The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-26
THE FENIAN FTASCO.


The bravery of the Irish race has been
attested on many bloody battlefield, and
they have given thousands of signal proofs of
their deep devotion to their native land. In
spite Of their courage and patriotism, how
ever, their best efforts to throw off the
British yoke have proved unavailing, and
they will never attain that object while they
place themselves under the leadership of men
as rash and reckless as those who conduct the
present expedition against the New Dominion.
Any person endowed with a grain of CON-
mon sense could see from the outset that
success was impossible, and the idea that
handful of poorly-organized men could
contend against the British forces arrayed
in Canada and the restraining power
of the United States is one of the most alb
surd that ever entered into the head of a
rational being. The whole scheme of the
campaign is radically erroneous. General
O'Neill, its acknowledged leader, began ope-
rations with the declaration that he would
never recross the lines unless he was victo-
rious or dead. His arrest by civil officer
before he had fairly entered the British terri
tory, and when he was surrounded by his
so-called troops, proves that he was totally
unprepared and disqualified for the task he
had assumed in this vainglorious spirit.
History affords few more striking illus
trations of the shortness of the
step between the sublime and the ridicu-
lous than that furnished by the contrast be-
tween the chivalric gallantry of his attitude
on Wednesday night and the circumstances
of his arrest on Thursday morning. In his
brief speech to his soldiers as he was about
marching to the line he termed them ''the
advance guard of the Irish-American army
for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of
the oppressor." The chances of materially
assisting Ireland even by the success of his
proposed movement are too remote to be
worthy of serious consideration. Every tyro
in craftsmanship knows that if Great Britain
loses or voluntarily surrenders the New Do
minion she will clutch the Emerald Isle with
tighter grasp than ever, and that the sue
cess of the proposed Fenian operations on
this side of the Atlantic would only have i'm
posed new chains upon the people of their
native land. The next sentence of General
O'Neills speech is at once absurd and an in
suit to the American Government. He said
W hio ooiuloio, IoI you oWu Couutry you
now enter that of the enemy" What is
''their own country They have come to
the United States abjuring allegiance to
Great Britain, seeking citizenship here,
swearing that they would faithfully obey the
laws and share our destiny, assuming all the
privileges of men born on our SOIL and
going through all the forms that presumably
convert them into bona Jide Americans. If
this conversion is SO incomplete that Ireland
is still their country in a legal or martial
sense, they are practically aliens, and they
have no right whatever to involve us in
their peculiar quarrels or to make our
soil recruiting ground for their proposed
war. If they want to fight for their native
soil, let them 60 back to it and continue their
struggles on its surface, ceasing at once and
forever their attempts to treat the United
States as province or dependency of their
imaginary Irish republic. Their whole
scheme is totally inadequate to accomplish
any better object than to give this or that
branch of their warning factions an ascend
ancy in partisan politics, or in the control
of the funds of the organizations; but the
leaders who aim at such ends should remem-
Der tnat Wnlle diverse tn6Ofl6S nave preVal6u
as to whether men can or cannot
divest themselves of their native allie
glance, nobody has seriously contended
that man can at the same moment be q
genuine citizen of two countries; and it is
high time that the Fenians made up their
minds whether they were Irishmen or Ameri-
cans.
If Ireland is ever to be freed by American
aid, it must be at such times and under such
conditions as our national exigencies shall
impose. Irish valor and Irish love for the
Emerald Isle could be made irresistible ele-
ments of ID" strength under American
direction, with the help of the Ameri-
can Government, if a war should break
out between the United States and Great
Britain. American citizens of Irish descent
should wait, or, if they choose, work for this
opportunity, and if, meanwhile, instead of
advocating British interests, as the bulk of
them do by supporting free trade, they
turned their political batteries against British
industry, they would improve a thousand
fold their chances of ultimate success. ALI
the money and valor they expend on Fenian
expeditions of the modern style are worse than
wasted.