ommunication. This
conduct is capable of but one explanation. They cannot stand
investigation. The question with them is, shall their personal
reputations be destroyed, or the organization be ruined? and they
have chosen the latter. Men with true instincts, and whose records
were clean, would scorn to force themselves on any organization, to
handle its funds and direct its policy, while under such
accusations as have been leveled against the Triangle. Men with the
real good of Ireland and of the V. C. at heart, would refuse to
hold office at the expense of the unity and the efficiency of the
organization. Looked at from any stand-point their conduct is
indefensible and unpatriotic. No man fit for the duties of the high
office, these men hold, would acquire it by such means or hold on
to it when acquired. No men who honestly intended to aid the men at
home to free Ireland--which is the fundamental principle of the V.
C.--would begin their official careers by deceiving their
colleagues in Ireland and persisting in carrying on any policy
against their protest.

Since the disastrous gathering, miscalled a convention, which met
in Boston twelve months ago, the organization has been going from
bad to worse. The deceit and trickery by which three members of the
F. C. were enabled to continue themselves in power, and so to
change the whole form and object of the order, as to make it a
convenient instrument for the furtherance of personal ambition, at
the expense of the sacred cause of Ireland, have continued to play
havoc in our ranks. The strength and vitality of the national
movement have been shattered. The oldest and strongest D's are
being driven out one by one, and a system of repression of free
speech and sham trials, copied from the worst features of British
tyranny in Ireland, is brought into requisition for the purpose of
crushing all independence of thought, and stifling the voice of
patriotism. No honest man in the V. C., who sees and hears what is
going on around him, can fail to recognize that ruin and
disintegration must speedily make shipwreck of our hopes, if a
strong and vigorous remedy be not soon applied. No intelligent man
can fail to see that every effort of the three men who have usurped
the governing authority of the V. C., eve