The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-06
JOHN REDMOND,
 IRISH LEADER,
 DIES IN LONDON
Continued from Page 1.)

imperatiye necessary owing to an in testinal obstruction. This was reIeV- ed by the operation and for some days satisfactory progress was maintained. After a fairly comfortable day Tues day heart failure supervened during the night and after a few hours MT. Redmond passed peacefully away"
 For more than 25 years John D. Redmond fought for home rule in Ireland and for a majority of that time he was the recognized leader or Ireland's struggle for liberty" As chairman of the Irish Parliamentary party-the Nationalists- exerted powerful influence in bringing about the creation of the Irish convention organized in July, 1917, to devise system of government for the islan'i'
 When David Lloyd George, the British Premier, in that year offered two methods of settling the Yexed Irish question, it was Redmond who, ns spokesman for the Nationalists, re- jected the proposition for partition of Ireland and, instead, accepted Lloyd Georges alternative plan for the convocation of the Irish conven-
  parties and creeds might meet in the effort to compose their differences and draft a constitution that would afford justice to all.
 Redmond was one of the delegates to the convention which sat at var ious times at Dublin, Belfast and Cork in 1917 and 1918.
 Born in 1851, son of W. A. Red mond member of the British Parlia- ment from Wexford, Ireland, John E. Redmond had sat almost continu- ously in the British House of Com mons since 1881. There his parlia- ment fights for home rule earned for him the sobriquet of the stormy petrel of the House"
 Educated in Clongowes Woods College, Kildare, and Trinity College, Dublin, Redmond was called to the London bar 1886 and the Irish bar the following year but he never prac- tised law. He devoted himself al- most wholly to his parliamentary and political duties.
 Prior to his first election to Parlia ment from New Ross, Ireland, Red- mond was for some time a clerk in the vote office of the House of Commons. From 1885 to 1891 he represented North Wexford, but in 1891 he was elected from Waterford and had been returned from that district since gen. erally without opposition.
 Redmon's eloquence and his grasp of parliamentary procedure won his early recognition in Parliament and when in 1891 the Irish party was dis rupted, consequent on the Parne1 scandals he became the accredited leader of the Parnellites. In 1900 he succeeded in bringing about an anal gamation of the two leading National ist parties and made his position as Nationalist leader secure.
 Redmond was well known in the United States, which he visited in 1908 and 1910, and Australia, where in 1883 he not only performed a great service for his party in directing the collection of a fund of more than $50,00O but found a wife in the per- son of Johanna Dalton, New South | Wales heiress and beauty.
 The Irish leaders first visit to this country proved a fiasco, but his sec ond, made for the purpose ostensibly | of attending the convention of the United States Irish League at Buffalo, met with great success Following his attendance at the convention, Red mond made tour of all the principal l cities of the middle west and the At 1 lantic coast, delivering a series of ad- dresses on the Irish question which were later held responsible for the | British cabinet crisis of November 1 1910.
 The speeches brought the home rule question to a .head. The British government took serious hold of the | problem and a bill was evolved which on presentation and discussion in the House of Commons resulted in i n impasse because of the Ulster op- 1 position. This was shortly before the outbreak of the great war.
 With the entrance of England into the war, Redmond immediately de- fined his position as squarely with the government in tho earnest prosecution of the war. His support of the gov ernment won the unstinted praise of | Cardinal Gibbons and the open and bitter condemnation of the Sim Feiu party, members of which at public meeting accused him of being a trai. tor to the Irish cause.
 He maintained his loyal position even during the exciting days of the Sim Fein revolution, decrying the re- bellion. but attributing it to a Ger man plotting in the United States When the rebellion had been put down he used all the eloquence of which he was capable in pleading for lenieacy
 toward the great mass of the rebels tnd in urging a speedy settlement ot the differences that hat caused the revolt.
 His eloquent address 3 She House of Commons on OctobeA 9, 1916, de.
 manning immediate hNB rule an6 lthe release of the Irish FS~olutionist, J called forth an answer Arom Premiel E Lloyd George IIr which the Premier admitted that mistakes tad been mad, ! in handling the Irish situation an 7 urging an,arties to unite in bringin kabOut solution.