The Sentinel. [volume] (Trenton, N.J.) 1880-1882, 1881-02-26


ing, thirty three years ago. forly-seyen
starved corpses faced Gods sunlight. a
CHASTITY commentary on British law and
justice. Others there were whose lives went
out in the storm and tempest, and whose
cofinless bodies make an unbroken track
from Queenstown to New York. Those
who survived all dangers, and sill live
with their descendants, constitute thai
greater Ireland beyond the sea, so often
alluded to by Irish orators. Looking a;
this dwindling away of the people. and
remembering the poets words
bold peasantry, their country's pride.
Once destroyed, can never be supplied
you will admit something must be done.
The only agency through which YOU can
accomplish anything is the Land League.
You know what it promises in return for
your support. 1t proposes TO end all these
miseries and cruelties, to prevent rack rent
ing, to create peasant proprietary, to give
to the present generation living chance,
and to the next hopeful future. | do moi
think these are impossiblities, if it sue
ceeds, and | know of no valid reason why
we should not support it, OF course it is
urged that, as American citizens. we have
no right 10 interfere in the domestic affairs
of another country. 1t is the proud pre-
rogative of an American citizen to sympa-
thize with every people struggling against
tyranny. l have found out, in my expert
| ence, that bad lrishman never makes
good American, and the heart that is cold
to its native land will never warm to that
of its adoption. So do answer those who
urge this objection.
1t is also said that, by advocating the
League, we become abettors of murder and
assassination. The charge is false-abso-
lutely SO. The primal principle of the
League is, that she aDho commits crime
gives aid to- the enemy" and if you investi-
gate this matter, you will find the League
to be a powerful means of suppressing
crime. | know that in 1649, the ancestors
of the men who now denounce the Land
League, advocated the theory of kaHing-no-
murder, and published pamphlet with that
title, directed against Cromwell; but this
immoAl doctrine, no matter what the provo
cation, has not been preached in this move
ment against the landlords. 1t is also urged
that the same fate awaits this as has awaited
all other efforts of the present century But
the conditions are entirely dissimilar. No
divisions now exist. Every class, creed,
and description of life is in favor of the
League. The platform which supports John
Rae, an extreme Orangeman B. L. Louden,
a miniature Tom Paine; Charles S Parnell,
an Episcopalian, and Archbishop Croke, of
Cashel is comprehensive enough for all
John B. OReilly's lines, on the Beltane Fire
Of the Gael, aptly apply to the invitation of
the League:
Let lines and creed lines and every line vanish
Come, every one; one mantle was Ger US
Mnrfhr apIS CaIt
Wen fight as the Gael for the mother that bore US
This is no personal movement; its success
does not depend upon any one man. The
spirit of progress is abroad. The people
are educated, and that great hand maiden
of liberty-the Press-is read, and it's influ-
ence felt, where, forty years ago, the people
did not know letter of English. Another
remarkable fact about the personnel of the
League is the entire absence of LAWYERS
from its ranks. 1t is a good sign. For a
political trlmmer-not to say traitor
commend me to an Irish barrister. In his
bench as the goal of all his hopes, as the
price of his services to the government, and
of his betrayal of his country, / need only
remind you of the renegades, Keogh, Fitz-
gerald, and Barry, who elevated themselves
to the bench on the ruins of the tenant-right
movement of 1857, as proof of what | assert.
All Tom Moore knew the power of an
English minister and the weakness of an
Irish lawyer, when he wrote
&C Undistinguished they live, if they shame not their
sres.'
To-day, the government of Mr.. Gladstone
have to deal with another element-with the
Observation-Disclosures who, coming to this
country, return to the old land imbued with
American ideas, seeing with eyes trained to
American customs. Most of them have
been soldiers-like our Vice President, Cap
tain Farrell-and have learned the first
principles of liberty in fighting for the
Union and the freedom of the slave. The
equality of all men, and their right 10 life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are
the corner-stones of the social fabric thew
would like to erect. They are full of com
parsons between the conditions of life here
and over there, and l need hardly tell you
these comparisons are not very favorable to
some institutions we know Of
Now, these are the principles and the
strong points of the League. Of what avail
is coercion against thought and dev elop-
ment? You cannot clog the wheels of pro-
gress; you cannot turn back the hands on
the dial-plate of Time. The landocracy is
doomed, and the sooner Mr. Gladstone
recognizes this fact, the better will it be for
his reputation. If his past life be any index
to his future, he will educate himself and
followers up to granting all of the Irish
demands. Commencing life as an extreme
Tory, he is now an extreme Liberal At
one time avowedly opposed to every reform,
later on he introduced and passed the Church
bill, the Land bill, and the so-called Land
bill. And when he finds that nothing short
of a peasant proprietary will satisfy the world,
he will make virtue of necessity, and
grant that. Need | urge you to help create
that necessity? Can words of mine add
courage to your arms and fervor to your
hearts, to do and dare and suffer for the
good of the cause? All the great names of
our land, all the great achievements of our
race, bid US be up and doing From that
convent in Rome, where molders in the dust
the strong hand of the great O'Neill, the
victor of Benburb from that grave in old
St. Michans, in Dublin, where sleeps the
noblest and greatest of all the Geraldines-
the gallant Lord Edward from that other
grave, by the Liffey, where repose the
remains of the martyred Emmett; from
that silent river out in Montana, where the