The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-05
EMMET's BIRTHDAY.

whose immortality is due largely to the
remarkable eloquence of his speech of de-
fence before Lord Norbury who con-
demned him to death. Had it not been
for Emmet's eloquence his memory would
not be more vivid today than that of Fa-
Their John Murphy, Bagenal Harvey. An
thony Perry, the two brothers Sheares and
Mccain, who died on the scaffold for their
part in the rebellion of 1898. Lord Ed
ward Fitzgerald was mortally wounded
resisting arrest; Wolfe Tone, under SEN
prison. Fitzgerald was as heroic and chiy-
alrous an Irishman as ever lived and Tone
was a very brave and adventurous man,
an ADLER if not SO eloquent q patriot as
Emmett.
These martyrs of 179S do not have the
although their service and sufferings for
Ireland quite equalled his own. The
singular eloquence of young Emmet's
dying speech has made him the popular
Irish martyr. Every schoolboy has de-
claimed that speech; every Irishman
cal fact, Emmett has more Irish admirers
today than he had when he died. The re-
bellion of 1913 was opposed by all the
great Irish leaders of constitutional agita-
ton for Home Rule: by Grattan, Flood
and Charlemont, and by that eloquent
apostle of Irish liberty. the great orator
Curran. Daniel O'Connell, the great sue
cessor of Grattan as q constitutional agi-
tator, had no sympathy with the United
Irishmen of 1898, and, together with
Curran, bitterly denounced Robert EN-
NETS rising in 1903, which was as reckless
and utterly insane an effort as the Har-
per's Ferry fiasco of John Brown.
Emmett was hanged and his head cut off
after death at Dublin, September 20, 1903.
He was the last person executed in Ire
land for treason; the Irish patriots of 1S4S,
Meagher, Mitchell and Smith O'Brien,
were sentenced to death, but the penalty
was COMMITTED to transportation. EN-
NETS rising was disfgured by the brutal
murder of Judge Kilwarden, who was
dragged from his coach by the mob and
killed before his daughters eyes. Emmett
was an enthusiast, man of poetic. senti-
mental nature; an orator, but utterly
destitute of judgment or the talent
for organization of successful insur-
rection. He made his attempt when
the whole country was under martial
law; when the recent memory
of the horrors of 179s had crushed ell the
hopes of Ireland. Against the advice of
the wisest patriots in Ireland Emmett made
his attempt, failed miserably, lost his life,
and increased the sutierings of Ireland by
giving the government excuse for increased
cruelty and barbarous coercion. Curran
refused to defend Emmett, and altogether
Emmets rising was the most reckless,
hopeless and disastrous incident in the
whole history of Ireland's struggle for
freedom, and yet it was so gilded by his
dying eloquence that the name of Emmett
has been used to conjure with by his
modern imitators, the Irish insurrection-
lists of 1S4S and the Fenians.
Grattan, Flood, Fox. Curran, Burke,
O'Connell, Parnell. Dillon and Gladstone
represent the Irish and English statesmen
who have labored by constitutional agita-
ton to secure Home Rule for Ireland,
while Emmett, Tone, Fitzgerald, John
Mitchell and the Fenians stand for the
dismal failure of the policy of armed re-
bellion. Emmett is pathetic figure; his
youth; his genius; his eloquence; his loss
of his chance of escape through his anxi-
ETY. to once more see his sweetheart,
Curran's daughter, before he left Ireland,
all help to surround hun with deep senti-
mental interest; and yet it is historical
truth to say that Emmett and
the school of Emmett stand for
Irish heroes and martyrs that have
hindered rather than helped the enlarge
ment of Ireland's religious and political
freedom. The man was a predetermined
enthusiast; an orator intoxicated by his
own eloquence and vain, extravagant ex-
pectations. He could make noble,
pathetic speech, but he could not measure
public sentiment, could not organize it;
he was an orator, a poet, not q man with
the gift that organizes and executes an in
surrection that contains fair hope of sue
the eloquence of Emmet would have been
q power for good but left to his own wild
devices an Emmett would be sure to make
all judicious friends of Ireland grieye.
The government that executed Emmett
might have spared him; Tone and Fitz-
gerald were dangerous men; Tone had the
brain and address of shrewd and daring
conspirator; he was an able writer and
persuasive orator, and Fitzgerald was
soldier of proved ability and heroic cour-
age, but Emmett was not formidable in in
huence or practical talent. And yet En-
NETS single speech has given him great
popular fame. 1t is not great speech in
the sense that Burke, Webster or Phil
lips were eloquent, but is Just the kind Of
eloquence that would always affect an ar
dent, warm-hearted, poetic people like the
Irish. 1t is not superior in quality to the
speech of Meagher when under the sem
tence of death. bit Meagher did not. after
ALL die on the s6afiold, and so his eloquent
speech goes unie cad.
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