Category Archives: Irish America

Historian Catherine M. Burns on 1920 Women’s Pickets

I connected last month with American historian Catherine M. Burns via Twitter (@cmburns21) as I published my Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland series. Burns has written about the April 1920 women pickets joined by Russell, both in her dissertation, “American Identity and the Transatlantic Irish Nationalist Movement, 1912-1925” (cited in my series), and in her chapter on Kathleen O’Brennan in The Irish in the Atlantic World. 

Burns holds a Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The New York Irish History Roundtable recognized her dissertation research with its award for distinguished graduate work on the history of the Irish in New York City. Her articles on Irish-American courtship and the Irish Home Rule movement in New York City have appeared in the journal New Hibernia Review. She has also written about Irish-American theater and the 1922 fight for control of the Irish consulate for Gotham, for the scholarly blog of the Gotham Center for New York City History. We conducted this question-and-answer via email.

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What is the background of the 1920 women’s pickets on behalf of Irish independence?

BURNS: Dr. William J. Maloney, an advocate for U.S. recognition of the Irish Republic, orchestrated the picketing in Washington, D.C. that began on April 2, 1920. The women he organized are often called the American Women Pickets for the Enforcement of America’s War Aims, but that’s not right. I found that women with more radical outlooks later formed that group in New York City.

Maloney envisioned the picketing as a short-term publicity opportunity and deliberately selected young, pretty women who could easily get their photographs in newspapers. He thought the pickets would spend a few days in Washington protesting outside the British Embassy before the Easter holiday. They would call on the British government to pay back war loans owed to the United States rather than funding warfare in Ireland. All the while, the women would pose for newspaper photographers who would, in turn, spread their images and the Irish republican message across the country.

Maloney was surprised when 10 pickets were arrested on the Monday after Easter and faced a federal grand jury. The arrests effectively ended his involvement. Women bolder than Maloney took over the picketing, extended it, and turned it into something more in line with the media stunts of militant women suffragists. Two days after the arrests, Mollie Carroll, a young actress previously paid to picket by Maloney, generated newspaper copy all over the United States by flying an airplane over Washington and dropping pro-republican handbills over the city.

How was the media coverage? What was the reaction from the Irish and Irish America?

BURNS: Prior to the arrests newspaper coverage was relatively even-handed although suspicious of the women because picketing was associated with militant women suffragists. [The 19th amendment granting women the right to vote was passed Aug. 19, 1920.] Several newspapers throughout the country published photographs of a regal and somber–looking Mary Manning Walsh, co-leader of the picketing, carrying a sign reading: “England: American women condemn your reign of terror in the Irish Republic.” Maloney had hoped the picketing would brand Walsh as the face of women’s support for the Irish Republic in the United States. This did not come to pass, but Walsh did succeed in drawing the kind of attention Maloney envisioned. After police took pickets into custody, newspapers tended to portray the women as somewhat dangerous. Headlines describing Mollie Carroll’s airplane leafleting as a “bombing” of the British Embassy served to imply that the violence of the Irish War for Independence had come to the United States.

Capt. Robert Emmet Doyle and Mary Manning Walsh, 1920.

Daniel Cohalan, the leader of the Friends of Irish Freedom, was also suspicious of Maloney and the pickets. He and his associates gathered intelligence on them, eager to see if they were being directed by Sinn Féin. The Friends advocated for Irish self-determination but stopped short of demanding that the United States risk its relationship with London by recognizing the Irish Republic. Maloney and the pickets rejected this view. Some newspapers, including the Washington Post, stated that the Friends were behind the pickets. Such reporting dismayed Cohalan.

In addition to Ruth Russell, who were the other journalists in the crowd?

BURNS: The Easter 1920 picketing venture was designed to appear in newspapers and female journalists and recognizable women with media connections helped to generate the publicity that Maloney and the pickets desired.

Hammon Lake County Times, April 13, 1920.

Picket Honor Walsh of Philadelphia made her living as a journalist and editor with the Catholic Standard and Times. Constance Todd, a magazine writer married to a Washington newspaper correspondent, was on picket duty. So too was Rosa Hanna, wife of the socialist journalist Paul Hanna. He penned sympathetic reports on the protest for the New York Call. Pickets Theresa Russell and Matilda Gardner were both prominent woman suffragists, but they, too, had close family ties to journalists and newspapers. Gardner’s father was the editor of the Chicago Tribune.

I think journalism is key to understanding the involvement of Kathleen O’Brennan and Gertrude Corless in the picketing. O’Brennan was an Irish journalist and her family played an important role in the revolutionary movement in Ireland. She relayed select information about the pickets to reporters, emphasizing their Protestant faiths and long family lineages in the United States in order to claim that people outside of Irish circles supported the Irish Republic. Gertrude Corless—who shared a Washington hotel room with Ruth Russell—served as the pickets’ co-leader and public spokesperson. Notably, she had ties to the Hearst newspapers. In 1920, the Hearst newspapers backed Irish envoy Harry Boland’s scheme to generate anti-British sentiments in the United States. Corless was the private secretary of an editorial writer who penned pro-republican editorials for Hearst newspapers. As picket co-leader, Corless directed the production of such propaganda.

New year, election year(s): 20-60-20

Happy New Year! In 2020, I’ll continue to build on my American Reporting of Irish Independence centenary series, which focuses on how key people and events in the Irish revolutionary period were covered by U.S. mainstream papers and the Irish-American press. This year’s work will include the 1920 Irish bond drive in America, creation of the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, and escalating violence in Ireland. (See the 1920 Chicago Daily News movie poster below.)

“The year 1920 may see the Republic of Ireland officially recognized by the United States, and then final victory after 750 years,” Éamon de Valera said in a new year’s telegram message to the people of Ireland from New York City.1 He remained in America until December 1920.

This year also sets up well to explore historic and contemporary electoral politics on both sides of the Atlantic, as expressed in the numbers: 20-60-20, meaning:

  • 1920: In the first U.S. presidential election after the Great War, de Valera tried to influence the Democratic and Republican party conventions. U.S. Republican Warren G. Harding campaigned on a “return to normalcy”; that is, recapturing way of life before Word War I and the administration of the outgoing Woodrow Wilson, widely detested by Irish American voters for his deference to Britain. How did coverage of the war in Ireland and the Irish in America impact the U.S. election 100 years ago?
  • 1960: This is the 60th anniversary of the 1960 U.S. presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy, the second Irish-American-Catholic nominated by a major party. (Al Smith was first in 1928.) JFK’s victory was an historic and symbolic moment for Irish influence in American politics. Read his Jan. 2, 1960, campaign announcement speech.
  • 2020: By coincidence, there are also national elections this year in Ireland and America, as Leo Varadkar and Donald Trump seek re-election. We’re sure to hear about a “return to normalcy” in the latter race; and Ireland’s preparations for the “new normal” of the post-Brexit border in the former contest. What role will the Irish in America, or Americans in Ireland, have in each of these elections?

As always, I welcome reader comments, suggestions, and offers for guest posts about Irish history and contemporary issues. Best wishes for 2020.

December 1920 newspaper advert for the “motion picture scoop” Ireland in Revolt.

Best of the Blog, 2019

Welcome to my seventh annual Best of the Blog–BOB. As always, I want to thank regular readers and new visitors for their support, including social media shares. Special thanks to my wife, Angie Drobnic Holan: editor, webmaster … my dear companion.

Back to Ireland …  

Inisheer, August 2019.

This year I made my ninth and tenth trips to the island of Ireland, traveling both times to the Republic and Northern Ireland. I’m starting this year’s BOB with a sampling of highlights from these 10 trips in just under 20 years:

May 2000: Pilgrimage to the Lahardane (Ballybunion) and Killelton (Ballylongford) townlands, North Kerry, birthplaces of my maternal grandfather and grandmother, respectively; and walked the Cobh waterfront where they emigrated in the early 20th century.

September/October 2001: Climbed Croagh Patrick … Interviewed surviving family at the Bloody Sunday Trust/Museum and watched testimony in the Bloody Sunday Inquiry at the Guild Hall, Derry. (Journalism fellowship from the German Marshall Fund.)

August 2007: (With Angie) Enchanted by the monastic ruins of Clonmacnoise (Offaly) and Glendalough (Wicklow). … Attended first play at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin: The Big House, by Lennox Robinson.

February 2009: Researched historic newspapers and census records at the National Library of Ireland and The National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, before they were digitized and made available online.

May/June 2012: (With Angie) Attended the Listowel Writers’ Week and heard Paul Durcan recite his poem “On the First Day of June” … on June 1, 2012 … at the Listowel Arms Hotel, the River Feale framed by the window at his back. … Strolled the Kinsale to Charles Fort (Cork) coastal walk, stopping for a lovely outdoor lunch.

July 2016: Toured the Falls/Shankill neighborhoods of Belfast by Black Taxi … Visited Titanic Belfast … EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum … and Glasnevin Cemetary (Part 1 & Part 2), the last two in Dublin.

February 2018: Researched at the Michael Davitt Museum and grave (Straide, County Mayo); and read Davitt’s papers at Trinity College Dublin. (Part 1 & Part 2).

