The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1884-08-07
The Irish Bolt.

anu Logan. OulCkeIlDS Hall was COM
pletely jammed, and still mott half of the
crowd could get within hearing distance
Of the speakers, the streets being blocked
for squares with Irishmen and working
men.
The principal speakers were Rev. Mr..
Pepper and Judge Brennan, both of whom
delivered magnificent addresses. Wepub-
lish below Judge Brennan's address, and
will present that of Mr.. Peppers to our
readers as soon as our space will permit . .
ADDRESS OF JUDGE BRENNAN.
Judge John Brennan, of Sioux City,
Iowa, was introduced and received with
loud cheers, long continued. He said in
substance:
My home is in the State of Iowa.
travelled 400 miles to be present at this
meeting, because | understood there was
patriotic work to do, and whenever the
long roll of observation-disclosures is sounded
/ deem it my duty to stand up and be
counted. [Applause.] 1t may be difficult
for others to understand what it is that
holds our hearts together, but to ourselves
tits plain. There is an invisible cord, a
moral essence called nationality, that
binds our hearts. You have heard that
the sun never sets upon British dominion,
that the drum-beat of Britain is heard
around the world. Very true. So also is
the throbbing of the Irish heart, and
wherever Irish hearts are scattered to-
night, whether in the 0ackwoods OF Canada,
or the jungles of Africa, or the boys of
Connemmora, or the glens of Donegal,
whether they sentinel the Stars and Stripes
upon the Western plains or guard the ban
ner of st. George in the wales Of India,
zone in name and in fame are the sea-divided
Gael"
One in spirit, hope and purpose are the
scattered children of the Irish race.
ICheers. This is an Irish American meet
ing, and [ trust that it will mark new
era the beginning Of our age of reason,
when we shall be no longer the chattel
property of an ungrateful political party,
but race of men, seeking knowledge for
the purpose of being right, and conscious
OF the right voting according to the die
tates Of our conSciences. There must not
and there shall not be an appeal to race
prejudice, nor shall we invoke new Ire
land here. This Republic is the home of a
majority of our people, and for good or for
ill the destiny of our race is here. By
every interest which appeals to enlightened
selfshneSs. and by every impulse which
animates the nobler passions of our souls,
we are reminded that whoever else is
recreant or false it is our special duty to
be true to America, to guard her honor and
promote her prosperity. This, take it,
is the guiding motive of this meeting.
d lLong-continued spplause.
Heretofore in my life | have been a
Democrat. I became citizen after the
close OF the Rebellion and, regardless of
the right OF wrong of that bloody contro-
Yersy, when the reconstruction period
came, [ was a Democrat. | saw the con-
quered people of the South upon their
backs and voted to let them rise | voted
for Horace Greeley in 1872; for Tilden in
1876; and voted for Hancock in 1880.
And now that decline to vote the Demo-
cratic ticket (so-called) in 1884 it is not
that have surrendered any principle but
that the Democratic party has overturned
its altar and taken to running after false
gods that it is found i'll vicious company,
cOnsorting with the Golden Club of Eng
land, with the Tories and the dudes; that
it turns its eyes no longer to the Goddess
OF Liberty, but has erected for it's adora-
tion the golden calf of monopoly, with a
side altar at which it prays by fits and
turns to the metaphorical goddess which it
blasphemously calls ''the star eyed goddess
of reform" In 1879 the Democratic party,
in its racing after false gods, ran afoul Of
the Golden Club, invited the lascivious
embraces of England, sold it's birthright
for mess of pottage, and forfeited its
claim forever to the votes of 1rish-Ameri-
cans. [Applause.]
A DEMOCRATIC INSULT TO FRESHMEN.
Why the Democratic party should dare
to offer to the Irish-American voters its
policy of free trade, and claim for it our
support. is something that cannot under
stand, unless it is the assumption that we
are utterly ignorant of the history of the
free trade policy. and it's destructive effect
upon the land of our fathers, while, from
the Treaty of Limerick to the accursed
Act Of the so-called Union in 1900, she
crippled our manufactures by restrictions.
While foreign rule has been the browning
curse of Ireland, and the landlord system
it's most potent i'll l have always commended
that the destruction of Irish industry by
British law and policy was the underlying
if not the immediate cause of the great
Irish famine of 1916 and 1S47. In 1915
the population of Ireland was 5000, 600.
Decimated by 400 years Of military vio-
lence, a century of penal laws, and more
than a century of legal iniquity, the very
blood of a people shed in an effort to ex-
terminate them seemed, as it were, the
seed of new generations, and the old Celtic
race, like Israel in captivity, multiplied
in chains.' Then came the famine, the
potato rot Of 1916, the hunger, the fever,
the agonies, the exodus, and, worst of all,
the English landlord with his crowbar
brigade.
The people were driven to agriculture as
their sole dependence. That industry suf-
fered a partial failure. The landlord re-
ceived or seized the greater part OF all that
grew; and the Irish peasant, who had
sweated and toiled under the summer sun,
saw the products of his fields vanish from
his sight. Free-trade laws had already
robbed him of an opportunity to labor for
a living. SO he crawled into his cabin-and
died. People starved in a land where
money would buy food and where food
was in abundance for sale, but they per-
ished because English legislation had de-
stroyed their manufacturing industries,
which would have yielded money regard
less of a partial failure of the crops.
THE CLAMOR FOR A CHANGE.
We are told that this country of ours is
suffering for a change that its people are
er-taxed; that it bends beneath the
burden Of $100.000,00 annual surplus :;
that its energies are paralyzed, and that
only certain doubtful contingency can
save 1t from ruin and destruction and tile
panacea proposed for it's calamities is the
election OF Democratic President.
Laughter and applause.] Now, what are
the facts ? Human intelligence is more
widely diffused among us than anywhere
else ON earth, the human wealth more
equally distributed. We have the richest
country ON earth. 1t is richer than China,
richer than India. Richer than Russia
with it's seventy millions OF people Iicher
than Britain with her accumulated wealth
of nearly one thousand years. 1t may not
be true that the Government under which
we live is to be credited with all this, but
it is true that a suffering ~ people have
accomplished these results under the in
fuences Of our government or in spite of
them.
The parent evil of all our ills is the ter
rible protective tariff. 1t has been in con-
tinuous operation since 1860, and yet the
condition of things which have described
has been secured by reason of this opera
tion. or in spite of it. In four and twenty
years we have come to the front as the
greatest manufacturing country in exist
ence. [Applause.l
And who are clamoring for q change?
I'll tell you. Our brethren of the late
Confederate States are anxious for
change. If Kentucky OF Louisiana or
Georgia are suffering for change why do
they not sometimes elect Republicans I? If