Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/271

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HIS LIFE, POEMS AND SPEECHES
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the most wicked, destructive, and "dreadful policy" she has ever pursued toward Ireland.

England has made O'Donovan Rossa and all the rest of the dynamiters, and now she must make the best of them. We refuse to help her by any more "denunciation." When she had Rossa chained like a wild beast in the dark cells of Millbank and Portland she was sowing the seeds of the dreadful "policy of dynamite" that scares her now for her palaces.

She is sowing similar seed to-day. She will reap the harvest of the hatred and despair she is planting in the hearts of unjustly imprisoned men like Davitt, Healy, Harrington, and Quinn.

A convention of the Irish National League of America, the greatest of its kind ever held in this country, took place at Philadelphia, on April 25, nearly twelve hundred delegates being present, representing all the States and Territories of the Union, and also the provinces of Canada. O'Reilly attended the convention unofficially; he never sought or held any office in the various national organizations which he supported so warmly with pen and purse. He was equally averse to accepting political honors. He had been offered the nomination as auditor on the Democratic ticket in Massachusetts in 1878, but declined the honor. In the national election of 1888 he did accept the honorary position of elector-at-large. He showed his independence in politics by advocating the re-election of Governor Butler, despite the secession of many Democrats, as he had previously favored the nomination of Dr. Green, for Mayor of Boston. He was not always regarded as a "safe" man by politicians; he had a conscience.

On the 12th of July of this year, dear to the hearts of Orangemen as the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, a new significance was given to the day by the Irish-Americans of Massachusetts, who held their State convention in Faneuil Hall. The meeting was called to order by John Boyle O'Reilly, who said, among other things:

I recognize in this meeting a symbolic and a unique purpose. Twelve years ago this day, in a great American city, about this time in the morning, the militia regiments were called out to protect the peace, because the lives and property of the great city were in danger from an