C¥7 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 The Indictment 
 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. Daniel F. Cohalan 
 
 Justice of the Supreme Court 
 STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 
 JULY, 1919 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Friends of Irish Freedom 
 
 280 BROADWAY NEW YORK 
 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 By Hon. John Jerome Rooney, 
 Former Chief Judge of the Court of Claims of New York State 
 
 A word about the author of the following remarkable pamphlet. 
 Without doubt the paper is one of the most powerful and unique polemics 
 yet produced by Ireland's most recent struggle for independence. 
 
 To the Irish race in America, and the friends of Ireland's cause, the 
 author, Daniel Florence Cohalan, stands out as a strong national and 
 international figure. Above all else, he is to them a 100 per cent Ameri- 
 can, whose fight for Ireland's liberty grows directly out of his American 
 character and principles. 
 
 He is a native of the State of New York, born at Middletown. He 
 is in the full vigor of middle age. Of the pure Celtic strain of the 
 "fighting race," members of his family have been in every war for America 
 from the Revolution on. 
 
 He is a graduate of Manhattan College, of New York City. Admitted 
 to the Bar in 1888, for many years he practiced law in N_ew York. He 
 became interested in politics, and, over a course of years, wrote the 
 State and City platforms of one of the great parties. In the year 1911 
 he was appointed to the Supreme Court bench of the State of New York 
 and, in the following election, he was elected to a full term of fourteen 
 years. 
 
 From the days of his youth he was interested In the cause of Ireland, 
 and constantly worked and spoke in her behalf. He has visited Ireland 
 many times; has a beautiful country place near Cork, and, oddly enough, 
 knows England almost as well as he knows Ireland. He has been many 
 times a visitor of both countries and is a close student of their histories. 
 
 No man in this country is better acquainted with the strength and 
 weakness of England, and no one is more familiar than he with the 
 methods of conquest and exploitation by which the world-wide British 
 Empire has been built up. 
 
 He has made a complete study of the economic factors underlying 
 the struggle between England and Ireland. This arsenal of knowledge, 
 joined with a direct, simple, forceful style of speaking, makes him one 
 of the most convincing and powerful speakers in the United States. His 
 logic is inexorable. This quality, joined with great legal attainments, has 
 given him a reputation as one of the soundest and most capable Judges 
 of the Supreme Bench of the State of New York. 
 
 Justice Cohalan is today the leader of the Irish race and the Irish 
 cause in America. 
 
 To him is chiefly due the rise and progress of the more recent great 
 Irish movement in America. It was he who started the formation of the 
 Friends of Irish Freedom, the national organization which today is to be 
 found in every State of the Union. 
 
 He presided over the great Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia, 
 February last, to which over five thousand delegates were accredited. 
 The resolutions at the Convention were presented by Cardinal Gibbons, 
 of Baltimore, and were seconded by a Jewish Rabbi, an Episcopal Minister 
 and a Presbyterian Minister. 
 
 To Justice Cohalan the claim of Ireland admits of no compromise: 
 The Irish Republic, established by the will of the vast majority of the 
 Irish people, must be recognized. 
 
 That solution, and that only, can satisfy the people of Ireland, and, 
 therefore, the American friends of Ireland and of Liberty throughout the 
 world, and contribute to the making of a just and permanent peace for 
 all mankind. 
 
 New York, July, 1919. 
 Gift 
 

 
 THE INDICTMENT 
 
 By Hon. Daniel F. Cohalan, Justice Supreme Court, New York 
 
 The grreat trouble with the mass of the people of America on the 
 question of Ireland is their viewpoint thereon. Without intending to be 
 unfair, they take for granted the justice of the English view. They find 
 England — largely the mistress of the world and in many ways admitted to 
 be the leader of modern civilization — in possession of Ireland. 
 
 They find, according to histories mainly written by England's friends, 
 that she has been thus in Ireland for centuries, and they take it for 
 granted that she must be there legally; that she is there as a matter of 
 right. They take for granted, too, that in the evolution of civilization, 
 in the making of history, that conditions required her to be there, and 
 that England's claim to the overlordship of Ireland is a valid and just 
 claim. 
 
 This view is strengthened by all the literature which most Americans 
 ever read. The so-called English literature with which Americans come 
 in contact usually rates England as the one great power which, through 
 the centuries past, has been carrying aloft the torch of justice and prog- 
 ress into the dark corners of the world. So, it is not to be wondered at 
 that many Americans are prone to think of England as the guiding star 
 of civilization, educating and lifting up down-trodden suffering peoples 
 that have been tyrannized over by their national tyrants. 
 
 This is the view of England that Englishmen like to have the world 
 take of their country. Because of this viewpoint, it is extremely difficult 
 to get before the American jury — fair as it intends to be — the actual facts 
 of history, not to speak of the present-day conditions, as they exist in 
 Ireland. 
 
 The Dominating Figures in England 
 
 The ordinary American, accustomed to giving almost all of his time 
 to a study of internal conditions of his own country — so far as his 
 interest leads him on — has not learned to differentiate between the Eng- 
 land which is and the England that, according to her writers and poets, 
 seems to be. 
 
 He has not come to understand that the English democracy of which 
 he hears and reads so much has little reality in fact in government, and 
 that England still continues to be governed by a handful of men, represent- 
 ing, with but few exceptions, the same small group of titled land-controll- 
 ing families that have governed England since the days of Henry the 
 Eighth, if not, in fact, much longer. Since the downfall of continental 
 aristocracies this condition is true of England more than of any other 
 country. 
 
 The dominating figures in England today — those in actual pov,er — are 
 the Cecils and their relations. Lloyd George or some other figure that 
 has come to represent democracy or radicalism, if you will, in the eyes 
 of the world, is put forward as the Premier of governing authority. But 
 the will that dominates, controls and finally directs the policies and 
 actions of England, is that of the master spirit Cecil, no matter which 
 member of that family or its connections it may happen to be. 
 
 In the last generation it was the Marquis of Salisbury, former Premier 
 of England, the man who said, some forty years ago, that England and 
 America were natural rivals in every court and in every port; the man 
 who more than any other — with the exception of Joseph Chamberlain, the 
 great radical who ratted and joined the forces of conservatismi — was 
 responsible for the destruction of the two little Republics in South Africa. 
 
 It was this same Salisbury who said, in the days when the Irish were 
 carrying everything before them in the Parliamentary fights in the House 
 of Commons, that the Irish were no better than the Hottentots and should 
 
receive the same treatment. It was the same man who represented 
 England in the Congress of Berlin and of whom Bismarck said— because 
 he quit when opposed by superior force — that he reminded him of a lath, 
 painted to look like iron. 
 
 Salisbury was aided and was succeeded by his nephew, Arthur James 
 Balfour, who became Premier of England, first Lord of the Admiralty, 
 and a number of other high-sounding things, but who has never been able 
 to wipe out the title of "Bloody Balfour" conferred upon him by the 
 people of Ireland when he was Chief Secretary and, among other acts, 
 ordered the shooting, if necessary, by the troops, in cold blood, of the 
 defenseless, unarmed people of Mitchelstown. 
 
 Balfour is still to the fore and is probably the chief governing force 
 in England today, except in so far as he is displaced by his cousin, Lord 
 Robert Cecil, son of the Marquis of Salisbury and father of the proposed 
 League of Nations — which would, if it became effective, undo the work 
 of the Revolution and put us in the position of being again a vassal 
 state of England, subject to the control of the Cecils or any other landed 
 aristocracy that might, in the future, control the destinies of England 
 and the world. 
 
 These are types of the men who dominate England, and, through her, 
 control the British Empire. The little King George V, first cousin to 
 the late Emperor of the Germans and the Czar of the Russians, at present 
 represents the German royal family as King of England and Emperor 
 of India. 
 
