The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-25
TIE NEW FENIAN MOVEMENT

IHE NEW FENIAN MOVEMENT.
The rumors of q new Fenian movement
against the British-Amsrican Possessions
which have been in circulation for some
weeks have had a substantial foundation.
The President has taken official cognizance
of this Quixotic enterprise by issuing pro-
clamation admonishing all good citizens
against aiding or countenancing it, warning
those who actively participate in the proposed
raid that they will thereby ''forfeit all right
to the protection of this Government" and
enjoining ''all officers in the service of the
United States to employ all their lawful autho-
rity and power to prevent and defeat"
the aforesaid unlawful proceedings, and
may be engaged therein" This proclamation
utters no uncertain sound, and if the states
men who governed Great Britain and Canada
during our civil war are not impervious to
shame the contrast between its decisive Ian
guage and the course they pursued in the
hour of our national peril should bring
crimson glow to their hardened cheeks.
General Grant has done nothing more than
his duty, but under analogous circumstances
they committed SO many sins of omission and
commission, that in the light of past events
he is heaping Goals of fire upon
their heads by his magnanimous return of
good for evil.
Wild and hare-brained as the existing Fe-
nian movement may be, it is the American
administration rather than an array of Bri-
tsh power that will defeat it. If foothold
was once gained in Canada, nothing would
prevent tens of thousands of indignant Irish
men in this country who are burning for an
opportunity to revenge old wrongs from rally
ing round the Fenian standard but their
dread of fire in the rear more formidable
than any opposition that could be concen-
trated in their front. Yet since the existing
forces are deprived of a reliable base of
supplies at the very outset of their
movement, and since their per-
sonal liberty is threatened by
an authority which they dare not defy,
nothing short of a miracle can secure to the
present demonstration substantial success, or
exalt it materially above the mere scares
which have preceded it. 1t may, however, be
not unproductive of important ultimate re-
suits. John Browns raid at Harper's Ferry
was commenced with infinitely less adequate
resources, and it was punished with severity
that the Fenians have little reason to appre-
hend, and yet it had q mighty influence in
strengthening the anti-slavery feeling of this
country, and in emblazoning "EMANo1pA-
TIoN" upon the banner of the Union
armies. The mere fact that thousands
of men are willing to assume the hazards of
the present enterprise and to brave death,
under most hopeless circumstances, will make
a deeper impression upon the people of
Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain than
thousands of frothy stump speeches, and it
will force from reluctant statesmen a serious
consideration of the underlying causes of this
demonstration.
1t is rumored that the Fenians now in the
field contemplate double movement-one
against Canada, set on foot by the Eastern
members of the organization; and another
against the Red River district, which is to
make Chicago its base of operations. The
anxiety of the public will be excited to learn
the fate of these diverse expeditions, but
interest will centre rather in de-
sire to learn how soon and hew
they are to be broken up and dispersed than
in an expectation that they will be able to
gain even partial triumphs against the COM
bined opposition of the two most powerful
governments in the world. The only rational
thing these madcaps can hope for is that they
may exercise a moral, political, or partisan
influence In a military point of view they
are beaten at the outset of their campaign,
and all efforts to keep their forces in the
field for any considerable period will prove
unayailing.