ATTEMPTS TO SAVE THE GOVERNMENT. The alliance between the socialistic societies and the various Irish organizations had for some time been impossible of concealment. Still the Irish had taken a less active part in the bloody inauguration of the revolution than had the others. The Government at Washington found communication with the various State Governments practically shut off. It was helpless for offence or defence. With such troops as it had been able to collect from Fortress Monroe and a few other neighboring garrisons, it had barely kept down the revolutionists in Washington. A band of some ten thousand now set out from New York and Philadelphia to reinforce them and seize the capital. At a Cabinet meeting held to consider the situation it was decided to call on the Irish members of Congress to use their influence with Irish organizations throughout the country, either to detach them altogether from the revolutionists, or to bring about some understanding by which a peace might be patched up till the next national election should afford the people an opportunity to pass upon the whole matter. These Irish members had distinguished themselves, during the long debates which had dragged through the early summer and the heated tirades which had succeeded the first outburst of the revolutionists, by sitting unmoved in their seats, taking no part in the proceedings except when some chance allusion by another speaker afforded them the pretext for uttering a fierce demand that the United States undertake “the cause of Ireland.” They seemed to have lost all sense of American citizenship, and to have become engrossed by the mania that their only duty was, _fas aut nefas_, to aid the rebellion which was smouldering in Ireland. This had been the general opinion regarding their motive. But now it was seen at last that they had been acting in accordance with a consistent plan to do nothing and say nothing which could be construed as unfriendly to the revolutionists. How much influence did they possess with their own compatriots and with the revolutionary leaders? That was the question which the Cabinet determined to settle. They were summoned to the White House, and their good offices besought by the President in person. In other times, the spectacle of the President of the United States begging a dozen Irish politicians to intercede with a mob for the safety of the Republic would have been received with derision. But the people never heard of this last shame upon them. The newspapers, excepting those whose sympathies were with the revolutionists, had been among the first to go down in the general wreck. The ordinary means of spreading information among the people had ceased to exist, and whatever news was published was colored and distorted by the prejudices of the socialist and Irish editors, who alone were allowed to continue their business.