November 2018: Walked a muddy, cow-crowded road to reach Killone Abbey (Clare), following the footsteps of American journalist William Henry Hurlbert, who wrote of visiting the site in 1888.

July/August 2019: (With Angie) Cycled the Great Western Greenway from Achill Island to Westport (Mayo). … Hiked the circumference of Inisheer (Aran Islands, Galway) on my 60th birthday, and viewed the Cliff of Moher, which I had visited on my 2000 trip, from the sea.

November 2019: Presented my research about American journalist Ruth Russell’s 1919 travels to Ireland at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queens University Belfast for the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland annual conference.

Here are 2019 photo essays from both sides of the border:

From an evening walk on Inisheer, August 2019.

A few more photo essays from Irish America:

Before morning Mass at Old St. Patrick’s Church, Chicago, March 2019.

1919, Revisited … 

This year I enjoyed exploring U.S. mainstream and Irish-American newspaper coverage of 1919 events in Irish history. Find all 32 stand-alone posts, plus the five-part monograph, Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland, at my American Reporting of Irish Independence series.

Other history highlights … 

… and guest posts

I am always grateful to the contributions of guest bloggers. This year:

The Antrim coast, July 2019.

Other news of note:

RIP Lyra McKee, journalist killed in Derry on April 19. She was 29, the same age as Ruth Russell when the American reporter arrived in Ireland in 1919. … U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi–first, second, and third in succession of power in the American government–each visited Ireland in 2019. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before. … Republic of Ireland golfer Shane Lowry won the British Open at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland, the first time since 1951 the Open has been held on the island of Ireland. … American businessman Edward F. Crawford became the new U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. …Abortion and same-sex marriage were decriminalized in Northern Ireland, in part due to the dormant Northern Ireland Assembly. … See more at my monthly roundups from 2019 and previous years of Best of the Blog.

Libraries and Archives

Special thanks for the in-person help I received at these institutions in 2019:

  • Catholic University of America, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, and Mullen Library, Washington, D.C.
  • Georgetown University, Lauinger Library, Washington, D.C.
  • Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
  • Arlington Public Library, Central Library, Arlington, Va., and the numerous libraries that made books available through the Interlibrary Loan program.
  • University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center, Pittsburgh
  • Heinz History Center, Detre Library & Archives, Pittsburgh
  • The Archives of the Sister of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pa.
  • The Newberry, Chicago
  • Chicago Public Library, Herald Washington Library Center, Chicago
  • Queens University Belfast, McClay Library Special Collections, Belfast

And digital assistance from these institutions:

  • University College Dublin, Papers of Éamon de Valera (1882–1975), (Thanks again John Dorney of The Irish Story.)
  • National Library of Ireland, Patrick McCartan Papers (1912-1938)
  • University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center
  • Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, (Newspaper Collection), Springfield, Ill.
  • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Main, Pennsylvania Dept. Collections
  • Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library, Joseph McGarrity Collection, Philadelphia
  • University of Kentucky, Margaret King Library, Louisville
  • University of Louisville, Ekstrom Library
  • Louisville Free Public Library
  • The Filson Historical Society, Louisville
  • Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  • Newspapers.com
  • Irish Newspaper Archives

Thanks again to all the librarians, archivists, and readers. Keep visiting this “journalist’s blog dedicated to Irish and Irish-American history and contemporary issues.”

1919 Revisited: American reporting of Irish independence

This year I explored 1919 U.S. mainstream and Irish-American newspaper coverage of events in the struggled for Irish freedom. I produced 32 stand-alone posts for my American Reporting of Irish Independence series about developments on both sides of the Atlantic, including:

  • Dáil Éireann, revolutionary parliament of the Irish Republic
  • Irish Race Convention
  • American Commission on Irish Independence
  • Éamon de Valera’s tour of America
  • News reporting and opinion pieces for and against the Irish cause

Many of my posts are focused on three Irish-American weeklies: The Irish Press, a short-lived (1918-1922) Philadelphia paper with direct political and financial ties to revolutionary Ireland; the Kentucky Irish American, published from 1898 to 1968 in Louisville; and The Irish Standard, circulated from 1886 to 1920 in Minneapolis, Minn. Since all three papers are digitized, my posts are laced with links to the original pages. The Irish American and Standard offered more moderate coverage of Ireland’s cause than the Press, reflecting a more conservative Irish America in the heartland, rather than the more activist immigrant pockets of the East Coast.

Ruth Russell’s 1919 passport photo.

I also produced a five-part monograph, Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland, about a young Chicago Daily News correspondent who reported from the early months of the revolution. Upon her return to America, Russell wrote a book about her experience, protested against British rule in Ireland; and testified before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland.

“They were extremely cool-headed and intelligent,” Russell said of the Sinn Féin leaders. “[They were] the most brilliant crowd of people that I have met in my life, and as a newspaper person I have mixed in at a good many gatherings.”2

Here’s the full series:

Thanks to the American Journalism Historians Association and the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland for the opportunity to present my research at conferences in Dallas and Belfast, respectively.

Presenting at the NPHFI conference, Queens University Belfast, November 2019.

Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland: Afterward

Chicago journalist Ruth Russell reported from revolutionary Ireland in 1919, followed by a year of activism for its independence. The post concludes a five-part series: 1) Beginnings 2) Correspondent 3) Activist 4) Witness © 2022 This post was updated in October 2022 to add information about Russell’s 1924 letter to Albert Jay Nock, and other minor edits.  

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Russell slipped from public attention soon after her December 1920 testimony before the American Commission on Condition in Ireland. She began working as a Chicago public high school English teacher and student newspaper adviser.[1]Ruth Russell’s Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employment record, and 1932 Calumet High School Yearbook, Chicago, Ill. U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890–1979 via MyHeritage.com. She would travel back to Ireland and other parts of Europe a few times over the next 20 years with her younger sister, Cecilia, also a teacher.[2]Passport and ship passenger records for Ruth and Cecilia Russell, with their identities confirmed by date of birth and Chicago address. 1923 travel itinerary shows “British Isles and France.” … Continue reading

On Jan. 25, 1924, Russell read a four paragraph story on the front page of the Chicago Tribune that she hoped was “a mistake, as usual.” But it wasn’t.[3]“Radical Weekly, The Freeman, To Quit Business”, The Chicago Tribune, Jan. 25, 1924. The weekly Freeman magazine would fold in March. Russell immediately wrote to Albert Jay Nock, the libertarian author and social critic who had edited the Freeman since its launch in 1920.

“Would the Freeman management permit its subscribers to help out? I can send $100, and there are many readers who, I am sure, could and would give more than an unmoneyed schoolteacher. The paper is too much wanted to stop.”[4]Ruth Russell to Albert Jay Nock, Jan. 26, 1924, B.W. Huebsch Papers, Library of Congress, Box 23.

The letter is interesting in that Russell makes no reference to her two stories about Ireland that were published in the Freeman in May and September 1920, not quite four years earlier. Her description of herself as an “unmoneyed schoolteacher” also tends to emphasize her departure from journalism, also notoriously poor paying, and temporarily from public attention.

Ruth Russell in 1932 Calumet High School, Chicago, yearbook photo, about age 43.

Eleven years after What’s the matter with Ireland?, Ruth published Lake Front, her novel of Chicago’s first 100 years told through three generations of the O’Mara family. The book nods to 19th century Irish nationalism through a character called “the Fenian,” an immigrant veteran of the 1848 Young Irelander Rebellion. “Irishmen must no longer be subject but free, and they must have the chance to be free in their own republic,” he says. “I will hold that every Irishman’s first duty is to Ireland.”[5]Russell, Lake Front, 173 and 182.

In a review, the Chicago Tribune’s Fanny Butcher identified Russell as “a native Chicagoan, daughter of the late Martin J. Russell,” then dead for 31 years. The reviewer named three newspapers he was associated with in the 19th century, but nothing of his daughter’s work at the Daily News, or her earlier Ireland book.[6]“Chicago Plays Heroine Role for This Book,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 16, 1931.

Robert Morss Lovett also praised Lake Front. An associate editor of The New Republic and an English professor at the University of Chicago, Russell’s alma mater, he also was a former member of the Commission on Conditions in Ireland. Lovett wrote, “in Lake Front, an outstanding piece of writing, Miss Russell has made excellent use of her great opportunity and a stout bid toward its fulfillment.”[7]Quote from book publisher Thomas S. Rockwell Co.’s advertisement in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 19, 1931,13.

In an interview with the hometown Hyde Park Herald, Russell described Lake Front as “the book I have always wanted to write.”[8]“Chicago’s First One Hundred Years Penned and Illustrated by Ruth Russell and Ruth Kellogg,” Hyde Park Herald , Sept. 18, 1931. She dedicated the novel to Cecilia, “whose faith and love created this book.” Ruth was a “guest of honor” at the Friends of American Writers meeting in the Wedgwood room of Chicago’s Marshall Field’s department store.[9]“Meetings and Lectures”, Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan.  23, 1932. The 1932 yearbook at Calumet High School, where she taught, also noted her novel.[10]1932 Calumet High School Yearbook, Chicago, Ill. U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979. Via MyHeritage.com.

