Hits and Myths for the New Year

Sidewalks with Tom Deignan

Hits and Myths for the New Year

January 3, 2008

by Tom Deignan

ON the campaign trail and in movie theaters, it’s hard to tell the difference between myth and reality these days. Daniel Day Lewis is currently earning raves in the film There Will Be Blood, with one critic saying his performance is the best of the decade so far.

That certainly makes the film a critical hit, if not quite a financial one.

While much attention has been paid to Day Lewis, less has been said about the basis for the character he plays. There Will Be Blood is based, in part, on an Upton Sinclair novel entitled Oil!.

The basis for that book was Edward L. Doheny, the son of immigrants who left Ireland and settled in Wisconsin.

Doheny himself went west and his life took on a mythic quality. In fact, he seemed like a character right out of a feel good Hollywood movie. The ambitious child of immigrants pulls himself up by his bootstraps and be-comes a tycoon.

As you can imagine, things were not quite so neat. Doheny became rich all right, and he also became em-broiled in a nasty scandal in 1921.

Doheny, along with President Warren Ha-rding’s secretary of the interior, were char-ged with bri-bery, and it took five years and much of Doheny’s fortune to clear his name. A son of Doheny’s was also killed in 1929.

Of course, There Will Be Blood does not cover much of this stuff. The film is aimed not at undermining Irish myths but American ones. Even The New York Times review of the film emphasized that Day Lewis is portraying an “American” primitive.

Still, it’s worth noting that Doheny’s life did not end with a dead son and crumbled empire. Doheny found another passion in the 1920s — Irish independence.

He served as President of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. This group, founded by Eamonn de Valera himself, was the dominant Irish

American lobby group of the day. Doheny was its leading public figure and worked constantly to free the land of his parents’ birth.

So, yes, it is true that Edward L. Doheny was a striver who became en-meshed in scandal and greed, as we see in There Will Be Blood. But perhaps in the sequel, we’ll see him head off to Ire-land on the eve of Eas-ter in 1916.

Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Which br-ings us to the campaign trail, and the presidential run of Senator John McCain.

Let me first state clearly that McCain in easily one of the most admirable men serving the nation, and given the current field, a win for McCain in November would not be the worst thing.

A recent report in The New Yorker also noted that, unlike most Republicans, McCain understands that immigrants play a vital role in America.

“McCain gets animated whenever he discusses the immigration issue,” the article notes.

“After a town-hall meeting in Anderson, South Carolina, he recalled how the Irish were discriminated against in America. As he quoted a placard that hangs on the wall of an aide’s office (‘Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply’), he jabbed his finger in the air.”

Again, this is admirable stuff. But I would make a small suggestion to the senator.

Perhaps it would be better to hang one of those old Thomas Nast cartoons, where the Irish were depicted as apes who were slaves to conniving priests or the pope in Rome. Because the fact of the matter is that those “No Irish Need Apply” signs were not exactly common in the U.S. Yes, they certainly did exist, and that phrase was often published in newspapers.

But the phrase was mostly popularized by a song written and performed by Irish immigrants themselves, and was probably a reaction to anti-Irish sentiment in London rather then America.

Again, McCain certainly deserves credit for the right sentiment. As a recent opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News noted, “The current debate among GOP candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney about who

would be the meanest, toughest guy on illegal immigration is in an American tradition almost as old as immigration itself. The tradition goes back to the Salem witch trials — and ‘No Irish Need Apply.’”

You know what? Maybe McCain should keep that sign after all.

Why let facts get in the way of a good story?

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