The Irish Standard

PATRICK F. MCGOWAN
Acting Mayor of Greater New York a Remarkable Man,
Is President of Board of Aldermen of Metropolitan City.

The Hon. George B. McClellan, mayor of New York, is going to Europe after he completes his daily duties at graduation and commencements which demand so much of his time, and while he is away New York will have for mayor the Hon. Patrick F. McGowan. Thereby hangs a tale, says the Boston Republic.

Mr. McGowan is president of the board of aldermen of the metropolitan city, and has worked a way into the vital part of the city's existence. For years he has been active in public life, and if appreciation is a measure of the tastes of a community, it is safe to assume that he will be in public life for many years longer. The time has not yet come when a man can continue always to fool the public and Mr. McGowan's length of service and the repeated instances of public approval which stud his career give evidence as to the quality of man he is.

Mayor-to-be McGowan is a remarkable man. His is typical of Irish-American success. He came to this country when hundreds of others came here, but while others have stood still he has gone to the top. Not suddenly and without preparation, but after the most thorough and testing of training. The world was his school, and a very good school it was. When Mayor McClellan sought re-election last year, against the most spirited opposition which has ever graced a municipal contest in New York—not even excepting the opposition which sent Tweed down to defeat in '73, or the opposition which was able to land Strong in the mayor's chair in '93—Tammany nominated for the second highest position on the city ticket Mr. Patrick F. McGowan. The issue of the election was doubtful to many, in so far as it concerned the leaders, but no one ever had a doubt as to the ultimate triumph of Mr. McGowan. And since he has been in office everyone in New York has been congratulating everyone else on their good fortune in having him there. Not everyone, because, of course, the irreconcilables aren't satisfied with McGowan or with anyone; but the big majority which landed him in city hall has been substantiated by a majority support in his activities that denotes the interest in the man.

What New York remembers most vividly about McGowan and what Mr. McGowan will probably cherish as his most fortunate work, is his labor for the public school system. More than any other individual, Mr. McGowan contributed to the solution of vexing school problems, and to him, more perhaps than to anyone else is due a share of the praise which the present magnificent school system commands.

A few months ago the educators of New York City conceived the idea of letting Mr. McGowan understand their appreciation of his work, and a banquet was arranged and carried through which was distinctly the most complete social triumph ever held in the big city as a means of expressing gratitude. This very interesting story surprises Mr. McGowan, who maintains that after all, he has done practically nothing for New York schools, except to see that they were right and stayed right. And that's the truth; but it is a very big truth. Mr. McGowan, practical, peculiar in his knowledge of small things that go to make up the schoolboy's life and the school teacher's life, found conditions ill-suited to what they could be or what they should be, considering the vast amount of money which New York every year spends for the instruction of her cosmopolitan students. A man of the people himself, denied at home the training which big men generally have, and denied it also here, Mr. McGowan rose to the top. All along he figured, as so many other men of his type have figured, that education was his will-o'-the-wisp, his ignis fatuus, which, had he been successful in catching, would have reduced other men to a denomination common with his own. Because he succeeded without any fine frills of learning, he figured that there was the one thing he needed to make him irresistible. He met men everywhere who were educated and successful; he seldom stopped to think about the educated men who were failures. And that's good policy, too; it's the mark of the great big man; the man who has no time to think about 'lightweights,' but must ever train his guns on the able and the witty and the clever and the brainy. To be just a mite stronger than the next fellow was McGowan's game when he was a young man, and he figured that education would have made him that without so much struggle. Hence his estimation—an over-estimation—placed upon learning. But New York profited from his philosophy, and after all, it was the right philosophy, because just as a country never suffers from too much religion, so a country seldom suffers from too much learning, and Mr. McGowan's sin, if it were one, was on the right side.

He insisted that the broadest education be given; that is, that it be given to the greatest number. Had he lived in England while he was building up a career in this country, Mr. McGowan would have been a Benthamite—an apostle of 'the greatest good for the greatest number.' That in a few words was his policy in the matter of education