The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-09-26
MICHAEL DAvIrr.


MICHAEL DAvITT.
The Greatest Living Irishman-Has Been
In Nine British Prisons.
London Star
Within the next fortnight Michael
Davitt. the son of The Mayo peasant
farmer, will be one of the most taiked-of
men in England. The Labor World is to be
his weekly message to the three democra-
cies of England, Ireland and America
There can be no disputing his title to speak
for all three. He is a member of the
Knights of Labor; he is the father of the
Land League, and his deep voice and
strong set face-scored deep with the lines
that suffering and hard experience have
written on it's familiar on English popu-
lar platforms. In the preliminary school
of martrydom in which all strong souls
have 10 graduate. Michael Daviit has taken
his degree with flying colors.
1--WE learn in suffering what we teach in
song" says Shelley. and Michaei's pastors
and masters have been governors and jail
ers, his books have been the prison rules
his life-!essons have been conned on the
plank bed anu in the unutterabl lie loneli-
ness OF his cell. In all, Mr.. Davitt has
been the inmate of nine of her majesty 3
houses OF Observation-Disclosures Mill
bank, Newgate, Dartmoor. Portsmouth,
Portland, Kiimainharn, Richmond Tin
Dublin) and Sligo. That a man should
emerge from an ordeal of over nine years
confinement with health, nerves and cheer
miracle, and that he should have retained
through it all the steadiest and simplest
faith In God and man is more wonderful
still. Yet these things have come TO pass.
Every now and then . shadow OF
the black past will creep over Dayitt's
face. and just touch of gloom will tinge
his talk; but the author of Leaves From
a Prison Diary" 1.-THE senior political
criminal" as he pleasantly describes him.
self-has q wholesome love of the good in
man and clear insight into those half
lights, half-shadows of character with
which jail life abouHds. 1t is pleasant 10
talk to Davitt about his prison experiences,
and to find how they have woven them
selves into the thread of his social ana
political philosophy without making the
texture either coarse or hard. Politically,
he bears no malice. He is as ready TO CO.
onerate with the Liberal party when they
offer Ireland home rule as he was TO fight
them over coercion. In his cell at Dart
moor, to which the sin of another had sent
him, he worked out the two noble lessons
of remuneration and the forgiveness of in
years that were to come.
II am standing today" said Mr.. Davitt
in the early days of the Land League agi-
tati0n, ION the ruins OF my parents cot
tage, and shall some day have the pleas
ure of trampling Oil the ruins of landlord
ISM" The story of the eviction from the
little cottage in County Mayo is familiar
now to English ears When Michael
was years old he left Ireland for Lanca-
shire, and while still small boy worked
in cotton mill near Washington. There
he was not turned out to perish on q win
ter night, but he was kicked across the
floor, and in tending machine which he
was too young to manage his rignt arm
was drawn in and torn off at the shoulder.
However, through the storm and stress OF
his earlier days he made and retained
many friendships which lasted well into
manhood. When the Home Rule propa-
ganda began some of his old school-fellows
asked him 10 stand against Lord Harring-
ton in the same district where he had
worked as lad. All through his career,
indeed, Mr.. Davitt has acted as kind of
connecting link between the English and
the irish democracies.
1.-THE union of the peoples" was an old
watch word of his. He sounded it in the
ears of an American audience of extrem-
lists, and it caught on at once. He never
would agree that Ireland, even in the old
dark days, had no friends amongst English
Radicals. He had a right to tell his peo-
pie so. for he himself had always been a
figure in what he calls the English forward
movement. Celt he is to the backbone
Celt in the deep black eyes. Celt ON the
emotional side of the man-but the angu-
lar lines of the face speak, as do his love OF
detail and the thoughtful turn of his ora
tory and writing, of an intellectual devel-
opnent, as well as an early history, which
has tempered race fire, though never ex-
tinguished it.
Celt, however, Mr. Davitt is altogether
and whole-heartedly in one particular. He
is passlonately bent on retaining the Celtic
element OH the Western seaboard of Ire
land, which the Tories are doing their best
to eliminate, as the most dangerous. E..
the best and most patriotic-factor in the
national life. 1t is here where Mr.. Davitt
sees the especial danger arising from the
threatening famine. Famine on the West
coast. thinks Mr.. Davitt, will kill land pur-
chase, but it may give a fatal impulse to
he old Tory policy of emigration. Now,
Mr.. Davitt IS all for migration. The peo-
ple of the West, who are not SO much
farmers as cotti re- with allotments, can
be got to produce greater
variety OF crops: on it ca if
they can get more OF it. The first method
Mr.. Davitt IS trying in small way to COM
pass, by sending. out of a small fund he
has in his possession, half a million Nom
pariel cabbage % Acaill and Gwendore.
The second. he thinks, might be attained.
not by fixing the people As peasant pro-
prietors (such proprietorsD in the con-
gested districts, where all the best lands is
in the hands of the grazisrs and the people
are sQuatting on wretchedly insufficient
patches of bog. but by enlarging their
holding as tenants all along the seaboard.
Most of the wretched hob 'ings could be
bought up at twelve years purchase. Ten
millions would probably cover the entire
outlay, which. at all events. is better than
Balfour's thirty-three millions. Why
thinks Mr.. Dsvitt. working
at plan should not the
land com missioners have the sum laced
at their disposal for buying out the land
lords and creating new and enlarged ten
ancies at reduced rents. further. possibly.
advancing something in the way OF loans
10 extend and vary the system or culture?
At present. OF course. the plan is shapeless,
or oniv complete in on line. But the
world may hear more before long. espe-
c;slls after its author takes up his abode
with Us. After the starting OF the Labor
World Mr.. Davitt will divide MS time be-
tween Ireland and ourselves. All next
winter he will reside at Richmond, and
then he will go back 70 Land League Cot