irish American, um, lack of compassion following Thatcher’s death was a tad heartless.  They obviously don’t know their history. 

And I don’t just mean the bad old days of The Troubles from May 4, 1979 to November 28, 1990, when Thatcher served as prime minister.

So much blather is drooled about America’s “special relationship” with the Brits that it is easy to forget the grand history of deeply anti-British sentiment in the U.S.  It was not always fashionable or even pretty.  But it was robust. 

And while the Irish were at the forefront, they were joined by many famous and respectable Americans, not to mention a nasty cast of bigots and crackpots.

Shaemas O’Sheel sort of falls in between all those categories.

It so happens that on the day Thatcher died I was making my way through a fascinating new book entitled Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 by Lynne Olson. 

The book notes that while we like to think of World War II as a conflict which was widely supported by Americans of all races, religions and creeds, in fact, there were bitter divisions about whether or not the U.S. should join the fight.

One reason for this strong divide was that World War I was fresh in the minds of many Americans.  Thousands of U.S. doughboys perished in the fight once the U.S. entered the war, and many Americans were not clear why.

“Once the Great War was over, the belief had taken hold that America had been tricked into it by British propaganda,” Olson writes.

You might also recall there was bit of a skirmish at a post office in Dublin in 1916, during World War I.

Which brings us to Shaemas O’Sheel.  Olson doesn’t mention him in her book, which is odd because you could not have invented a more colorful character.  He was a celebrated poet and radical who worked with U.S. senators and Nazi spies.

He was actually born James Shields in New York City.  By most accounts he had never been to Ireland.  Sometime after high school he Gaelicized his name and went about the task of keeping America out of World War I.

O’Sheel, and many like him, were not merely motivated by their desire for Irish freedom in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising.  They believed British treachery was so vast and deep that America was in danger.

O’Sheel spelled his vivid theories out in works such as The War of 1920.  Published in 1915, O’Sheel envisioned a future in which the British bombed New York City while their allies Mexico and Japan respectively invaded Texas and territories in the Pacific.

Only assistance from mighty Germany would save America, according to O’Sheel.

Which brings us to the uncomfortable part of this story.  As the debate over World War II heated up, many Irish Americans and other anti-British elements in the U.S. flirted with -- or openly embraced -- Hitler and the Nazis.

Part of this, of course, was the old “enemy of my enemy is my friend” theory.  Others seemed willing to believe in anything that might prevent the shedding of American blood overseas. 

Either way, O’Sheel once again threw himself into the isolationist fray, bashing Britain while assisting 1940 congressional candidate Joe McWilliams in his bid to win election in the heavily German Upper East Side Manhattan district of Yorkville on a Nazi-sympathizing platform.

O’Sheel was also closely allied with fellow Brit-hater and Nazi propagandist James Sylvester Vierick, who was eventually imprisoned for his ties to Germany.

O’Sheel died in 1954.

So, perhaps the “special relationship” is not so special, after all.

And for those who find the Thatcher-bashing distasteful, keep this in mind -- far worse things were said in the good, uh, I mean the bad old days.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Where the Church went wrong - “John F Kennedy and American Catholicism”

Lawrence Fuchs advised the Kennedy campaign on the voting patterns of American Catholics. 
He later wrote a book called John F. Kennedy and American Catholicism.

Oh great!  Law and Order actor and comedian Richard Belzer has a new book out about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 

In Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination, Belzer explores the supposedly unexplained deaths of those who were at Dealy Plaza that fateful day.

Just what we need -- more “proof” that it took a cast of thousands to kill Kennedy.  The same government that can’t keep a rumor secret for 10 minutes somehow managed to successfully pull off and cover up a killing with worldwide implications.

Oh well.  Let the conspiracy nuts have their fun, while the rest of us deal with reality.

I had a different Kennedy book on my mind this week.  Bronx-born Kennedy advisor/speechwriter and immigration expert Lawrence Fuchs died this week at the age of 86. 

Fuchs advised the Kennedy campaign on the voting patterns of American Catholics.  He later wrote a book called John F. Kennedy and American Catholicism.

Thanks to the Internet I was able to look at Fuchs’ book, which was published in 1967. (Somehow, the government found time to pioneer online technology, even as they were busily covering up the JFK assassination.)  I looked at Fuchs’ book wondering if it could tell us anything about the Catholic Church and its travails today.

After all, everywhere you look you see controversy rooted in aspects of the Catholic Church and its positions regarding sex, gays, abortion, marriage and birth control.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that two students at Jesuit-run Boston College were in trouble for distributing sex advice as well as condoms to students.  The Supreme Court is currently exploring the issue of gay marriage.  And Cardinal Timothy Dolan was among those who sued the Obama Administration over health care and birth control.

Since Fuchs was an expert, I wondered what his book about “the American Catholic Church” would say about these topics.

There is extensive discussion about birth control.  This makes sense, since the birth control pill was developed for widespread use in the early 1960s.

