Mr. Dooley's Opinions and Mr. Dooley Says

Abstract

Occasionally a satirist, using dialect, whimsey, or dialogue, may be able to point the harsh finger of criticism at his contemporaries in a manner the more formal critic dares not do or at least rarely does for any sustained period of time. At a time when the Irish invasion of the northeastern United States was making a powerful mark on the physical, social, mental, and other aspects of this part of the world, Peter Finley Dunn, masquerading as a shrewd and observant Irishman, wrote a series of essays which were collected and published in many volumes. He was able to cast the barbed harpoon of criticism at the ponderous behavior and misbehavior of a raw and often raucous democracy without getting jerked out of the whale boat. Occasionally in secondhand book stores I pick up one of the Mr. Dooley books. They give a nostalgic pleasure, displaying the attitudes and