 He rules over every third person on earth and over almost every 
 third square mile of land on earth. He is actually master of all the seas 
 and is at the head of a government more powerful than any which ever 
 before existed in all the history of mankind. 
 
 Englishmen like to say that King George reigns but does not rule. 
 That is true. The real ruling force is that handful of aristocrats who 
 represent the landed feudal aristocracy of England and who form the 
 most absolute, most arbitrary and most powerful autocracy the world has 
 ever seen. 
 
 England Makes Other Nations Supply the Soldiers 
 
 The history of England differs from that of every other country. No 
 other country before her has reached her dominant place among the 
 Empires of the earth. Rome approached nearer to England than did any 
 other country in similarity of methods by which she acquired world con- 
 trol. Her Imperial motto, "Divide et Impera," marked the policy by 
 which she subdued almost the entire world of her day and ruled the 
 known world without a rival for centuries. 
 
 But Rome acquired most of her power through her own soldiers. The 
 generals who led her armies to victory were of Roman blood; the soldiers 
 who swept everything before them on the field of battle were Roman 
 legions, who found few who could stand before them. They risked their 
 own lives, their own blood, for the quarrels of their country, in order that 
 her will might be imposed upon other countries. 
 
 England has improved on all this. She follows the Roman motto, 
 but because she leaves the control of the policy of her government in the 
 hands of her diplomats; other nations, other races, are made to supply 
 the generals who win the battles, and the soldiers who bleed, in order 
 that England may grow great. 
 
 England's Policy Takes Advantage of Friend and Foe 
 
 This policy which had its beginning under Henry the Eighth has been 
 consistently carried forward, subordinating every other interest to that 
 of the growth of England and the extension of her power. It has been 
 carried on through the ages by every governrnent which came into 
 power in England, no matter what its domestic policy may have been. 
 
 Englishmen may differ upon domestic problems — upon questions of 
 taxation, of education, of religion — but as against ail foreigners they are 
 a unit and their policy is always consistently to take advantage of all 
 openings given them throughout the world, to make and unmake alliances, 
 to make and break treaties, to take advantage of friend and foe in order to 
 
add to the wealth and power of England and to break down those who 
 have stood against her. 
 
 One of the results of this policy is seen today in the proud boast of 
 England that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Her flag flies 
 in triumph over territory in every continent and in most of the important 
 islands of the seas. It is carried aloft as the flag controlling the power 
 on every sea of the world. 
 
 Her forts guard practically all the great narrow waterways of the 
 earth, with the exception of the Panama Canal; and there by reason of 
 her extraordinary influence over American legislation, England has acquired 
 for her commerce all the rights and privileges enjoyed by American com- 
 merce, although the Panama Canal belongs to us, was built by America and 
 paid for by America's treasures. 
 
 Moulding Public Opinion of the World 
 
 Another and if possible more important result of this policy of England 
 is the extraordinary control she has gained over public opinion in every 
 country in the world. Her soldiers have won battles for her on land, her 
 admirals have won fights at sea, but these are as nothing when compared 
 to the triumph of her diplomats. No group of men in the history of the 
 world can compare in skill, in adroitness, in finesse, in influence, with the 
 diplomats of England. 
 
 The visible British Empire is an external monument of their triumph, 
 but the invisible British Empire, with its control of influences in every 
 government on earth, its thousand and one ways of making opinion through 
 the press, the magazines, the pulpits, the schools, of every race and in 
 every clime, is a vaster, more far-reaching monument of their finesse, their 
 adroitness, their ability to make black seem white. 
 
 The Romans were satisfied with their triumph at arms. When their 
 soldiers had beaten down those of the opponent, the generals and princes 
 of the vanquished were brought to Rome and make to walk sub jugo through 
 the streets, chained to the wheels of the chariots of the Roman Consul. 
 
 The English diplomat, more skilled in human nature, more subtle, 
 more far-reaching in his plans, is not satisfied with such outward marks 
 of triumph. He carries on a campaign throughout the world, to justify 
 his actions, and, if possible, to ease his own conscience. As an example: 
 
 England Attempts to Destroy the Soul of Ireland 
 
 Even though England by brute force has been in possession of the 
 body of Ireland for centuries, the English diplomat continues his fight 
 to destroy the soul of Ireland. Even though he has proclaimed, at the 
 birth of each succeeding generation, that he has again conquered Ireland, 
 he still keeps looking in vain for a declaration from the people of Ireland 
 that they have been conquered. 
 
 He tells himself that he has beaten the Irish because of the thousand 
 and one cruelties he has practiced upon them, but he knows in his heart 
 that he cannot conquer the Irish people while one man and one woman 
 of Irish blood survive. 
 
 He knows — if the world does not know — that the people of Ireland 
 want absolute independence. He has been able with a thousand subter- 
 fuges to confuse the thought of the world on the question of what Ireland 
 wants, but he cannot deceive himself. 
 
 The Balfours and Cecils of this generation know, as well as Burleigh, 
 their relative, in the days of the reign of Elizabeth knew, that what Ire- 
 land wants is to have England get out of Ireland, bag and baggage, and 
 leave the people of Ireland to govern their own country in their own way. 
 
 Ireland Is United for Absolute Independence 
 
 In the last analysis, the question between England and Ireland is 
 simplicity itself. There are two nations, each of which wishes to rule, 
 govern, own Ireland. One is the Irish nation, to whom Ireland belongs, 
 for whom it was set apart by God Almighty Himself from all the rest 
 of the world. 
 
 The Irish people have dwelt in Ireland for thousands of years, distinct 
 
and separate in a hundred ways from all other peoples, set apart in nature, 
 in thought, in language, in custom, from the rest of the world, marked by 
 the hand of God with an individuality all their own. 
 
 The Irish people have their own strength, their own virtues, their 
 own gifts, their own weaknesses, but differ from and are different to any 
 and all other races of men. The Irish people have absorbed all other 
 strains of blood that have gone into the strange country of Ireland so 
 as to have made strangers who have gone there, after a few generations, 
 an integral part of themselves, or, as an old writer phrased it, "more Irish 
 than the Irish themselves." 
 
 The other nation that wishes to own, govern and rule Ireland is the 
 English nation, belonging to England but foreign to Ireland. A nation 
 of great gifts, great failings; a nation that may yet, in the Providence of 
 God, reach the point where it can be made to see that it will be greater 
 to conquer itself than to conquer a city or a world; greater to bring peace, 
 contentment and opportunity for decent living, not to some portion of it- 
 self but to all its people, so that it may not be said in the future, as it was 
 said in the past, in a recent report of a British Commission that one- 
 third of the people of England did not have a week between themselves 
 and starvation. 
 
 Ireland Only Wants What Belongs to Her 
 
 If the question between Ireland and England were between two 
 individuals, no jury sitting in any part of America would have any difficulty 
 in disposing of the matter. Ireland does not ask anything of England ex- 
 cept to be let alone. She wants only what belongs to her. She wants only 
 that which was her own. She wants to govern herself and her own people 
 in her own way, according to her own standards, and with absolute re- 
 ligious freedom and political equality for all of her children. 
 
 Ireland does not ask one inch of territory that is not contained within 
 the four seas of Ireland. She does not ask to impose her will upon a 
 single person who dwells beyond her shores. She appeals to the free 
 peoples of the earth for the opportunity to go her own way, in peace and 
 harmony with all the rest of mankind. She offers not alone to forgive, 
 but so far as she can, even to forget past dealings with England and to 
 dwell in peace and amity and concord with England as a neighbor. 
 
