The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1891-10-07
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.

The uncrowned king" of Ireland.
dead to-day in his dishonor, was most
remarkable man. With all his faults
unmarked, his pride. his ambition, his
greed of place and power, his treachery
to friend, his rule or ruin policy when
at bay-with all these aid bare to the
sight--he was still great man, one of
Britains greatest in this century. His
faults were moral, not mental. His in
tellect was keen, bright, incisive, his
political Judgment unerIing. Never was
Judgment better shown than during the
last general election, when at first the
tide seemed TO be setting against the
Liberals, and he was implored to throw
the balance of his power with them
against the Conservatives. He steadily
and consistently refused. The Liberals
made strenuous efforts TO recover lost
ground, but could not quite gain ma
iority. IL was that stand which practi-
cally forced upon the Gladstonians the
Home-Rule policy they afterward adopt
ed. Parnells generalship was again dis
played no later than the summer of 1890
when he held his entire party-not a
man missing or dissenting-to the prac-
tical support of the land-purchase meas
ure suggested by the hated Balfour.
To ability unquestioned Parnell added
duplicity equally unquestionable. The
O'Shea matter revealed not only moral
turpitude but political untrustworthi-
ness. For long time before the public
exposure Parnells relations with Mrs.
O'Shea were the subject of gossip and it
was currently claimed that Capt. O'Shea
was kept in Parliament, post for which
he is grotesquely incompetent, as the
price of his wifes shame. Smarting
under these hints, the leading MEM
bers of the Irish Parliamentary
party sought an explanation ; and in the
most positive words--so the writer Of
this article was informed soon after by
Michael Davitt--Mr. Parnell assured his
supporters that his relations with the
O'Sheas were blameless and that he
could vindicate himself in a court of
law. This unfrankness was something
more than an ordinary lie. The Irish
leaders believed Parnells word and con-
tinued TO support him, in confidence that
he could establish his innocence in
court. How that confidence was be-
trayed and how the betrayal wounded
warm loyal Irish hearts the world knows.
II knows, too, how. in his mad determi-
nation to hold his power, Parnell turned
the green island into a state almost re-
sembling civil war; how the clubs were
twirled again from Cork to Ulster, and
how Irishmen the world over surveyed
aghast the havoc wrought in few
months in the party fabric to whose up
building years of patient effort had con-
tributed.
That party, shattered ms it is, is Par
nell's monument, and it towers high. To
have replaced terrorism by parliamentary
procedure, the torch and the dagger by
legislative obstruction, a disorganized
gathering of members by a compact
army; TO have wrenched from the Sax
ons the unwilling admission o.- centuries
of misIule, oppression and neglect, and
20 have brought the home rule cause TO
the threshold Of success was a magnifi-
cent work for Ireland. II is crying
shame that dallying with Delilah ruined
that work on the eve of completion.