Finley Peter Dunne, a newspaperman of considerable personal merit, is best remembered for the alter ego that he so carefully created and nurtured for some three decades: Martin Dooley, an Irish immigrant and saloonkeeper on Chicago's Archey Road, who dispensed wit and wisdom on the affairs of greater Chicago and the world. Through Mr. Dooley's broad Irish brogue, Finley Peter Dunne won readers and, indeed, fans on all levels of American political and economic life, as well as in Europe.

Much of Mr. Dooley's Irishness came from Dunne's own life experiences. Peter Dunne was born to Irish immigrant parents on 10 July 1867; his twin brother, John, died in infancy. Dunne, as the fifth of seven surviving children, grew up in a large Irish Catholic family. Both of his parents had emigrated from Ireland as Children. The elder Peter Dunne left Queens county, Ireland, with his parents at the age...