America and Ireland AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. GARRET W. McENERNEY BY REV. P. C. YORKE, D. D. TEXT BOOK PUBLISHING CO. 95 Ninth Street San Francisco, Cal. Price, 10 Cents. 1?J:. .^c /3?^^-^^^ URL -^ AMERICA AND IRELAND AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. GARRET W. McENERNEY BY REV. P. C. YORKE, D. D. Dear Sir: Do not think, I beg you, that I am un- mindful of past years and much kindness, because I write this letter to you. When I received your invitation to attend your banquet to Mr. T. P. O'Connor, I had not for a moment the slightest doubt as to vs^hat answer I should make. Even to enjoy the pleasure of your company I could not break bread with a man who had accused me, and those who think with me, of working for "German gold." But I did hang in doubt till the very last minute as to whether I should open my mind to you on Mr. O'Connor and his propaganda. After thought I concluded that you knew your own business best, and I contented myself with the conventional declination. As, however, at that banquet you have given the authority of your name to the arguments of Mr. Dillon published in English reviews and Dublin newspapers, and industriously circulated in this coun- try by Mr. T. P. O'Connor, to the effect that any attempt in Ireland to establish the Irish Republic would be an act hostile to the Allies, and that "any support, moral or ma- terial, given in America to that movement is now treasonable to the people and gov- ernment of the United States," I am com- pelled in justice to myself to examine the "inexorable logic" by which you fasten the guilt of treason on so many of your old friends and fellow-citizens. It is true you deprecate controversy, and claim to speak in a purely impersonal way, but even in war time men have a right to defend their good name and everybody knows that nine- tenths of the Irish in San Francisco have formally declared for that Irish Republic which you describe as the supreme crime against the American people, that is to say, treason against the American State. It is true, too, that with more than archi- episcopal authority, you have absolved us of conscious guilt. But, after all, we have come to the use of reason, and may be sup- posed to be in the possession of our facul- ties, and the processes of 'inexorable logic" are not so complicated that we need great legal skill to understand the nature of our oath of allegiance, or know the elementary duties of citizenship. If to advocate the es- tablishment of an Irish Republic be treason to the United States, then we have all been deliberately and knowingly guilty, and we cannot plead ignorance as our defense. I. Before I examine the ''inexorable logic" by which you nicely adjust the noose about our necks, let me say a few words as to the reason why the representative Irish of San Francisco, Irish born, and Native born, have refused to receive Mr. O'Connor, and have formally repudiated him. 1 . You have in your address given us two reasons why he should have been assured 'Svelcome and hospitality from men of Irish origin everywhere." The first reason is that ^'he is the President of the United Irish League in Great Britain," and the second is that he is the accredited repre- sentative of '^the Nationalist Party which has been the voice of^ Ireland for a time running back to and before Parnell." You may be surprised to learn that the United Irish League has been for years the poor shadow of a name, not only in Great Britain, but also in Ireland itself. It has long since sunk to the level of those political clubs, so familiar in our own pub- lic life, kept together by a few chronic office-holders, and galvanized, for financial reasons, into a semblance of life in the good old pre-election time. But if it were true that Mr. O'Connor's League in Great Britain had the millions he claims, they have no more right to speak for Ireland than we in America have. There seems to be an idea in the air that we in America have the right to come to- gether and formulate some kind of a policy or constitution for the Irish people, and then force it on them. This is the false note that runs all through your speech, and for over thirty years I have heard it in the speeches of Americans friendly to Ire- land, and w^ishing her w^ell. The true doc- trine is the categoric contradiction of that claim. Just as the beginning and end of genuine Americanism is, that nobody has the right to speak for America but the peo- ple of America, so no one has the right to speak for the people of Ireland but the Irish people in Ireland. You seem to be under the impression also that the Sinn Fein is a political party. There was once a political party that called itself the Sinn Fein, of w^hich Mr. Arthur Griffith was the head. That party has been extinct for years and no one knows it better than Mr. T. P. O'Connor. The Sinn Fein of today is more than a political par- ty. It is a soul, a spirit. Sinn Fein is the Irish for the Monroe Doctrine, and ex- presses in two syllables what uur own Pres- ident has formulated ''as the right to na- tional self-determination." It is applica- ble, not only to politics but also to every way, shape and form in which a nation or- ganizes itself. It is true of all real nations, and why should that be a crime in Ireland that is a virtue in every other country? Is Ireland a lusus naturae or the oddity of all the Gentiles that that should be stark mad- ness among her children that it is the highest statesmanship among all the other sons of men? 2. The second reason you have given why we should take Mr. T. P. O'Connor to our bosoms is based on the assumption that the Irish Nationalist Party, or rather that sec- tion of it known as the Redmondites, repre- sents the Irish people. You might as well claim that the Congress of i9io represents the United States of today. You know the present English Parliament is a ''Spent Par- liament.'' The so-called "unwritten consti- tution of England" is merely a myth. Par- liament is the constitution, and this Parlia- ment is kept alive from year to year sim- ply and solely because the ruling junta is afraid to go to the country. You know, too, how narrow the Irish franchise is: you know how old and faulty are the regis- tration lists; you know how the Redmond- ites are entrenched in the jobs; yet, with the exception of South Armagh, where they had to meet with the opposition of Car- dinal Logue, and Waterford, where the personal influence of the Redmond family was so great, men professing the Sinn Fein principles, were successful in the bye-elec- tions; and even in Armagh and Waterford the Redmondites only won by the skin of their teeth. The Redmondite party does not represent the people of Ireland, and the voice of T. P. O'Connor is not the voice of the Irish. I do not claim that Ire- land is unanimously Sinn Fein, but I do claim, and I know as much about it as Mr. T. P. O'Connor, that in an election held today on adult suffrage in Ireland, the Redmondites would be swept out on a tidal wave into oblivion. And can you wonder at it? Mr. Dillon boasted the other day that he had been forty years in politics, and De Valera re- torted: "Forty years in politics explains heaps of things." Where are the American 8 policies of forty years ago? Is not the law of change the law of every human state? Is Ireland the land of the Lotus Eaters, and are her children ever to sit down be- tween the level sun and the unchanging moon? Is she to have no vision of better things, and no dream of achievement? You call the condition of public opinion in Ire- land madness. O Felix culpa and thrice blessed madness that has stirred the stag- nant pool of Bethesda for the healing of the people. And why should not madness be abroad in the land? For forty years Ireland has trusted the Parliamentary Party. For forty years Ireland has supported them in spite of all their mistakes and quarrels, and im- becilities. For forty years Ireland has forced a unity of political opinion that had almost atrophied her powers to think in terms of politics at all. And after forty years what did she get? She saw Mr. T. P. O'Connor and his colleagues sink to the level of the English Whigs. She saw their leader, John Redmond, completely assimil- ated to the English ideal which thinks of England's interests first and of Ireland's af- terwards. She saw the party accept a con- temptible little measure of local govern- ment and then meekly acquiesce when it was snatched away from them. She saw Redmond first disrupt and then destroy the Irish Volunteers — the only defense of the Irish people against Carson's Orange bull- ies. She saw the Redmondite Party basely agree to accept the principle of the dis- memberment of Ulster, and, above all, she heard the cheers that swept through St. Stephen's Hall when the Irish prisoners of war were murdered in Dublin town. To-day Mr. Dillon, the new head of the Party, declares that Redmond was ''sold and betrayed" by the English politicians. Of course he was sold and betrayed as Par- nell was sold and betrayed — as Butt was sold and betrayed — as O'Connell was sold and betrayed — as every Irishman shall be sold and betrayed as long as the infernal connection lasts. No, Mr. McEnerney, the Redmondite Party does not represent Ireland, and the mellifluous voice of your guest is not the voice of the Irish people. But I will tell you whose voice his is. His is the voice of Lord Northclifife, his is the voice of Lloyd George, his is the voice of the English