xt77wm13ng0p_23 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt77wm13ng0p/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt77wm13ng0p/data/51w15.dao.xml unknown 6 Cubic Feet 9 boxes, 1 item archival material 51w15 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Caleb Powers papers Assassination -- Politics and government -- Kentucky. Conspiracy -- Kentucky. Affidavits Statesmen. Lawyers -- Kentucky. Address Delivered by Judge James H. Mulligan at Frankfort, KY on October 5, 1903 text Address Delivered by Judge James H. Mulligan at Frankfort, KY on October 5, 1903 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt77wm13ng0p/data/51w15/Box_2/Folder_10/12322.pdf section false xt77wm13ng0p_23 xt77wm13ng0p ' i
COPIED FROM THE LOUISVILLE EVENING POST OCTOBER 6, 1905
ADDRESS DELIVERED AT FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY, OCTOBER 5, 1905
RESENTS SLANDER ON
ROBERT EMMET'S FAME
REPUBLICAN ATTEMPT TO DRAW COMPARISON BETWEEN
ERIN°S HERO AND CALEB POWERS.
JUDGE JAMES H. MULLIGAN ADDRESSES HIMSELF IN
A STRONG SPEECH TO A PARTISAN AND
PROFANE TRICK TO CATCH THE
IRISH VOTE.
Special to the Times:
grankfort, Ky., Oct. 6a a Judge James H. Mulligan, who spoke with
enator J. C. S. Blackburn yesterday afternoon, opening the
Democratic campaign in Franklin County, made one of his characteristic
speeches awfull of the shafts of satire and humor.

The strongest feature of it was in resentment of the attempt
of Republican leaders to draw a comparison between Robt. Emmet and
Caleb Powers, for the purpose of catching the Irish vote. On this
point Judge Mulligan said:

I would not follow Powers into his cell of doom, with the
shadows drawing about him. His case is one for the courts, though under '
the circumstances, it would not be out of place here. In naming him at all,
I do it simply to protest against the desecration of a great names»

a noble memory, a singularly spotless hero.

Republican newspapers for weeks have been filled with articles
attempting to draw comparisons between Robt. Emmet and Caleb Powers.
Think of that: Coupling in the same breath—» on the same day, Caleb
Powers and one of the world's most splendid, most untarnished, most
heroic and glorious names with that of a whining promoter of a
cowardly assiaasisa, assassination, projected through motives of pure
greed and selfishness; an assassination where every detail of cowardice
was carefully planned to avoid a chance of detection; an assassination
in which this chief manager and beneficiary, too astute, too cowardly,

 *2-3!»
to fire the shot himself, hired an assassin in his stead, and fittingly ,
too, hired him with a Republican campaign fund.
****
HUMANITY'S HERO

Robert Emmet is not an enshrined hero of Ireland alone, but of
all his fellOWemen of every land where purity and nobility of
purpose can be admired; he was not a martyr to Ireland alone, but
to liberty; his memory is not only the heritage of his own loved
Erin, but of humanity as far as the earth smiles and the waves beat.
I should be false to the blood I boast if I did not from the depths
of my soul resent the sacrilege and raise my voice in protestuain
horror. So much of truth has been prostituted; so much of infamy
has been perpetrated; so much of crime has been done, to save these
monsters from the consequences of their own acts, spare at least
the memory of the sainted dead of an hundred years from the base use
of creating a sentiment to aid the escape of criminals. This effort
is as meaningless to effect escape of the criminals as it is mendacious.

But it is not born of any sentiment sincere, or misdirected. It
is worse. It is merely using Powers and all his surroundings that '
sympathy for his terrible position may be coined into Republican votes,
and votes into office.

*******
ODIOUS COMPARISON

The Irish are always generous, always emotional. They cling to
the memory of Emmet as they do to the love of the land of their
fathers. All this odious effort to compare the two men, as unlike as
Hyperion and satyr, is a pitiful trick, by confusing and misleading,
to appeal to the Irish vote. Trust the Irish to resent the outrage.
If the managers of the Republican party believe the execution of the
wretched man at Georgetown would so affect public sentiment to give
a Republican victory, he could not be hurried to his doom too rapidly
for them. ‘

See how bald and impossiblenanot to say infamousuathe comparison.
Robert Emmet met at the time of his death was but a boy in years~=
but twentyathree. High born, of unusual mental abilities, with
facilities leading him to a special fondness for mathematics and
philosophy, he was superbly handsome and the soul of generosity. A
school—fellow of Moore he was expelled from the university for his
sympathy with his fellow-countrymen in the rebellion of 1798, in which .
his brother, who afterward became attorneyageneral of New York was a
leader, in which he then took part as a boy of eighteen. Once again
England for the hundredth time swept the land with fire, famine and
slaughter. He escaped to France, where he patiently collected such
arms as he could, causing them in small lots to be introduced into Ire»
land before his return four years later.

