THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY Presented by Mrs. Otto L. Schmidt 1937 M\T5k The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books or. reasons for disciplinary action and may result .n dismissal from the University UNIVERSITY OF .LL.NO.S LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN ^\( I L161— 0-1096 THE KING, THE KAISER AND IRISH FREEDOM TAMES K, McCUIRE THE KING, THE JCAISER AND IRISH FREEDOM BY lAMES K. McGUIRE NEW YORK THE DEVIN- ADAIR COMPANY 437 FIFTH AVENUE COPTBIOHT, 1915, BT THE DEVIN -ADAIR COMrANY V / This Book Is Dedicated to the millions of men and women of German blood in this country — who form the bulwarks of American civilization — to Johannes DeKalb and Steuben, the heroic and efficient soldiers and advisers of George Washington — to the memory of Germans who fought with Andrew Jackson against England in the War of 1 8x2 — ^to the German-American heroes of 1848 — ^to the great numbers of Germans who fought for the freedom of men and the preservation of the American Union in the Civil War from 1861 to the year 1865 — to their children in the Spanish-American War of 1898 — to all the vast Teutonic elements of the United States whose efforts have placed our nation to the forefront in education and in all arts and sciences — a noble people from whom Americans learn to be effi- cient and thorough— to the thrifty, useful, industri- ous, patriotic children of the Fatherland. James K. McGuire. New York, March 4, 1915, the anniversary of Robert Emmet ts] 968040 PREFACE This book is made necessary by the studied viola- tions of neutrality on the part of certain Anglo-Amer- ican newspapers, by the misrepresentation of the true spirit of Irish nationality at home and abroad, by the vilification of Germany, the infamous distortion of the truth by various writers and, above all, by the growing probability that this section of unfair Amer- ica, by no means in a majority, will destroy all hope of the United States becoming the arbiter at the end of the European war. The German people must un- derstand that the Anglo-American newspaper is with- out real influence among the people and that in this war it does not represent the true state of public opin- ion. The Cologne Gazette, perhaps one of the most im- portant newspapers in Germany, declares that the atro- cious falsehoods of the American press render impos- sible all hope of American intervention for peace and destroys all possibility of America having part in the settlement after the war, thus relegating our country to a most inferior position. We are regarded as a vassal of England and have lost our influence as a neutral state. Bishop Von Keppler, of Bavaria, the most eminent Catholic prelate of Germany, is quoted [7] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM as confirming the view of the Cologne Gazette, which adds: "American neutrality has been favorable to Great Britain, and America has lost our confidence and must be rejected as an arbitrator." James K. McGuire. New York, March, 1915. [8] ENDORSEMENT James K. McGuire is peculiarly fitted and especially endowed to write a book friendly to Germany. The first education he received in Syracuse was in a Ger- man school and his next schooling took place in the German school then in the basement of the Lutheran church in Butternut Street, Syracuse, New York. It is thirteen years since Mr. McGuire left Syracuse. During the thirty years he lived in our midst, no man occupied a warmer place in the hearts and affections of the Grerman people. Long time Mayor of Syra- cuse, he always held the support of the German peo- ple, irrespective of party ties. It is perfectly natural for him to defend German ideals and causes, for he is a student and writer on German history, philosophy and poetry, as well as a firm friend and son of Ire- land with an international reputation. (Signed) Alex. E. Oberlander. Editor and Publisher of the Deutche Union, Syracuse, New York. [9] CONTENTS R I. Sir Roger Casement's Mission to Ger- many ^5 II. Emperor William of Germany . . 29 III. England Lengthening the American Bread Line 33 IV. Alsace 46 V. Germans in the United States . . 51 VI. Why England Will Never Grant Freedom to Ireland 5^ VII. What Germany Could Do for Ire- land 68 VIII. How England Destroyed Irish In- dustries 7^ IX. Ireland's Commerce 82 X. English Atrocities in Ireland . . 97 XL The Irish Home Rule Bill . . .111 XII. Our Interference in Ireland . . 126 • XIII. English Society Tempts Irish Leaders 135 XIV. Fomenting Religious Prejudices . 145 XV. Recruiting the Irish National Vol- unteers 156 [II] CONTENTS CHATTXR PACK XVI. The Women of Ireland . . . .172 XVII. Leaders of Ireland 177 XVIII. Young Ireland of 1848 . . . .183 XIX. The Uprising of 1865 198 XX. The Situation in Ireland . . . 205 XXL How England Serves Up the News for the World 219 XXII. New York Public Opinion . . . 