Government. Mr. T. P. O'Connor dis- interestedly draws down more than one salary, and he is in this country on English business. That business is to de- fame his own countrymen in the effort to terrorize them to abandon the old cause. Even though he has interested you, by what argument, I cannot conjecture, to co- operate with him, and though we have our share of sycophants, poltroons and desert- ers, I assure you we have weathered worse storms than this. You ought to know Irish history well enough to remember that whenever Eng- land meditated any great iniquity against Ireland she always started her campaign by slandering the Irish. The Normans began it away back in the days of Henry II, w^hen they wanted an excuse for the invasion. The Saxons did it in Elizabeth's time when they tried to exterminate a nation. The English did it in CromwelPs time when in II their pious hunger for land they consigned your ancestors to hell or to Connaught. They did it in '98, and in '47, when they wished to hide their guilt from a horrfied world. Mr. T. P. O'Connor can tell you at first hand how well they did it in the Land League days and now, O quantum mutatus ab illo, he — even he — is here doing in the same old way, the same old dirty work. I am convinced that England to-day is planning the supreme betrayal of Ireland. I believe that the English ruling classes are prepared to out-Cromwell Cromwell in order to settle the Irish question for good and all, and, at the same time, to pro- vide for the needy veterans of the great war. Here is the voice of the class that has always ruled England, and will always rule England as long as her empire lasts. It was uttered in the Morning Post of Febru- ary i6. It is the manifesto of the great Cecil clan : Sir: We have hitherto been silent, though with considerable hesitation, on the Irish Question, whilst the Convention was sitting. But further silence will 12 probably lead to misconception. It is necessary therefore to say that many of ns see no sufficient reason to agree : 1. To putting any pressure upon a reluctant Ulster to accept an}^ separa- tion from the Parliament of the United Kingdom; or 2. To any settlement of the Irish question which ignores the interests of Great Britain or the security of the Empire. Let me add that recent history has again convinced us, however considerate we must be to Irish wishes and senti- ments, that Ireland, like every other country, cannot be governed except with a firm hand. Yours, etc.. Salisbury. Mr. McEnerney, ask Mr. T. P. O'Con- nor what the government of Ireland 'Svith a firm hand" means in the mouth of his father's son. Ask him how that other Ce- cil, ^'Bloody" Balfour, got his title. He can tell you of the evictions, of the crowded jails, of the mock trials, of the orders to the police ''not to hesitate to shoot," of the Mitchelstown massacre. Don't let him tell you that the laws are altered and the Eng- lish converted. The English Parliament 13 that changed the law can change it back, and the events of Easter Week prove that the Ethiopian has not changed his skin nor the leopard his spots. The sole thing that stands between Ire- land to-day and utter ruin is American public opinion. What America thinks will determine whether England shall smite without mercy or hold her hand. Therefore she is engaged with every instrument in her power in making over the traditional American opinion that favored Ireland. Northclifife has boasted of his 10,000 agents engaged in this colossal work. Of them Mr. T. P. O'Connor is not the least able, not the least astute. He is work- ing on the Irish themselves and the chil- dren of the Irish. He is appealing to their deep love and undivided loyalty to America. He is arguing that all who in Ireland and here support the claim of the Irish Nation to self-determination are trait- ors to America. He is whispering, insin- uating, asserting that in Ireland the Sinn Feiners are attacking and insulting the American sailors and burning the Ameri- can flag. If England shall succeed in changing American public opinion, and who is so bold as to say she may not suc- ceed, when a man like T. P. O'Connor can secure the co-operation of a man like Gar- ret McEnerney — then when blood touch- eth blood and we shall eat out our hearts in impotent despair — then, Mr. McEnerney, look to your hands and even the judicial ermine will not hide the damned dye to which they are subdued. II, There is another question of fact which I think it well to examine at this point. When Mr. T. P. O'Connor is not mourn- ing over the disloyalty of those who are w^orking for ''German gold," he is weeping over the misuse of "American money." He has taken a lesson from the tactics of the London Tunes which in the Land League days described the Parnellites as murder- ous moonlighters, incited to crime by the "money of the Irish servant girls of Amer- ica." He is whispering round the country 15 that the Irish societies are sending money to Europe to be used against the Allies and the United States in this war. The baser hangers-on of the British consulate have printed in their rag in this city the charge that Archbishop Hanna collected money on the steps of his Cathedral to buy guns for the Irish rebels. You, Mr. McEner- ney, more than insinuate that where there is so much smoke there must be some fire, and with fine and fraternal charity you re- mind us of the break of day, the wall and the firing squad. Now, as a matter of fact, in California, and, as far as I am informed, throughout the United States, since the year i9i4, money has been collected for Irish pur- poses in Ireland only on two occasions. I. To take the latter first, the collection in i9i6, amounting in this city to about $So,ooo, was devoted to the relief of dis- tress in Dublin following the events of Easter Week. We were informed in Amer- ica that owing to the dislocation of normal life caused by the rising, women and chil- dren, in Dublin especially, were in dire i6 need. We were informed that the relief organized under the regime of the English Government, to which at that time Mr. John Dillon and Mr. Joseph Devlin, col- leagues of Mr. T. P. O'Connor, were chief advisers, callously refused aid to the friends or dependents of any one suspected of sympathy with the Irish Republic. We naturally, with the true American spirit, responded to the call and we organized to do our share in succoring the victims of English tyranny as we had succored them many and many a time before. We laid the matter before our people in San Eran- cisco at a public meeting. We took up no collections in our churches as we had done for the Italians and the Belgians. We held no tag-days. We did not pass the hat even at the public meeting. We adopted none of the usual means of speeding up contri- butions. We simply announced the loca- tion of our office and that one of the three remaining Parliamentarians in San Fran- cisco would be there at certain hours, and yet in a few weeks we had double our quota to send to Ireland. The general 17 American fund was under the auspices of Cardinal Gibbons, of Baltimore, of Car- dinal Farley, of New York, of Cardinal O'Connell, of Boston, and, among a score of other prelates, of Archbishop Hanna, of San Francisco. Mr. Kelly, the well known banker of New York, was selected, with an American publicist, to bring the money to Ireland, and do for the suffering people of that country what Mr. Hoover was do- ing for Belgium. Mr. Kelly and his com- panion were stopped at Liverpool, treated with every indignity by the English of- ficials, refused permission to enter Ireland, and sent back ignominiously to the United States. In consequence of this action the fund was transferred to the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev. William J. Walsh, who accepted the trust, and ap- pointed Father Bowden, the rector of his Cathedral, to administer it. 2. The other fund was started in i9i4, and was for the purpose of helping to buy guns for the Irish Volunteers. This fund was taken up in San Francisco, and as far as I know, in other places, under the aus- i8 pices of various secular Irish societies. It was collected in broad daylight, with full publicity as to its objects, and entirely in accordance with American law. As your recollection of the events lead- ing up to the institution of that fund ap- pears from your speech to be rather hazy and inaccurate, I will recapitulate them as briefly as I can. You know as well as any one that the English dearly love a lord, and that their government is not a democracy, but an oligarchy. That well-defined caste known as the ^^gentlemen," whether Whig or Tory, titled or untitled, monopolize the conduct of public affairs. Of late years there has been a growing unrest among the general population and among the labor unions, and the Liberals have for political purposes taken up a program of reform mainly borrowed from the con- tinent. To obstruct that program be- cause it hurts their pockets and their priv- ileges the Tories have, among other means, appealed to the Orange sentiment in Ulster. We must bear in mind that Ulsteritis 19 is not endemic in Ireland, but is always imported from England and carefully ex- asperated for purely English purposes. The chief agent of the English Tories in their Irish campaign was Sir Edward Carson. Sir Edward Carson is a clever lawyer, and one of the best politicians in Parliament. He told the Orangemen the old story that the Pope was coming over to Dublin to rule the country and burn all true-blue Protestants