Russell continued teaching another 20 years. She took a few sabbaticals to continue her education at the University of Chicago, including an English course on narration. In January 1954, she “resigned” from the public school system shortly before her 65th birthday, though nothing in the file suggests this was other than a routine retirement.[11]CPS employment record. Soon after, she moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to join Cecilia, then a romance language teacher at the University of Arkansas.

The two unmarried sisters attended book groups and university functions together, according to newspaper social columns. Cecilia died in 1959 and was buried at the St. Joseph Catholic Church cemetery in Fayetteville. Two years later, Ruth filed her will at the Washington County, Arkansas, courthouse, which provided a $10,000 endowment upon her own death for a university scholarship in her sister’s name.[12]“Scholarship Honors Late Faculty Member”, Arkansas Alumnus, University of Arkansas/Fayetteville, February 1964, and Last Will and Testament of Ruth Marie Russell, Washington County, Arkansas, … Continue reading The Cecilia Russell Memorial Scholarship to this day provides study abroad funding for students focused on French.

Ruth remained in Fayetteville until August 1963, when she entered the Rosary Hill Convalescent Home, 16 miles southwest of the Hyde Park neighborhood of her youth. She died there Nov. 28, 1963, age 74, of heart disease.[13]State of Illinois Medical Certificate of Death, Nov. 29, 1963, Cook County (IL) Clerk’s Office, Bureau of Vital Records, Genealogy Records Division. Daily News, Nov. 30, 1963; Chicago Tribune, Nov. … Continue reading Headlines about the assassination and burial of John F. Kennedy, America’s first Irish-American and Catholic president, dominated the last week of her life. Irish President Éamon de Valera, then 81, returned to America for Kennedy’s funeral, 44 years after being interviewed by Russell in Ireland and providing the letter for What’s the matter with Ireland?

In a short news obituary, the Daily News described Russell as a “onetime reporter” for the paper and noted her teaching career. It mentioned Lake Front, her novel, and suggested that she wrote “a number of books on Ireland.”[14]Daily News, Nov. 30, 1963. I have not found any other references or evidence that Russell wrote about Ireland other than her 1920 book.

Russell’s body was returned to Fayetteville, and buried Dec. 2, 1963, next to her sister, according to the wishes of her will.[15]Ruth Russell’s “Last Will and Testament”; Illinois Certificate of Death; and Joseph Catholic Church, Fayetteville, AR, burial record. Digitized copy of handwritten burial entry provided March … Continue reading On the headstone, below the centered Russell surname, the bottom left corner was engraved with Cecilia’s first name and dates. The bottom right corner of the headstone, where Ruth’s name and dates would be similarly etched, remained smooth until 2020.[16]March 2019 photo by Paul A. Warren of Joseph Catholic Church.

See Ruth Russell remembered in stone … 57 years later for an update.

The Russell grave in Fayetteville, Arkansas, 2019.

The Russell headstone in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This monograph is the first attempt to detail Ruth Russell’s life. Her Irish reporting and activism have received limited attention from historians, though not in as much detail as this series.[17]Some mentions of Russell by historians are noted earlier in this work. Maurice Walsh does not name her in his Foreign Correspondents book, but does reference her in his 2015 history, Bitter Freedom: … Continue reading I believe more material about Russell’s life remains to be discovered, as evidenced by the 2022 updates in this series about her activism during the Easter Rising, found in the Beginnings installment, and letter to Albert Jay Nock in this installment. More details of Russell’s journalism and activism are likely to be found in other U.S. and Irish archives, such as the Kathleen O’Brennan papers in Ireland, which contain a hotel receipt showing that Russell and activist Helen Merriam Golden shared a Washington, D.C. hotel room during the April 1920 women’s protest.

Beyond What’s the matter with Ireland? and her December 1920 testimony to the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, I have not located any diaries, letters, or interviews with Russell that illuminate her private thoughts about the 1919 reporting trip to Ireland or journalism in general. “I was sent as a correspondent to Ireland and wrote a book about it,” she told the Hyde Park Herald in a 1931 interview about her novel. The story says Russell “gave up newspaper work” and began teaching in 1921.[18]”Chicago’s First One Hundred Years” Hyde Park Herald , Sept. 18, 1931.

I wonder if her decision to leave newspapers was driven by the limited opportunities available to women at the time, or by harassment from male colleagues or reporting subjects? Was she professionally blacklisted for her short burst of pro-Irish activism, or privately steered away from revolutionary politics and social activism under the threat of scandal or the risk of losing a middle-class inheritance? Or was Russell simply needed at home to care for her widowed mother, whom she lived with for nearly 20 years after her Ireland trip, never marrying?

Describing Russell as a pioneering woman journalist is probably an overstatement. Her undercover reporting from Chicago’s factory floors and Dublin slums appeared more than 30 years after Elizabeth Cochran (Nellie Bly), Nora Marks, and other “stunt girl” reporters began writing first-person accounts about oppressive conditions in workplaces, hospitals, and public institutions. Margaret Sullivan’s book about Ireland’s social, economic, and political troubles under British rule was published in 1881, nearly 40 years before Russell’s trip. As Russell’s book circulated in 1920, Ireland’s revolutionary women published their views in nationalist newspapers, pamphlets, and books on both sides of the Atlantic.

Women reporters like Russell “have been hiding in plain sight” for over a century, Alice Fahs has observed: “They achieved a measure of fame in their own day; enlivened the pages of metropolitan mass-circulation papers that sometimes reached hundreds of thousands of readers; innovated across a variety of new genres, developed styles of newspaper writing that in some cases remains startlingly fresh today; and created a rich set of public conversations within the public spaces of the newspaper.”[19]Alice Fahs, Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 2.

Maurice Walsh has noted: “The evident reluctance in Irish historiography to take an interest in the work of journalists is puzzling …  When media scholars do get around to writing history they are curiously neglectful of individual journalists.”[20]Maurice Walsh, The News From Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008), 6, 8. Also, my conversations with Irish historian Felix Larkin about … Continue reading

This is changing. Groups such as the American Journalism Historians Association and the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland encourage research and widen interest in journalists like Russell. I have benefited from and contributed to that work as a non-academic member of both groups.

Making my presentation about Russell at the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland’s 2019 conference, Queens University Belfast.

Expanding digitization also increases access to the work of early journalists. Many of Russell’s 1919 dispatches are available through online newspaper databases, though not the Daily News. Digital editions of What’s the matter with Ireland?, now out of copyright, are easy to find online.

The Irish republican website An Sionnach Fionn posted the book in 2017. It described Russell’s work as “notable for its intimate and sympathetic style, with no sign of the phonetic ‘stage Irish’ accents and racist caricatures which were so beloved by the press in Britain.”[21]”Ruth Russell, An American Journalist in Revolutionary Ireland“, An Sionnach Fionn, Jan. 28, 2017. This introduction mistakenly says Russell was a Chicago Herald correspondent at the time … Continue reading

Indeed, Russell’s reporting from the early months of the Irish revolution, especially her focus on women and workers, helped counter prevailing British and American press narratives of a contented Irish peasantry. Her vivid, 400- to 600-word dispatches would be at home on today’s digital news platforms. These vignettes about ordinary Irish lives caught in the crossfire of the revolution’s social and economic strife are valuable, underutilized snapshots of the period.

The lives of these forgotten people are worth weaving into the tapestry of historical consideration, as well as Russell’s encounters with Ireland’s mainstream political and social figures, especially at the centenary of the revolution. This mostly forgotten woman journalist is also worthy of rediscovery and reconsideration.

Ruth M. Russell’s enlarged signature from a 1961 document establishing a scholarship in her sister’s name.