 But she refuses, as she has refused for seven hundred and fifty years, 
 to permit the stranger — England — to govern her, to control her resources, 
 to shut her off from contact with the other nations of the earth, to keep 
 her out of her high place among the nations. She says, with the voice 
 of a united people — not in a quarrelsome way, but in the quiet voice of 
 reasoned judgment — that as she has fought for seven hundred and fifty 
 years for her independence, so she is prepared to fight, if necessary, as 
 long again in order to attain that independence, and to resume her place 
 among the independent nations. 
 
 Her sons say for her, quite calmly, with knowledge of the fact that 
 though scattered all over the world, they yet remain a great race, that 
 England with all her power, with all her subtlety, with all her barbarity, 
 cannot destroy them or wipe them out; that the fight which England 
 waged through so many centuries can end only when England shall with- 
 draw her last soldier from Ireland and leave that country, which she has 
 been robbing for centuries, to govern and rule herself. 
 
 The diplomat of England has succeeded in many parts of the world 
 as has no other diplomat in the history of mankind, but he has failed in 
 Ireland as absolutely and completely as any diplomat has failed in other 
 parts of the world. 
 
 It may be said without exaggeration that England has tried for cen- 
 turies every form of tyranny, of cruelty, of inhumanity in her treatment 
 of the people of Ireland. Her chief spokesman, Lloyd George, admitted 
 in the House of Commons last year (1918) that England had made an absolute 
 failure of her government of Ireland, and that today she was as unpopular 
 with the mass of the people of Ireland as she was in the days of Oliver 
 Cromwell. 
 
 Belgian Atrocities Duplicated a Hundred-Fold in Ireland 
 
 In the early stages of the late great war, the world was made familiar 
 
 6 
 
with the story of the treatment the Belgians received in their own country 
 at the hands of the invaders. It was but the recital and summary of 
 England's treatment of Ireland. Not an atrocity was charged against the 
 Germans in Belgium, not a cruelty practiced, not a crime committed, which 
 could not be duplicated one hundred-fold in England's treatment of Ireland. 
 
 Proof of this fact need only be taken from the admissions of English 
 historians; from the declarations of English statesmen — the only differ- 
 ence between Belgium and Ireland being that the atrocities in Belgium 
 extended over a period of three or four years, while the atrocities of Eng- 
 land in Ireland have extended over the centuries. 
 
 Belgium today, with a chorus of thanksgiving from all over the world, 
 has resumed her place among the free nations of the earth and is to be 
 indemnified in so far as money can indemnify a suffering country for 
 losses sustained. 
 
 Ireland today, after seven and a half centuries of greater suffering 
 still lies prostrate at the feet of England, while English statesmen, with 
 a smug hypocrisy all their own, dilate with well simulated astonishment 
 on the dreadful fact that England cannot leave Ireland to be governed by 
 Irishmen, because, forsooth, the Irish cannot agree politically among them- 
 selves. 
 
 No Such Political Unanimity Exists Elsewhere in the World 
 
 The fact is, however, that there is in Ireland today a degree of political 
 unanimity greater than exists in any other country on earth — very much 
 greater than that which exists in England, where Lloyd George and his 
 confreres are kept in power through a political coalition between eight 
 different groups and much greater than exists in our own country. 
 
 Ireland is the only country in the world in which a plebescite has 
 been taken since the armistice was declared last November (1918). The result 
 of that plebescite was that the people of Ireland, by a vote of more than 
 three to one, declared in favor of absolute separation from England, and 
 in favor of the establishment of an Irish Republic. 
 
 This was on the fourteenth of last December. On the twenty-first 
 day of January of this year, the elected representatives of the people of 
 Ireland met in convention at the Mansion House in the City of Dublin, 
 declared the existence of the Irish Republic, and made an appeal to the 
 free peoples of the earth for its international recognition. 
 
 In furtherance of that appeal, Eamon de Valera, President of the 
 Irish Republic, and several members of the Dail Eireann (Irish Congress) 
 are now in this country. They seek to lay before the people of America 
 actual conditions as they exist in Ireland today. They ask a hearing in 
 order that America may understand that what the people of Ireland are 
 asking, is full recognition of their status as a free and independent 
 people. 
 
 The Irish people seek not some redress of grievances, large or small, 
 but they demand that England take her grip off Ireland and leave the 
 country to be governed by its own people, in its own way. The opinion 
 of America has been aroused within the last year, as it never has been 
 before, in favor of Ireland. 
 
 England Aims to Confuse the Issue 
 
 But the English diplomats with their accustomed skill are seeking 
 to confuse the issue, to prevent our people from getting a clear under- 
 standing of what is at stake between Ireland and England. 
 
 It is their task, their duty at this time, not to simplify but to com- 
 plicate the issue; not to clarify, but to confuse the situation. Because of 
 that, there appear in a hundred forms, a hundred suggestions from England, 
 as to a way out of the difficulty. 
 
 One group talks of Dominion Home Rule, while others talk of a 
 dozen varieties of the same form. Carson talks of having conditions 
 remain as they are, while Smuts — the "slim" South African who believes 
 all peoples should continue to be swallowed up by the British Empire — 
 comes forward with that latest suggestion that Ireland should receive the 
 same recognition as that given to Bohemia. 
 
 But all ask for Ireland something which England wants — none offers 
 to Ireland that which Ireland demands; because at bottom — let them 
 
explain as they may — in any one of the hundred devious devices English 
 statesmen and historians have used in attempting to explain it — the fact 
 is that England remains in Ireland for England's profit, security and 
 power, and does not intend to get out of Ireland until she is persuaded 
 either by force, or by the prospect of greater profit in some other form, 
 that it is to her interest to do so. 
 
 England says she remains in Ireland only for two reasons: First, 
 because Irishmen cannot agree politically, and second, because Ireland 
 cannot financially stand alone. Neither statement has the slightest founda- 
 tion in fact. 
 
 Plebescite Taken in December Refutes First Claim 
 
 The plebescite taken in Ireland last December, under the most adverse 
 conditions, shows that the people of Ireland have reached a degree of 
 political unanimity practically without parallel. With the great English 
 army of occupation and with all the machinery of the government in 
 possession of the English garrison, the people of Ireland, by a vote of 
 more than three to one, decided in favor of total separation of Ireland from 
 England. 
 
 According to the standard American histories, Washington and his 
 associates were never able to rally to their support more than a majority 
 of the colonists, if, in truth, they ever had so large a proportion of the 
 colonists on their side. 
 
 Even in the so-called convention presided over by Sir Horace 
 Plunkett and hand picked by Lloyd George, there was a majority of 
 40 to 29 in favor of the proposed plan then given, which would have gone 
 beyond the scheme of miscalled settlement now proposed by many respon- 
 sible spokesmen for England. This is the more remarkable when it is 
 considered that a large number of the members of that body were selected 
 by Lloyd George and his associates for the express purpose of having 
 them fail to agree to any settlement. 
 
 If the situation were not one of so much importance, it would be 
 farcical to hear Lloyd George talk about the failure of the Irish to agree, 
 when he himself remains in power in England, through a coalition made 
 up of eight different groups, and was the direct cause of the so-called' 
 failure to which he refers. 
 
 England Remains in Ireland for Her Own Financial Gain 
 
 England dares to say that she remains in Ireland, because Ireland 
 cannot financially stand alone. This, in spite of the fact that last year 
 England made at least $225,000,000 from her control of Ireland. She 
 collected from Ireland and on Irish goods, during the preceding year, a 
 revenue of more than 34,000,000 pounds. She spent on what she is pleased 
 to call the "government" of Ireland, about 13,000,000 pounds, leaving a 
 profit to herself of 21,000.000 pounds, an equivalent of about $105,000,000' 
 profit gathered to herself through taxation of Ireland. 
 