230 XXIII. Irish Opinion in South America . . 240 XXIV. Irish Feeling Favors Germany . . 257 XXV. A Word for Austria-Hungary . .271 XXVI. Conclusion 275 Postscript 287 [12] ILLUSTRATIONS James K. McGuire Frontispiece FACING YACB Emperor William of Germany 29 Robert Emmet 58 Sarah Curran 172 Theobold Wolfe Tone 177 Daniel O'Connell 183 John Mitchel 197 Michael Davitt 254 Charles Stewart Parnell 270 [13] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM CHAPTER I SIR ROGER casement's MISSION TO GERMANY The visit of Sir Roger Casement to the German foreign office at Berlin last November created considerable interest in America and no little con- sternation in England. Sir Roger Casement rep- resented the real Nationalists in his visit and was selected by them as ambassador because he was known as a tried friend of the movement for the independence of Ireland. The first newspaper to announce the result of his mission was the official organ of the German foreign office, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, which, on November 20, 1914, made the following announcement : ,The well-known Irish Nationalist, Sir Roger Case- ment, who recently arrived in Berlin from the United States, was received at the Foreign Office. Sir Roger Casement pointed out that there had been circulated in Ireland statements, apparently authorized by the Brit- ish Government, to the effect that a German victory would inflict great injury upon the Irish people. Their [15] THE KING. THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM land, their habitations, their churches, and their priests would be handed over to the tender mercies of an army of invaders, whose only motives were plunder and con- quest. Recent assertions of Mr. Redmond on the occa- sion of his recruiting tour through Ireland, as well as manifold editorial statement of the British press in Ireland, had, so Sir Roger explained, been widely cir- culated, and had naturally occasioned among the Irish fears respecting the attitude of Germany toward Ire- land. In the event of a German victory, Sir Roger asked for a convincing declaration about Germany's intentions toward Ireland, such as might restore the equanimity of his fellow-countrymen throughout the world, but especially in Ireland and America, in view of the disturbing statements circulated from respon- sible British quarters. The Acting Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs thereupon made the following offi- cial statement on behalf of the Imperial Chancellor : "The Imperial Government rejects with the utmost decision the evil intentions ascribed to it in the asser- tions quoted by Sir Roger Casement. The govern- ment takes this opportunity of making the categorical assurance that Germany cherishes only sentiments of good will for the prosperity of the Irish people, their land, and their institutions. The Imperial Govern- ment declares formally that Germany would not invade Ireland with any intentions of conquest or of the de- struction of any institutions. If, in the course of this war, which Germany did not seek, the fortune of arms should ever bring German troops to the coasts of Ire- [i6] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM land, they would land there, not as an army of invad- ers coming to rob or destroy, but as the fighting forces of a government inspired only by good will toward a land and a people for whom Germany only wishes na- tional prosperity and national freedom." The above statement was officially confirmed by the German Chancellor at Berlin, the German Foreign Office, and it was sent out officially by wireless from Berlin to London and America, via wireless to Sayville, Long Island, which is the only means of direct communication between Germany and the United States, since England cut the cables. Of course, very little news of this im- portant declaration reached the country so seri- ously affected by it — deceived Ireland. Since the declaration of war by England against Germany, the Irish have been daily frightened into the be- lief that a German invasion would mean wreak- ing frightful atrocities on helpless women and children, the destruction of their homes and properties, and such cruelties as, they were fooled into believing, occurred hourly in Belgium. The bogies and the conjuring of the ''German acts of barbarism" by Redmond, Devlin and O'Con- nor were the principal bits of stage property they had been using to secure recruits for the British [17] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM army. To lose this precious and essential bit of scenery would destroy the great act in the recruit- ing drama. In America the declaration ended the last hopes of Redmond's following, the rem- nants of the United Irish League vanished into thin air, the proposed meetings were called off and a feeling of solidarity among Irish National- ists was