In the Burke family, three heroic figures appear in the first chapter of our Revolutionary history—Thomas Burke, the first governor of North Carolina; Adamus Burke, chancellor of South Carolina; and John Daly Burk, historian, patriot and duelist. All three were fighters with pen and sword, who made an indelible mark on the Southern states a century ago. In 1872, when Froude cast some aspersions upon the Irish, it was Father Thomas Burke who took up the cudgels against him. And at the present time we have Burkes enough in the United States to fill a “Burke’s Peerage” of their own. There are two bishops who bear the famous name, at Albany and St. Joseph; one brigadier-general, at Portland, Oregon; one congressman, in South Dakota; a railroad president, at Cleveland; and a judge at Seattle. As for the Sheas, at least four of them have buffeted their way to the front—Gen. John Shea,[8] who won his laurels in the Revolution; Capt. Daniel Shays, who first fought at Bunker Hill and then stirred up a little side-show rebellion on his own account; George A. Shea, an eminent chief justice of New York; and John Gilmary Shea, the historian of the Catholic Church in the United States. Footnote 8: Gen. John Shee. In the American business world of today, a large proportion of the solid men—the men who stand like pillars under the heavy burdens—are of Irish blood. Most conspicuous of all stands the financier upon whom the mantle of J. Pierpont Morgan seems to have fallen—the man who is not only combining but coördinating American capital—Thomas Fortune Ryan. He is one of the greatest masters of financial statesmanship, who cuts the Gordian knots of finance and ties others of his own. Equally immovable, in a different field, stands James J. Hill, born in Canada of Ulster parents. What this one man has done for the United States has never yet been fully told. He is the creator of the Northwest—the railway builder who has opened up a territory equal to a couple of Germanys—the steamship builder who has linked America with the markets of the East. He has made wide pathways of commerce from Lake Superior across 1,500 miles of wilderness and 5,000 miles of ocean to the ports of China, Russia and Japan. Ever since he double-earned his first dollar as a Mississippi roustabout, fifty years ago, his life has been a continuous obstacle-race; and there have been few occasions when James J. Hill missed a hurdle.