 Ireland did with the rest of the world the previous year a business 
 of $820,000,000, according to Sir Horace Plunkett, though other spokes- 
 men for England say this estimate is entirely too low. Of the foreign 
 business done by Ireland, more than 95% was done with England. Why? 
 Because England has so completely cut Ireland off from the rest of the 
 world that she is unable to send goods abroad except through England, 
 or to buy abroad except through England, thus being compelled, against 
 all economic law, to sell in the cheapest market and to buy in the dearest 
 market. 
 
 It is only fair to presume, as a result of this, that the English trades- 
 man, who is as shrewd, as adroit, as far-seeing in his own field as is the 
 English diplomat in the field of government, made a profit of at least 
 15% on the turn-over of this business with Ireland. 
 
 Ireland thus gave to England, in additions to the taxation, a profit 
 of $120,000,000, thus making for England in a single year a profit of vast 
 proportions — a profit of $225,000,000 from her control of Ireland. That 
 sum represents two hundred and twenty-five million reasons why England 
 wishes to remain in Ireland. She is there as a matter of profit. She is- 
 
 8 
 
there as a matter of interest. But, above all other reasons, strong and 
 selfish as they are, England remains in Ireland because she regards her 
 continued control of Ireland as vital and essential to her continued control 
 of the seas. 
 
 England's world dominance depends upon her control of the seas, 
 and as Ireland stands between her and the ocean, she must control 
 Ireland in order to reach the seas and this is the reason above all why- 
 she insists upon Ireland in subjection. In the last analysis, it is the naked 
 rule of might. 
 
 England Uses Ireland for a Great Dairy Farm 
 
 Much has been made by the spokesmen of England of the claim that 
 Ireland must remain attached to England because England is the chief 
 market for Irish goods, and the country through which Ireland's com- 
 merce with the world must be carried on, if Ireland is to seek a world 
 market. 
 
 No more damning indictment could be brought against England than 
 is brought by this bit of English propaganda. The simple outstanding 
 fact is that England does not buy one dollar's worth of goods from 
 Ireland which she could buy cheaper in any other part of the world. 
 Further, because of her absolute control of the seas of the world, and of 
 her economic contact with ever}' other country on earth, England does 
 not sell to Ireland one single article, no matter how insignificant, for which 
 she could find a better price in any other part of the globe. 
 
 England uses Ireland for a great dairy farm, a broad grazing land, 
 in order that food may be provided at the lowest possible price, for the 
 teeming millions in the industrial centers of England. She uses Ireland 
 as a dumping ground for the excess products of her factories — excess 
 products which are turned out by her manufacturers either to meet special 
 competition in some other country, or in order to keep her industrial workers 
 employed so that they may not have time to think too much about the 
 grievances and the industrial problems that lead to revolution. 
 
 England Destroyed the Population of Ireland 
 
 The world recently rang with English propaganda in the form of 
 stories of the tyrannies of the Czar of the Russians and of the governments 
 of the Central Empires. These empires have gone, and properly gone, 
 the ways of every other tyrant of past history, but the fact remains that 
 at their worst, these powers did not keep the population of Alsace-Lorraine, 
 of Schleswig-Holstein, of Galicia, from greatly increasing in numbers and 
 in prosperity. 
 
 Nor did the brutalities and outrageous excesses of power of the suc- 
 cessive Czars of the Russias prevent Russian Poland from growing greatly 
 in population and in wealth. Yet in the seventy years from 1845 to 1915, 
 the population of Ireland, under what English spokesmen are pleased to 
 call the benign reigns of Victoria, of Edward VII and of George V, has 
 decreased from more than eight and one-quarter millions to 4,390,219. 
 
 Government-Made Famines to Destroy the People of Ireland 
 
 In that time, in spite of the cruelties and misgovernment practiced 
 upon the people of those continental countries, no charge has been made 
 and proved — as in the case of Ireland — of a government-made famine 
 in which more than one million people starved to death in a land of 
 plenty and another two millions were sent across the seas to seek in 
 foreign countries an opportunity to live — an opportunity of which they 
 were deprived in their own land by reason of the inhumanity of an alien 
 government. 
 
 England has systematically broken down every effort made to build 
 up the industries, to develop the resources of Ireland, while her spokes- 
 men sing in chorus that all the wrongs of Ireland are ancient wrongs 
 and that Ireland is today governed by the same laws that govern Eng- 
 land and therefore the Irish people should be contented with their lot 
 and cease to cry for liberty. 
 
 These assertions do not bear the slightest investigation of an impar- 
 tial mind. Ireland has been turned into a grazing country by the laws 
 
of England and by acts of the English government. The system of laws 
 made for a highly complex industrial state like England are utterly out 
 of place in a country whose main pursuit is made to be agriculture. 
 
 Great Harbors of Ireland in Idleness 
 
 The shipping controlled by England cuts Ireland oft from all contact 
 with the rest of the world and keeps in idleness twenty of the greatest 
 harbors of Europe. It prevents the modern development of the ports of 
 Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Dublin, ports which centuries ago were 
 great trading ports, carrying on extensive commerce with the countries 
 of continental Europe. 
 
 The railroads of the smaller and poorer country are controlled by 
 the railroads of the richer and larger country, so that it cost until recently 
 as much to send a barrel of flour across from Galway to Dublin as it did 
 to send it from Chicago to Liverpool. 
 
 Most of the banks of Ireland are bought up or controlled by the banks 
 of England, with the result that the deposits are not invested in Ireland 
 for the development of its resources or the upbuilding of its industries, 
 but are placed at the disposal of English manufacturers and business men, 
 to aid in their schemes for exploiting the rest of the world and beating 
 down the industrial rivals of England in Europe and in the United States 
 of America. 
 
 The Irish Mercantile Marine, which for centuries carried on a com- 
 merce with continental Europe and America, has been wiped out of 
 existence by adverse English laws. It has been replaced only by ships 
 which bring Ireland's goods to England and England's goods to Ireland, 
 in such a manner as to make the Irish market, to all intents and purposes, 
 the private monopoly of England. 
 
 England, roughly speaking, is one and one-half times the size of 
 Ireland, in square miles. When the Act of Union was laid upon Ireland, 
 January 1, 1801, the population of Ireland was almost six million and 
 the population of England was less than nine million. Today, the popu- 
 lation of England is over thirty-six millions, and the population of Ireland, 
 according to the latest English census, is 4,390,219. At the same date 
 which marks the application of the Act of Union to Ireland, the population 
 of Scotland was 1,700,000, while today, for the first time in history, it is 
 larger than the population of Ireland. 
 
 Ireland Viciously Misrepresented Abroad 
 
 If Ireland had been satisfied to become the contented province of Eng- 
 land and to abandon her fight for liberty and her desire for independence; 
 if she would consent to become absorbed into England, to become a part of 
 the English people, she would undoubtedly enjoy a prosperity that would 
 mean all that the word implies. 
 
 It is because of the fact that she will not consent to such an arrange- 
 ment, it is because she regards the ideal as of more consequence, even in 
 this life, than she does the material, that Ireland must continue to be 
 misrepresented abroad. If England has her way, her rule will continue 
 in Ireland until the day and that generation when the British Empire, 
 following all the other mighty empires of the past, shall hear the hour 
 of her doom strike and shall be compelled to give way to the onward 
 march of events which will carry its end into the mighty empire and 
 bring freedom to the peoples all over the earth who are oppressed by it. 
 Thoughtful observers the world over agree that that day is not far 
 distant. 
 
 England has time after time overrun Ireland with her armies, with 
 her confiscators, but she has never conquered Ireland and unless all 
 signs by which the future may be gauged fail, she never can conquer 
 Ireland. 
 
