The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-12-02

OF our soldiers on the African veldt;
the dead Dutch farmer, who shall re-
turn no more to the home and fireside
which he defended with his life. We
think OF the weeping mothers, and Sis
ters and sweetllearts whose beloved
ones have been sacrificed to make
fnanciers' holiday. And we think, also,
OF the ghoulish crew who are turning
all this blood into coin;swh are laugh
ing behind their wine at the simple vic
tins OF their greed.
The child will cry for its father; the
father answers not; he lies in South
Africa; his courageous heart has ceased
to beat; his glazed eyes, arc toward the
stars. Mammon has claimed him for
her own.
The girl who the other day kissed
her brave soldier boy waits for news
of him. 1t comes; an item in the
Butchers Bill. The crow is feeding on
the manly form that left these shores
SO few hours before, agiow with health
and strength. And Mammon in his
West-End palaces leers, and softly
chuckles.
The old broken soldier OF industry
hears of millions voted by parliament
for the staying OF farmers who will not
yield their independence to the hell's
crew who have promoted this carnage,
and he feebly whimpers OF old age pen
sions. Dotard! Know yet not that no
more nefarious nest of bandits ever met
under the protection OF the law than
those called the present parliament, OF
which there is hardly a member not
treble-deep in the loathsomc transac-
tions by which the company promoter
transfers their hard-woa earnings from
the pockets OF the simple into those OF
the cunning tricksters oi finance?
And ye, great hearts who strive in
the rage OF battle, not knowing why yc
quarrel, to you England offers cordial
welcome. The workheuscs are being
enlarged; there will be plenty OF accom-
mediation presently for all OF you, and
those who have depended upon you.
And when the carrion o;rd has picked
the last bone, and the thunder OF war
has died away, there will be rejoicing
in the house OF Dives. For have ye not
brought him great wealth and honor,
and will not his sons and daughters
grow up to rule over yen, even as he
has done?
You people for whom we have toiled
for so many years-for whom the hand
who traces these lines has written in the
columns OF this journal now for twenty
years-are the labors and the sacrifices
of the past to be thrown to the wind at
the instance of all that is basest in our
common country? For what right or
privilege that the people now enjoy
have we not labored? And as to those
who inherit them-arc we to see the
unspeakable spectacle that they whom
we helped to bring from the house Of
bondage, freely, OF their own motive,
re-cnter its dark portals? In despair
one sometimes asks are such people
worth the consecration Of ones life?
Was it for a blood stained democracy
that the martyrs OF the people went to
their doom in the long struggle between
the masses and their oppressors. Was
it to be thought that, having secured
the people their rights, they should hand
them back again to their tyrants under
a fresh mask, asking to be manaclcd
anew?
We can see the pale ghosts of the
men who have been butchered on the
scahold for espousing the cause OF the
down-trodden, the helpless, the poor;
the blackened homes; the ruined viz
gins; the children crying for bread; the
rickety babes in their slun-dens, rising
in accusation against those who have
forgotten the agony OF the past, the
duties Of the present. But, thank God,
there are still in this country men. In
the darkest days for the people, there
we're great spirits, whose tongues could
not be silenced; for whom prison had
no terrors; who handed on the burning
lamp of freedom from generation to
generation. From their graves the
apostles OF liberty cry to us to be true
to our trust. That spirit shall survive
when Dives and all his dark and crook
ed projects are driven pack into the
hell from which they sprang.
A Religious General.