The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-02


| TO parliament party of some 80 men
who We're absolutely pledged to support
| MN and his policy of independence. The
| selection of those men in the hurried
days of the campaign showed what q
discerning man Parnell was. Obliged tc
choose the great majority of his candi-
dates from the ranks of the plain peo-
pie, he went to the counting room and
the newspaper office for his recruits
and he gave to the country such men
as Thomas Power O'Connor London
| reporter; James O'Kelly,l a returned
Cuban war correspondent Thomas
Sexton, a hard working Dublin journal
list; Timothy NJ. Healy, a clerk in a
north Of England railroad office; John
Barry, a prosperous linoleum manufac-
turer in Scotland, and so on through the
list, all of them, with one exception
strangers to public life and absolutely
unknown beyond their respective 1ocali-
ties. The exception was Justin McCar-
thy, who, of course, was well known
through his books years before Parnell
was heard of.
| The little band of 80 Parnellites had a
stormy time of it from the outset. IT
was fight all the day and all the night,
for sessions were not unfrequently "a
hours long, with relays Of members to
\ make the quorum. Tory and liberal
was flung ruthlessly to the winds, and
scarcely night passed without its bit
| ter and exciting scene" followed ey-
cry now and then by half a dozen ex-
pulsions. So the fight went on for five
years, during which Gladstone exhaust
| ed his every effort to grapple success
fully with the national uprising Lead,
ers were arrested and kept in prison,
without trial, newspapers were siezed
and suppressed the habeas corpus was
| suspended, police magistrates be-
came little cZarS in their districts, con-
| t1icts occurred every day between the
military and the people, juries were
| packed in the most shameless fashion,
justice was polluted at, its very source
Yet in the face Of all this coercion, the
! queens writ ceased to run" in Ireland
Government by bayonet was a failure
Parnell was placed in prison, but he
kept his grip on the reins all through
He grew even more powerful behind
the walls of Kilmautnham Jail than he
was outside, and the mighty agrarian
)attle went on just as if he were actual
ly on the field and in charge of his
10rces.
Once only did Parnell grow weary OF
the nightly struggle and his heart quail
| from his heavy task. That was on Sat
urday evening, the 9Th of May, 1882
when Lord Frederick Cavendish and
| Thomas N. Burke were murdered in
Phoenix park, Dublin. The whole civil
| ICED world stood aghast at the deed, but
no man on earth was more Mortified
than Mr.. Parnell. The news of the as
sagsination was carried to him in his
London hotel The had been released
| from prison a day or two before) BY
+, Henry George, who was in England al
| the time on a lecturing tour. When ht
heard of the tragedy the cold and i'm.
| passive Parnell wept like q woman. He
sat down and wrote a letter of resigna-
nation to his constituents, withdrawing
forever from public life, and it was only
the entreaties and pleadings of Mr.
| George, Joined with those of Justin Nc
Carthy and Michael Davitt, that in
duced him to stay in the movement and
control it as no other man but himself
could do.
Parnel never believed in violence or
outrage or physical force. He be-
lieved in passive resistance" as he
himself expressed it. He always in
sisted that not a blow need be struck
! if the people would only unite in one
grand national combination, holding
that in this they would be invincible
and believing, with Edmund Burke
that it was Impossible to frame an in
dictment against united nation.
| The boycott" ESQ called after a
Capt. Boycott of Mayo was the great
weapon he placed in the hands of the
people. BY a strict combination alone
among themselves could the Irish
tenantry hope for success, and the
] boycotting Of any man who lent by
land grabbing assistance to the
landlord. was essential to success
Here is how Parnell told the people in
a speech at Ennis, the way to defend
themselves against the land grab
ber':
When a man takes a farm from
which another has been unjustly evict.
ed, you must show him on the road
side when you meet him; you mus
show him in the streets of the town
you must show him in the shop; yol
must show him in the fair-green and
in the market-place, and even in the
place of worship, by leaving him alone
by putting him into q moral Coyen-
try; by isolating him from the rest Of
his country as if he were the leper Of
old--you must show him your detesta.
ton of the crime he has committed"
| The boycott became terrible weap-
on Of the land war. The land grab.
Der" was indeed made leper in his
own country. No one would work fol
him, no one would sell him goods, not
even provisions, no one would sit with
him in church, no one would speak tt
him or his family on the streets, unit
he had undcne his crime by vacatine
the farm he had grabbed" and max
| ing public apology for his act Boy.
cotting was abused; it was often USED
to crafty personal enmities, but 1t was
far better than the blunderbuss or ear.
lier days, and, to quote John Dillon'i
words" it kept the roof over the heads
of many thousand men and womer
and children who, without it, would
\ have been thrown on the roadside t.
perish"
Towards the end of 1885 it was evil
dent to all observers of the great bat
i tie which had been kept UP for hv,
4 years with such bitter determination
i that change of some kind was al
| hand. And the change was foretolC
as being nothing less than that Glad
stone would initiate a policy of recon
i ciliation by introducing a bill in par
/ lament granting home rule to Ireland
i The report proved true Mr.. Glad
! stone early in 1886 began a campaign
i throughout Great Britain advocating
his new policy. He announced that h,
/ and his colleagues had determined II
4 address themselves seriously to thu
Irish question and ito examine care
\ fully whether il is not practicable K
4 try some method Of meeting the pres
ent case of Ireland, and ministering t,
lits wants iioie oaAF anu ihVlS SuSSe
lual going nearer to the source anC
seat of the mischief, and offering NOR,
promise Of stability than the method o
separate and restrictive criminal leg
, islation."
On the sth ofaApril. 1885, Gladston'
: rose in the house of commons befor.
the greatest gathering the house hat
Z seen in a generation, and in a speecl
) which lasted for three hours and
half, he proposed to restore to Irelant
4 her lost legislative rights, by givini
r TO her again a national parliament
2 while maintaining to The full the integ