Page 14 - Boca Expsoure - June '20

Page 14, Boca Exposure
Book Review

Voyage Of Mercy: The USS English, had depended Captain Forbes (whom I have mentioned earlier) and
Two characters in particular stand out in this history:
on the high-yield and
Jamestown, The Irish Famine, high-nutrition potato as Father Theobald Mathew, a Catholic priest in Cork,
And The Remarkable Story Of their main diet, since they Ireland, a man who must surely deserve sainthood. Both
of these men were prolific writers, and the hundreds of
were forced to turn over
America’s First Humanitarian their other crops – food their letters, diaries, reports and other documents to which
which could have saved
the author had access has made it possible for him to
Mission their own lives – to the include rich detail about many of the events at the very
landowners as the way to heart of this story.
By Nils A, Shapiro pay their rent! For several At a time when many Irish families huddled together in
If ever there was a years, when the potato their homes and waited without hope to die of starvation,
need for such a book crops were poor and then Father Mathew’s own simple home was open to all, with
as this to be published completely failed as a whom he shared his last morsels of food and coins. He
in America, this is the blight killed the potatoes also kept up a constant correspondence with Charles
moment. and turned them black, Trevelyan, assistant secretary at the British Treasury,
Let me state at the outset hundreds of thousands of men, women and children died imploring the English government for aid – to no avail.
that Voyage of Mercy is a of starvation, desperately turning to twigs and grass, and Finally, at one point, Father Mathew managed to convince
completely nonpolitical scratching at barks of trees, for lack of food. the English to set up soup kitchens throughout Ireland,
work of history, unlike It was a year in which there were still Americans alive but these turned out to be so watered down they provided
many of the books that fill who had been born before the signing of the Declaration little nutrition and were soon shut down.
today’s national bestseller of Independence and Constitution. We were a nation that The reason given by the English government for not
lists. I have no idea what author Stephen Puleo’s political young. And yet, as divided as we were on some very key wanting to provide “too much aid” was that it would
affiliations are, and the subject he writes about in this issues, when word came from across the ocean about the encourage the Irish to become too dependent on it, and
volume took place more than 150 years ago. ravages of famine that had struck Ireland with, first, the poor discourage them from working to earn it. Does that sound
But as I turned the last page of this brilliant book – the potato crops of 1845 and 1846, and then, the total failure familiar to anyone familiar with today’s political debate?
newest of Puleo’s seven highly praised historical works of the potato crop of what became known as Black ’47, the It is little wonder that, in the 150 years since The Great
– I could not help but think of the irony of its timing: an true greatness of America became a light that blotted out Hunger, Irish-English relations have been exceedingly
America today in which so many of our citizens wear red the darkness of divisiveness and touched the heart of the negative, while Ireland remains forever grateful to the
baseball caps with four yellow words, “Make America nation’s citizens in every corner of the country: young and United States for our aid during their hour of need.
Great Again,” that would have so much more meaning if old, rich and poor, Christians, Jews and Quakers. The legacy of the USS Jamestown’s voyage of mercy
the date they referred to was April 28, 1847. What made this outpouring of widespread heartfelt has lived on throughout the ensuing years. In his closing
That was the morning on which an American private kindness, charity and generosity throughout America chapter, Puleo describes several more such missions,
citizen, Captain Robert Bennett Forbes – a seafaring man so remarkable – schoolchildren sent in quarters, and among them: President Rutherford B. Hayes’s use of
who had spent most of his 43 years sailing the oceans the Choctaw Indians in Oklahoma sent $170 from their the warship USS Constellation in 1880 to transport food
and seas of five continents – left Boston Harbor bound meager funds, an act that the Irish acknowledged as one for alleviating a second Irish famine; President Herbert
for Ireland aboard a sailing vessel, the USS Jamestown. they would never forget – was that it took place at a time Hoover’s “massive relief effort in 1914 to provide food
The vessel was on loan from the U.S. Navy, with a when our nation itself was so divisive: neighbor against and supplies to more than 10 million Belgians trapped
crew of private citizens and loaded with 8,000 barrels of neighbor, family member against family member, pro- behind German lines,” despite the fact that the United
food and some clothing, all donated by the people from slavers against abolitionists. The Civil War was little States was still a neutral nation at that time; and, in
every corner of the country on America’s, and likely the more than a decade away, and we were gearing up for 1948 – almost exactly a century after the Jamestown’s
world’s, first ever mission from one nation to help save war against Mexico. voyage – “the United States established the Berlin airlift
another nation’s people from the agony of starvation, Charitable organizations sprung up everywhere, and to feed thousands of starving Berliners after the Soviets
suffering and death. volunteers collected donations of food and clothing, surrounded the city and cut off supply lines.”
It took two weeks for the Jamestown to reach Cork arranged for shipping the goods to East Coast ports, and There are reasons indeed for us today to recognize
Harbor, where “the ship was greeted by thousands of a series of half a dozen sailing vessels – beginning with America as already great.
people who lined the hillsides and wharves, cheering the USS Jamestown’s voyage – were readying to deliver In his introduction, Stephen Puleo explains that he
wildly and weeping openly at the sight of the American many tons of life-saving food, as well as clothing. began this book as a sort of gift to his lovely wife, Kate,
vessel.” Five more ships were to follow over the coming But as in all periods of our nation’s history, America’s whose Irish ancestors were among those who arrived in
weeks, all packed with food and clothing, but it was this greatness is not always present in all Americans. During that Boston fleeing the hunger of those mid-1840s. When
first voyage of mercy that gave hope to the 8 million in time, no fewer than 5,000 ships sailed from Ireland packed one realizes that the story of this finest hour in our
Ireland and prompted a leading Irish newspaper to call with emigrants hoping for better lives in the New World, young nation’s life has, inexplicably, been erased from
it “the noblest offering that nation ever made to nation.” most of them settling in the United States, largely in and today’s American History classrooms and textbooks, we
While this is a story of America at its best, it is also around the Boston area. As a result, the attitudes of some should consider the author’s returning it to our national
a history of the most tragic period of Ireland’s past. For people toward these immigrants were reflected by such signs consciousness as a gift to all of us.
years the Irish, as tenant farmers on land owned by the in store windows as “Help Wanted. Irish Need Not Apply.”

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