created. Redmond stood aghast over this news, which, despite press censors, was filter- ing through, penetrating parts of Ireland and in- terfering with the recruiting programme. A few days of silence passed, when the London cables informed the Anglo-American press that poor Casement was insane and had been suffering from ill health, that he had been long a loyal son of Great Britain and was deserving of the great- est pity for his derangement. Observing Ameri- cans replied that while, possibly, Sir Roger Casement might have, according to English re- ports, a few "bats in his belfry," that there was no question about the brainy headpiece of the German Government and that "national freedom" for Ireland, with the aid of Germany, was no evidence of brainstorm. The evident plight of the English Government was pitiful while the real Irish Nationalists rejoiced. [i8] ^■^T THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM The writer has been at some pains in investi- gating the record of Sir Roger Casement. His career is one of which any man might well feel proud. He is fifty years of age, born in County Antrim, near Belfast, an Ulster Protestant and a staunch friend and supporter of Irish inde- pendence. He has held important positions in the British foreign service without a blemish on his private or official record. In 1895 he was British Consul for West Africa and Consul to the Congo Free State, which posi- tion he occupied for eleven years. He was sent to Brazil in 1906, declined the consul general- ship of the West Indies in 1907 and was made consul general for Brazil in 1909. His diplomatic ability and commercial speciali- zation are of the highest order and he would have been elevated to the chief diplomatic posts but for his well-known view that his own country, Ireland, could only work out her destiny by sep- aration from England. This was the same view held by the rebel of 1848, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who rose to the position of Premier of Australia and who, to the day of his death, hoped to see the green flag flying over a free Ireland. Six weeks after the war broke out, Sir Roger [19] THE KING. THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Casement sent this letter to the Irish newspapers : Let Irishmen and boys stay in Ireland. Their duty IS clear — before God and before man. We, as a peo- ple, have no quarrel with the German people. Ger- many has never wronged Ireland, and we owe her more than one debt of gratitude. It was not a Ger- man steamship company that, last summer, with the assent of the government making the contract, broke public faith with the Irish people and abandoned its pledged service with the port of Cork. But it was a German steamship company that tried to make good the breach of public trust and the injury to Irish trade that the Cunard Company had committed, and the British Postmaster-General, Admiralty, and Board of Trade had connived at. And it was another British department that made representation at Berlin, in be- half of English trade jealousy, and caused the German Emperor to intervene to induce the Hamburg-Ameri- can line to substitute Southampton for Queenstown — a British for an Irish port. The hated German was welcome when he came to an English port — his help and enterprise were out of place when directed to as- sisting Irishmen to better means of intercourse with the outside world. Sir Roger Casement is an Irishman of the pur- est patriotic gold. We take no pride in the con- stant allusions by England to her great military and naval commanders who are born in Ireland. [20] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM They are Tories and are opposed to the freedom of their own country. No patriotic Irishman re- joices in Lord Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Rear Admiral Callaghan or in the military genius of the Duke of Wellington. These men fought for England alone and never for Ireland. They were given their reward by England and no shrine is visited in Ireland which venerates their names. In bitterness of feeling toward National- ist Ireland, these Irish saviours of England have outdone the descendants of Cromwell. It is not so with the able Irishman whose name heads this chapter, Roger Casement. PROPHETIC Extracts from the writings of Sir Roger Case- ment and written before the war: Without Ireland there would be to-day no British Empire. The vital importance of Ireland to England is understood, but never proclaimed by any British statesman. To subdue that western and ocean-closing island and to exploit its resources, its people and, above all, its position, to the sole advantage of the eastern island, has been the set aim of every English government from the days of Henry VIII onwards. ***** Napoleon, too late in St. Helena, realized his error : [21] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM "Had