The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-08

one side and American on the other. he
did not attract at first much attention, but
he soon began to make himself felt as
man with clear purpose and master of
obstructive parliamentary tactics.
Mr.. Parnell found the Home Rule Party
without leadership Of appreciable force or
ability and he went steadily to work to re-
organize it on the o'Connell basis; that is.
to form a party of Irishmen who should
be absolutely independent of any English
political party, and who would go their
own way with only the cause Of Ireland
to influence them. By 1879 he succeeded
William Shaw in the leadership of the
Irish parliamentary party. He had been
its real leader even before the death of
Butt in 1878.
The Home Rule party had in election Of
1880 voted against the Lord Beaconsfeld's
government and helped to return Mr..
Gladstone to power, but Parnell asked
more of Gladstone than that liberal states
man could grant, and in the struggle that
followed Parnen manifested nearly all the
great qualities necessary to successful
leadership. The failure of Gladstone's
coercion policy was due to Parnell,
who helped to turn him out of of
fee at last, even as he helped
to beat Beaconsfeld in 1880. From his
defeat in 1885 Gladstone became converted
to Home Rule, and on this issue he was
beaten again in 1886. From this time I'M
til November, 1880, when the issue of the
O'Shea divorce trial compelled Gladstone
to ask Ireland for Parnell's head as the
price of his (Gladstone's) further leader
ship ofthe Home Rule party in Parliament,
Parnel's career was so able and astute as
to command the admiration of all parties.
He had won over Gladstone; he had the
support of the Irish Catholic priesthood.
Mr.. Parnell, at this critical moment of his
fate, proved that he lacked one quality es-
sential to leadership, which O'Connell
possessed-the capacity to do all and bear
all for the cause; the capacity of self-sacri-
fee and self-suppression, which is indis-
pensable to true patriot. This great
moral quality Parnell did not possess; he
refused to surrender; the Irish Catholic
church denounced him; they could not
have done less without parting with their
moral power over their congregations.
Parnell, who ought to have known that
he could not successfully fight the moral
force of public opinion arrayed against
him by Gladstone and supported by the
Irish priesthood, refused to retire, was
disastrously beaten in the elections that
followed and at the time of his death was
absolutely without any following in the
Home Rule party in parliament He
was not denounced by the Irish
priesthood because he was Protest
ant, for every great Irish patriot,
save O'Connell, has been Protestant and
Gladstone, whom all Ireland trusts, is a
Protestant. He was beaten because he de-
fed the obligation of public moral de-
cency, which if sometimes dormant is new
ertheIess force in politics which no wise
statesman ever recklessly defies. The
same lack of moral sense that led him to
lead life of ILL concealed adultery made
him blind to the fatal consequences of its
judicial exposure. In his letter demand
ing Parnell's retirement Gladstone justly
described Parnells services to Ireland
as splendid" They were splendid
and are of enduring value; the man
lacked nothing of craftsmanship save that
moral sense without which unselfsh pat
riotism is impossible. Parnell did all for
prizeighter could accomplish, but when
the political prizefghter was asked to be-
come self-sacrifcing patriot, he failed to
rise to the level of the necessity of his
cause.
Had Napoleon died in 1907, the day
after the signing of the peace of Tilsit,
he would have left behind him
the memory of great and sue
cessful warrior who had not wantonly
made war for the mere sake of personal
aggrandizement; had Benedict Arnold
died in battle at Saratoga he would have
left blessed memory; had JEFF Davis died
at Buena Vista he would have escaped his
awful responsibility for the most wicked
and causeless war that ever wasted the
best blood of a free country; had Parnell
died in October, 1890, he would have been
regarded not only as a statesman. but as
patriot. He was the most astute
and able political leader that Ire
land has known. save O'Connell.
and he fails to rank with O'Connell, be-
cause he lacked the capacity to sink him.
self in his cause, without which no man is
ever long great civic leader. This differ
ence between O'ConnelI and Parnell was
the difference between Washington and
Jefferson; between Lincoln and Seward;
between Grant and Mcclellan.
FREE SILVER COINAGE