< Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu
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CHAPTER XII.

His Editorials and Public Utterances—Honored by Dartmouth College and Notre Dame—The "Statues in the Block"—"Ireland's Opportunity"—"Erin"—Tribute to Longfellow—His Great Poem, "America," Read before the Veterans—The Phoenix Park Tragedy—Death of Fanny Parnell—"To those who have not yet been President."


IN April, 1881, died the great Tory Prime Minister of England, Benjamin Disraeli, less well known as Lord Beaconsfield. Through all his life, from the day when he first brought down upon his rash head the caustic scorn of O'Connell, to the end of his glittering career, he had been the enemy of the Irish cause,—not from any bigotry,—he was not sincere enough to be a bigot,—but because such was the policy favored by the Tory party. O'Reilly thus summed up the character of the greatest of modern political charlatans:

The place of an able political showman is made vacant in England by the death of Lord Beaconsfield. It was peculiarly his own, and it probably will not be filled again as he filled it. A showman, whether political or otherwise, needs more than common talent to achieve great success. Benjamin Disraeli certainly possessed a high order of talent, and it is equally certain that his success was of no common sort. He employed the arts and tricks of the charlatan; but it was the hand of a master that used them. It was a great thing for a man inheriting the disadvantages of race, and—at least nominally—of creed, which beset Disraeli at the beginning of his career, to conquer in spite of them. England was still full of intolerance toward Jews when the son of the Jew, Isaac Disraeli, began to attract attention. He had to fight his way against that intolerance, and he fought it well. The barriers which obstructed his progress were overcome, one after another, by persistent, undeviating effort. The obscure son of the Jew, whose only claim to distinction
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