at the stake. The Orangemen reacted nobly to the stimulus and subscribed to a '^Solemn League and Covenant" against their ancient enemies, ''popery, brass money and wooden shoes," which "Solemn League and Covenant" Sir Edward melodramatically signed in his own blood. Thus began the Ulster Volunteers, also known as Carson's Volunteers. A large number of men were organized and drilled to resist by force any change in the govern- ment of Ireland. The vast resources of Tory wealth were at Carson's disposal, and as it was against the law to bring arms into Ireland without certain formali- 20 ties, gun smuggling, or ''gun running," as it was called, on a large scale supplied arms and ammunition. It is asserted that Carson went over to Germany to implore the Kaiser, as the first Protestant Prince in Europe, to do for the downtrodden Orangemen what his namesake had done for their ancestors at the Boyne. It is claimed also that what passed at that interview made the Emperor believe that England could never come into the war and was therefore one of the causes of the cataclysm. Anyhow, he came back and not only defied the Government to enforce the Better Government of Ireland Act, but threatened to march with his bullies and carry fire and sword from Belfast to the Cove of Cork. Then occurred what you mistakenly call the ''Ulster Rebellion." There was no "Ulster Rebellion," but there was a "Cur- ragh Mutiny." The Curragh of Kildare is, as you know, the headquarters of the English army of occupation in Ireland and the seat of the High Command. The Irish Ascendancy, Protestant and Catholic, 21 have always taken care to be well repre- sented among the military officers. Cath- olic and Protestant, the members of the Ascendancy — that is to say, the upper classes — are so intermarried that almost every one of them is related to every one else. Carson, I have heard, has a first cousin, mother superior of a convent, and the army was full of officers related to him by blood or joined by friendship. When it appeared inevitable that the Government would have to call on the army to enforce the law of the land the Curragh Mutiny occurred. The officers formed a conspiracy and, headed by Lord French, offered their resignation. The reason they gave for this action was that they could not be expected to fight against their own friends and relatives, a reason, by the way, that a few weeks ago cost an American officer a sentence of twenty-five years in jail. What happened? What happens in England always when the great houses exert their influence in the army? The Government backed down and the shame- 22 ful spectacle was presented to the civilized world of a nation of four millions left to the mercy of a horde of armed fanatics. What were the mere Irish to do? What would you expect men to do if they had any red blood in them? They did what San Francisco did more than once in the days of the Vigilantes; they did what you yourself did after the great fire. When the legal government ceased to function you organized another and called in armed men to keep order. If the English Govern- ment, which had undertaken the adminis- tration of Irish affairs, could not or would not enforce its own laws, then it was high time for Irishmen to defend their property and their families and themselves. It was out of this condition of affairs that the Irish Volunteers came into being, spontaneously, all over the country, and as it were, in a night. The young men of Ireland organized and drilled, and began out of their own earnings to buy themselves arms. They adopted the tactics that Car- son had invented, and "gun-running" was soon in full swing. But there was a differ- 23 ence. While Carson was importing arms the Government looked the other way and the police were conveniently absent. When the Irish began to import arms the Govern- ment sprang to attention and all the forces of the Crown were used to thwart it. I am sure it did not escape your notice that on the very eve of the war women and children were shot down in the streets of Dublin by English soldiers called out to prevent the gun running at Howth. There was also another difference be- tween the Carson volunteers and the Irish Volunteers. Carson had behind him the unlimited resources of the English aris- tocracy, the Irish were mostly farmers' sons and artisans of the towns. Accord- ingly, they appealed to their kin outside of Ireland to help them in their dire dis- tress. We in America had a perfect right to respond to them under our laws. You, Mr. McEnerney, in your violent interview of Monday morning, make the bold assertion that the Americans who have been pro- moting the Sinn Fein activities 'Svere vio- 24 lating the neutrality laws of this country until April 6, i9i7, and since that date their conduct has been treasonable to the people and Government of this country." It is not to be thought, Mr. McEnerney, that you would have made so grave an accusation without proof capable of being legally established, and I humbly suggest that it is a very curious kind of patriotism that withholds such proof from the proper authorities. Let me say, too, that the Irish societies in America were advised by lawyers every whit as capable as your learned self. Even the man in the street can see that for the Irish in America to respond to the call of the Irish Volunteers was no violation of the neutrality laws. During the period before America entered the war Americans were sending money and munitions in enor- mous quantities to the Entente. I dis- tinctly remember to have seen German Government bonds advertised for sale in New York newspapers. Why should the Irish alone be denied the privilege of helping their own? Do you think for one 25 minute that you can persuade the people of this town to believe that the exceed- ingly active and able Federal service w^ould not have intervened if the law was being broken in broad daylight? It might be illuminating to call to your mind the fact that the very first persons to be convicted of violating the neutrality laws in this city were violating them in the interests of England. What was the response in America to Ireland's appeal? The usual response that is given to every Irish appeal. The plain people, out of their meager store, gave a little, the rich, the influential, the men of the class to which you have so labori- ously attained gave nothing except the cheap sneer about ''freeing Ireland" by passing the hat. If you, Mr. McEnerney, and men like you, were as much interested then as you claim to be now in Irish afifairs; if you had taken the trouble to acquaint yourselves with Irish conditions; if you had recognized the justice of the Irish demand, and had taken a strong stand for fair play, we should certainly have been 26 spared the bloody aftermath, and you would not have to bemoan to-day the mistakes and disasters of the past four years. What was the response of Mr. T. P. O'Connor's party to the Volunteers' appeal; Ask him. He will not deny that in the beginning they ignored the Volunteers. He will admit that when the movement was sweeping 'the country like a prairie fire the politicians grew suspicious and afraid. It is a matter of historical fact that Mr. Redmond, thinking not of the safety of the country, but of his political fences, de- manded control of the Volunteers. In order to satisfy Mr. Redmond, the Redmondite Party was given equal representation on the governing body of the Volunteers. From the very beginning the Redmondite nomi- nees showed that their sole object was to disrupt the Volunteers. They succeeded. Two bodies were formed, one under the control of the Parliamentarians, the other under the adherents of the Sinn Fein. Mr. Redmond bought for his crowd a cargo of old rifles for which suitable ammunition 27 had not been manufactured in twenty years. This, apparently, is the "gun running" in which Mr. T. P. O'Connor participated. The last thing in the world Mr. Redmond or Mr. T. P. O'Connor wanted was to see Ireland armed. One by one his com- panies ceased to drill, and in a short time the only Volunteers in Ireland were those that professed and practiced the doctrines of Sinn Fein. When these Irish Volunteers went to buy guns they naturally sought them in the only market open to them — that is to say, Ger- many. How they got into communication with Germany I am not informed. If they used American intermediaries to deal with Germany they certainly had as much right as the English had to use American agents to do British business. One thing I notice in this war is that in spite of all the precautions taken by all the nations, belligerent and neutral, any person who wants to go from one country to another seems to be able, generally, to make the journey at will. An attempt has been made by Mr. T. P. 28 O'Connor and his kind to locate the main- spring of all the Irish operations in the United States. