The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1880-07-30
IRISH REPUBLICANS.
An Address to the Irish Voters
of the United States.
Adopted at the Convention of the Irish
Republicans, Held at Indian
apOlis, July 14-15.

EELLOW-COUNThHMEN: Win nlSn SENSE Oh
the necessity of placing before the world in
their true light the motives which actuate
us in avowing our support and cooperation
with the principles of the Republican party by
distinct organization under the title of Irish
American Republicans, we feel called upon to
state briefly the reasons which prompt us there
to. For many years in this country the sup
port of the Irish for any cause or party was
sought through the channel of prejudice or af-
lection. instruction was out of the question.
and thus an unreasoning adherence was given
to the Democratic party for period of years
long numbered with the past. With the advent
and rise of the Republican party in American
politics new era was reached. Intelligence
and critical examination into the arguments
why the other party should receive
o manly support became the guides of
political action, and the Irishman, alike
with his fellow-citzens of other nationalities,
no longer give his adherence to party action
because of the leadership of those whom they
had previously trusted and followed. This
convention, therefore, has for its object the
initiatory action, which, with frmness and en-
ergy followed by promptness and industry in
sustaining the cause, principles, and policy of
the Republican party, shall show to the world
that the Irish of to-day are capable of some
thing more than being treated as mere political
slaves, and they are capable of independent
and intelligent thought and action, and that
they are friends of that party which most truly
represents that liberty, equality, and equal
rights which they have only found in
the land of their adoption. The claim
of the Democratic party that it is the
only true friend of foreign-born citizens
is not susceptible of proof, as all students of
American history are well aware that, during
the entire administration Of the Democratic
party, it utterly failed to compel the acknowl-
edgment Of those rights which the constitution
guarantees to all who swear to support and
maintain it. The Infamous and despotic doc
trine once a subject always a subject was per-
mitted to exist as principle of internatiOna
law until the accession to power of the Re-
publican party. Then, and not until then,
England was compelled to recede from that
insulting assumption, and thus the adopted
citizen for the first time was clothed with
all the rights and guaranteed the same pro-
lection outside the United States as the citizen
born on American SOIL So, Also to the Re-
publican party do We owe the enactment of
that most beneficial law which has thrown open
the public domain to all actua1 settlers, thus
furnishing free and happy homes to thousands
of our oppressed cOuntrymen, who are fleeing
are aware, Acknowledged, of the successful
ingenuity with which the English Government
labored to destroy the manufacturing inter-
ests of ireland, which had grown up in the
midst of our desperate and persistent strug-
giles for freedom. You cannot have forgotten
the heroic efforts made for their preser-
walton by the great and patriotic statesmen of
the last Irish Parliament under whose fostering
care these industries arose to such state of
perfection as to rival the best efforts of the most
skillful artisans of Europe. Nor can You for
ret that the act of the Union contains among
its other various PRINCIPLES one clause which en-
tailed more misery and restitution in our coun-
try than all the cruelties Of Elizabeth or Cronl-
well. That clause provides for absolute free
trade between Ireland and all outside countries
Nothing more was needed to complete the fell
work. Under that blighting legislation all our
industries, save and except the linen trade
alone, persisted, never to appear again reduc-
ing us to the condition of mere agricultural la
borers, and leaving us to be the helpless VIC
TINS OF British rapacity and Unsuitable greed.
Compelled by such merciless laws to abandon
the homes of our fathers we again encountered
here in America the same foe in the Democrat
&c party, whose ceaseless and persistent attempts
to engraft in our free institutions the same
English free-trade doctrine which wrought such
disastrous results to our own country should
quicken the indignation of every consistent
Irishman.
In marked contradistinction, we invite your
earnest consideration to the policy of the Re-
publican party on this subject, showing that
under its fostering care, in less than quarter
OF century, America has created and brought
to perfection manufactures of all the products
which enter into the profitable industry of
people and their consequent prosperity and
happiness. Thus has the Republican party
shown itself to be the champion and protector
of ind b 4I,a Of
the avarice of British capitalists.
We appeal to you, fellow-countrymen, whose
history is long record Of desperate struggles
for freedom, if your proper affiliations are with
a party which sustained for many years human
slavery in its most degrading form. and only
relinquished that relic of barbarism when the
Republican party, by the hands Of our martyred
President, struck the shackles from the limbs
of the slaves, wiped out the only blot on the
otherwise stainless escuteheon of America, and
extended the glorious principle of free lands
for freemen over every acre of our great re-
public
We ask you also whether YOU are prepared to
turn over the Government, with all its bright
antic1pations of the future, to the tender mer-
cies of the very men who exerted their best
ability for years to effect its destruction. The
accession of the Democracy to full power in all
the departments of the Government. in the
light of its past record of treason and re-
belion, cannot but be regarded as a calamity,
the magnitude of which can scarcely be inn
agined.
RESOLUTIONS.
The following resolutions were adopted at the
Irish-Amercan Republican National Convention
at Indianapolis;
Resotued, That We hereby accept and ratify
the platform and resolutions adopted by the
Republican National Convention assembled at
Chicago. in June, 1880.