[Speech of Charles Emory Smith at the banquet given by the
Hibernian Society of Philadelphia, St. Patrick's Day, March 17,
1887. Mr. Smith was introduced by the Society's President, John
Field, and called upon to speak to the toast, "The Press."]
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--These annual dinners of the
Hibernian Society, several of which I have had the honor of attending,
are distinguished by a peculiar association and spirit. The sons of
other nationalities, Englishmen, Welshmen, Scotchmen, Germans, and those
among whom I count myself--the sons of New England--are accustomed to
meet annually on the anniversary of a patron saint or on some great
historic occasion as you do. And those of us who have the opportunity of
going from one to the other will, I am sure, agree with me that nowhere
else do we find the patriotic fire and the deep moving spirit which we
find here. Something of this, Mr. President, is due to the buoyant
quality of blood which flows in every Irishman's veins--a quality which
makes the Irishman, wherever he may be and under all circumstances,
absolutely irrepressible. Something, I say, is due to this buoyant
quality of the Irish blood. Still, some of it is due to the fact that he
is moved by a deep sense of the woes and the wrongs, of the sadness and
the sorrows of his native land. Oppression and injustice only inflame
the spirit of nationality. The heel of the oppressor may crush and tear
the form or reduce the strength, but nothing crushes the inward resolve
of the heart. The Americans were never so American as when they revolted
against England and threw the tea overboard into Boston harbor, and
punished the Red-Coats at Bunker Hill. The heavy yoke of Austria rested
grievously upon Hungary, but they raised themselves in revolt and fought
fearlessly for their home rule, for their freedom and their rights. And
they were defeated by treason in their camps and by the combined forces
of Austria and Russia. Yet, sir, they persevered until they achieved
home rule--as will Ireland at no distant day.
The long history of oppression and injustice in Ireland has not only not
extinguished the flame of Irish patriotism and feeling, but has served
to kindle it, to make it more glowing to-day than ever before. For seven
centuries Ireland has wrestled with and been subjected to misrule--to
England's misrule: a rule great and noble in many things, as her
priceless statesman says, but with this one dark, terrible stain upon an
otherwise noble history. Only a day or two ago there reached our shores
the last number of an English periodical, containing an article from the
pen of that great statesman, to whom not only all Ireland, but all the
civilized world is looking to-day to battle for freedom in England. The
article presents, in the most striking form that I have ever seen,
statements of what is properly called Ireland's demands. And I was
struck there with the most extraordinary statement coming from this
great statesman of England, of the character of England's rule, or
rather England's misrule, of Ireland during those seven centuries. For
all those centuries, he says, were centuries not only of subjection, but
of extreme oppression. The fifth century was the century of
confiscation; the sixth was a century of penal laws--penal laws, which,
he says, "we cannot defend and which we must condemn and wash our hands
of the whole proceedings"--a century of penal laws, except from 1778 to
1795, which he calls the golden age of Ireland. And as I stop for a
moment to recollect what had distinguished that period, and as you stop
here to-night and recollect for a single moment what had distinguished
that short period of that century and made it the golden age of Ireland,
you will understand why it was so called. It was the period when Henry
Grattan, the great leader of the first battle for home rule, poured
forth his learned and masterly eloquence; when Curran made his powerful
plea for religious emancipation. The period when Robert Emmet--to whom
such glorious tribute has been paid here to-night--was learning, in the
bright early morn of that career which promised to be so great and to do
so much, those lessons of patriotism which enabled him, when cut down in
the flower of youth, to meet even his ignominious death with marvellous
nerve and firm confidence, with courage and patriotism.
And, Gentlemen, I believe that it is one glorious trait of the American
press that during this struggle which has gone on now for years, this
struggle for justice in Ireland, that the press of America has been true
to the best inspirations of liberty; and I unhesitatingly say to England
and to the English ministers, that if they would conform to the judgment
of the civilized world they must abandon their course of intoleration
and oppression, and must do justice to long oppressed Ireland. The
press, the united press of Philadelphia, and of other great cities of
the country, have done their part in promoting that work which has been
going on among our people for the last few years to attain this end.
The press of Philadelphia aided in raising that magnificent fund of
$50,000 which went from this side; and if it need be, it will put its
hand to the plough and renew work. It was the remark of Mr. Gladstone,
that looking at past events, they [England] could not cite a single
witness in behalf of the cause which they represented. The American
people began their contributions in 1847, to prevent the starvation of
many of those people, and they continued their contributions to stop
evictions, and to pay the landlords; they continued their contributions
to promote that work of freedom and justice and home rule, for which we
stand united, inflexible and immovable until it shall be finally
accomplished. [Applause.]
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