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Coincident with the an- nouncement of Mr. T. P. O'Connor's de- scent on San Francisco, some of the papers published an old letter of Mr. John Devoy of New York. That letter had been care- fuly edited by some one skilled in the suggestio falsi. The information in the document was neither new nor startling, but the impression conveyed was that the organizations to which Mr. Devoy belongs were even now in intimate touch with the Germans and assisting them in their de- signs on Ireland. Of course, there is not a scintilla of truth in the charge. I am proud of the friend- ship of John Devoy. I have long admired the self-sacrifice and devotion he has given to a cause that brought him nothing but poverty and opprobrium and that in the vicissitudes of a long career must have so often seemed hopeless. Yet high as I esti- mate his qualities of heart and head, I know he is not a superman. Yet a super- 29 man he must needs be, if noted and watched as he is, he could carry on, if he would stoop to it, treasonable practices in war time or in any time, in face of the ability and the sleepless vigilance of the United States Secret Service and in spite, above all, of the oft-manifested desires in certain quarters to get him. The explanation of Mr. Devoy's letter is very simple. In the Easter time of i9i6 scanty cablegrams informed us that Sir Roger Casement had landed in Ireland from Germany and had been arrested, that a ship called the Aud, laden with muni- tions, had been captured by the English and subsequently sunk by her sailors, that the Irish Republic had been proclaimed in Dublin, and that the capital was held by Connolly's Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers. The common interpretation given these cablegrams at the time was that Germany had fitted out an expedition to Ireland, put it in charge of Sir Roger Case- ment, that the whole thing was concocted by the Irish extremists in the United States 30 and that it was foiled by the watchfulness of the British Government. Of course, if we were to reflect on the proposition that Germany should under- take the invasion of Ireland with one small ship, on which there was not a single Ger- man military man, under the command of a civilian, and at the instigation of other civilians, three thousand miles away, even the most dense could see how improbable the interpretation was in the case of strate- gists who may be the worst you want to call them, but certainly are not absurd. The facts in the case that Mr. Devoy wanted known are as follow: I. The arms on the Aud were not sent by the German Government, but wxre bought for the Volunteers with Volunteer money. Where they were bought I have not yet learned. The affair was simply gun-running on a large scale for the benefit of the country west of the Shannon. It is precisely the same kind of operation in which Carson was constantly engaged and in which Mr. T. P. O'Connor now boasts of having participated. How it was to 31 have been carried out, and the chapter of accidents by which it failed — are they not written in the dozens of books published within the past two years? 2. The coming of Sir Roger Casement was his own adventure, and he did not come on the Aud. His plans, apparently, at times ran counter to and at times clean across those of the people in Ireland. His ideas at times were of so preposterous a nature that his American friends were at their wits' end. Still, it is not for us to judge or condemn him. For, whatever mistakes of head he made he has paid the ultimate price. His name is cleansed in his own blood, and his proud place in the Irish heart is between Emmet and Wolfe Tone. 3. What are the inside facts of the Dub- lin rising I don't suppose any man living to-day knows except John MacNeil and De Valera. De Valera, who took part in the rising, vouches for the good faith and patriotism of John MacNeil, who opposed it, and so did Patrick Pearse. This one thing I do know — that whatever decisions were taken concerning that rising, were 32 taken in Ireland by Irishmen for Irish causes and the men who made the decision proved their right to make it by the giving of their lives. When the news came to us in America, deprived as we were of accurate informa- tion, we could only act on general princi- ples. We took the true American attitude of standing by those who were fighting for freedom. From the foundation of this Re- public, America has in every generation sent out her sympathy to every nation rightly struggling to be free. There would be many to criticise and condemn. We took the stand that when men are willing to give their lives for their native land the American tradition is to approve their cause. So much for the period before the United States entered the great war. From April 6, i9i7, the Irish societies have confined their activities to the program of President Wilson for the self-determination of all nations, small as well as great. The Friends of Irish Freedom, of which I have the honor to be State President, ordered at 33 their first convention that all moneys col- lected by the organization should be held in California during the war. We are using our constitutional right to petition the President and the Congress that this country, which has openly espoused the cause of Belgium and of Serbia, should not forget the oldest nation in Europe. If it be a crime, Mr. McEnerney, to mention the name of Ireland under the folds of the American flag that gleams with the blood of so many Irishmen, then we are guilty, and you can make the worst of it. The trouble with you, Mr. McEnerney, is that you are not an American. Your body may be American, but your spirit has ceased to be American. You sneer at the leaders of the Sinn Fein as idealists and poets, but what do you know of idealism or poetry? To your practical mind the one star by which men should steer is the star of success; but, Mr. McEnerney, America is the first-born of idealism, and there is more truth in poetry than in all your ledgers and law books. You will not understand, but the people of San Eran- 34 Cisco will understand what Patrick Pearse wrote when the mantle of the prophet de- scended upon him, and he put this keen in the mouth of his mother: I do not grudge them, Lord, I do not grudge My two strong sons that I have seen go out To break their strength and die, they and a few, In bloody protest for a glorious thing; They shall be spoken of among their people, The generations shall remember them, And call them blessed — The little names that were familiar once Round my dead hearth. Lord, Thou art hard on mothers ; We suffer in their coming and their going; And tho' I grudge them not I weary, weary Of the long sorrow — and yet I have my joy : My sons were faithful and they fought. III. Having disposed of those questions of fact, Mr. McEnerney, permit me now to consider the "inexorable logic" concealed in the hangman's bag you flourish in our face. If that is the kind of logic you win cases with, I am not surprised that so many 35 lawyers die rich, and I am almost tempted to try at the trade myself. Now, to bring the ''inexorable logic" by which you "make out" our "disaffection, disloyalty and treason" to the nearest ap- proach to the syllogistic form of which it is capable, your argument runs thus: THEOREM No. i. Major. Anything that weakens the efficiency of the British forces in the war is treason to the United States. Minor. But the claim for the establish- ment of an Irish Republic weakens the British forces in the war. Conclusion. Therefore, the claim for the establishment of an Irish Republic is treason to the United States. Q. E. D. Of course, you know that this logical big gun was forged in John Dillon's fac- tory. It was especially designed for long distance work, and was trained to do terri- ble execution on the Irish in the United States. The trouble, however, with big guns is that they are often more destructive to their users than to the enemy. Have you 36 not already sensed the recoil there is in this "inexorable logic"? You yourself admit that the condition of public opinion in Ireland is "bordering on madness." "The one bright spot" has be- come somehow a very sore spot, indeed. You confess that "all over the world men of Irish origin are in a state of exaspera- tion and fury." You concede that this condition is "not without justification," and you very frankly tell us that the justifica- tion is "the breakdowns in the power of the English Government respecting matters affecting Irish rights." You go farther. You fix the responsibility. You lay it squarely on the shoulders of Carson, of Balfour, of Smith and of all those who participated in what you call the Ulster Rebellion. You have not forgotten, I am sure, the old maxim : Causa causae, causa causati. The cause of certain conditions is responsi- ble for the effects that flow from those conditions. Whatever effects flow from the conditions of Irish disaffection and American exasperation are to be placed to 37 the account of Carson, Balfour and their confederates. His praemissis, as they say in the Schools, let us go back to your "inexorable logic." THEOREM No. 2. Anything that weakens the efficiency of the British forces in the war is treason to the United States. But the conduct of Carson, Balfour and company weakens the efficiency of the British forces by causing disaffection in Ireland and exasperation in America. Therefore, the conduct of Carson, Bal- four and company is treason to the United States. Q. E. D. But I notice the English took Carson into the Cabinet, and that Balfour was received by Congress, and feted by the President? Do you dare insinuate that England is guilty of treason to the United States or that Congress and the President are fautors of traitors? Just see where your "inexorable logic" lands you. Let us try again, for there are inexhaust- ible possibilities in this "inexorable logic" 38 of yours, especially if you stimulate it with a Goclenian sorites. As the war developed it was discovered that the great want of the Allies was muni- tions. Heroic measures supplied the want. To-day, to judge by their