St. Paul daily globe., 1896-03-05

next speaker Mr.. Clapp said that
Robert Emmett, by his heroic life and
tragic death, made his life sublime and
left behind him footprints in the sands
of time. There were those who
thought it was unwise to go too far in
devotion to the patriots and martyrs of
foreign countries. The speaker did not
believe this. The Irishman who was
inspired in his devotion to liberty by
the oppression of his native land could
appreciate the land of the free. 1t was
due largely to the Irish-Americans that
the United States recently gave Eng
land such a rebuke. 1t was the spirit
of Emmett that inspired them.
Miss Anna Collins followed with
vocal solo, Meeting of the Waters"
and had to respond to an encore. c. d.
O'Brien was then introduced as one of
the speakers of the evening.
In opening his address, Mr.. OBrien
said he was very happy and he felt
that all those present shared his hap
pineSs. In the course of his remarks
he said: when the time comes that
any man of Irish birth or Irish blood
forgets the blood that has been shed
by the martyrs of Ireland, it is better
for that person. he had never been
born. We who have the memory of the
Irish martyrs, who love the country,
It's people, it's rocks and hills and val
leys and streams, know how to appre-
ciate the liberty of this glorious coun-
try of which we are citizens.
If in time it shall become apparent
that God Almighty has made the peo-
pie of Ireland the instrument by which
a great mission is to be performed in
the interest of mankind, and they
achieve the end they have been charg-
ed to accomplish, let it be to extend
to even the meaneSt and lowest OF
Gods creatures the fullest measure or
personal liberty. Never let it be said
that a man in whose veins flows Celtic
blood prescribed another. You who
have heard from other speakers some
thing about the foreign element, now
you see a specimen of the foreign ele-
ment, and hope some day to go back
to the Emerald isle, but not empty
handed. 1 shall probably have some
explosives with me. Qaughter) EN-
mett's dying request was that his cpl
taph be not written until his country
was liberated. But the Irishmen of
the world and their descendants will
one day write his epitaph with boom
ing cannon across the face of the coun-
try that put him to death" cloud ap-
plause)
Miss Edith Blanchard, Miss Anna
Collins, Mr.. Keating and Mr.. Gehan
then sang a quartette, after which
John McCarty. of Saltwater, state pres
ident of the A. o. H, gave short ad-
dress on the character of the order
and it's aims and objects. The order
in Minnesota was started in Mime
apoliS fourteen years ago, and since
that time it has paid $214,500 in bene-
fits. He quoted comparative statistics
to show that the expense of conducting
the A. o. H. insurance branch is much
lower than that of other fraternal In
surance organizations.
After Miss Katharine Collins played
a medley of American and Irish airs
on the piano Judge Kelly was in
lows:
'Thus freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks
To show that she still lives"
These words are familiar to you as a house
hold song. Tom Moore, companion and
friend OF the martyred patriot, wrote them,
and they express the condition of Ireland at
the time and before Emmet died. To appre-
ciate why he should die so young, so hopeful
with so much of lifes pleasant promises be-
fore him in his grasp, to appreciate why that
heart should Indignant break" to prove that
the spirit Of freedom was not dead in his
country, we must look backward and forward
from his birth.
This day is the anniversary of his birth,
but we look instinctively from his cradle to
his scaffold, from that scaffold to the unlet-
tered slab which covers his ashes, from that
grave to the cause for which he died, and
made scafold and grave landmarks in history
forever.
Emmet came into the world when it was
racked by the most momentous of political
commissions. The farmers had fired upon the
kings men at Concord and Lexington, and
the reverbation of that shot had been heard
around the globe Emmett listening, dreamed
wild dreams of other farmers and other re-
publics. He was born to purple; he grew up
cd N al hn
privilege of the ruling classes, in an age
when that meant everything, he heard the
cry of the oppressed, and, in attempting to
answer it, died on the gallows at the hands Of
his own order. A Protestant from convic-
ton, in life and in death, he gave all for his
despised Catholic countrymen, and in turn has
been made an uncannonized saint
What he undertook was desperate. So
was the feat by which Arnold Winkelried
opened a path for freedom, by impaling in
his own body a score of Austrian spears,
through which his countrymen over that
body forced their way through the pass at
Sempach. The heralds of freedom are al
ways the dreamers. They who count the
cost are always where they belong-in the
or even justly, we should know something
of the times in which he lived, or the part
from which he drew his inspiration.
Ireland, grateful for the smallest recogni-
tion of her national rights, had given of her
best blood at Athlone, Anghrim and by the
Boyne water to sustain the tottering fortunes
of King James. And after the royal Stuart
had fled the land she made heroic effort,
at the close Of the seventeenth century, to
save his lost cause behind the walls of Lin
erick. Sarsfeld-prince of soldiers and
prince of gentlemen-had snatched victory
from the very depths of despair. So gal
liant had been that fight that William of
Orange gave the Irish soldier the most hon
orable terms ever given defeated leader. Not
only was every honor of war accorded Sars-
field and his gallant army, but the famous
treaty of Limerick was signed.
History has no parallel to this side Of the
picture. Sarsfeld defeated, yet debating
terms to the king, not alone for himself and
his army, but for all the Irish people. By
that treaty the English sovereigns guaranteed
to their Catholic subjects in Ireland their
civil and religious rights. And more than
army high place in his own service. But,
alasi those u, 600 gallant men, trusting in
the honor Of king, entered the service Of
France and gave up their lives on foreign
fields. And history has no parallel to the
other side. For the honor Of the English
king was ruthlessly broken ere the scroll on
which was written his princely promises had
dried.
For the first half of the eighteenth century
after the broken treaty, the ingenuity Of the
devil himself would be puzzled to equal the
methods of persecution practiced by the Eng
lish rulers in Ireland towards its Catholic peo-
pie. An English historian has said their very
atrocity finally defeated the penal laws. The
proud patience Of the people triumphed, and
when in the last quarter Of that century En-
met grew to manhood, he read in the imme-
diate and bloody past what an English kings
royal word was worth when pledged to Ire
land. He heard the matchless eloquence of
Flood and Grattan. He saw the volunteers
rise up, armed men, from the very earth. He
knew of that wondrous convention at Dun
gannon's church, and he had heard the an
swer England made to its demands. He knew
how marvellous the progress of his country
was in those short years when its parlia-
ment was half free. And then the bloody
drama of '9S. with its long list of martyrs.
TO be followed by the accursed Union Act Of
1900, purchased and paid for from the Eng
lish eXchequer
Is it any wonder that with all these things
before him, Emmet, young brave, pure and