Parnell, was yet enough attracted to the young man to
say, "There is the future Irish leader: the man has a definite policy
and a purpose that will be difficult to oppose."

In January, Eighteen Hundred Eighty, at the Academy of Music, Buffalo,
New York, I attended the first meeting of the American Branch of the
Irish Land League.

I was a cub reporter, with no definite ideas about Parnell or Irish
affairs, and as at that time I had not been born again, I had a fine
indifference for humanity across the sea. To send such a woolly
proposition to report Parnell was the work of a cockney editor, born
with a moral squint, within sound of Bow Bells. To him Irish agitators
were wearisome persons, who boiled at low temperature, who talked much
and long. All the Irish he knew worked on the section or drove drays.

At this meeting the first citizens of Buffalo gave the proceedings
absent treatment. The men in evidence were mostly harmless: John J.
McBride, Father Cronin, James Mooney, and a liberal mixture of Mc's and
O's made up the rest; and as I listened to them I made remarks about
"Galways" and men who ate the rind of watermelons and "threw the inside
away."

Judge Clinton, of Buffalo, grandson of De Witt Clinton, had been
inveigled into acting as chairman of the meeting, and I remember made a
very forceful speech. He introduced Michael Davitt, noticeable for his
one arm. All orators should have but one arm--the empty sleeve for an
earnest orator being most effective. Davitt spoke well: he spoke like an
aroused contractor to laborers who were demanding shorter hours and more
pay.

Davitt introduced Parnell. I knew Davitt, but did not know Parnell.
Before Parnell had spoken six words, I recognized and felt his
superiority to any other man on the stage or in the audience. His speech
was very deliberate, steady, sure, his voice not loud, but under perfect
control. The dress, the action, the face of the man were regal.
Afterwards I heard he was called the "Uncrowned King," and I also
understood how certain Irish peasants thought of him as a Messiah. His
plea was for a clear comprehension of the matter at issue, that it might
be effectively dealt with, without heat, or fear, or haste. He carried a
superb reserve and used no epithets. He showed how the landlords were
born into their environment, just as the Irish peasantry were heirs to
theirs. The speech was so full of sympathy and rich in reason, so
convincing, so patheti