statesmen's utter- ances, their great want is men. Heroic measures are proposed. Now, you know, for you have alluded to it, that there are in Ire- land about five hundred thousand potential soldiers, the best military material in the world. They won't enlist, and therefore to get them they must be conscripted or, as we say, drafted. But Mr. Joseph Devlin, the colleague of your distinguished guest, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, declares that he will resist conscription to the last drop of his blood. The reassembling of the English Parliament, after the Easter recess, was marked by a riot precipitated by another colleague of Mr. O'Connor at the mention of conscription in Ireland. The Redmond- ite Party, of which Mr. T. P. O'Connor is the representative, is officially opposed to conscription. Mr. T. P. O'Connor is in San Francisco to obtain funds to back up 39 the Redmondite Party. Every favor shown Mr. O'Connor militates against Irish conscription. Every cent given him will be used to fight Irish conscription. Is it necessary for me to expand this "in- exorable logic" for you, Mr. McEnerney? THEOREM No. 3. A. Anything that weakens the efficiency of the British forces. in the war is treason to the United States. But the absence of conscription in Ire- lands weakens the efficiency of the British forces in the war. Therefore, the absence of conscription in Ireland is treason to the United States. Q. E. D. B. The absence of conscription in Ireland is treason to the United States. But Mr. T. P. O'Connor and his party are responsible for the absence of conscrip- tion in Ireland. Therefore, Mr. T. P. O'Connor and his 40 party are responsible for treason to the United States.- Q. E. D. C. Mr. T. P. O'Connor and his party are responsible for treason to the United States. But Mr. Garret McEnerney of San Francisco is backing up Mr. T. P. O'Con- nor and his party. Therefore, Mr. Garret McEnerney ol San Francisco is responsible for treason to the United States. Q. E. D. After all, it would seem that the rope of "inexorable logic" to be used in your ratiocinational lynching bee has got tan- gled round its owner's throat and that it is Mr. Garret McEnerney that should be operated on daybreak. Q. E. F. Is it necessary for me, Mr. McEnerney, to remind you that the finest fighters devel- oped in this war were the young Austra- lians? They have won for a new and peaceful commonwealth a glory that the most ancient and most warlike nations might well envy. These veterans are fight- 41 ing now side by side with our boys in France. Is it necessary to remind you that Australia rejected conscription, not once, but twice? Is it necessary to remind you that the most powerful opponent of con- scription was the Archbishop of Mel- bourne, Dr. Mannix? Is it necessary to remind you that the Australians at the front rejected conscription as thoroughly as those at home? What kind of service to your country are you rendering, Mr. McEnerney, when with your ''inexorable logic" you are teaching our boys to look on their companions in arms as traitors to America? But if your ''inexorable logic" is fatal to the establishment of an Irish Republic, what will it not do to the establishment of a Russian Republic? After all, Russia is the only one of the original Entente that accomplished anything worth while in this war. She saved the West Front in the be- ginning, and she almost put Austria out of the fighting. Her defection is the heaviest blow yet delivered to the Allies, and it is not at all certain that future historians may 42 not consider it the deciding event of the war. Compared to the actual defection of Russia following the establishment of a Russian Republic, the hypothetical defec- tion of Ireland following the establishment of an Irish Republic would be a negligible quantity. Yet how do the Allies, how does our own President, deal with Russia to-day? Have they had recourse to the verbal vit- riol which you pour so liberally on even a poor pious wish that Ireland might enjoy the blessings of liberty? Evidently, your ''inexorable logic" has few charms for the President or the country. Mr. Wilson is most sympathetic with Russia, and holds to his sympathies even when some Russians answer his good wishes with very scant courtesy. The Press, while mildly critical of the defection, is unanimous that we should keep on good terms with the new condition of things and assist the Russians in reorganizing their country. Everybody knows the nature of the international influ- ence that brought about the failure, of the Root mission, but nobody hears the "in- 43 exorable logic" applied to the Trotzkys of New York. That kind of logic appears to be reserved for the crucifixion of the Irish, to be administered in a sponge dipped in vinegar and gall. The fact of the matter, Mr. McEner- ney, is that your ''inexorable logic" is in- spissated humbug. I know it is the un- pardonable sin among logicians to deny a man's major, but I am compelled not only to deny your major, but to respue your subsumptum. What is the principle that, consciously or unconsciously, is back of your mind in all your argumentation? It is the diabolical doctrine that the end justi- fies the means and that all things are law- ful to the State. While you have been fighting Kultur with your body, Kultur has made conquest of your mind. You remember how Bismarck fought the Church after the Franco-Prussian war because he found that Catholics still believed in Christ's command: ''Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He called his campaign the 44 Kulturkampf, the fight for civilization. He failed in his attempt, but his ideas did not die. On the contrary, they increased and multiplied. Every year since they have been spreading in all countries. Again and again I have pointed out how they were gaining ground even in individualistic America. The war has brought their tri- umph in a rush. In the debates in Con- gress the plea is made that even our funda- mental Constitution should not be allowed to stand in the way of national necessity. Among the people at large it is boldly proclaimed that such little things as reli- gion, friendship, hospitality, truth and fair dealing are not to be considered when it is a question of national success. It is this principle that inspires your major, and your major is not true. It is not true that anything that weakens the Allies is treason to America. The case of Russia is the proof. The relations be- tween nations, as you ought to know, Mr. McEnerney, are not governed by ''inexor- able logic." The relations between nations are governed by their foreign policies, 45 their public aims and their domestic neces- sities. It is quite thinkable that the weak- ening of the Allies by the defectioa of Russia might be more than made up to America by the successful establishment of a great democratic State in Europe and Asia. The rigorous enforcement of your "inexorable logic" might easily throw Russia into the arms of Germany, and do more damage to America than could be done even by the breaking of the battle line in France. Come out of your logical fog, Mr. McEnerney, and see things as they are — even as the men in Washington have to see them. Though it is a work of scholastic super- erogation in the circumstances to deny your minor, I might ask, how do you know that the establishment of an Irish Republic would weaken the Allies? My own opin- ion is that nothing would so strengthen the Allies as the immediate establishment of an Irish Republic. I have tried to keep in touch with Irish sentiment, and I am con- vinced that Ireland is not pro-German or that the Irish have any love for Prussian- 46 ism, or that they are anxious to exchange the devil they know for the devil they don't know. Your quotation from Arthur Griffith puts the situation in a nutshell. The desire of the Irish to see England weakened is inspired simply and solely by the desire of the Irish to be masters of their own house and by the fact that Eng- land unjustly holds on to the key. Remove the injustice, and at once the effect will cease to be. Then consider what would be the result of the establishment of an Irish Republic in every country in the world. When you were speaking Monday night you were afraid. I that am writing this am afraid. We are both afraid of the same thing. We are not afraid that we have not enough munitions, money or men to see this war through. We are not afraid of the courage of our soldiers or the skill of our leaders to assure us victory. But we are afraid of the morale of our people. You see it threatened because of Irish exasperation and fury. I see it threatened because of the economic revolution. Do not imagine 47 that the masses of America to-day are any more immune from ideas coming out of Russia than they were a century and a third ago from ideas coming out of France. A whole nation can be infected in an in- credibly short time. Now, you know as well as I do that the saving salt of the American mass is the Irish element. That element has even against its own interests always stood for conservatism. Remove from that element the unrest caused by the exasperation and fury at England's misrule in Ireland, and you remove a cause that with accelerated velocity is driving men with Irish names to the side of the eco- nomic revolution. Consider what an effect the establish- ment of an Irish Republic would have in Germany. Our President has gone over the heads of the German Government and has appealed directly to the German