 Today, England faces an Irish race scattered all over the world, totaling 
 thirty millions of people. She may boast that the sun never sets on the 
 British Empire, but she must also admit that it never sets on the man 
 of Irish blood. Wherever he has gone, into whatever country he maj' 
 have been absorbed, he remains instinctivelj' hostile to the British govern- 
 ment and the things for which that government stands. 
 
 10 
 
He was, as American historians tell us, the first to raise the banner 
 of revolt against England in this country. According to that scholarly 
 volume, "A Hidden Phase of American History," by Michael J. O'Brien, 
 38% of the rank and file of Washington's Army w^ere Irishmen or sons 
 of Irishmen — the most determined, the most unfaltering enemy England 
 had in America. 
 
 He harbors no enmity against the English people. He pities rather 
 than condemns them for the injustice under w^hich they suffer. He 
 understands the economic slavery which is imposed upon them — but he 
 is the untiring, the unfaltering enemy of the conscienceless chicanery 
 and corrupting materialism which are the chief weapons of English 
 diplomacy. 
 
 America Was Led Into the War to Put an End to Autocracy 
 
 England may control statesmen, she may thunder from the pulpits 
 and she may speak through the impersonal editorials of the press in 
 various countries. She may purchase poets, she may hire apologists,^ she 
 may rewrite school histories, but ever and always there will be men rising 
 up throughout the world to thwart her schemes, to prevent the consum- 
 mation of her carefully laid plans, to point out the facts of history and 
 to arouse the liberty-loving people of the world to a realization of the 
 fact that there can be no freedom on earth until the autocracy which hides 
 behind the mask of navalism is as completely broken as was that which 
 was covered by the garb of militarism. 
 
 England may succeed — as she has succeeded — in cajoling or out- 
 maneuvering the spokesmen of free peoples at the Conference of Versailles; 
 she may write the terms of peace there as she wrote them at Vienna a 
 century before — but she cannot stifle the conscience of the world. She 
 cannot satisfy America with the assertion that the war has been won 
 because German and Russian militarism has been broken. 
 
 America was led into the war to put an end to autocracy, and that 
 means autocracy in every form. America entered the war to break down 
 special privileges in all governments and to see that not only militarism, 
 but its twin sister, navalism, was broken beyond repair. 
 
 If America had not gone into the war it would have ended in an 
 entirely different way. We threw our strength, our youth, our vigor, our 
 idealism into the scales and we freely expressed our belief that when we 
 won — for there was no "if" about it, once we went into the war — there 
 would be an end to autocracy. 
 
 We declared there would be self-determination for all peoples; that 
 there would be freedom of the seas — that freedom for which America 
 through all her history has contended and for which she waged one 
 victorious war. 
 
 America won the war. Sir Douglas Haig's comments to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. America threw her soul, her honor, her ideals into the 
 winning of the war, and America will not now be satisfied until all the 
 peoples of the earth gather in the fruits of that victory. 
 
 There can be no just or permanent peace if, after destroying one 
 form of autocracy, we leave another form more strongly entrenched than 
 ever and resting upon a firmer foundation. The plain people throughout 
 the world will not rest while two great empires remain, their strength 
 buttressed and fortified by a peace which able spokesmen of these empires, 
 with superior courage, superior diplomacy, with greater skill, impose upon 
 mankind. 
 
 America magnificently won the war. America has failed to make the 
 peace. America's spokesmen laid down splendidly the terms of peace 
 which were to satisfy the world and which were agreed to in advance 
 by the spokesmen of England, of France, of Italy. But America's spokes- 
 men have been outplayed, outclassed, by the veteran diplomats of the 
 latter countries. 
 
 America was satisfied with the proposed terms of peace. She is 
 utterly dissatisfied with the proposed Peace Treaty and its accompanying 
 League of Nations as drawn by Cecil and Smuts and now urged by the 
 President of the United States as something behind which he may hide 
 
 11 
 
the discomfiture resulting from his encounter with the skilled diplomats 
 of the old world. 
 
 Gloss over the story as one may, the fact remains that out of the 
 Conference at Versailles there have emerged two great powers greatly 
 strengthened, the Island Empires of England and Japan. These two 
 empires are now seizing and taking to themselves the choicest spots on 
 earth, adding tremendously to their already swollen power. 
 
 The War, Fought for Democracy, Enthrones Autocracy 
 
 England, whose spokesmen assured us one hundred times during 
 the war that she sought no territory, has had, in her own accustorned 
 style, forced upon her "unwilling" shoulders huge strips of land which 
 nominally belonged to the German Empire but which really belonged 
 to their inhabitants. These people, as the result of the war, are simply 
 transferred from one group of exploiters to another and a more expe- 
 rienced group. 
 
 Forty million Chinese Republicans were torn from their own country 
 with the immense province of Shantung and turned over to the Empire 
 of Japan, thus making it larger, in point of population, than the United 
 States of America. 
 
 England, which, before we entered the war, on the visit of Balfour 
 to Washington, was in the throes of despair and on the verge of defeat, 
 can now promptly proclaim through her mouthpiece. Lord Cecil, that she 
 emerges from the war richer and stronger, actually and relatively, than 
 any other country on earth. 
 
 The war, fought for Democracy, may end with a peace which greatly 
 increases the pov/er of Autocracy. The war, fought to bring freedomi 
 of the seas, ends with England in unquestioned control of all the oceans 
 of the earth. The war, fought to bring self-determination to all the 
 peoples of the earth, has the doctrine of English pre-determination applied 
 to some parts of the continent, in order temporarily to break up and 
 permanently to cripple her European rivals. This doctrine is applied to 
 Asia in such a way that the Japanese pre-determination may apply to the 
 continent of Asia to the end that she may eventually absorb China and 
 be ready with her intimate ally and close friend, England, for any emergency 
 that may arise in any part of the world. 
 
 The Two Great Empires Insist That America Guarantee Their Possessions 
 
 Not satisfied with their own power to retain that which the self- 
 satisfied and temporary spokesman for America has permitted them ta 
 absorb, England and Japan are insisting through Clause X in the pro- 
 posed League of Nations that America shall guarantee for all time the 
 present territorial integrity of the two remaining empires on earth. 
 
 One little knows the fierce passion for democracy which burns in 
 the breast of the average American if he thinks that such a scheme will 
 ever succeed. For one hundred and forty-three years America has been 
 fighting with ever increasing vigor the battle of democracy. 
 
 America has ever been to the forefront in the struggle for human 
 rights. She has sought to put an end in every way to the special privi- 
 leges of the few. She favors the rights of the many and she will not 
 now permit any man speaking for her to reverse her position, to destroy 
 her old ideals, or to prevent her from carrying on the struggle until 
 democracy shall finally triumph and the last stronghold of autocracy 
 be destroyed. 
 
 Shantung a Monstrous Act 
 
 The transfer of Shantung with its forty millions of people from the 
 great young democracy of China to the absolutist Empire of Japan is. 
 a monstrous act, indefensible, high-handed, un-American. The attempt 
 to have us guarantee the territorial integrity of England and Japan is a 
 monstrous and a cowardly act, an attempt not alone to truckle to the 
 strong but to trample upon and destroy the rights of the weak. It would 
 make us a party to every act of tyranny that hereafter was perpetrated 
 throughout the world. 
 
 But historj' shows that even if it were possible for the great Senate 
 of the United States to be false and recreant to its trust, a thing like 
 
 12 
 
this could not be permanently done. It is asking us to do the impossible. 
 All history teaches, all experience shows, that nothing is static in nature, 
 that it is impossible for one generation to so impose its will on the world 
 as to prevent a change in the boundaries of countries or in the fortunes 
 of nations. 
 