References

References
↑1 Ruth Russell’s Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employment record, and 1932 Calumet High School Yearbook, Chicago, Ill. U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890–1979 via MyHeritage.com.
↑2 Passport and ship passenger records for Ruth and Cecilia Russell, with their identities confirmed by date of birth and Chicago address. 1923 travel itinerary shows “British Isles and France.” 1939 trip shows return from Cobh, Ireland. Ellis Island and Other New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957, MyHeritage.com.
↑3 “Radical Weekly, The Freeman, To Quit Business”, The Chicago Tribune, Jan. 25, 1924.
↑4 Ruth Russell to Albert Jay Nock, Jan. 26, 1924, B.W. Huebsch Papers, Library of Congress, Box 23.
↑5 Russell, Lake Front, 173 and 182.
↑6 “Chicago Plays Heroine Role for This Book,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 16, 1931.
↑7 Quote from book publisher Thomas S. Rockwell Co.’s advertisement in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 19, 1931,13.
↑8 “Chicago’s First One Hundred Years Penned and Illustrated by Ruth Russell and Ruth Kellogg,” Hyde Park Herald , Sept. 18, 1931.
↑9 “Meetings and Lectures”, Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan.  23, 1932.
↑10 1932 Calumet High School Yearbook, Chicago, Ill. U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979. Via MyHeritage.com.
↑11 CPS employment record.
↑12 “Scholarship Honors Late Faculty Member”, Arkansas Alumnus, University of Arkansas/Fayetteville, February 1964, and Last Will and Testament of Ruth Marie Russell, Washington County, Arkansas, Oct. 2, 1961. Digital copy obtained from the Washington County Archives, Aug. 29, 2019.
↑13 State of Illinois Medical Certificate of Death, Nov. 29, 1963, Cook County (IL) Clerk’s Office, Bureau of Vital Records, Genealogy Records Division. Daily News, Nov. 30, 1963; Chicago Tribune, Nov. 30, 1963; and Northwest Arkansas Times, Dec. 2, 1963.
↑14 Daily News, Nov. 30, 1963.
↑15 Ruth Russell’s “Last Will and Testament”; Illinois Certificate of Death; and Joseph Catholic Church, Fayetteville, AR, burial record. Digitized copy of handwritten burial entry provided March 13, 2019, via email from Paul A. Warren, church operations director.
↑16 March 2019 photo by Paul A. Warren of Joseph Catholic Church.
↑17 Some mentions of Russell by historians are noted earlier in this work. Maurice Walsh does not name her in his Foreign Correspondents book, but does reference her in his 2015 history, Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World. Russell’s reporting on Irish labor strife has been cited by Arthur Mitchell, “Thomas Johnson, 1872–1963, a Pioneer Labour Leader,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 58:232 (1969), 396-404, and James Kemmy, “The Limerick Soviet,” Saothar 2 (1976), 45–52.
↑18 ”Chicago’s First One Hundred Years” Hyde Park Herald , Sept. 18, 1931.
↑19 Alice Fahs, Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 2.
↑20 Maurice Walsh, The News From Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008), 6, 8. Also, my conversations with Irish historian Felix Larkin about American journalist William Henry Hurlbert, who wrote an 1888 book about his travels in Ireland, subject of my 2018 Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited series.
↑21 ”Ruth Russell, An American Journalist in Revolutionary Ireland“, An Sionnach Fionn, Jan. 28, 2017. This introduction mistakenly says Russell was a Chicago Herald correspondent at the time of her 1919 reporting trip. She worked for the Daily News. It also confuses the Ruth Russell who wrote the posted book with the same-named woman who became the feature editor at the paper later in the 20th century.

Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland: Witness

Chicago journalist Ruth Russell reported from revolutionary Ireland in 1919, followed by a year of activism for its independence. This five-part monograph is part of my American Reporting of Irish Independence series. © 2022

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The Library of Congress received What’s the matter with Ireland?, Russell’s expansion of her 1919 Daily News reporting, on July 20, 1920, nearly a year after she returned from Ireland.3 The front page of that day’s Washington Post reported on a “night of terror” in Cork city, as civilians threw home-made bombs at two military lorries in reprisal for an earlier “boyonetting incident” and “indiscriminate firing” by British troops, the latest example of how violence had escalated since Russell’s departure.4

Publisher Devin-Adair Co. of New York does not appear to have aggressively marketed the 160-page book, which was not widely reviewed. Russell’s split from the Daily News and participation in the British Embassy protests5 are not mentioned in the reviews or advertising that I have located. The book’s title, which implies something is wrong with Ireland, may have soured ardent nationalists able to select other 1920 offerings with more uplifting names, such as The Invincible Irish and Why God Loves the Irish.

Original edition of Russell’s 1920 book at the Library of Congress. Digital versions of the book are widely available online.

The New York Tribune’s review suggested the title was “misleading since this little volume … offers not a solution but a statement of the problem.”6 It added: “Her volume is a forthright presentation of the situation as it offers itself to the inquiring sojourner, given in the journalist’s terms of first-hand observation and current statistics.”

The Tribune also found: “Not the least interesting actors in the Irish drama are the women leaders of the revolutionary party.” It pointed to Russell’s reporting of Countess Markievicz; Maud Gonne McBride; suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst; writer and activist Susan Langstaff Mitchell; and Countess Elizabeth Burke-Plunkett, president of the United Irishwomen.

The Catholic World was tougher on Russell: “She succeeds in rousing our sympathy for the poor working girls of Dublin, and other unfortunate people of the city and the bog-field. But when she takes up the political she seems unable to do justice to her subject. … There is no doubt Miss Russell’s intentions are good, but it is doubtful if such books as this will help Ireland’s cause.”7

The Chicago-based Illinois Catholic Historical Review supported the hometown author. It described Russell as a “brilliant young writer” whose “powerful book, in language simple and direct, and yet at times dramatic or poetic” was worthwhile for anyone “interested in knowing the truth about the Irish question.”8 By coincidence, the same issue of the Review featured a story on “The Irish of Chicago,” which mentioned Russell’s editor father and referred readers to the review of his daughter’s “most interesting book.”9

An advertisement for the book10 declared: “Only a determined woman can get at the bottom of the facts,” and Russell “saw Ireland, its people, and its problems as no one else has seen them.” It quoted Eamon de Valera’s January 1920 letter from the front matter, and a testimonial from Frank P. Walsh, a member of the American Commission on Irish Independence, whom Russell met in Ireland. He wrote:

“It is a most valuable contribution to the literature of Ireland. It is a breezy, well-told narrative of Irish life, is more human and charming than anything which I have read, while the economic background is presented in a way that should bring home with terrific force to the reader the real heart of the Irish controversy.”

Here’s the full ad:

On a personal level, Russell dedicated the book to her widowed mother, who she lived with in Chicago. As the year drew to a close, the reporter received one more opportunity to publicly address her experiences in Ireland and her views on its struggle for independence.

COMMISSION TESTIMONY

Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of The Nation, in 1920 organized the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland. He invited U.S. senators, state governors, big city mayors, college presidents and professors, religious leaders, newspaper editors, and other prominent citizens to establish a “Committee of One Hundred” to form and oversee the eight-member
commission of inquiry.

“The situation in Ireland was a proper subject of concern for all peoples claiming either humanity or civilization,” the commission summarized. “It seemed to us that we could best serve the cause of peace by placing before English, Irish and American public opinion the facts of the situation, free from both agonized exaggeration and merciless understatement; for a knowledge of the facts might reveal their cause, and recognition of that cause might permit its cure, by those whose purpose was not to slay but to heal.”11

The commission held six hearings from November 1920 through January 1921, with 18 witnesses from Ireland; two from England (others were invited, but declined); and 18 Americans. The opening session came three weeks after the hunger-strike death of Irish nationalist and Cork Mayor Terance MacSwiney generated international headlines. His widow and sister testified in early December; Russell appeared a week later, Dec. 15, 1920, at the Lafayette Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Mary MacSwiney, sister of the late Cork mayor, testified Dec. 8, 1920, at the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, a week before Ruth Russell. Library of Congress.

Commission Chairman Frederic Howe called the session to order at 10:05 a.m.12 After stating her name for the record, Russell told the commission she “was employed” by the Daily News “when I went to Ireland … as foreign correspondent studying special economic, social, and political conditions.” She was not asked why she no longer worked at the paper. Questioned about her investigative methods, Russell answered she “used both interviews and personal experiences,” including living in the Dublin slums.

And her views about the Irish republican leaders she met?

“They were extremely cool-headed and intelligent,” Russell replied. “The crowd of Sinn Féin leaders … were, I think, the most brilliant crowd of people that I have met in my life, and as a newspaper person I have mixed in at a good many gatherings.”13 In Russell’s opinion “it would have been impossible for these brilliant young leaders to rally the forces in Ireland behind them unless the people were driven to revolt by the economic conditions that are pressing into them.” She blamed Protestant politicians in the province of Ulster, today’s Northern Ireland, who “work on the religious prejudices of the people, so that the rich mill owners profit by the division of the people, especially the laboring people.”14

For more than two hours,15 Russell answered the commission’s questions about political, economic,  social, educational, and religious conditions. Jane Addams, the Chicago-based progressive social reformer referenced in one of Russell’s Daily News stories, was one of the eight commissioners. She asked Russell about Irish schools, labor laws, and housing conditions.

Near the end of session commission attorney Basil M. Manly asked Russell how conditions in Ireland compared to the streets of New York, Chicago, or other American cities.

“I felt perfectly safe,” Russell replied. “I walked from the telegraph office in Limerick at two o’clock in the morning through perfectly black streets to my hotel. I inquired the direction several times, and was finally assisted to my hotel by a member of the Black Watch (an ancient form of civilian night guard). But there was no interference with my progress at all. … I only had one unpleasant experience while I was in Ireland. It was about three o’clock in the morning in [the Galway] railroad station; but that was all.”16

Manly did not ask her for details.

PRESS COVERAGE

Associated Press coverage of Russell’s testimony identified her 1919 Irish reporting trip for the Daily News,17, and this detail was repeated by newspapers that used the wire service across the country. These reports did not identify Russell with the April 1920 demonstrations at the British Embassy, which also was absent in her testimony. The Daily News did not publish a story about that day’s commission hearing.

The AP highlighted Russell’s comment that religious differences between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster were “artificially worked up.”18 The Irish News and Chicago Citizen quoted her more localized remark that “in some of the southern towns of my own state there is more religious intolerance than there is in Ireland.”19 The Irish Press, Philadelphia, reported Russell’s testimony that blamed British authorities for economic distress in Ireland by turning small farms to gazing land and exporting cattle on the hoof, thus idling farm laborers and industries dependent on agriculture.20 

Coverage of that day’s commission testimony appeared two weeks later in Irish newspapers and focused more on the testimony of nationalist legislator Laurence Ginnell. The Evening Herald of Dublin reported that Russell “gave a terrible picture of poverty in Ireland, and on sweating in mills and factories in the North of Ireland.”21

In spring 1921 the commission released a 152-page interim report. It quoted Russell only once: “On the whole, testified Miss Ruth Russell of Chicago, ‘I think there is possibly the greatest unanimity there that has ever existed in any country of the world.’ “22 Her response had been to a question from U.S. Sen. David I. Walsh, a Massachusetts Democrat, who asked Russell if she had ever known “unanimity of opinion upon any great question anywhere in the world?”23

Iconic image of an IRA patrol on Grafton Street in Dublin during the Irish Civil War.

