The Irish standard., 1910-05-14
A TIMELY ADVICE
To the Members of the A. o. H. by
Hon. T. B. Minahan.

dress by Hon. 7. b. Minahan, former
national president of the American
Federation of Catholic Societies, at
Portland, Ore, will be read with in
terest in view of the coming conven-
ton of the A. o. H. to be held in that
city next July:
However the struggle for Home Rule
may successfully terminate, whatever
the final outcome of the uncertainties
upon the English political checker
board may be, those of US who have
thoughtfully marked and noted the I'M
folding of the great drama, with all it's
lights and shadows-as Americans,
we must lift our hats to the sublime
patience, the self governing capacity
shown in every crisis of the great
struggle by the Irish people and their
maSterful leadership
During the stirring events of the
past thirty years we have seen every
ingenuity of cunning, every refine
1nent of cruelty exhausted by Eng
lish craftsmanship to betray Ireland
into armed (rather unarmed) rebel
lion.
We saw Kilmainham prison again
and again crowded with the brightest,
the bravest and the best of Irish lead
ership. We saw the rack-renting and
wholesale evictions. We saw Eng
land eagerly play into the desperate
hand of Irish Jacobin and Girondist;
we saw her shamelessly court the sci
entiiic weapon of Irish dynamite that
she might UNANIMOUSLY follow it up with
the paid treachery and perjury of the
LeCarons and the Pigots.
The world has never refused to con-
cede genius or courage to the fight
ing race"
Never before, though, in all her fat
ed history has Ireland SO grandly
measured up to the higher test OF
shrewd discretion. of sublime patience,
of heroic fortitude.
After ALL is it not masterful dis
cretion. calculating, far seeing cool
blow that means success? F'ortitude
is nobler than mere courage. Think a
moment!
Was the heroism that died without
firing shot amid the terrific cam
nonade that hurled from Little Round
Top-was it surpassed by the head
long charge that breasted the deadly
slopes of Cemetery Heights? Wash
ington in the gloom after Monmouth's
defeat was grander than Washington
in the victor blaze of Saratoga and of
Yorktown. Marshal Mcdonald, seal
ing the Tyrolean Alps, battling the
avalanche of the Splugen, is greater
than Mcdonald piercing the Austrian
center upon the terrific field of Wa
gram. Ney, holding the rear guard of
the retreat from Moscow-firing and
spiking the last gun at the passage
Of the Nieman, is a sublimer spectacle
than the "Bravest Of the Brave" seek
ing death in the frenzied excitement
of watsrloo's bloody twilight.
Ireland curbing the hot blood of
righteous but impotent anger under
the cruelty, the humiliation and the
shame of landlord evictions; Ireland
answering desperation goading coer-
cion with stern but passive agrees
sion; Ireland-Parnell, Davitt, Dillon,
Redmond-calmly pleading the stern
justice of-their countrys cause in the
parliament of man-they have pre-
scented an example of national disci
pline, of level-headed shrewdness that
has won the respect and gained the
irresistible power of the enlightened
public opinion of the civilized world.
Their country's sword hopelessly
broken at the filt, Ireland's leadership
of today forged in the white heat of
the worlds public sentiment weapon
grander in freedoms righteous cause
than any in all the armory of human
power.
Just here, permit me word of
eulogy to the memory of the dead lead
er-Parnell.
4 "How shall we rank him on glorys
page,
That more than rebel, just less than
sage"
His epitaph is written in the Irish
B heart. True, it is written in the sad
dest of all sad words-"it might have
Z been!"
y Because he initiated the libcrtine
rottenness of English aristocracy; be-
cause he dared to sully the stainless
\ escutcheon of people whose honor is
pure as ''unsunned snow" because of
this he fell. And yet, the muse of
Irish history has written that name,
4 Parnell, highest Of all upon the tablet
Of brilliant, practical, successful Irish