 The League of Nations and the Holy Alliance 
 
 A century ago a "Holy Alliance" undertook to do the very thing that 
 is again being attempted today, but not only is the "Holy Alliance" 
 referred to nowadays by words of contempt and contumely, but the very 
 governments which brought the treaty into existence are themselves but 
 memories. 
 
 The old or little men who, for the moment, from time to time control 
 the destinies of mankind may think themselves able to stop the progress 
 of mankind and impose their wills upon advancing generations. But 
 history shows that even the few great outstanding figures in the history 
 of the centuries were not able thus to act for the future. And the last 
 half-century, with its seven great empires thrown into the discard, shows 
 how Fate laughs at the puny efforts of man to govern the future or control 
 its destinies. 
 
 The world is just entering upon a great era of growth and recon- 
 struction, yet this is the time when an old man, an older man and a very 
 old man in whose hands Fate seemed for the moment to have whimsically 
 placed the strings of the future, chose to abandon the high-sounding battle 
 cries upon which the war was waged and won, and to make another 
 ill-conceived and badly executed balance of power under the name of the 
 League of Nations. 
 
 To do this, Clemenceau has tried to turn the wheels of time backward, 
 tried to go back to the Europe of Louis XIV, breaking down the great 
 peoples of the continent who outnumber and outbreed the French, and 
 to set up, all over the continent, a series of buffer states that would 
 prevent the growth of strong rivals to France, and leave her in the position 
 of being the dominant military power of the continent. 
 
 England, running true to form, is entirely contented, for the moment, 
 to have France resume her old place, among the nations, so long as she 
 may see her economic rivals on the continent broken into bits and reduced 
 to the position of impotence and poverty. 
 
 England herself, true to her predatory instincts, seizes in the name 
 of civilization and justice, territories almost continental in area, rich in 
 mineral and other natural resources, to be added to her already immense 
 empire. She emerges from the war not only the greatest empire in extent 
 that the world has ever known, with a monopolistic control of articles 
 essential to the comforts and conveniences of mankind, but, through her 
 unquestioned control of the seas, she will strive for a practical monopoly 
 of the commerce of the world. 
 
 England emerges from the war with but one economic or industrial 
 rival upon earth, these United States of America, whose public opinion 
 she flatters herself that she controls and whole activities she at least has 
 been able to guide so far as to make us forgive, if we did not forget, our 
 previous experience with her. 
 
 England Seeks to Flatter America 
 
 Tossing everything into the scales in the last great contest in which 
 she broke, at least for generations to come, the continental industrial 
 rivals which were ousting her from the markets of the world, England 
 has won decisively and absolutely, as far as empire is concerned, and 
 now looks with complacency upon the task before her of cajoling and 
 flattering America. 
 
 Meanwhile she carries on an economic war against us which will shut 
 us out from the markets of the world, and which will gradually put us 
 on the defensive in the fight that England is waging to recover the financial 
 supremacy of the world, which she fondly believes we have but momen- 
 tarily taken from her. 
 
 ■i5 
 
One plea that she has made calls attention to her tremendous sacrifices 
 in the contest which she keeps reminding us was fought for our safety 
 as well as for her own interests, and which many of her spokesmen, like 
 Sir Douglas Haig, now remind us, since she is no longer in danger, was 
 won by her and not by us. 
 
 England is shutting out the products of our manufacturers from her 
 territories and so far as possible is shutting out our commerce in every 
 corner of the globe and is depending upon her control of the seas to 
 eventually shut us out from most of the foreign markets and leave us 
 in the position where our manufacturers must be content to sell their 
 products in so much of our own markets as England may choose to 
 leave to us. 
 
 This is in no sense an exaggeration of what she seeks and of what 
 she hopes. She relies upon the skill of her diplomats to bring this state 
 of affairs about. She has very largely monopolized rubber, wool and 
 other essential products of the world. She is seeking every day, with 
 ever increasing chance of success, to monopolize the oil fields of the 
 world, while all the time, with sophisticated casuistry, she keeps, through 
 a chorus of a thousand voices raised in the press, the pulpits and the 
 schools of America, assuring us that she alone in all the world is our 
 constant friend, that but for her and her chivalrous, unselfish efforts we 
 would have been overrun by some of the continental powers which were 
 seeking this very world power which she now possesses to the full. 
 
 She would have us believe that she fought unselfishly in the war 
 for the very purposes for which our President says we entered the war, 
 yet her first act after the war was won by us was to say that the doctrine 
 of the freedom of the seas could not be even considered at Paris, and 
 utterly unconsidered it was and still remains. 
 
 She said she favored self-determination for all oppressed peoples 
 and agreed with the President when he said that no people must live 
 under a government not chosen by themselves. She must cynically smile 
 to herself when she has the Peace Conference practically adjourn after 
 having, with the help of that self-determination cloak, broken her rivals 
 into pieces without any effort having been made to apply that doctrine 
 to Ireland, to Egypt, to India, or to any of the other countries of which 
 she is in possession with only the title that a robber has to his prey. 
 
 Attempts to Make Over the Map of the World in the Dark 
 
 She said she favored open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, and 
 yet the "Holy Alliance" did not attempt to make over the map of the 
 world with the same secrecy behind which these three gentlemen hid 
 themselves at Paris. And so one might go through all of the points and 
 find that English skill had escaped or English cynicism had flouted the 
 warcries used in arousing mankind to save England, but which were in 
 the way when an English peace had to be made. 
 
 The Englishman has a genius for diplomacy. Not content with being 
 saved from destruction, not content with unprecedented gains in terri- 
 tory, in wealth, in prestige throughout the world, he now seeks to undo 
 what he regards as mistakes of the past and to recover by mental ability 
 that which he lost a century and a half ago by force of arms. In his 
 self-satisfaction, he takes no account of the fact that the thirteen colo- 
 nies, if they had continued as colonies, could not have begun to save 
 him as the forty-eight states did actually save him, as he himself must 
 admit. 
 
 England Aims to Undo the Work of the Revolution 
 
 He wishes, now that his peril is for the moment past, to undo the 
 work of the Revolution, to destroy the great experiment in government 
 which the fathers set up upon these shores, and by one stroke set back 
 the hands on the clock of time for centuries. He wishes to do this, in 
 order that the special forms of privileged autocracy which governs England 
 may regain control of this country, and with its mighty strength and 
 unlimited resources bring about that junction of the English-speaking races 
 which his agents like Carnegie and Rhodes have foretold and for which 
 they have labored for two generations. 
 
 14 
 
He has hoped, because of his easy control of things at Paris, that he 
 would find that the dead hand of Rhodes had actually won the victory. 
 But he was astounded to find not alone the Senate of the United States 
 standing like adamant against the proposed League of Nations, but the 
 public sentiment of the people of America aroused as never before, not 
 onlj' to defend American rights, but to do what he complains of as an 
 insolent thing — to interfere in "domestic" problems of English politics. 
 
 Washington Still the Seat of the American Government 
 
 He is horrified to find that in spite of huge expenditures, that in spite 
 of the British propaganda of NorthcliflFe, Parker and others of that ilk, 
 America refuses to be made again into a colony, and that interest in the 
 freedom of the seas has been aroused in America as never before. 
 
 He has been brought to believe during the pressure of the war that 
 American public opinion was only the echo of English public opinion, and 
 is astounded now to find that his complete victory at Paris is likely to be 
 turned into complete defeat at Washington, where, in spite of his hopes 
 to the contrary, and to his utter consternation, he finds the real seat of 
 American government still continues to be found. 
 