Russell was mentioned in some press coverage of the report, which British officials dismissed as biased toward the revolutionaries. Fast-moving developments in Ireland continued to eclipse Russell’s 1919 reporting, as violence escalated up until a July 1921 truce. Five months later, Irish and British authorities agreed to treaty that created the 26-county, majority Catholic, Irish Free State, while the 6-county, predominantly Protestant, Northern Ireland remained part of Britain. The dominion status of southern Ireland fell short of the full republic sought by Sinn Féin leaders.

Bitter disappointment about this outcome in 1922 erupted in a bloody civil war in the Free State that lasted for the next two years. By then, Russell had slipped from the spotlight of Irish politics and returned to a quieter life in Chicago.

NEXT:  The rest of Russell’s life, and my personal thoughts

Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland: Activist

Chicago journalist Ruth Russell reported from revolutionary Ireland in 1919, followed by a year of activism for its independence. This five-part monograph is part of my American Reporting of Irish Independence series. © 2022

***

After six months overseas, Russell returned to America in August 1919, back to her widowed mother and two sisters in Chicago.24 In January 1920, her story of being “broke” in England during a two-week wait for her ship appeared in The Ladies Home Journal.25 Determined to pass the time as inexpensively as possible, Russell reported that she walked more than 100 of the 234 miles from London to Liverpool. She detailed sights and adventures along the way and concluded: “There was one thing lacking to make the trip a complete success. But that was not a motor [car]; it was a friend.”26

Russell’s penny-pinching departure from England appears contrary to the January 1919 promise her Daily News editor made to the U.S. State Department, that she “would continue to be on a salary basis”27 while outside of America. The magazine story never mentions the Daily News or says why Russell was in England or Ireland. My research of the Daily News archives, including the 1919-1920 papers of Victor Lawson, the publisher; Charles Dennis, the editor; and Henry J. Smith, the news editor who wrote to the State Department; did not yield any documentation of her work or relationship with the paper.28

It is unclear whether her “special correspondent” relationship with the newspaper was so informal29 that it didn’t warrant any discussion, or because such records are lost or undiscovered. There are a few clues about what might have happened.

FOREIGN NEWS

As discussed in Part 1 of this series, the Daily News enhanced its reputation through the aggressive pursuit of foreign news. It excelled during the Great War and 1919 Paris peace conference. This coverage wasn’t cheap.

Chicago Daily News Publisher Victor F. Lawson, 1920. (Photo of a photo.) Chicago History Museum.

In March 1919, as Russell reported from Ireland, Lawson explained to outside newspaper executives that his paper’s foreign news service cost $260,585 in 191830, nearly double the $148,419 in 1915, the first full year of the war. Syndicate papers contributed $76,265 in 1918, Lawson revealed, leaving the Daily News to cover the $184,320 balance.31

By September 1919, less than a year after the war ended, the paper began to shift emphasis. Dennis wrote to Lawson: “I heartily agree with all you say about the enormous importance of making The Daily News a stronger local paper in every possible way. … I can see immense gain in circulation if we could be markedly stronger and more interesting locally.”32

In December 1919, Dennis outlined to Lawson 11 important issues facing the paper, including the return of its chief correspondent from the Paris peace conference; plans for an anthology book of its war coverage; discovery that a recently purchased 14-story feature package had previously appeared in the Saturday Evening Post; and the latest fundraising details for the “Chicago’s 100 Poorest Families” Christmas charity drive.33

After Christmas, Dennis advised the paper’s London bureau: “Now that the war is over war expenses must be lopped off. Some of our correspondents have spent money altogether too freely, having full regard of war conditions. They have wasted money on loosely constructed and overwritten dispatches, and dispatches telegraphed and cabled when they should have been mailed.”34

WOMEN PICKETS

As Russell’s Ladies Home Journal story circulated in January 1920, an “advance copy” of her book was provided to Éamon de Valera, according to his letter to her, published later that year as front matter in What’s the matter with Ireland?35 The Irish leader had slipped into America in June 1919 to raise money and build U.S. political support for the fledgling Irish republic. His 18-month tour of the country included several stops in Chicago.

Russell or her publisher likely provided the book to de Valera’s entourage, which must have believed it could be useful propaganda. Support staff probably drafted the letter for de Valera, who was in Washington, D.C., on the date of the published facsimile. Charles N. Wheeler, who reported from Ireland in spring 1918 for the Chicago Tribune, published his own book about Ireland in August 1919, then joined de Valera’s tour as an advance man and press spokesmen, might have assisted his fellow Chicago journalist. De Valera’s diary and related papers from the U.S. tour do not mention his March 1919 Dublin interview with Russell, any exchanges with her in America, or providing the letter for her book.36

At the start of April 1920, days before Easter, Russell joined a few dozen other women at a protest in front of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was organized to increase support for the Irish republic as the war there grew more brutal. Irish and Irish-American activists disagreed on the strategy, however, with opponents worried it would undermine de Valera’s mission in America.37

Mainstream newspapers accounts identified many of the women demonstrators, including “Miss Ruth Russell of Chicago”. The coverage did not associate her 1919 reporting from Ireland for the Daily News. The Daily News published a front-page brief about the embassy protest, but it did not name any of the women.

Ruth Russell was in the crowd of women protesters, or “Irish pickets,” outside the British Embassy on April 1, 1920. Library of Congress.

The Irish News and Chicago Citizen, a pro-nationalist weekly, did connect Russell to the Daily News; her late father, a well-regarding editor; and an older brother who worked as a journalist.38 The front-page story described her as “one of the most indefatigable of these vigilante sentinels” outside the embassy. Moreover, it suggested the Daily News sent Russell to Ireland “with a pot of the blackest paint, with, perhaps, a big order to besmirch the character and objects of the Sinn Féiners.”

The overheated, but unsourced, report continued: “…on investigation, [Russell] discovered the odious and detestable nature of the services expected of her and in disgust renounced and repudiated them. She is now engaged, with her devoted associates, in shaking the tottering stronghold of British tyranny like a heroine in Joshua’s besieging army at the fall of Jericho.”

Russell was “among other women connected to journalism” at the protests.39 Perhaps she participated only in the role of undercover reporter. It does not appear Russell was among several women who were arrested, or who participated in subsequent demonstrations in the following months.

WIDE OUTLOOK

Longer and more detailed versions of her Ireland reporting soon appeared in The Freeman40, a monthly magazine edited by libertarian author and social critic Albert Jay Nock. Its editorial, “The Recognized Irish Republic,” was circulated by the women outside the British Embassy a week in advance of publication.41

Russell’s Freeman profiles of Dungloe community organizer Paddy Gallagher and Dublin political celebrity Countess Markievicz are similar in style and substance to her Daily News dispatches and passages in What’s the matter with Ireland? There is more narrative in the book and magazine pieces, but no new ground. This undercuts the Irish News’ suggestion of bias by
the Daily News, notwithstanding Russell’s comment about her former colleague’s “testy impatience with Ireland.”42

Russell’s 1919 passport photo was used on one of the pages of her Life and Labor magazine coverage about evictions in a West Virginia coal mining “hollar.”

In 1920, Russell also reported for Life and Labor magazine about women being evicted from their homes in the coal-mining “hollar” of Williamson, West Virginia. An editor’s note described her as having “the wide outlook on life which is the natural accompaniment of a journalistic career.”43

It is curious that none of the three magazines that published Russell’s work in 1920 referenced her former association with the Daily News; likewise that it was ignored in newspaper coverage of the British Embassy protest, the Irish News and Chicago Citizen excepted. Her writing and comments about Ireland would continue to gain attention through the end of the year.

NEXT: Russell’s book and public testimony about Ireland

Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland: Beginnings

Chicago journalist Ruth Russell reported from revolutionary Ireland in 1919, followed by a year of activism for its independence. This five-part monograph is part of my American Reporting of Irish Independence series. © 2022. This post was updated in October 2022 to add the “Easter Rising” section about Russell’s efforts to travel to Ireland in 1916, and other minor edits.  

***

On Jan. 27, 1919, a Chicago Daily News editor urged the federal government to expedite a passport for one of his reporters, Ruth Russell. “Because of the news conditions in Ireland at the present time, it is hoped that she may leave as soon as possible,” News Editor Henry J. Smith wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing.[1]Henry J. Smith to Robert Lansing, Jan. 27, 1919, in Ruth Russell’s passport application. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 699; Volume #: Roll 0699 – … Continue reading

Six days earlier, the separatist Sinn Féin party declared independence from Britain and established a breakaway government in Dublin, a move based on its near sweep of Irish parliamentary seats in the United Kingdom’s first election after the Great War. In County Tipperary, 125 miles southwest of the Irish capital, two policemen were killed in an ambush, the first shots of Ireland’s latest uprising against centuries of British rule. 