peo- ple to rally to the cause of democracy. The German Government has said with '^in- exorable logic" to the German people, ''Look at England and Ireland." As you put it yourself, ''England is solicitous of 48 the fortunes of small nations in the abstract, but indififerent to them in the concrete." Let Mr. Wilson be able to say to the Ger- man people, Behold the proof of our sin- cerity, the establishment of the Irish Re- public, and I believe the German people would respond to his hopes and give him that security for the world's peace that he demands. Ireland would have performed her noblest service to mankind, and would have done for a broken civilization what her children did in the old days for the shattered civilization of Rome. And now, Mr. McEnerney, to come to an end. When I read your speech at your banquet I was so indignant and ashamed that I said to myself, Let the considera- tion of this go over for a few days. I wanted to think of the whole matter in cold blood. In the interim I racked my brains for arguments that might excuse me from answering you. But the challenge was too direct. I began my letter in a spirit of forbearance and charity. Con- trary to my habit, I wrote it slowly and with much revision. I looked upon you 49 as a lawyer whom a client had grossly mis- led. I tried to keep before my mind that my object was to inform, not rebuke. But after reading your answer to the resolu- tions of the Irish Societies, I felt you had put yourself outside the pale of argument. What my pen hurried to write I have torn up. It was drenched in bitterness. I will simply say now that I do not recognize you as an authority on American patriotism, I do not accept you as a judge in Irish affairs. I turn from you to the people of San Francisco, to the people of California, and I ask them to judge between you and us. They surely do not take us for traitors. As they read the casualty lists they can tell whose sons and brothers are at the front — the sons and the brothers of the members of the Irish Societies. This very day I draped the American flag over the empty coffin of one of our lads whose bones repose on the field of honor "over there." These are the boys that in my ministry of over a generation, as generations are count- ed among men — these are the boys I begot so unto Christ in Baptism, these are the boys I prepared for their First Communion and Confirmation, these are the boys whose sacred confidences I received, these are the boys whose letters come to me literally from all over the world, and whose simple, manly sentences I read, not without tears, thanking my people, my priests and me because out of our labor and sacrifice and our slight resources we have been able to send them some comfort for body or soul to remind them that the home folks are thinking of them, and the neighbors, and the old parish — is there any man so heart- less as to believe that my people or I would for a hundred Irelands or ten thousand Germanys do or say or even think anything that would harm a hair of their heads— they who are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, our joy and our crown? PETER C. YORKE. San Francisco, April lo, i9i8. SI APPENDIX SAN FEANCISCO EXAMINER, APRIL 2, 1918. In an address introducing T. P. O'Connor to the guests, and explaining the motif for the banquet on April 1, Mr. McEnerney said: Parnell, Davitt, John E. Redmond, T. P. O'Connor and John Dillon have been the conspicuous leaders in Irish affairs in the last forty years. Of these five leaders but two survive, and one of them is the distin- guished guest of this evening. Mr. 'Connor is in this country representing the Nationalist Party, with the object of laying the condi- tion of Irish affairs before the American public. As we know, the Parliamentary representation of Ireland is, say, 103 seats. Of these the Tories hold 18 seats — Ulster electing 16 members and Trinity College, Dublin, electing two members. The group headed by Mr. Wil- liam O'Brien accounts for nine seats. Four seats are difficult of classification, and the remaining 72 seats are divided — 68 seats held by the Nationalist Party and 4 seats held by the Sinn Fein party. Mr. O 'Connor arrived in America in June last, with one of his colleagues of the Nationalist party, and came at the publicly announced request of Mr. Red- mond, then leader, whose desire in the matter was supplemented by the request of Mr. Dillon, who suc- ceeded to the leadership of the Nationalist Party upon the occasion of Mr. Redmond's recent death. Mr. O'Connor is here, therefore, not representing any matter personal to himself, but representing the Nation- alist Party, which has been the voice of Ireland for a time running back to before Parnell. It is hardly necessary, though of interest, to recall that Mr. O'Connor's Parliamentary career has ex- tended over a period of thirty-eight years; that he was elected first in 1880 from the constituency of Galway, and held that seat until 1885, when he was elected for both Galway and the Scotland Division of Liver- pool. He then exercised his choice between these two constituencies by becoming the representative of the 52 Liverpool constituency, and from that time to this— thirty-five years — Mr, O'Connor has been a member of Parliament representing that constituency, against a contest at every Parliamentary election held in that third of a century. He holds the unique distinction of being the only member of the Nationalist Party repre- senting any constituency in England, Scotland or Wales; and I may add that his constituency contains more men of Irish origin than many of the constitu- encies in Ireland itself. It is a matter of interest that for the first thirty-four years of Mr. O'Connor 's, Parliamentary career no salary was attached to the office, and that for the last four yBars the salary has been £500, or $2500, per annum; and furthermore of interest that his constituency is known as the Scotland Division, Liverpool, for the rea- son that it is intersected or bounded by one of the great streets of Liverpool known as Scotland Eoad. So much for Mr. O 'Connor 's Parliamentary career. For thirty-six years, and without a contest, Mr. O'Con- nor has been the president of the United Irish League of Great Britain, having upwards of 300 branches and an enrolled membership of more than two and a half million men of Irish birth or Irish origin. Toleration is Spirit of Democrat. This intimate connection with Irish affairs for so long a time should have insured Mr. O 'Connor welcome and hospitality from men of Irish origin everywhere, in total disregard of differences of opinion or wide separa- tion in respect of economic, industrial and political ques- tions which affect the future of Ireland. In ordinary times and in ordinary circumstances it would have been a great pleasure to me to participate in a testimonial to Mr. O'Connor in recognition of the great distinction which he has achieved in journalism in a career spread over fifty years and in recognition of his loyal and disinterested service in support of justice for Ireland at the hands of the English Govern- ment, exemplified by a public career both in and out of Parliament, spread over a period of nearly forty years. I say that in ordinary times and in ordinary circum- stances the fulfillment of so obvious an obligation of 53 both gratitude and hospitality would have afforded me immeasurable pleasure. But, in the present circum- stances, I have not been controlled by considerations of pleasure; I have assumed the responsibility of this occa- sion simply out of a sense of duty to my country, and because I am firmly persuaded that the safety of this country is being affected by conditions which exist in Ireland, and by the consequences of those Irish condi- tions as they are being unfolded in a disquieting way in this country. Let it be noted at the outset, and never forgotten, that our fundamental concern is the safety of our coun- try, and anything that puts this safety in peril or renders it a matter of doubt is anathema with us. Let it be clearly understood that any support, moral or financial, given in America to any movement in Ireland, the object of which or the effect of which is to embarrass the full efficiency of the British fighting forces, is now treasonable to the people and to the Government of this country; and that any attack made in America upon any movement in Ireland because it seeks to maintain the British fighting force at its fullest possible efficiency, is likewise now treasonable to the people and to the Government of this country. Let me put these ideas a little more concretely. The Sinn Fein Party is now a physical force move- ment, planned to take advantage of the perplexities and embarrassment of the English Government, with a view to the establishment of a new order in Ireland. A part of the program of the Sinn Fein Party is to impair the fighting strength of the British on the western line, and, if it had it in its power to do so, it would crumple that line, to the peril or destruction of all the Allies, including our own country. The Sinn Feiners wish the British to lose the western line, while we wish the British forces to hold that line. Our strong desire in this respect may be attributed to at least three motives: To our convic- tion, antedating our own entry in the war, that Germany, the outlaw of Europe, must be put down to preserve a civilization which is a part of the warp and woof of our lives; secondly, that now we are in the war in alliance with