Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-02-08

lbSG lUeStliy L TecelNcU d CaDte8Ttul lOul
the lord mayor of Dublin, saying:
FAMINE IS INEVITABLE;
aid neeoed.r Last Sabbath L received cable
gram from Lord James Butler, of Dublin, who
said Fuel and food needed in the west of
Ireland while at the same time, in that tele-
gram, he deprecated political agitation as, in
his opinion, doing great damage. have re-
ceived this week also cablegram from the
Earl of Kintore, the great Scottish philanthro-
pist, who confirms Gil these tidings; SO it is
very certain, in my mind. that this is not
political dodge, as some have protested. 1t ia
not even aquarrel between landlord and tenant;
it is an unmistaka5le, agonizing, overwhelm-
ing, stunning, miliion-voiced shrek for bread.
Ireland once had plenty. In the seventeenth
century she had superhuity of grain fields,
herds of cattle and focks of sheep straying
through her valleys and up and down her
mountain sides. Prolonged wars, but plenty
to eat. The tale of woe of Irish famine be-
gan in the eighteenth century. Famine in
1921 and hundreds persisted. Famine in 1741
and 100000 persisted. Famine in 1756, and
writer of that day says: 'Two-thirds of our
population are s.arving." Famine in 1926,
anomalies-the greatest restitution on the
richest soil. The greatest wretchedness in all
the world is here. The complexion of the peo-
pie blue or green, according as they have been
compelled to devour weeds, decided by the
color of the weeds they devour." Famine in
1916, which some of you remember-ln 1916,
when the government of the United States sent
$500, 900 to relieve the famine in Ireland, and
that great gift on the part of our country was
met by the sl0.0O00O0, or $4,000, 600 voted
by the English parliament for the relief of
the famine in Ireland. Benefcence in New
York responding to the $4,000 given by Queen
Victoria out of her own private purse, that
THE HUNGER OF IRELAND
might be fed. Persia, China, Egypt, India
joining Christian nations in charitable crusade,
yet hundreds of thousands of people perishing,
many of them as heroic as the Irish woman
who said to her husband Come here, let us
all die together rather than touch that which
belongs to another" A famine SO terrible
that the rememb rance of it in nineteen years
sent three million, six hundred and fifty
nine thousand of Irish people to this
country And now the famine of 1850. l
knew it would come. 1 saw the deluge in
England, Ireland and Scotland last summer. I
saw the harvasts that had been partially gather
ed float away on the floods. / heard prominent
citizens in the streets of Belfast and Dublin,
and Londonderry say: "We shall have famine;
it is inevitable" And it has come, but with
this alienation. that whereas in 1916 it took
the news two weeks to come by steamer, and
thanks to the heroes of ocean telegraphy, the
cry comes in a flash, and the answer goes back
in fash. SO that in the morning Ireland cries
"Hungryr' and before nightfall America re-
spends, "The bread is on the wayw Oh! my
country, laden with three years of mag
nifcent harvests, on the rail-trains hasten down
the breadstnffs for dying Ireland. Oh! mer-
chants of New York, standing in tins new
morning of national prosperity, keep the teIe-
graphs going while with your prompt benef-
cence you command the foreign grain markets
to come to the rescue. And We people of small
er means, before to-day you gather at your
tables for the MONDAY repast, plan some way
for the relief of the starving people who come
to tables in Ireland where there is no food. /
implead you in the name of Him who said, ''J
was a-hungered, and ye gave Me meat"
Through merciful God, the most of us have
been kept from hearing in our household tho
unavailing cry for bread. No parents heart
Is stout enough to calmly hear a cry like
that. l do not wonder that
some of these people in famine got desper-
ate. If saw my family starving, and could
get neither food nor work, while all around
there was plenty; if saw my children dying
by inches, and there was a superf1uity all about,
and could neither purchase nor implore help
for them-rather than finish that sentence, l
will say,
GOD KEEP ME FROM THE TEMPTATION
Oh! hunger is an awful thing when it comes
down on a household. The work stops, laugh
ter ceases, conversation ceases, and there are
hollow eyes, and there is pinchedness of the
features, and there is suppressed ferocity
and there is a looking out of the window for
that which comes not, and there is insupporta-
BILE despair. The vOracity of such was we'll
illustrated when the ships of relief came to
Leyden, and the bread was thrown from the
ships decks to the wharf; and history says SO
great was the voracity of those poor, starving
creatures that they picked up the bread and
choked themselves to death. All F! it is an awful
thing to starve but that, processis going on now,
and will continue to go on unless the combined
charity of the Christian world speaks out. Do
you know that famine in Ireland is especially
distressing, because as q nation the Irish are
peculiarly affectionate, and it is little harder
for that nation than almost any other nation to
see their families suffering and dying? Who
doubts this who has noticed that the Irish
serving maids of this country, at the greatest
sacrifice, have for the last 20 or 80 years
been sending back all the money they could
spare to Ireland, to buy food and pay rent, and
finally to transport their loved ones to this
land? Many of them giving every penny not
absolutely necessary for their existence, q
story of lial, and fraternal, and sisterly affee-
ton unsurpassed save by the matchless love of
God. Now. 1 say, it is among that class of peo-
pie, so peculiarly strong In their affections,
that famine has come and now, while speak,
great populations are surging up and down the
Irish cities carrying the black flag; and the way
to put down these riots lie by giving them
bread, not bullets-bread, not policeman's
slub-bread, not armed ssldiery.
The mineral and the agricultural capacity of
Ireland, not developed, makes the famine more
appalling. Soil waiting to yield to the acre
more harvest than in the same space can be
yielded in Russia or America. Loan of the
richest fertility. Flax harvest the forerunner
of richer fax, and hemp enough to hang all the
traitors to liberty and Justice all around the
world. Mineral wealth of iron, and lead, and
copper. and silver, and god, which have al
ready limited their presence. Agricultural Co
pacity which, if developed, would make famine
impossible and fill the hands of Ireland with
charity for other nations, for the time is yet to
come when Ireland, instead of being
mendicant, will Abe a benefactor.
The Irish are generous, they are generous to a
fault. If you are in trouble, the Irishmau
will go halves with you; and if that will not
bring you out, then he will give you all he has,
and borrow something from the neighbors!
But the squaor and the suffering is aggravated
now by the mineral and the agricultural ca
pacity of that country which is undeveloped
Oh, sirs, Ireland in the day of her sorrow,
has right to call upon America. Sac has al
ways been our friend. Benjamin Franklin.
~ L