I gone to Ireland instead of to Egypt the empire of England was at an end." * * * 41 * The power of the British fleet can never be perma- nently restrained until Ireland is restored to Europe. Germany has of necessity become the champion of European interests as opposed to the world dominion of England and English-speaking elements. She is to- day a dam, a great reservoir rapidly filling with human life that must some day find an outlet. England in- stead of wisely digging channels for the overflow has hardened her heart, like Pharaoh, and thinks to pre- vent it or to so divert the stream that it shall be lost and drunk up in the thirsty sands of an ever expand- ing Anglo-Saxondom. German laws, German lan- guage, German civilization, are to find no ground for replenishing, no soil to fertilize and make rich. ^^ ^n ^n ^^ ^^ England relies on money. Germany on men. And just as Roman men beat Carthaginian mercenaries, so must German manhood, in the end, triumph over Brit- ish finance. Just as Carthage in the hours of final shock, placing her gold where Romans put their gods, and never with a soul above her ships, fell before the people of United Italy, so shall the mightier Carthage of the North Seas, in spite of trade, shipping, colonies, the power of the purse and the hired valor of the foreign (Irish, Indian, African), go down before the men of United Germany. 4c 4( * 4c 4c [22] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM In order to make sure the encompassing of Europe with a girdle of steel it is necessary to circle the United States with a girdle of lies. With America true to the policy of her great founder, an America "the friend of all Powers but the ally of none," Eng- lish designs against European civilization must in the end fall. Those plans can succeed only by active American support, and to secure this is now the supreme task and aim of British stealth and skill. Every tool of her diplomacy, polished and un- polished, from the trained envoy to the boy scout and the minor poet, has been tried in turn. The pulpit, the bar, the press, the society hostess, the Cabinet Minister and the Cabinet Minister's wife, the ex- Cabinet Minister and the royal family itself, and last, but not least, even "Irish Nationality" — all have been pilgrims to that shrine, and each has been carefully primed, loaded, well-aimed, and then turned full on the weak spots in the armor of republican simplicity. To the success of these resources of panic the falsifica- tion of history becomes essential and the vilification of the most peace-loving people of Europe. The past relations of England with the United States are to be blotted out, and the American people, who are by blood so largely Germanic, are to be entrapped into an atti- tude of suspicion, hostility, and resentment against the country and race from whom they have received noth- ing but good. Germany is represented as the enemy, not to England's indefensible claim to own the seas, but to American ideals on the American Continent. [23] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Just as the Teuton has become the "Enemy of Civiliza- tion" in the Old World because he alone has power, strength of mind, and force of purpose to seriously dispute the British h*»gemony of the seas, so he is as- siduously represented as the only threat to American hegemony of the New World. 4c 4c ♦ ♦ « The birds of the forest are on the wing. It is an empire in these straits that turns to Amer- ica, through Ireland, to save it. And the price it of- fers is — war with Grermany. France may serve for a time; but France, like Germany, is in Europe, and in the end it is all Europe and not only Germany Eng- land assails. Permanent confinement of the white races, as distinct from the Anglo-Saxon variety, can only be achieved by the active support and close al- liance of the American people. These people are to- day, unhappily, republicans and freemen, and have no ill-will for Germany and a positive distaste for im- perialism. It is not really in their blood. That blood is mainly Irish and German, the blood of men not distinguished in the past for successful piracy and addicted rather to the ways of peace. The wars that Germany has waged have been wars of defence, or wars to accomplish the unity of her people. Irish wars have been only against one enemy, and ending always in material disaster, they have conferred always a moral gain. Their memory uplifts the Irish heart; for no nation, no people, can reproach Ireland with having wronged them. She has injured no man. [24] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM And now, to-day, it is the great free race of this common origin of peace-loving peoples, filling another continent, that is being appealed to by every agency of crafty diplomacy, in every garb but that of truth, to aid the enemy of both and the arch-disturber of the Old