Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-08-02

all by instinct. Had 1 not been born ia
a mining camp? And even before 1
self, somehow, that I should lead a
force in that war. How it was to hap
pen l had no idea, and the realization
of this feeling was something like a
miracle, and yet it all happened quite
simply. A day or two after / ar
rived in the capital of the Boer re-
public met man who was forminE
an Irish brigade to fight for the burgh-
ers, and offered him my assistance
speaking French and German as /
did. 1 soon enlisted plenty of recruits
from the cosmopolitan crowd of ad-
venturers who were then thronging
to the country. All the time, as it hap
pened. the man who originally under
took the formation of the brigade was
getting more funky about leading, and
finally retired altogether. Kruger and
Joubert were at their wits end to
know whom to appoint to the COM
mand, but finally, when several of US
who had been concerned in the bust
ness at johannesburg went up to
Pretoria to report progress, Dom Paul
asked: Who has organized this force,
anyway? The reply was that | had.
Then. said Kruger, you are the man
to lead it. Will you? / replied that
would lead if the men would follow.
which they unanimously agreed to do.
True. 1 knew nothing of war, though
my first inclination had been to be q
soldier, but i discovered the secret of
leadership by analysis of its elements.
Just as l learned psychology and to
drive my taxicab."
As a fact, comparatively few of the
second Irish brigade as it was called.
were 1rishmen. but to make ND for this
there were volunteers of almost every
other nationality under the sun. Amer
lea, Australia, Cape Colony. the Trans
vaal. the Orange Free State. France
Germany. Holland, Italy, Austria, Greece
Russia and Bulgaria were repres euted
and the corps even boosted the pi essence
in its ranks for a time of one solitary
Englishman. They numbered about go
all told. Never probably, since the darn
Of history, has SO cosmopolitan boiy
Of men. taking into consideration lis size.
been commanded by any one man:
I'VE did real fighting" observed r.yard
and often and often l have lain behind
q rock or some other natural protec.'t1
while the bullets battered on all SIDES of
me, literally like hailstones. yet escaped
with only q scratch or two"
1t was while the Boer war was i'm
progress. or in 1901, that the colonel Of
the Irish brigade was elected as memscr
Of parliament for Galway City. ST. ar
ace plunkett being the defeated c<ndi-
date Coming to England In 1902 aft =,
peace was declared in South Africa. 10
take his seat In parliament. Lynch r;s
arrested and charged with high Treason
for fighting as a British citizen against
the forces of the crown The govern
ment's action in bringing him to trial in
London. he declares, was a breach of its
own treaty OF Vereenfgen, which set
forth that all prisoners should be tried
in their own countries. and his punish
ment is stigmatized by the Irish member
as designed to "glut the revenge of the
populace," a thing typical, he asserts OF
Justice in this country. instancing the
treatment of the militant suffra gettes,
which he declares is calculated neither
to correct them nor deter others, the
avowed purpose Of justice.
Since his release from prison, where,
he says, he was kindly treated by such
of the warders as were old soldiers and
had served in the South African war,
and where. by the way. he was the only
prisoner permitted to have tooth powder,
Lynch has interviewed more than once in
European politics.
when Norway elected to become O
kingdom" he said. II wrote letter to
Bjornson in protest. and sent copies OF
1t to most of the leading European pa
pers. Few of them saw fit to publish IL,
but among those who did so was the Lis
bon vanguarda, a republican organ,
which printed my letter directed against
monarchy in heavy black letters on its
front page. One week later came the
Portuguese revolution. There may have
been no connection between the two
events. but II may be, too. that I hur-
ried matters along"
Copyright, :9:i. hy Curtis Brown,