England, the high obligation of national fidelity to our Ally makes it a matter of honor that we should so desire; and lastly, that a part 54 of that line is or may be now held and the whole line reinforced by American troops. It is at this point in the road that every loyal American must part company with every Sinn Feiner, for no man can levy war upon our Allies without levying war upon us. I have not overstated the program of the Sinn Fein party. Mr. De Valera, its official leader, has stated his posi- tion to be: '^England is in occupation of my country. Until she removes her troops, England and Ireland are in a state of war. While we are in a state of war England ^s enemies must be Ireland's friends." Mr. Arthur Griffith, the founder and one of the leaders of the party, when asked whether, as a Sinn Feiner, he was in sympathy with the German cause, replied: ''I am not pro-German. But Germany is the enemy of England, and England is my enemy. You may draw your own conclusions.'' A conference of the Sinn Fein Party opened at Dublin, October 26, with Mr. De Valera at its head. A provisional constitution, aiming at an Irish republic, was adopted; the convention drew up a secession pro- gram; and the organization took steps to oppose ex- portation of food from Ireland to England. In other words, the Sinn Feiners are not content to levy war upon England, only in a military sense; they propose to destroy her by economic and industrial warfare. It ^ appeared clearly to the great Irish Churchman, Cardinal Logue, that the Sinn Feiners were traveling the road of destruction, for he issued a pastoral in November warning Ireland against an agitation for a republic; and the least that may be said about the program of the Sinn Fein conference is that it is made up of objectives at the moment unattainable. If it be said that the Sinn Fein leaders are idealists and poets, and men of high character, possessed of an all-consuming love for Ireland, I make answer that they are levying war upon our Ally, and in doing that they are levying war upon us. An American has no other answer, and he needs none. 55 1 pass now from the Sinn Fein Party to its sup- porters in America. In speaking to this point I have no men in mind. I speak in a purely impersonal way. I have no disposi- tion to precipitate a controversy; indeed, it would please me beyond measure to bring all controversies to a close so that Americans of Irish origin, to the very last man, might present the spectacle of a splendid union in an undivided and whole-hearted support of our country. I put this matter before you, therefore, in no con- troversial spirit, but as a matter of serious moment to the country and involving the good repute of Americans of Irish origin. We know that the Sinn Feiners have supporters in America, and, considering the purposes of that party as I have outlined them to you, and considering that the party is in effect levying war upon us, it follows that any support given to that party in America amounts to disaffection, disloyalty and treason. T know that in the overwhelming majority of cases neither disaffection nor disloyalty nor treason is in- tended, for many well-intentioned men, desiring to be loyal to the country, are led astray and are unconscious of the inexorable logic by which their disaffection, dis- loyalty and treason are made out. It is to be hoped that, without controversies, without feuds, and upon reflection, these men will realize that loyalty and devotion must be undivided and cannot exist to cross — and diametrically opposed — purposes. I think that I have made this point clear, and, as it is a painful subject, I pass to another phase of the Irish situation affecting the safety of the country. The public opinion of Ireland is in a condition bor- dering on madness, and in America and elsewhere throughout the world men of Irish origin are in a state of exasperation and fury, not without justification, in consequent of recent breakdowns in the power of the English Government respecting matters affecting Irish rights. It will be remembered that within a very few years the unwritten British Constitution had to be amended in order to pass a Home Rule measure, inasmuch as the House of Lords stood the implacable foe of every measure of that nature. Under a threat by the Liberal government thAt, if 56 the House of Lords did not yield and respect the will of the people when repeatedly expressed in the House of Commons, the Government would enlarge the membership of the House of Lords and thereby over- throw its then majority, a law came to be agreed upon which was in effect an amendment of the unwritten British Constitution, by the terms of which a measure passed by the House of Commons in three different sessions would become a law without a concurrence of the House of Lords. Just upon the eve of the war the House of Commons passed the Home Rule bill for the third time, and it was about to come into operation as a law of the United Kingdom when the Ulster Eebellion occurred. The most conspicuous figure in that movement of nullification, treason and threatened civil war was Sir Edward Carson, through whose activities an armed force, said to have amounted to 100,000 men, was enlisted to resist the enforcement of the Home Rule bill and to nullify that legislation for which the Na- tionalist Party had conducted an orderly and constitu- tional agitation for thirty years in the just expectation that when the legislation was achieved, after having been long labored for and justly won, there would be that acquiescence which is essential to the maintenance of all governments in which majorities rule. In fact, William James, in a memorable address, said of democracy that it depended upon two habits, and that one of them is the habit of trained and disciplined good temper towards the opposite party when it fairly wins its innings. In the case of Home Rule, there was no good temper, but armed resistance. The Liberal government was possessed of a sense of weakness; was conscious, or seemed to be conscious, of its inability to support the legislation with the force necessary to put it into operation. The Liberal govern- ment temporized with the Ulster Rebellion, and the war came on, and all the difficulties of division and contro- versy existing amongst groups of Englishmen made it necessary for the Liberal government to create a coali- tion government and to divide its power with Sir Ed- ward Carson, thereby putting a tremendous premium on lawlessness and treason. In other matters of vital moment and affecting Irish 57 conditions, and in the conduct of the war itself, the English Government has been driven by internal con- ditions to the pursuit of policies which have increased the exasperation of the Irish and alienated many of them from the zealous support of the cause of the Allies, with which they were possessed when the war opened. In these circumstances it is an obvious duty which England owes to all our Allies, and to America in particular, to settle these Irish difficulties, and to settle them at once so that Ireland may be pacified and men of Irish origin throughout the world may be reconciled, and that it may not hereafter be said, as heretofore, that England is solicitous of the fortunes of small nations in the abstract, but indifferent to them in the concrete. If Americans of Irish origin are true to the obliga- tions of fidelity which they owe to our country, and are also true to the incidental obligations which they owe to her Allies, we will be in a situation to make representations to our Government and to the President in line with these ideas. I have not the slightest doubt that the President, with the clear vision of which he is possessed, with his strong love of liberty and justice, and with his set determination to reach the just objectives that he puts before himself, will, the season being propitious and the time ripe, make effective representations to England, and thus remove the menace that she has herself created in alienating so many of the people of Ireland and in impairing the sympathetic support of many men of Irish origin in all quarters of the earth. These two matters of national concern and importance prompted me to ask Mr. O'Connor to be our guest of honor at this dinner; and I may say that 1 did so in the clear conviction that Irish affairs can be so ordered as to serve the cause of the Allies and secure recognition for the just claims of Ireland through the good offices of the Nationalist Party, which has served in the affairs of Ireland so long, so honorably and so disinterestedly. With all these sentiments in mind, I have the greatest possible pleasure in presenting Mr. O'Connor to you, for himself but not for himself alone, but as well because 58 he is the representative of the great Nationalist Party of Ireland, which is our Ally in the war. SAN FEANCISCO EXAMINER, APRIL 8, 1918. The resolutions as adopted unanimously, on April 7, by the 640 delegates to the 1918 St. Patrick's Day Con- vention of San Francisco, follow: "Whereas, There was recently printed m the public press the text of a speech delivered at a banquet held in this city, in honor of T. P. O'Connor, member of the British Parliament from an English constituency; and, *' Whereas, The host at said banquet, pretending to speak as an American citizen of Irish parents, bitterly and unjustly assailed and misrepresented the purposes and activities of the vSinn Fein party in Ireland, as well as those Americans who believe that Ireland, m