The opening of Introduction
New York, greatest of American cities and second of all cities of the world in point of population and perhaps of wealth, paused for a week in September, 1909, nominally to honor two great memories, really to celebrate itself.
It may be that Henry Hudson, when he sailed the Half-Moon up the great North River to the head of navigation and then returned to the ocean in 1609, never set foot on the Island of Manhattan; but the settlement by the Dutch that followed was certainly the result of his voyage of discovery. His was, therefore, a good epoch-making name to honor. More directly was it meet to honor the name of Robert Fulton, whose conquest of the waters with the power of steam in 1807 was made from New York shipyards, and upon the mighty stream that Hudson was the first white man to navigate. That in the person of Fulton, Ireland had a share in the memories of these celebrated men—for he was the son of Irish immigrants—appealed powerfully, as it should, to the race pride of the Irish-born and Irish-descended of the City of New York.