Russell’s 1919 passport photo.

Washington officials approved Russell’s passport and Chicago editors assigned her to answer this question: “What’s the matter with Ireland?” Russell recalled later, “This was the last injunction a fellow journalist, propagandized into testy impatience with Ireland, gave me before I sailed for that bit of Europe which lies closest to America.”[2]Ruth Russell, What’s the matter with Ireland? (New York: Devin-Adain, 1920), 13. Russell does not name the “fellow journalist.”

Nearly a year to the day after Smith’s State Department outreach, another letter was written on Russell’s behalf. This time the author was Éamon de Valera, president of the provisional Irish republic. Russell interviewed him in March 1919, shortly after her arrival in Dublin. 

“I congratulate you on the rapidity with which you succeeded in understanding Irish conditions and grasped the Irish viewpoint,” de Valera wrote in the Jan. 29, 1920, letter published as front matter in Russell’s new book, What’s the matter with Ireland?, based on her 1919 reporting. “I hope we shall have more impartial investigators, such as you, who will take the trouble to see things for themselves first hand, and who will not be imposed upon by half-truths.”[3]Ibid., 9–10.

Russell’s reporting from Ireland at times was insightful and compassionate, especially her sketches of women, children, and workers living in the shadows of the revolution. It is debatable whether she remained an impartial investigator. Her experiences in Ireland transformed her into a pro-Irish activist. She left the Daily News; joined at least one Washington, D.C., protest against British rule in Ireland; and testified before an American commission exploring conditions in Ireland. Russell’s 1919 reporting was soon dated by rapidly evolving events in Ireland, and her activism was fleeting. By 1921, she withdrew from journalism and public attention. 

BEGINNINGS 

Ruth Marie Russell was born March 24, 1889, in Chicago, the eighth child of Martin J. Russell, a 43-year-old Chicago Times editorial writer, and 39-year-old Cecilia [nee Walsh]. Both parents were the offspring of pre-Great Famine Irish immigrants. The couple lived in Hyde Park, just a few blocks from St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, where their newborn was baptized April 21, 1889.[4]Hyde Park, Illinois, City Directory, 1889, accessed via Ancestry.com, U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995; 1900 U.S. Federal Census: Chicago Ward 32, Cook, Illinois, 12; Enumeration District: 1035; … Continue reading A live-in cook and a household “servant” tended the family, which also included Russell’s paternal grandmother, 76-year-old Jane Lewis [nee Mulligan].[5]1900 U.S. Federal Census, and Note 6.

“Among my earliest recollections are long twilight hour discussions with my grandmother about early Chicago–she came here in 1835,” Russell recalled in a 1931 newspaper interview to promote her novel, Lake Front.[6]“Chicago’s First One Hundred Years Penned and Illustrated by Ruth Russell and Ruth Kellogg,” Hyde Park Herald , Sept. 18, 1931.

In the book, about Chicago’s first 100 years, the 42-year-old Russell described her hometown in the 1890s of her youth: “It was an ugly city. Its lines were hard and sharp. Its color, smoke. Its air, gritty. Its noises, strident. Its smell, salt with the blood of slaughterhouses. Its people, pale and hurried.”[7]Ruth Russell, Lake Front (Thomas S. Rockwell: Chicago, 1931), 280.

Postcard image of the Irish Village.

Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, developed near Russell’s Hyde Park neighborhood, included an Irish Village with a recreation of the Blarney Castle and white-washed, thatched-roof cottages. An organizer of the exhibit wrote that it would be a great mistake “if any who boast of Irish blood in their veins do not resort thither with their children in order to call to mind the stories told by parents of the scenes of their childhood, or muse over bygone days which they themselves can recall in the dear old home.”[8]Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon (“Lady Aberdeen”), “Ireland at the World’s Fair,” North American Review, July 1893, 20.

During this period, Chicago’s 16 percent Irish-born population[9]Michael F. Funchion, Chicago Irish Nationalists (Arno Press: New York, 1976) 9, citing 1890 U.S. Census. read newspaper stories about the murder of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin, a member of the city’s Irish nationalist underground, and the divorce case downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell, Ireland’s “uncrowned king.” Irish immigrant Margaret F. Sullivan, who worked with Russell’s father at the Chicago Herald, wrote a popular book about the agrarian agitation in her native country.[10]Sullivan and Russell’s father from “Irish in Chicago” Illinois Catholic Historical Review, July 1920. 152. Margaret Sullivan, Ireland of to-day: the causes and aims of Irish agitation (J.C. … Continue reading

In June 1900, when Russell was 11, her popular father died of kidney disease at age 54. “All the newspaper reading public recognized Mr. Russell as an editorial writer of learning, caliber, force, and judgement,” the Chicago Tribune quoted one of his friends.[11]“Martin J. Russell Dead,” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1900. At St. Thomas the Apostle Church, the Rev. Daniel Riordan described the deceased as “a conspicuous example of scrupulous integrity.”[12]Ibid. “Burial of Martin J. Russell”, June 28, 1900.

Russell attended nearby St. Xavier Academy, a Catholic girls school. Upon graduation in 1906, she enrolled at Chicago Normal College and for the next two years prepared for a teaching career.[13]Ruth Russell’s Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employment record obtained via author’s Freedom of Information Act request, received March 20, 2019. CPS redacted large portions of the record. … Continue reading In September 1909, Russell matriculated into the University of Chicago, where she was joined by her younger sister, Cecilia, in the activities of the Esoteric, a woman’s social club, and the Brownson Club, a campus Catholic group.[14]Cap & Gown, University of Chicago yearbook, Vol. XVII, 1912, p. 79 and 132. Ruth graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree.[15]Ruth Russell’s University of Chicago transcript obtained from Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Received April 10, 2019.

Her activities over the next four years are less clear. In June 1914 Russell sailed to France to study in Grenoble, but hurried home with the outbreak of the Great War.[16]“Certificate of Registration of American Citizen” letter dated Sept. 1, 1914, shows Russell left Chicago on June 28, 1914, and arrived at Grenoble, France, on July 16, 1914. “Ellis Island and … Continue reading On her return, Russell might have helped manage the St. Mary’s Campfire Girls program on Chicago’s south side.[17]Deborah Ann Skok, “Catholic Ladies Bountiful: Chicago’s Catholic Settlement Houses and Day Nurseries, 1892–1930, Vol. 1,” University of Chicago doctoral dissertation, August 2001, 441. In … Continue reading She would soon become fascinated by events in Ireland

EASTER RISING

In April 1916 Irish separatists seized government buildings in Dublin in a bold strike for independence. The British military quickly crushed the insurrection, which became known as the Easter Rising, and executed the rebel leaders. These events moved the Irish in America, where Catholic churches and other groups organized efforts to provide relief to the people of Dublin. Russell gravitated to the effort.

In November, the U.S. State Department notified the British government of Russell’s desire to visit Ireland to help distribute relief. The American government said it did so “without expressing any opinion as to her qualification for such a mission.”[18]Foreign Office cable, Nov. 1, 1916. Irish Government. Judicial Proceedings, Enquiries And Miscellaneous Records, 1872-1926 (CO 904, Boxes 30-35, 37-39, 45-47 And 180-189). Public Records Office, … Continue reading The British Foreign Office observed internally that such individuals, “even when recommended by trustworthy organizations, have been unable to avoid reference to political controversaries on their return to the United States of a nature inflame public opinion.”[19]Ibid.

Within a week Britain’s Consul General in Chicago telegrammed the Foreign Office to report that Russell’s real intention was to act as a correspondent for The New World, weekly organ of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The consul described the newspaper as featuring “anti-English articles about Ireland.” My review of the New World‘s archives from April 1916 through 1917 did not find Russell’s byline or any mention or her work for Irish relief.

More provocatively, however, the Consul General’s correspondence said that Russell’s request to visit Ireland was “indefinitely postponed as she is suffering a nervous breakdown.”[20]Nov. 6, 1916, telegram. Irish Government. Judicial Proceedings, Enquiries And Miscellaneous Records, 1872-1926. This psychological evaluation seems dubious; more likely the sexist and patronizing language of male authorities, in the U.S. and Great Britain, during the period. A Dec. 26, 1916, follow-up correspondence from British Ambassador to the United States Cecil Spring Rice to Arthur Balfour, then beginning his tenure as foreign secretary, says that Russell was informed by Joseph P. Tumulty, private secretary to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, “that entrance to Ireland would not be possible at the present time and that she cannot therefore have a passport.”[21]Cecil Spring Rice at British Embassy, Washington, D.C., to Arthur Balfour, Dec. 26, 1916. Judicial Proceedings, Enquiries And Miscellaneous Records, 1872-1926.

It is extraordinary that Russell, then 27, drew attention from such high-ranking U.S. and British officials. But the episode, documented in Dublin Castle records, remains murky. I have not located any correspondence with Russell in the Tumulty or Lansing papers at the Library of Congress.[22]Multiple searches in 2023 and 2024. It is unclear whether the U.S. State Department knew of Russell’s 1916 denial when it approved her passport in 1919.