However, there is no discussion at all about gays and exactly one vague reference to abortion, all the way on page 226.  “The Bible says that thou shalt not kill, but how does that answer the questions of war, abortion, or euthanasia?” Fuchs writes.

It’s easy to suggest that the church didn’t need to forcefully respond to these matters since there wasn’t much of a mainstream gay rights movement in 1967, and the Roe vs. Wade decision which thrust abortion into the mainstream did not come until 1973.

Nevertheless, what is clear is that since prominent church officials have chosen to focus on bedroom matters, the church has lost stature among vast numbers of Irish Americans and other Catholics.

And even Fuchs’ discussion of the “lively debate” over issues such as birth control is fascinating.  He notes that as far back as 1967, “Studies showed that at least 30 percent of married Catholics in the United States practiced birth control.”

Nevertheless, it was in July of 1968 that that Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the church’s position on birth control.  Many like to note that -- like it or not -- this is consistent with the church’s longstanding defense of life in all its forms.

And yet, as Frances Kissling of Catholics for Choice has written, Pope Paul VI formed a birth control commission which, in 1966, “overwhelmingly voted” to lift the ban on contraceptives.

Kissling added, “The former Archbishop of Brussels...went so far as to say the church needed to confront reality and avoid another ‘Galileo case.’”

Of course, the pope chose differently.  But it was an earthly choice, rather than the word of God.

In recent decades, the acceptance of contraception -- and even gay rights and abortion -- by Catholics has become widespread.  You are welcome to argue that this is evidence of moral decay and all the more reason why the church should continue to forcefully defend its position.

Or you could argue that the new pope could look -- of all places -- back to the 1960s, when a papal commission made the case for contraception.  This might lead to provocative new debates over other issues which are driving away 21st century Catholics.

After all, it’s not a conspiracy. It’s simply the pope’s choice.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Still battling over Bowery Irishman - right to shelter for homeless people in New York

Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

If only Robert Callahan could see the Bowery now.

These days The Bowery -- that storied stretch of asphalt on the East Side of downtown Manhattan -- has changed so much so fast, A-list celebrities like Martin Scorsese actually want to preserve some of the old character.  They are against the rapid development of luxury condos and upscale stores invading The Bowery.

The Bowery that Robert Callahan knew was quite different.  And as a result, Callahan and Irish American Robert Hayes, went to court three decades ago and launched a lawsuit that is making headlines once again.

This week, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (prompted by a series of heated articles in the New York Post) blasted New York policy which requires the city to provide shelter to anybody seeking it -- even those who live outside the state.

“What is truly ludicrous is a system that allows people from across the country and the world to take advantage like this,” Bloomberg said.  “Until we are able to ask basic, common-sense screening questions, taxpayer dollars will continue to be diverted from those who truly need it.”

The Post added, “About 25 percent of the roughly 48,500 people living in city shelters are not city residents — including a Polish freeloader, Michal Jablonowski, who gushed about free food, phone and medical care he gets at a shelter on The Bowery.”

It may seem odd that the mayor is blasting New York policy.  Why doesn’t the mayor just change the offending policy?

Well, that’s where Callahan comes in.  In 1979, Callahan became part of a lawsuit filed by activist lawyer and Long Island-raised Irish American Hayes.  The lawsuit, once it was settled by consent decree in 1981, required that New York City provide shelter to all those who seek it -- no questions asked.

“Callahan v. Carey became a legal landmark,” Joel Blau writes in his book The Visible Poor: Homelessness in the United States. 

“Robert Callahan was an Irish short-order cook who had lost his job four years earlier, been evicted from his apartment, drunk too much and ended up on the Bowery.  Together with two other homeless men...(Callahan) represented the category of all homeless men in this legal action.”

At the time of the lawsuit thousands of homeless men lived on city streets, with only 10 percent or so seeking shelter even on the coldest winter nights.  Many of the homeless were mentally disabled and many shelters were considered dangerous. 

When the case was settled and New York City and state were required to find shelter for those requesting it, homeless advocates cheered.

It was certainly a victory for Hayes, the lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of Callahan.  Dubbed a “crusader” by The New York Times in 1987, Callahan was raised in Valley Stream, Long Island. 

In the early 1980s he helped found the Coalition for the Homeless, a group which still advocates for the homeless to this day.  Its president and CEO is nationally recognized homeless expert and Irish American Mary Brosnahan.

“The landmark victory in the 1979 lawsuit Callahan v. Carey paved the way for further legal victories that ensured the right to shelter for homeless men, women, children, and families in New York City,” according to CFH.

But Bloomberg and the Post are now arguing that a horde of out-of-town freeloaders are invading New York City for generous shelter benefits.  In an age of economic fragility -- not to mention a mayoral election year -- this could be an argument that resonates with struggling voters.

Lost amidst all of the heated rhetoric and stories of freeloading immigrants is the ultimate fate of the Irishman who started this whole debate -- Robert Callahan.

His story did not end well.  Just before the case bearing his name was settled, Callahan died on the very streets of Manhattan he called home.

“Robert Callahan himself was one of the last homeless victims of an era with no legal right to shelter,” CFH notes.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)