Members of the House will have learned with deep regret of the death of Mr. William Wallace McDowell, United States Minister to the Saorstát. We were all proud when the President of the United States chose as his representative here one of the most distinguished citizens of his country. The Minister himself looked forward to the performance here of congenial duties in agreeable surroundings. He had many associations with our nation. He was actually telling us of some of those associations when death came upon him. He was reminding us that the city in which he had lived the greater part of his life, Butte, was founded by an Irishman, and that that city had grown up and had been built up around the enterprise of that Irishman who made the Butte and Anaconda Mining Company the greatest in the world. He was reminding us that, in front of the legislative buildings of the State of Montana was a park in which there was one statue, a statue to General Thomas Francis Meagher, Meagher of the Sword, the first Governor of the State of Montana. He had just indicated that he was going to tell us of the association of two other great Irishmen with that State, when he actually died.
His loss is a loss not merely to his own nation but to our nation. I move that the Dáil extends its deep sympathy to the President and people of the United States of America on the death of their esteemed representative in Saorstát Eireann, the Honourable William Wallace McDowell, and I ask you, Sir, to convey to Mr. McDowell's bereaved relatives the condolences of the House.
