Thomas B. Reed

[Speech of Justin McCarthy at a dinner given in his honor, New York City, October 2, 1886. When the speaking began, Judge Browne, who presided, asked the audience to drink the health of Justin McCarthy, the guest of the evening, with this quotation from Thomas Moore:—

"Here's the Poet who drinks; here's the warrior who fights;
Here's the statesman who speaks in the cause of men's rights;
Charge! hip, hip, hurrah! hurrah!"

Continuing, Judge Browne said: "We feel it a proud privilege to be permitted to gather and do honor to one who has done honor to our name and nation in a foreign land. When the great leader of the Irish people was bidding you good-by at the other side of the water, he said that the aid you had rendered him and his colleagues had largely helped to advance the interests of Ireland in her onward march to freedom. Our knowledge of you enables us to indorse that statement. [Applause.] What you have written in one of our city papers has shown us step by step the progress of the Home Rule movement. That great work has been accomplished by the Irish leader there can be no doubt. I witnessed it personally a few short weeks ago, when standing in the strangers' gallery in the House of Commons, I saw a handful of Irish members under the leadership of Parnell withstand the assaults of six hundred English members. [Applause.] It was an awe-inspiring sight. When one remembers that within the four walls of that small building that group of Englishmen were making laws for three hundred millions of people, and that the representatives of a nation numbering only five millions were enabled to keep them in check at the bidding of Parnell, I was struck with astonishment. Not only have the Irish people Parnell with them now, but they have Gladstone [applause], and more than half of the English people; and we have in addition Justin McCarthy [prolonged applause], and with this continuation of moral force we are certain to win Home Rule for Ireland soon. Gentlemen, I give you the health of our guest, Justin McCarthy."]

Gentlemen, friends, All:—I am very sure you will believe that I speak with the utmost sincerity when I say that, although much in the habit of addressing public meetings of various kinds, friendly and hostile, I really do feel somewhat embarrassed in rising to address this entirely friendly meeting to-night. The warmth and the kindness of your reception, many of you Irishmen, some of you Americans, does surprise and does, to a great extent, overpower me. Judge Browne, your chairman, has regretted the absence of Eugene Kelly. I myself regret his absence on personal and on public grounds; on personal grounds for his sake, and still more, as I am rather selfish, for my own sake. [Applause.] For his sake because ill health keeps him away, and for my own sake because I have never yet had the chance of meeting him, and had finally hoped that here to-night I should have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. I should not complain very much for myself after all, for the worthy gentleman who fills the place of Mr. Kelly so ably—I mean Judge Browne [applause]—has said more complimentary things of me than I really deserve before a gathering so influential and so representative as this.

Upon the great political questions which interest me, and which interest you, I shall perhaps have occasion to say a few words, perhaps more than a few words Monday night, and I hope to see many of the gentlemen who are now here present then, and if they be wavering on the question of Home Rule I am nearly certain they will go away stanch disciples of justice to Ireland, in a legislative sense, at all events. [Applause.] There may be some among you who do not entirely agree with me upon my views regarding the relations between England and Ireland. Some may regard me with more favor as a writer of books than as an expounder of Home Rule for Ireland. [Cries of "No! No!"] I will therefore regard this occasion as a welcome given by you to me personally, and shall not go into any political question whatever. Regarding myself, I may assume this much, at least, that the question of Home Rule for Ireland is now universally regarded in America as one of those questions bound up with the great cause of civilization and of progress, and I entirely agree with the chairman when he said that the Irish people in this struggle do not entertain any feelings of hate or enmity for the English people. [Applause.] I may say sincerely that I would not have joined the agitation if it had been selfish and merely for the sake of Ireland alone, and not, as it has been, a movement for the advancement of freedom and enlightened ideas among other struggling nations of the earth. [Applause.]

I have said over and over again, in England as well as in Ireland, that the cause that I was advocating was one of interest and of the most vital importance to England as well as to Ireland. [Applause.] Many years ago I heard Mr. Bright deliver a great speech in the House of Commons in favor of a French commercial treaty. He wound up that great speech by saying that the adoption of that treaty would be a policy of justice to England, and of mercy to France. I call the policy that I and my colleagues in the English Parliament are identified with, a policy of justice to Ireland and of mercy to England. [Applause.] I call it a policy of mercy to England because it is a policy which shall bury forever the rancor of centuries that has existed between Irishmen and Englishmen; a policy which will change things so far that Ireland, instead of being the enemy at the gate shall be the friend at the gate, who, if need be, can speak with some effect to the enemy from without. After a long, a very long and a very bitter agitation, we now at last are within reach of the consummation of our hopes. [Applause.]

I am glad indeed to receive from an audience in this city, composed as it is of many nationalities, such a hearty endorsement of the policy which I and my people have carried out in struggling to give Ireland her rights. I see here the Irish harp and the American stars and stripes. Long and forever may these flags wave side by side. [Prolonged applause.] How shall we distinguish between Irishmen and Americans? Are the echoes which resound in this hall Irish or American echoes? [Cries of "Both! Both!"] The voices that speak are Irish certainly, but the roof, the walls that give back the sound are American. [Applause.] May we not therefore claim the indistinguishable unity of nationality, of sentiment, and of feeling?

I should be ungrateful, indeed, gentlemen, did I not express my warm acknowledgments for this greeting which you have given me—this hearty Irish welcome. I shall never forget the words of warmth which you have spoken to myself personally and the expressions of encouragement which you have given to my people and my cause. I shall tell my friends when I go back, that among the best supporters we have upon this side are Americans and Irish-Americans who believe firmly in the justice of Ireland's cause and of the determined yet peaceable, strictly peaceable, character of the struggle which Ireland's representatives are making for the re-establishment of her Parliament in College Green. [Prolonged applause.]