 The Real Strength of England 
 
 England, while hastening to assure us in a hundred ways that she had 
 no selfish interest to serve in asking to have the League of Nations made 
 operative and the integrity of the British Empire guaranteed by the power 
 and resources of the United States, has unwittingly shown her own weak- 
 ness. More and more thoughtful observers throughout the world are able 
 to read in that demand the real opinion of English statesmen as to their 
 own strength. 
 
 As a flash of lightning in a storm enables the observer in a second 
 to see his way through the darkness, so the request for such guarantee 
 by Lord Cecil has revealed the real weakness of England, instead of the 
 apparent strength which he and his group have been teaching us to 
 observe. 
 
 It is at once made clear that the England which must call on the 
 world to guarantee its possessions is in a bad way both at home and 
 abroad. It is an admission that it can no longer hope to call upon the 
 strength of other countries in its hour of peril in order to preserve it, as 
 it called the world into arms against France under Napoleon and against 
 Germany under Wilhelm. 
 
 In spite of its censorship, the rumblings of industrial labor troubles 
 R'ith miners and transport workers and railway men are being heard in 
 the land. The uprisings in India and Egypt, the dissatisfaction in Australia 
 and in Canada, and, above all, the settled determination upon the part of 
 the people of Ireland to take at their face value the promises of Wilson, 
 Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Orlando, and to insist upon absolute self- 
 determination, are matters which are calling the attention of mankind to 
 the fact that there is and there can be no freedom on earth while this dis- 
 tended and gigantic appetite called the British Empire continues to threaten 
 and to prey upon mankind. 
 
 America Is at the Parting of the Ways 
 
 The parting of the ways has come for America. Either we remain 
 true to our ideals, true to the traditions of the past, still the moral leader 
 of mankind and the hope of the oppressed people of the earth, or we 
 join with the privileged class of England and become one of the predatory 
 powers of the world. 
 
 Either we continue to lead the forces of Republicanism, whether they 
 oppose the Central Empires of the continent, the Czars of the Russias; 
 whether they stand against the Cecils and Balfours of England or 
 the Mikado of Japan, and bring hope and cheer to the downtrodden peo- 
 ple of Ireland, and we stand for the preservation of American rights or 
 we join forces with Lloyd George, that artful dodger of English politics, 
 in his efforts to further deceive the people and put off until another 
 generation the settlement of the question of Ireland. The question of 
 
 15 
 
Ireland, it must be remembered, can only be settled right when Ireland 
 regains her independence and takes her place once more among the nations 
 of the earth. 
 
 Like everything else human, America cannot remain static. America 
 must either advance or retire. It must continue to lead the forces of 
 democracy in their onward march to absolute freedom, or it must join the 
 forces of autocracy and seek to snatch liberty from the other nations of 
 the world. 
 
 America Is Asked to Enter Into an Entangling Alliance 
 
 We are asked now to abandon the advice given us by our first — and 
 one of our greatest Presidents — against entering into entangling alliances 
 with other powers. Not alone should we refuse to abandon this advice, 
 but we should more than ever make clear to the world our unfaltering 
 determination to abide by it and to make it one of the fundamental planks 
 in our foreign policy. By standing by it in the past we have grown 
 great and prosperous, masters of our own destinies, arbiters of our own 
 fate. 
 
 We have been free to enter wars and free to remain at peace, accord- 
 ing to the exigencies of the hour and according to what we conceived to 
 be our own interest and the best policy for the protection of the liberties 
 of mankind. We have been free to govern our actions by the best light 
 and information which we could obtain upon questions at the hour of 
 action. 
 
 Our liberty of action has not been foreclosed bj-^ reason of any com- 
 mitment made in advance by those who had passed off the stage of action 
 or were no longer in a position to speak for the majority of the people 
 of our country. In other words, we have always been in the position of 
 being governed by the living will of" the present, rather than by the dead 
 hand of the past. 
 
 Not alone every mandate of interest, but the high call of idealism 
 should counsel us to remain in that position and not commit ourselves 
 to any alliance which, obeying the passion and meeting the whim of the 
 hour, could commit those who come after us to labors and sacrifices which 
 they should not be asked to undertake except at their own free will and 
 upon good cause shown to them at the hour of sacrifice. 
 
 We are asked now to be satisfied with a declaration of the Monroe 
 doctrine, which according to many thoughtful observers, weakens and 
 jeopardizes rather than strengthens that cardinal principle of American 
 diplomacy. In this hour when a peace conference, called into existence 
 for the purpose of making peace, did not content itself with settling the 
 questions at issue between the belligerents, but went up and down the 
 world seeking problems it might settle, we should extend and strengthen, 
 rather than weaken, the doctrine laid down by James Monroe. 
 
 We should insist that the western hemisphere be not invaded by any 
 power from the east; that no old-world possessions held here are to be 
 increased, and we should also insist upon the absolute withdrawal from 
 this territory of the flag of everj' empire or monarchy. 
 
 The British Flag Should Be Compelled to Follow the Other Flags from 
 
 Our Shores 
 
 What is sacrosanct about the British Empire that it continues to rule 
 vast sections of the American continent after all other empires have left 
 its shores? The flags of Russia, of Spain, of Portgual, of Denmark have 
 been withdrawn from this hemisphere. Why should we not now insist 
 that the flag of England should follow the others and leave here in this 
 hemisphere, dedicated for all time to liberty and republicanism, only the 
 flags of the free? 
 
 Why should not our great neighbor on the north, which Cecil un- 
 doubtedly hopes some day to use as a weapon to smite us, should the 
 economic war now being waged between the countries ever reach the 
 acute stage of military or naval warfare, or if there ever should come a 
 conflict between England's ally, Japan, and ourselves — why should not 
 that g^reat country have an opportunity of taking its place among the 
 
 16 
 
republics of the earth, or even, if it chooses, of joining our country and 
 thus bridging the gulf which separates us from our great territory of 
 Alaska. 
 
 The ties which bind the people of Canada to us are every day increas- 
 ing in number and in strength. The ties of trade which bind us are 
 natural and are varied in form. The Great Lakes that lie between us 
 are not intended to separate us, but should, by a thousand ties of com- 
 merce, draw us more closely together. Great numbers of our people come 
 from the same racial stocks and in the late war, according to reports com- 
 ing from ever increasing sources through our returned soldiers, our soldiers 
 found a dozen ways in which they resembled one another for every way in 
 which either found that they resembled the British soldiers. 
 
 Chamberlain Has Said That an Adjoining Republic Is a Menace 
 
 Thoughtful observers in the United States as well as in Canada realize 
 that our interests are in the western rather than in the eastern hemisphere, 
 and that the views of an ever-increasing number of Canadians with rela- 
 tion to the future of Ireland, the future of Shantung, are those of a majority 
 of the people of America rather than those of the governing body of 
 England. 
 
 The people of Canada are essentially a freedom-loving people, aside 
 from what is pleased to call itself the governing class, which seeks for 
 special privileges like the same class in England. Canadians desire lib- 
 erty for themselves and would like to see the blessings of liberty given 
 to every people. 
 
 More than that, if there be anything in the repeated declarations of 
 Joseph Chamberlain in his attempts to justify the rubbing out of the 
 two little republics of South Africa that republican institutions adjoin- 
 ing British territory were a menace to Britain, the governing class in 
 England can look upon the continued existence of the American republic 
 only as a menace to England and we have now the right to ask of her, 
 having saved England, that as an evidence of her good faith in saying 
 that she is a friend of liberty, that she withdraw her flag from this con- 
 tinent and leave it to be entirely dedicated to liberty and freedom. 
 
