The Irish Standard

SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL.
Alderman McArdle Introduces a Pro-Boer Resolution.

At a recent meeting of the Seattle (Wash.) city council a resolution of sympathy for the Boers was introduced by Alderman McArdle and elicited a warm discussion. The resolution was defeated by a vote of 8 to 4. In supporting the resolution, Alderman McArdle made a forcible address in which he denounced "the unholy war being waged by England against the South African republic." He declared that the citizens of Seattle "were in full sympathy with the struggles of the little republic to maintain its liberty against a tyrannical and oppressive nation."

"Ten years ago," said McArdle, "an American who would have dared to vote against a resolution such as this would have been hooted off the face of the earth, and I wish it were so to-day. There's a lot of talk floating around this country about an Anglo-Saxon alliance, and I want to say there are not ten Anglo-Saxons in this country to one million other people. I don't truckle to Johnny Bull. The Boers are fighting for their homes, their liberty and their firesides, which the English are trying to destroy. Talk about savagery! Who was the savage when the English chucked dynamite down in the caves of the Zulus? These people (the English) have always been a savage among nations."

Alderman Gill, who is apparently an Anglomaniac, took up the cudgels for John Bull and said: "I may talk too d----d much, but it seems to me to be pretty far-fetched for this city council to attempt to enter into diplomatic relations with the Transvaal republic. I don't think our duties compel us to enter into international disputes and attempt to decide them. This fight is none of our affair, and even if it were I want to say that I believe England has the right end of this mess. These Boers have disfranchised Jews, Catholics and everybody else except themselves, and I'm not going to vote for any resolution expressing sympathy with any such style of doing business. The Boers are a lot of semi-barbarians and but few removes from savagery."

The classic eloquence of Gill prevailed with the cultured city fathers and on motion of Alderman Castleman the resolution was indefinitely postponed.