REPORTER

By October 1917, Russell “decided to enter the family field” and followed her late father and an older brother, James Russell, into the newspaper business.[23]”Staff Changes” , The Fourth Estate, Oct. 6, 1917, 29. She began working as a reporter at the Daily News. 

Chicago Daily News Building, 15 North Wells St., circa 1903. Chicago History Museum.

At the time of Russell’s newspaper debut, fast-growing Chicago was the second-largest city in America and “home to some of the most influential and dynamic journalists, editors, and newspaper owners in the United States.”[24]Gillian O’Brien, “Patriotism, professionalism and the press: the Chicago press and Irish journalists, 1875–1900,” Irish Journalism Before Independence: More a Disease Than A Profession, ed. … Continue reading Investigative efforts and literary styles flourished in the city’s newsrooms. Carl Sandburg joined the Daily News staff the same year as Russell and would bolster his reputation through coverage of Chicago’s 1919 race riots and profiles of the city’s African-American population.[25]Field Enterprise Records, 1858–2007; Chicago Daily News, 1882–2007; Administrations and Operations, 1891–1978, Box 6, Folder 76: Herman Kogan, “Literary Tradition,” Centennial Insight … Continue reading Russell was hired as a “special writer”[26]”Purely Personal” Fourth Estate, Nov. 23, 1918, 13.,typically an ad hoc or freelance arrangement that was one of the best ways for women to enter the newsroom.[27]Carolyn M. Edy, The Woman War Correspondent, The U.S. Military, and The Press 1846-1947 (Lexington Books: New York, 2017), 17-18, citing Edwin Llewellyn Shuman, Steps Into Journalism: Helps and Hints … Continue reading

For two weeks in 1918, the 5-foot, 9-inch reporter[28]Height: From Jan. 27, 1919, U.S. passport application. See Note 1. Assignment: “Purely Personal” Fourth Estate, Nov. 23, 1918, 13. hauled heavy steel tools to shell turners inside a Chicago munitions factory for an undercover series about women in war work. She profiled the manual laborers, including “a big woman whose straggly blond hair was stuck to the side of her wide, flat face with perspiration” as she pushed a 200-pound load. The reporter strained and “blushed at my little loads.” Russell estimated that she “walked about four miles, trucked approximately 900 pounds of steel, shouldered less heavy tools and earned $2 in an eight-hour night.” At the end of the shift, “I threw myself on a restroom cot.”[29]“Women’s Task Too Heavy. Experience in Chicago Munitions Factory Recorded.”, Morning Oregonian, Jan. 2, 1919.

In addition to such domestic coverage, the Daily News aggressively pursued foreign news. Publisher Victor F. Lawson established bureaus in London, Paris, and Berlin “on the best sites in town, with big signs, to lure in Chicago tourists,” foreign correspondent Paul Scott Mowrer recalled.[30]Field Enterprise Records, Box 34, Folder 424, Lou Pryor correspondence with Paul Scott Mowrer, 1964. But Lawson was interested in more than good publicity. In the paper’s handbook for foreign correspondents, he wrote: 

The key words of the service are significance and interpretation. Generally speaking, we aim to chronicle only what is significant, and we aim to show the significance of everything we chronicle … how and why it happened, and what it means. We have therefore to be clearer, more analytical, more thorough, less superficial, more cautious and generally more accurate, and perhaps more conscientious than our competitors.[31]Ibid., Folder 424, Lou Pryor foreign service research.

Lawson advised his correspondents to stay close to the native people, report on their styles and customs, fads and fancies, including business, education, science, religion, art, sports, and social problems. As the United States entered the Great War, his reporters fanned across Europe, including poetess Eunice Tietjens, sent to cover the conflict “from a woman’s perspective.”[32]Ibid., Folder 74, Foreign correspondents.

More than three dozen female journalists filed dispatches from the war in Europe for U.S. newspapers and magazines; more than doubling the number of women foreign correspondents since the Mexican-American War of the mid-19th century.[33]Edy, The Woman War Correspondent, Appendix 1, “American Women War Correspondents through World War I” lists 73 journalists; 44 during WWI, including Tietjens. Russell is not listed. Russell joined this still-small and under-appreciated sorority soon after the armistice.

The revolution erupting in Ireland was a story of particular interest to Chicago readers. 

NEXT: Russell’s reporting from Ireland

 

References

References
↑1 Henry J. Smith to Robert Lansing, Jan. 27, 1919, in Ruth Russell’s passport application. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 699; Volume #: Roll 0699 – Certificates: 63000–63249, Accessed via Ancestry.com. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925.
↑2 Ruth Russell, What’s the matter with Ireland? (New York: Devin-Adain, 1920), 13. Russell does not name the “fellow journalist.”
↑3 Ibid., 9–10.
↑4 Hyde Park, Illinois, City Directory, 1889, accessed via Ancestry.com, U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995; 1900 U.S. Federal Census: Chicago Ward 32, Cook, Illinois, 12; Enumeration District: 1035; FHL microfilm: 1240287; accessed via Ancestry.com; Baptismal record with address and mother’s maiden name accessed accessed via FindMyPast.com; and “New map of Chicago showing location of schools, streetcar lines in colors and street numbers in even hundreds,” Rufus Blanchard, 1897, accessed via The University of Chicago Map Collection.
↑5 1900 U.S. Federal Census, and Note 6.
↑6 “Chicago’s First One Hundred Years Penned and Illustrated by Ruth Russell and Ruth Kellogg,” Hyde Park Herald , Sept. 18, 1931.
↑7 Ruth Russell, Lake Front (Thomas S. Rockwell: Chicago, 1931), 280.
↑8 Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon (“Lady Aberdeen”), “Ireland at the World’s Fair,” North American Review, July 1893, 20.
↑9 Michael F. Funchion, Chicago Irish Nationalists (Arno Press: New York, 1976) 9, citing 1890 U.S. Census.
↑10 Sullivan and Russell’s father from “Irish in Chicago” Illinois Catholic Historical Review, July 1920. 152. Margaret Sullivan, Ireland of to-day: the causes and aims of Irish agitation (J.C. McCurdy & Co.: Chicago, 1881).
↑11 “Martin J. Russell Dead,” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1900.
↑12 Ibid. “Burial of Martin J. Russell”, June 28, 1900.
↑13 Ruth Russell’s Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employment record obtained via author’s Freedom of Information Act request, received March 20, 2019. CPS redacted large portions of the record. Author appealed to the Public Access Counselor, Illinois Office of Attorney General, for review and prevailed in having the full record released.
↑14 Cap & Gown, University of Chicago yearbook, Vol. XVII, 1912, p. 79 and 132.
↑15 Ruth Russell’s University of Chicago transcript obtained from Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Received April 10, 2019.
↑16 “Certificate of Registration of American Citizen” letter dated Sept. 1, 1914, shows Russell left Chicago on June 28, 1914, and arrived at Grenoble, France, on July 16, 1914. “Ellis Island and Other New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957” shows Russell left France Aug. 22, 1914, and arrived in New York on Aug. 30, 1914. Both via MyHerage.com.
↑17 Deborah Ann Skok, “Catholic Ladies Bountiful: Chicago’s Catholic Settlement Houses and Day Nurseries, 1892–1930, Vol. 1,” University of Chicago doctoral dissertation, August 2001, 441. In this paper, “Ruth Russell” is described as a downtown office clerk, but there is no further identification to confirm she is the subject of this paper.
↑18 Foreign Office cable, Nov. 1, 1916. Irish Government. Judicial Proceedings, Enquiries And Miscellaneous Records, 1872-1926 (CO 904, Boxes 30-35, 37-39, 45-47 And 180-189). Public Records Office, London, England. 1917 CO 904/184; Miscellaneous: Copies Of Correspondence Between The Foreign Office And The British Embassy In Washington: 3. Matters Relating To Foreign Affairs.
↑19 Ibid.
↑20 Nov. 6, 1916, telegram. Irish Government. Judicial Proceedings, Enquiries And Miscellaneous Records, 1872-1926.
↑21 Cecil Spring Rice at British Embassy, Washington, D.C., to Arthur Balfour, Dec. 26, 1916. Judicial Proceedings, Enquiries And Miscellaneous Records, 1872-1926.
↑22 Multiple searches in 2023 and 2024.
↑23 ”Staff Changes” , The Fourth Estate, Oct. 6, 1917, 29.
↑24 Gillian O’Brien, “Patriotism, professionalism and the press: the Chicago press and Irish journalists, 1875–1900,” Irish Journalism Before Independence: More a Disease Than A Profession, ed. Kevin Rafter (Manchester University Press: New York, 2011), 123.
↑25 Field Enterprise Records, 1858–2007; Chicago Daily News, 1882–2007; Administrations and Operations, 1891–1978, Box 6, Folder 76: Herman Kogan, “Literary Tradition,” Centennial Insight (Newberry Library: Chicago, 1976).
↑26 ”Purely Personal” Fourth Estate, Nov. 23, 1918, 13.
↑27 Carolyn M. Edy, The Woman War Correspondent, The U.S. Military, and The Press 1846-1947 (Lexington Books: New York, 2017), 17-18, citing Edwin Llewellyn Shuman, Steps Into Journalism: Helps and Hints for Young Writers (Evanston Press Co.: Evanston, Ill., 1894.) 149.
↑28 Height: From Jan. 27, 1919, U.S. passport application. See Note 1. Assignment: “Purely Personal” Fourth Estate, Nov. 23, 1918, 13.
↑29 “Women’s Task Too Heavy. Experience in Chicago Munitions Factory Recorded.”, Morning Oregonian, Jan. 2, 1919.
↑30 Field Enterprise Records, Box 34, Folder 424, Lou Pryor correspondence with Paul Scott Mowrer, 1964.
↑31 Ibid., Folder 424, Lou Pryor foreign service research.
↑32 Ibid., Folder 74, Foreign correspondents.
↑33 Edy, The Woman War Correspondent, Appendix 1, “American Women War Correspondents through World War I” lists 73 journalists; 44 during WWI, including Tietjens. Russell is not listed.