 This action should apply not alone to Canada, but to the British West 
 Indies and to all other territory in both continents that England holds in the 
 Western Hemisphere. Her holding of lands here is a menace. If there is 
 any truth in the statements of her apologists that she holds these lands 
 only at a loss and because of her unselfish interest in their inhabitants, let 
 her withdraw. We can guarantee their independence under the Monroe 
 Doctrine, and if she holds them only for use as a base in war, it must only 
 be as against us and we should now insist that she give them up. Such 
 withdrawal would be a practical renunciation on her part of any policy of 
 hostility or unfriendliness to America. 
 
 Man Is Sighing for Peace 
 
 The late war aroused mankind to a realization of the fact that without 
 regard to the boundaries of a country or the lines of race, war is a curse 
 to mankind; that it takes not only millions of a generation to death and 
 leaves other millions subject to sickness and disease as an aftermath, but 
 it imposes on the future generations a back-breaking burden of taxation 
 which means countless hardships and privations, while it brings only to 
 the specially privileged peoples in every country immense fortunes which 
 break down the foundations of liberty and sap the principles on which 
 freedom exists. 
 
 Without regard to race or religion, man is sighing for peace. He 
 realizes that war is an abnormal condition, that peace is the normal con- 
 dition, and men are seeking as they have never sought before, to insure 
 a peace that will prevent and destroy war. 
 
 Hopes Based on the Peace Conference Vanish Like a Dream 
 
 Mankind lived in the hope that the Peace Conference was to be 
 a setting for the ending of all wars. Peoples were to be taken from the 
 
 17 
 
thralldrom of their aggressors, natural boundaries were to be established 
 between states, armaments were to be destroyed, cannon were to be made 
 into plowshares, and the fourteen points of President Wilson were to be 
 made the, basis of an enduring peace. 
 
 The Peace Conference has practically adjourned and all the hopes 
 that were based upon it are passing into oblivion like the illusions of 
 dreams. But the mass of mankind is more than ever insistent that there 
 must be an end to human destruction and to the awful butchery and 
 suflfering that modern war spells for humanity. It has been driven into 
 their minds that only by freedom to the oppressed of all nations can peace 
 come, putting an end to the rule of the few and by bringing about govern- 
 ment by the many, bringing at once liberty to man and an end to all 
 war. 
 
 There may be for a short time a brief respite for those who remain 
 in power, though they have deceived the people who have seen promises 
 solemnly made, lightly broken. But no just or permanent peace can be 
 made until the purposes to which the American people set their hands 
 when they entered the war have been attained, until autocracy in all its 
 forms has been destroyed, until not alone the militarism that was 
 breaking the back of Europe but the navalisni which is oppressing and 
 controlling the whole world shall be destroyed and the right of self- 
 determination shall be given, not alone to some, but to all the peoples 
 of the earth. 
 
 A Court of Nations 
 
 A court of Nations will come in its own due time that will embrace 
 all the people of the earth, that will see to it that all peoples are free, 
 and that will see to it that the world war will actually bring a permanent 
 peace. Such a Court will exalt justice and will destroy tyranny, but it 
 will be a real Court, open to all peoples, and not an unreal League which 
 is only another name for an Anglo-American Alliance, a Cecil-Smuts plan 
 to exalt autocracy and enslave mankind. 
 
 Every red-blooded man favors such a Court of Nations as he favors 
 the brotherhood of man and the counsel of perfection, but the more 
 intensely he favors such an ideal the more he objects to and abhors the 
 hypocrisy which would steal the ideal in order to cover a treaty of alliance 
 that would fasten the robber grip of England on all the world. 
 
 The Guarantees of Ireland 
 
 Having set forth the claims of Ireland to independence, her demand 
 and her right to be free; having exposed the hypocrisy of England in her 
 varied attempts to confuse the issue, having torn away the mask behind 
 which England hoped to securely hide from the gaze of the world, let us 
 see what Ireland offers to the world as an evidence of her good faith. 
 
 The people of Ireland seek for themselves a form of government which 
 would do justice to all the people within the four shores of Ireland. They 
 seek to set up a government representing equality to all, injustice to none. 
 They demand and will insist upon political equality and religious freedom 
 for all the people of Ireland. 
 
 They insist that the majority must rule, but that the rights of political 
 equality and religious freedom shall be given to all members of the 
 minority as well as of the majority. 
 
 The people of Ireland believe that the minority is entitled to guarantees, 
 but not to control. They are ready to embody a guarantee of these rights 
 in their constitution, as they have been embodied in the Constitution of 
 the United States. 
 
 They are ready to adopt these things which made for success in 
 America and to avoid those things which were found to be mistakes 
 or errors. 
 
 Contrasts Ireland and America 
 
 As a result of the Revolution in America estates were confiscated 
 and men were exiled. The people of Ireland, however, are ready to say 
 to the small group in Ulster who say they cannot remain as an integral 
 part of the Irish people that they would part with them with regret, but 
 
 18 
 
will guarantee to them, if they choose to sell, the full market value of 
 all property which they own in Ireland. 
 
 The people of Ireland ask every man of whatever blood, of whatever 
 religion, who is now in Ireland to remain in Ireland on terms which 
 will insure absolute equality for all. They point out that there is no 
 mstance in its history of religious persecution or racial intolerance due 
 to the majority of the people of Ireland; that wherever there has been 
 persecution it has been by the minority, urged on against the majority 
 by the English government. 
 
 The people of Ireland point out that in every section of the country, 
 in every generation, Protestants of different sects or religious persuasions 
 have been put forward as leaders by a majority of the Irish people, 
 called to the highest elective ofifice within the gift of the majority of the 
 people. They urge that no fairer way of judging the future can be 
 found than that furnished by the experiences of the past. 
 
 They are willing at all times to accord to others the rights which 
 they insist upon for themselves. They demand, without further delay, 
 that their present rights shall be recognized by the world and that 
 international recognition shall be given to the republican form of gov- 
 ernment established in Ireland after a plebiscite held on her shores last 
 December, in the presence of the great English army of occupation and 
 under conditions which held the machinery of government at that time 
 in the hands of Great Britain. 
 
 Why should England, that cried out with such strength against 
 injustice in Belgium, be permitted to maintain and continue her rule 
 of might in Ireland? Even her apologists admit that England's rule in 
 Ireland is based only upon her bayonets and cannon. 
 
 How can England satisfy the conscience of the world with her 
 explanation that what is wrong in Belgium and in Alsace is right in 
 Ireland? She says that the people of Ireland should not cry out for 
 liberty because, forsooth, they are today enjoying a larger measure of 
 prosperity than they formerly had. Why should they not have it? Is 
 it not the result only of their own thrift, their own industry, their own 
 labors? 
 
 The apologists of England say that Ireland did an immense business 
 with that country last year — that this is a sufficient answer to Ireland's 
 cry that she is badly governed! How typical was Clive of the English 
 government of all times when he said, after he had been accused of 
 robbing India of immense treasure, that when he saw the wealth of the 
 country he was astonished at his own moderation! England's statesmen 
 feel that it is right to steal Irish sheep so long as they return a chop to 
 the Irish owner. 
 
 The proposition is an insult to the intelligence and conscience of the 
 world and in spite of the marvelous system of propaganda which the 
 English diplomat has built up, he cannot prevent the cry of Ireland for 
 freedom from resounding in all parts of the world and coming back to 
 plague him until it is satisfied by having justice done to Ireland. 
 
 The English governing class are the Bourbons of modern days. They 
 learn nothing, forget nothing. Let them beware lest the aroused public 
 opinion of mankind shall sweep them as it swept their German and 
 Russian cousins into oblivion and break into bits the British Empire, 
 which is the last bulwark of autocracy against the on-rushing tide of 
 liberty and democracy. 
 
 19 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 021 369 026 7 
 
LIBRPlRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 nil III! III! 1 mil Mil mil mil mil I II I II 
 021 369 026 7 
 
 ij^ii:»^<^* n^T