“As to the work done by our people in the West, take as an illustration the Illinois & Michigan Canal, which begins at Chicago on the southern bend of Lake Michigan and enters the Illinois River at La Salle, a distance of a hundred miles. From its inception to its close the work was mainly done by Irish emigrants. It has been to Illinois and the West a great benefit. Not only was this great work done by the labor of Irishmen, but its successful accomplishment in a financial way was due to the exertions of one of them. In 1842 work on the canal had to be abandoned because of the financial condition of the State Treasury. At that time the counties of La Salle, Grundy and De Kalb constituted a Senatorial District, and a young Irishman twenty-six years of age, one Michael Ryan, was elected State Senator from there. He was, even at that early age, easily the peer of any man in the West. So thoroughly did he master the subject both as to the necessities of the canal and its resources that he introduced and carried through the State Legislature, not without opposition, however, a bill enabling the State to borrow one million, six hundred thousand dollars, to complete the work. The Governor at the time, recognizing his great ability, appointed him and a Mr. Oakley agents for the State to proceed to London and borrow that sum—no small amount for those days. They succeeded in doing so. It is said of him (and there are those still living in my home town who knew him well and speak of him with affection) that he was a brilliant man, kind and courteous, an honest man. To him did the State of Illinois mainly owe its success in raising the means to complete that great undertaking. “Another leading Irishman in Illinois in those days was one William Reddick, a State Senator for many years, a leading temperance advocate, and a man of whom any people might be proud. He left a large fortune to the city of Ottawa for library purposes. Many of the younger emigrants learned trades and became skilled workmen. Many of them engaged in the mercantile business, at the beginning in a small way, but eventually became prosperous. So, too, did they engage in manufacturing. Many of them owned coal mines and of course many, very many, were miners. The Kilgubbin coal shaft, as it was called, a valuable property in the county I reside in, was owned and operated by one Nicholas Duncan, a Cork man. “Of course, of the hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who have lived and still live with their descendants in the great city of Chicago, it is not possible for me to give more than a passing glance, and say that they are among the leading business men, lawyers, doctors and financiers of that great metropolis. Volumes might be written about them.