Daily Republican. [volume] ([Wilmington, Del.]) 1874-1890, 1884-07-31
Why Irish-Amerfcans VIII Vote
for Bla1Mo.

kp0ROls W thdt thO ihi 20 Va
Irish-American voters who are break
ing away from the Democratic party
nre going to the support of Blaine and
Logan, because they can be relied upon
rs the more aggressive candidates
against England in the mere matter of
protection to Irish-American citizens
while abroad.
1t is also a Misrepresentation of facts
and a libel upon that large class of
citizens who have always heretofore
been tie strongest supporters of the
Democratic party, to say that nobody
but revolutionists, the communists, the
nynamiters are going to the Republic
can party.
That the latter class are Inclined to
support Blaine and Logan, be cannot won
dered at even if for no other purpose
than the expectation that their personal
rights would be more secure under the
administration of such great leaders of
American thought and progress, bus
the AmericanisIr of these leaders is but
the faintest and weakest cause for gain
ing the support of this vote There is
another cause that has taken a deeper
hold upon the Irish American people,
and which is the principal cause for the
great political change that is gong on.
That cause we need hardly say is pro-
lection to American industries, which
are the sinews of the American govern
ment
As a general thing the Irish people
are laboring class of people and are
supported by labor in the land of their
adoption. To them the country is in
debted for the construction of its great
publie works, its railroads, its canals,
its reservoirs, and in fact everything
which required hard personal labor were
pushed forward and completed by Irish
labor.
They were not strangers to labor be
fore they left their native heath to
come to strange land. Why then did
they come to America ? Why is it
that there are so many Irish Americans
in America to-day as there are Irish
men in Ireland at the same time? This
is question for reflection. Because
their industries were broken down. The
elder Irish can yet recollect when Ire
land was a manufacturing country ;
when the noise of the hand loom was
heard in nearly every family when
Irish linens stocked the market when
housewives even in America boosted
of her white Irish sheets, towels and
shifting.
In those days there were but few i'm
migrants from Ireland to America,
simply because there was prosperity at
hnna RIf rhis of -.
and happiness was destined to end
Avarice had its eyes upon theGreen Isle
The British free trader took her case in
hand, and by an inhuman system OF
oppression and tyranny the manufac
tories of Ireland were transferred te
Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester il
England, and the flax farms were turn
ed into hunting parks for the English
aristocracy.
1t was then that Irish immigration I,
America commenced in earnest, an,
has continued ever since British fire.,
trade was the weapon that disinantle,
Ireland of her greatness, that brok
down her industries, that i'm poverishe,
her people. Reduced to IA state of la
Dor without wages adequate to susfai
life, these laborers sought and found
new home in this Western world, wher
tue people who had, within the reco
lection of some then living, freed then
selves from the thraldom of British tyl
RAINY.
Only within the last forty years i
our government We're the lines draw
distinctively between proteetio
and free trade, the Democrat
purity gradually lapsing into til
RUS of free trade and the orpositio
into the channels OF protection. Strang
IA il may Sc, III, yet it is true that til
Irish immigrants, as soon a. they land
ell in America 10 escape the misel!t
CAUSED hy free trade at home, aifliate,
themselves with the party here tina
was in sympathy with free trade,
There may have been a prohtabl
cause at that time for such action
Orr attention has been called to til
alien and sedition laws and to I'll
Know-nothing movement. These ma
have been bars in the way at that tim
but since then there has been an emil
changing of party lines and party pril
ciples. The Know-nothings of thirt
years ago are the Democratic free tr
ders of Today. and the patriotic Dem
Gratis of that dav are nowtbe propr.ssi,
Republicans of TODAY. The late civ
war has changed the nolitics of the n
ton.
Still. during all these YEARS since II
bloody chasm opened nv war has bee
closed. the I,i.b-American neonle ev,
those who fought to save the natio
have closely allied tba,nselyes ~ n