Catching up with modern Ireland: November

November began with more than 1,000 people from the academic, arts, business, community, education, health, labor, law, media, and sports sectors; on both sides of the Irish border, and the diaspora in America, Canada, and Australia; signing an open letter calling for a “new conversation” about the constitutional future of the island of Ireland. The “Ireland’s Future” group urged Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to establish a citizens’ assembly to pave the way for a united Ireland. By the month’s end, Varadkar and opposition party leader Micheál Martin had rebuffed the request.

“In recent decades Irish nationalism has moved beyond slogans like ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’ into an appreciation that co-operation rather than conflict is a far better route to an agreed Ireland. Attempting to take advantage of the Brexit confusion to pursue a united Ireland is little more than a reworking of that tired old cliché,” Irish Times columnist Stephen Collins wrote.

Other News 

  • A new round of talks to reopen the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, dormant since January 2017, is scheduled for Dec. 16, four days after U.K. elections that will impact the fate of Brexit.
  • Results of four by-elections in the Republic of Ireland were still being determined as I publish. Turnout was low. A national election is expected before May.
  • The Republic launched a Rural Broadband Plan to address the lack of digital coverage in black spots that cover 80 percent of its land mass. Varadkar hailed the project as the “most important since rural electrification.”
  • U.S. President Donald Trump’s Doonbeg golf course reported a $1.7 million loss for 2018, the fifth-straight year the County Clare club has failed to make a profit, The Washington Post reported, citing Irish government filings. In October, the Clare County Council approved the Trump Organization’s request to build 53 homes on the site; but a request to build a rock barrier to shield the seaside resort from erosion remains pending with Ireland’s national planning board. 
  • Irish and U.K. media outlets have reported more anti-immigrant, alt-right activity in the Republic, which previously prided (or fooled) itself that it avoided the racism and xenophobia that plagues Europe and America.

Book News

  • Laying it on the Line – The Border and Brexit, a collection of 26 essays by “informed voices” (Only one woman!) from the Republic, Northern Ireland, the U.K., and the USA was released late in the month.
  • Caitríona Perry, RTÉ’s former Washington correspondent, published, The Tribe: The Inside Story of Irish Power and Influence in US Politics. My friend Felix M. Larkin’s review in The Irish Catholic.
  • Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland was selected for The Washington Post‘s “10 Best Books of 2019,” and The New York Times’ “100 Notable Books of 2019.” It was not included in The Irish Times‘ “What Irish Writers are Reading” list.

NOTE: I’ll publish my seventh annual “Best of the Blog” near the end of December. The monthly roundup will resume in the new year. MH

From my morning walk through the Belfast Botanic Gardens in early November.

De Valera’s bad headline day in L.A.

On Nov. 19, 1919, a year and a week after the armistice ending World War I, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles and American participation in the League of Nations. The same day, 2,670 miles west of Washington, D.C., Éamon de Valera was hammered by negative headlines in the Los Angeles Times as he arrived in the California city.

These seven headlines appeared below that day’s nameplate, taking half the available front page space:

Sims Denounces De Valera and Sinn Fein Plotters
Vice-Admiral William S. Sims, commander of the U.S. overseas fleet, said “this brotherhood is attempting to stir up hatred against our allies in the war.”

Irishman Near Collapse
“According to physicians, the Irish leader suffered a near-collapse that may necessitate his cancelling” other stops in California. Doctors in San Francisco had ordered de Valera to rest, but he pressed on to L.A.44

De Valera Unwelcome: Protest Against the Sinn Fein Leader by Societies Shows City’s Stand
“American Legion posts, church bodies and British societies have been particularly active in denouncing the Sinn Fein leader and have adopted resolutions declaring him a traitor to the cause of the Allies in the war and charging him with attempting to stir up enmity between the United States and England.”

San Diego Blow for De Valera
The city’s mayor said he would not greet the visitor on his next stop. “I am part Irish myself and he does not represent that part of me at all.”

Shriners Protest Use of Hall by De Valera
The philanthropic arm of the Masons cashed a rental deposit check from Irish supporters, then claimed they were unaware the event featured de Valera. Their change of mind appeared to be prompted by the Times’ amplified harangue against him.

Great Citrus Belt Hits Hard at Sinn Feiner
The Associated Chambers of Commerce of the San Gabriel Valley, representing 17 smaller towns, passed a resolution denouncing de Valera as a traitor.

No Music for Paraders: Pasadena and Long Beach Bands Refuse to Play for De Valera Today
The decision was driven in part by protests from a group of U.S. Civil War veterans, who compared de Valera and Sinn Fein to the Copperheads of the 1860s.

As Dave Hannigan explains:

The degree of vitriol directed toward de Valera can be traced to the publisher Harry Chandler, who a couple of months earlier had described his interest in the Versailles Treaty thus: “as far as the Los Angeles Times is concerned, the League [of Nations] is not our politics now but our religion.” Chandler obviously believed this Irishman was preaching a blasphemous doctrine against the League and had to be dealt with accordingly; not to mention that his visit was being sponsored, at least in part, by a rival paper, the Los Angeles Examiner.45

That night, the crowd gathered outside the Shrine Auditorium to see de Valera was prohibited from entering the building. The Irish leader, who gave a speech earlier in day at his hotel, avoided the scene and departed the next morning for San Diego, despite the expected snub by the city’s mayor.

De Valera before a Los Angeles crowd, a few days later than planned in November 1919.

Four days later, de Valera returned to Los Angeles for a rescheduled appearance at a minor league baseball stadium. The outdoor event drew a larger crowd than would have seen him at the indoor venue. The Times’ page 13 story described de Valera as “the mythical ‘president’ of a mythical Irish ‘republic.’ “46 The Irish Standard of Minneapolis, Minnesota, months earlier complained about the demeaning device of using quotes around the words such as president and republic.

The same day’s Times front page declared: “Sinn Fein Terrorist Rule Ireland With Hate“. The story by American correspondent George Seldes opened with this quote from a British military officer:

“Ireland is terrorized. It is seething with crime. Let me tell you one thing, it is no longer safe to go about in the King’s uniform.”

The generally negative portrait of Irish republican efforts nevertheless recognized the arrests and imprisonment without trial of members of Dáil Éireann. Seldes concluded: “Despite all this crime, a stranger in Ireland goes about freely and safely.”

Irish-American press reaction

Irish-American newspapers, though slowed by their weekly publication schedules and commitments to other news content, responded vehemently to the Times‘ L.A. coverage.

The Friends of Irish Freedom’s News Letter said the Times “certainly is more English than American” and had “done its utmost to stir up an un-American sentiment against” de Valera and the Irish Republic. “The American Newspaper Publishers Association, a body of sturdy Americans, might do well if it undertook a little Americanization work amidst its own ranks, for the benefit of its few anti-American members.”47  

The Irish Press of Philadelphia, with its direct links de Valera and the separatist government in Dublin, described the daily as “the best-known labor-hating and pro-British sheet in the west.” The Press continued:

The Times engaged for four weeks in the bitterest and most malignant campaign of misrepresentation and hatred that has been witnessed in this country in years. Lies–on several occasions six columns of them in one edition–were hurled at de Valera and the Irish people. Editorially and in news columns deliberately incited to mob violence.48

The Kentucky Irish American headlined “Notorious Sheet Exposed” (the Times) and noted the Hearst-owned Examiner “made a special fight in favor of a fair hearing and the other papers of that district were friendly to the lecture.”49

The Irish Standard barely mentioned the Times, except that “de Valera made only one reference to the newspaper which boasted of having prevented his appearance at the Shrine Auditorium, when he said, speaking of the Irish movement:

It is not racial, it is not religious. You are told it is religious. Now, it is very easy to see that it is not, and so difficult would it be to prove it religious that even the Los Angeles Times admits it is not a religious issue.50

The Gaelic American of New York City ignored the Times, but described the city’s negative reception in a brief story headlined: Los Angeles Bigots Show Their Ugly Fangs.51

De Valera and his supporters returned to New York from California, taking a short break from the coast-to-coast tour that began in June before tackling other problems. Hannigan writes:

By any standard of measurement, this extended cross-country jaunt was the most successful aspect of de Valera’s stay in America. In terms of raising awareness and drawing the attention of newspapers and the public alike, it was a fantastic achievement. For the duration of the tour and a good while after, coverage of all things Irish, especially in regional press, exploded.52