******

 495*
EMMET‘S ENTERERISE
In 1802 he organized an uprising in the city of Dublin, the rash
enterprise of an enthusiastic boy by nature a speculator and a dreamer.
He hoped to establish a republic modeled after the United States.
He was driven to desperation at the agonies of his country; the land
was in great districts a wastenwfamine everywhere. The sword and the
halter filled the ditches with the bodies of the dead—~men, women V
‘ and tender children. Neither age, nor sex was spared~=death and
famine stalked hand in hand. It was the same old story as old as file
ages; the privileged classes preying upon the masses=uthe brutal
English soldier of the Government was but "protecting the rights"~~
"the capital"ae so it was claimed of the landlord; better a nation
should be exterminated than that property rights should be vidlated
by the starving. It was such scenes as these that day after day
impelled the generous boy to strike a blow of desperation for his
famishing countrymen. His rising burst forth in the morning.
At the head of his illuorganized force, as it swept through the streets
of Dublin to attack the castle the carriage of Lord Kilwarden was , ‘
encountered by part of the force and he was slaughtered in the street
despite the entreaties and commands of Emmet. This man was a cruel
Judge. He had been the ready tool of so much of the infamy. He had
never rested day or night in the hangings and the quartering. He was
simply torn to pieces by people driven to desperation. Emmet, at
the head of his force armed in large part with only pikes and clubs,
rushed to attack the castle. One volley from the British force trained
in slaughter, and the patriots were scattered and one more rebellion
suppressed; the reign of landlordsy--of class over class—-once again
vindicated.
*****
RETURNED TO HIS SWEETHEART '
Emmet made his escape to the Wicklow Mountains; again the gibbet
began its work. Preparations were completed for his escape to France;
all was ready but the generous boy beautiful in person, superb in intel~
lect, would listen to no reason; boy like he would take a lover's farewell
of his sweetheartua a daughter of the great lawyer and orator, John Phil”
pot Curran. He made his way to Dublin with this view, was apprehended,
tried and the next day he was hanged in the open street, his poor body
chopped and mutilated in accord with English mercy.
Emmet was charged with no murderuuno assassination. He was
charged with and convicted of treason.
» *****
A FAMOUS ORATION
In response to the prefunctory question of the judge, who broWbeat
interrupted and bullied him through the trial, what he could say why
sentence should not be pronounced, on the spur of the moment, with the

 464*

shadow of impending death resting upon his fair young brow, with no
gleam of hope that his forewordained sentence could be mitigated or
stayed by all he could say, he delivered one of the most classic,
most superb, most perfect oration, ever pronounced in any land by
any tongue. For a hundred years it has remained an unapproached model
of elegance; no Englishmspeaking boy is unfamiliar with the parts
of it; especially, the incomparable peroration in which he pleads;
"Let no man write my epitaph."

It has been translated until it is familiar in all literatures;
if all the stars were plucked from their spheres and counted one by
one it would not equal the number of printed copies of that speech,
made by a hopeless boy who gave his life to his country and died
that he might clasp the hand of the girl he loved. For a hundred
years the ashes of that torn and mutilated body have rested in the
yet undiscovered grave in the land he loved so well, his dying
wish respected, his epitaph unwritten. Even in the fearful days in
which he met his doom, enmity attributed no impure motive, no
ungenerous, no selfish purpose to his conduct. He is no mere
hero of poor Ireland, who has such a wealth of heros and patriots;
he has for a century been embalmed in the great heart of humanity.

*****
GHOULISH MENDACITX

Now after the green sward of his native land has tenderly
covered his grave for a hundred years, isn‘t it cruel -a mendaciousa-
that a memory so sacred, so pure, so pathetic, should be dragged into
the mire of a political contest to secure the end of an assassin
who led no brave march, who skulked in a distant city while his hired
confederate shot in the back an unsuspecting mane» a man who in the
purity of his life, the loftiness of his ideals, might with truth
be compared to Emmet. Caleb Powers' highest ambition, to satisfy
which he conspired an assassination, was to hold on to the pety salary
of a pety office.

