Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/156

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
118
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.
now try to clear away the vapor from the subject and look at it in its nakedness, not through mere curiosity, but with a view to the removal of the bitter feelings which are kept living in this country by parades. We do not speak to either party in the late riots—we have neither Orange subscribers nor rowdy readers: but we speak to the great class—the Irish in America—who are made to bear the blame and the shame of the disgraceful proceedings that have marked the 12th of July in New York for two years past.

After reviewing the comments of the press on the riots the article continues:

But let us return to the main consideration. How is a recurrence of this disaster to be avoided? Let us look at the matter all round, and with coolness; other people look at it so, and we should also. It will help us to examine fairly, if we remember that a few months ago we—the Catholics of America—held monster meetings of a semi-religious nature, whereat we protested strongly against the Italian occupation of Rome— an usurpation which appears just in the eyes of many of our Protestant fellow-citizens. And later, on the 16th of June last, we celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pius IX. in many cities, with immense processions, in which we carried the Papal colors. We were not interfered with on either occasion. With this as a standpoint let us proceed. Let us, in the first place, express our firm conviction that the action of many of the Irish-American journals is both inconsiderate and unwise. If the Irish people will act judiciously on this matter, they will not widen still more the temporary gulf that a few scheming politicians have placed, or attempted to place, between them and the natives of this country. The intemperate course of a part of the Irish-American press tends to widen that gulf. The question is, Do we or do we not defend the New York rioters? As Irish-American Catholic citizens, we answer, we condemn the rioters, and ignore them both as Irishmen and Catholics. By making ourselves responsible for their acts, which we do by a vain attempt to justify them, we give the 200 Orangemen who walked in New York the satisfaction of knowing that they have destroyed all friendly feeling between Irish Catholics and native Americans; in a word, we play into their hands, and give them more than they could ever have hoped for.

It may appear very strange to some of us that all men do not see at once that the Orangemen have no right to parade. They cannot be citizens of this country so long as they remain citizens of England, to which their oath as Orangemen binds them. But the Irish people here could talk with more weight on this subject if they could show that more than a tithe of their own number evinced such an interest in the welfare of the Commonwealth a§ to secure the power of a vote. Such