company with Belgium, Serbia, Poland and all other small nations, should be allowed, without delay, to select the kind of government they desire; and, ''Whereas, The said speaker insinuated that these Americans, who protested against England's continued forceful occupation of Ireland, were not loyal to the United States of America; and, ''Whereas, The loyalty of the Irish people in America to the United States is and has been unquestioned, as is attested to by the fact that the Irish constitute the greatest percentage of volunteers in the United States army, and by the further fact that it appears, from an official statement, issued by Major- General Crowder, U. S. A., that the aliens in the United States, waiving their rights of exemption under the draft, were led by the Irish; therefore, be it "Resolved, By the St. Patrick's Day Convention of 1918, representing sixty-four Irish societies in San Francisco, with a membership of more than 50,000 American citizens, in regular session assemt)led, that we emphatically denounce the aforesaid statements and as- persions on our race, as expressed at the said banquet to T, P. O'Connor, as being untimely, misleading, untrue and un-American, and as being characterized by gross ignorance of the Irish question, as well as a complete 59 failure to comprehend the true spirit and ideals of the American people; and, be it further ''Eesolved, That this convention, again endorsing the imperishable truths of the American Declaration of Independence, which declared that all governments de- rive their just powers from the consent of the gov- erned, and again approving the statement of President Woodrow Wilson when he said that this country shall ''fight for the rights and liberties of small nations," ex- tends its heartfelt sympathy to our heroic kinsmen in Ireland in their struggle for independence; and be it further ''Eesolved, That this convention expresses the hope that the Government of the United States, which is today the most powerful exponent of genuine democracy in the world, may use its great influence to extend the beneficent principles of human liberty and ''self- determination" to the downtrodden and enslaved people of Ireland, who are engaged in the same struggle for independence that was successfully carried on hy the American colonies under the leadership of the immortal Washington and his co-patriots." SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, APRIL 8, 1918. Mr. McEnerney's reply to the St. Patrick's Day Con- vention, dated April 7: "This is an American question, not an Irish question. "The Sinn Feiners in Ireland and their adherents in America are anti-English and pro-German. The camou- flage is not thick enough to hide the Tact. ^The Sinn Feiners have been and are in a state of war against our Ally, and until all avenues of communication were closed they were conspiring with Germany through American and other channels to bring about the down- fall of the Allies. The Americans who have been promoting these Sinn Fein activities were violating the neutrality laws of this country until April 6, 1917, when we entered the war, and since that date their conduct has been treasonable to tne people and Government of this country. Where we will head up, unless something is done, is shown by an item in the 6o 'Monitor' of March 30. The State Council of Defense of Montana was obliged to suppress a jjarade of Sinn Feiners at Butte on St. Patrick's Day, and to enforce the order of suppression with Federal troops. Draft Irishmen. ''If the United Irish Societies desire to serve and not to disserve this country, I suggest that they recon- vene and ask the authorities at Washington to provide machinery for drafting into our armies all Irishmen between 21 and 31 now in this country, but not citi- zens thereof. These young Irishmen are not subjects of an alien enemy country, nor of a neutral country. Many of them are disaffected subjects of an Ally, and if they wish the asylum of this country they should be prepared to fight for her safety. "There is no reason why American men of military age should sacrifice their careers and imperil and forfeit their lives to make America safe for unnaturalized Irishmen of the same age who will not fight for the country, and under present regulations cannot be made to do so. If they cannot be drafted, I suggest that they be returned to Ireland, thereby lessening two bur- dens upon our Government; first, the necessity for the surveillance now maintained over all aliens, and, sec- ondly, the duty of husbanding our food resources for the armies and civil population of the country. Called Disloyal. "Of course, the whole trouble with many of these young Irishmen is that they have been poison-gassed by Sinn Fein, which means, for ourselves alone; and these same men are infected with disloyalty, even to the country of their asylum, because that country is in alliance with one whom they feel to be their hereditary foe. "A word or two more about the United Irish Socie- ties. If the members of the United Irish Societies are for the complete triumph of British arms and the utter destruction of German arms; and if they are for this in an unqualified and wholehearted way, and if their feelings, professions and conduct square with this test, then they are loj^al Americans; otherwise not. "If th« United Irish Societies desire to give unmis- 6i takable evidence of their own loyalty, let them begin at once a nation-wide agitation in favor of wholesale enlistments in Ireland, and also for the complete pacifi- cation of Ireland, so that 500,000 English troops now held in Ireland to maintain order may be added to the western line. Strengthening the British army by wholesale Irish enlistments and the transfer of British troops from Ireland to France may save the whole allied cause, including America, and I suggest to the United Irish Societies that such an object is well worthy of the devotion of all loyal Americans." SAN FRANCISCO, CHRONICLE, APRIL 8, 1918. Walter McGovern, acting chairman of the St. Pat- rick's Day Convention, issued the following statement last night in explanation of the resolution adopted by the convention: ''It is unfortunate that one so prominent as Mr. McEnerney should be misled into speaking in public on a subject that, obviously, he knows very little about. Mr. McEnerney is unquestionably a successful juridical statesman, but his knowledge of the Irish question is decidedly limited. He has never been affiliated with the Irish movement in any capacity. His recent remarks at the O 'Connor banquet betray a pitiful lack of appre- ciation of the aims and aspirations of the race he claims as his own. ''It is also apparent that the generous host of O'Connor does not fully comprehend the great soul of America. He does our country an injustice when he insinuates that loyalty to the cause of Irish independ- ence spells disloyalty to the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. American democracy has no racial or geographical limitations. The funda- mental truths of our Declaration of Independence set- ting forth the principle that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, has no stop-watch attachment. It was meant to apply at all times, and in all lands, everywhere. "When President Wilson declared that we were in this war 'to fight for the rights and liberties of small UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY D 001 069 020 4 nations' he did not exclude Ireland. Nor did he in- timate that the right of self-determination should be accorded only to the people held in political slavery by the Central Empires. His words applied to Ireland as well as to Belgium. President- Wilson is no hypo- crite; he is not demanding democracy for Belgium while protecting plutocracy in Ireland. ''England's spokesman in San Francisco presented the truism that our fundamental concern was the safety, of our country. He then added that ii was treasonable to do anything to embarrass the full efficiency of the British fighting forces. We answer that the enemies of Irish independence are the ones who are embarrassing the efficiency of the British fight- ing forces. Were England to practice what she preaches and give Ireland her independence, England's army of occupation in Ireland, estimated to exceed 200,000 men, could be quickly released and sent into the trenches to back up our gallant American fighters. Shouldn't Export Food. ''Mr. McEnerney criticises the Sinn Feiners for op- posing the exportation of food from Ireland to England. In the light of past experience, the Sinn Feiners are right in their stand. Ireland's products belong to the people of Ireland, and it is wrong to export food from Ireland so long as the Irish people are in want. During the so-called famine of 1847, when the whole world was sending relief ships to starving Ireland, English land- lords were shipping Irish produce to England. The Sinn Feiners are the progressives of Ireland — in every important particular like the American Minute Men of '76. "Toward the latter part of his speech Mr. McEnerney subtly apologized for his unwarranted insinuations against his people, by declaring that England should settle the Irish question. In that we again disagree. Ireland, not England, should settle the Irish question. To every real American the so-called Irish question presents itself in this form: What kind of government do the people of Ireland desire? And the only people who can answer that question are the Irish people themselves. " 57