*******
NO CHARGE OF ASSASSINATION

Emmet was charged with no assassination. At the risk of his
life he sought the side of his sweetheart. He offered no money to his
sweet heart—~no Sudie Snuffer~~t>fly the country; he sought no escape dis»
guised as a soldier; he carried in his pocket no convicting pardon for a
murder which he denied having committed. He sought no escape, disguised in '
red whiskers-—think of a man with the atrocious taste who would of all
things disguise himself with red whiskers. Out upon such a parallel,
An immortality of heroism, honor, has for Just one hundred years rested
like a halo on the name of Robert Emmet. He will live for ever in his
own undying words. Tom Moorea-as true in his personal friendships as

 w 5 *
he was enchanting in poetryaapays a tribute to his boyhood friend, and
it is among the most beautiful in our language:
*%***
MOORE'S TRIBUTE
“Oh, breathe not his name: let it sleep in
the shade,

Where cold and unhonored his relics are laid,

Sad, silent and dark be the tears that we shed,

Like the night dew that falls on the grass

o'er his head.
But the night dew that falls, though in
silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave
where he sleeps,
' And the tear that we shed, though in
secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls."
But the story is not done yet» The fair girl for whom
he gave his life was worthy of it; she pined and faded
away of a broken heart and sank into her grave in Italy.
Of her Moore also wrote these immortal lines, that for
a hundred years have been repeated and sung where ever human foot
has penetrated. Just one stanza:
“0h, make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
, When they promise a glorious marrow,
They’ll shine o'er her sleep like a smile
in the West,
From her own loved island of sorrow."

There's glory for you: To be immortalized along with his
girl he loved by the hand that wrote, "Lalla Rookh" and "The Last
Rose of Summer".

* a * * w '
DOUBLIN CASTLE

I have stood when a little more than a boy, alone and a stranger
beneath the frowning walls of Doublin Castle and gazed in melancholy
on their forbidden front. The thought would arise that here certainly

, of all places is the saddest spot upon this sad earth. He for centuries
has been centered the rule of a stranger, the rule of a foreign power,
the rule of the alien, persecuting, plundering, under the form of law
and government a people with all their faults, the most generous,

 s 5 *
emotional, sentimental, gifted and the bravest. No year has ever brought
promise of the end; no century seemed, in spite of all the softening ins
fluences of the ages to bring an approach to enlargement or amelioration.
Tyranny seemed perpetual, wrong and spoilation eternal, one class flie small
one favored by the law, made by themselves, riding with an iron hoof
over the larger one. As I stood the memory of my own people coming
bad: to me as a part of those by adversity, scattered to the four
winds, I thought, if all the sighs_and wretchedness that through six
hundred years had been wrung from generous breasts by the cruel edicts
of that castle could be consolidated into one breath, they could form a
hurricane that would grind its too solid walls into atoms; if all
the groans of tortune and famine could be gathered into one they would
create a thunder that hurl it to the ground; if all the blood that this
gloomy castle had caused to flow through the ages could be concentrated
into one vast surging river, it would sweep its accursed battlements
into the sea.
*6(-***
HEROISM VS. CRIME

It was this monstrous wrong that Robert Emmett fought to the
end. It was against this castle that the generous, impetuous boy
was hopelessly driven by the picture of the wretchedness, the agony
around him.

It is this Robert Emmet, pure, maps unspotted, noble, a model
and a hero of all time, that is sought to be dragged from his
grave of glory, to bear comparison with this man, whose present
helplessness, despite my abhorence to his crime, shall spare him
any denunciation or invective on my part.

0, take from old Erin her saints and her heros; rob her,
who has so little left to lose, of a matchless glory of her history;
wipe out the full even half she has contributed to the sum of
English literature; forget Sarsfield and his Ersh brigade; forget
Fontenoy and all the battles of the Irish Brigade in the French
service; take from her the melody of the harp that for ages has
melted humanity to tears; blast the verdure of her hills, the bloom of
her valleys, and the sheen of her waters, but in pity's name spare
unsmirched the memory of her boynhero, her ideal, Emmet.