World. The jailer of Ireland seeks Irish- American support to keep Ireland in prison; the in- triguer against Germany would win German-Ameri- can good-will against its parent stock. There can be no peace for mankind, no limit to the intrigues set on foot to assure Great Britain "the mastery of the seas." BRITISH PLOT TO MURDER SIR ROGER CASEMENT FAILS Sir Roger Casement expected to leave Berlin in February, 1915, for Christiania, Norway, to lay the proofs before the Norwegian Government of a conspiracy to capture and return him to Eng- land or kill him, the chief conspirator being Mans- field DeC. Findlay, the British Minister to Nor- way, who endeavored to bribe a servant in the employ of Sir Roger, one Adler A. Christenson, a Norwegian, who was to receive at least $25,000 as a reward for his treachery and betrayal of his master, if successful. Sir Roger Casement has shown copies of the correspondence exposing the conspiracy to the German Foreign Office and [25] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM photographic copies are being sent by Sir Roger to his friends on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. He is regarded by the British Government in ex- actly the same light as Robert Emmet and other patriots who were swung to their death from Brit- ish scaffolds. If captured and brought to Eng- land, this patriotic Irishman will be charged with high treason to the Crown and executed. Fearing that the difficulties of capturing him could not be surmounted, the British Minister to Norway in- structed Christenson to lure Sir Roger Casement to a point on the coast, where a British ship could run in and get him, "or, still better, knock him on the head." Announcement is officially made from the Berlin Foreign Office that the discovery of the conspiracy has been submitted to the American Ambassador and that copies will be sent to Secretary of State Bryan, at Washington. England must get rid of Casement at any cost, for he represents the true spirit of Irish nation- ality, which is the faith and hope of the sons and daughters of the Celts and the Gaels throughout the world. The English spy system has been developed to an extraordinary degree. There are few pages of Irish history free from the sinister story of [26] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the spy and the informer. Where the system of paid spies fails, the lure of British gold to bribe the servants of illustrious Irishmen to betray their masters is a common occurrence in the his- tory of the British Empire. The servant of Sir Roger Casement proved incorruptible, otherwise another Irish patriot would have been destroyed. .t [27] UNANSWERABLE If the Kaiser wanted to break the peace of the world, why should he have waited until his country was ringed round with hostile alliances? If he wanted war with his present opponents, why did he refrain from urging war on England when the English armies were engaged in sanguinary combat with the Boer Republic or with the Russians during their life and death strug- gle with the Japanese hosts? Is he not the only great ruler in the world who kept his country at peace from the beginning of his reign and for more than a quar- ter of a century? [28] CHAPTER II EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY *'Sie haben mir das Schwert in die Hand gedriickt: ich kann nicht anders" ("They have forced the sword into my hand. I cannot do otherwise.") These were the words from the lips of the Kaiser as the command went forth to the German people to defend the Fatherland against the na- tions who had hemmed them in. The patriotic reply was unanimous and instantaneous. No such evidence of the solidarity of a great nation, faced by a common danger, is furnished by the world's history. The dulled legions of Russia responded slowly while revolutions burst forth throughout the vast Russian Empire. England declared war* on Germany with her cabinet split in twain, the war denounced in Parliament, followed by sedi- tion in Ireland, protests in Canada, armed rebel- lion in the Transvaal and Orange State, mutinies in India and revolution in Egypt. The govern- ment of Portugal is still in a state of disorder over [29] EMPEROR WII.EIAM OE CERMAXV "Sit' Iial)oii mir das Schwcrt in die Hand licdriickt ; icli kaini niclit andcrs." "I'luv lia\c I'oi'Cfd tlu' sword intu niy liaiid. I cannot do otlurwisc." CHAPTER II EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY "Sie Kahcn mir das Schwcrt in die Hand gedriickt: ich kann nicht andcrs." ('They have forced the sword into my hand. I cannot do otherwise.") These were the words from the lips of the Kaiser as the command went forth to the German people to defend the Fatherland against the na- tions who had hemmed them in. The patriotic reply was unanimous and instantaneous. No such evidence of the solidarity of a great nation, faced by a common danger, is furnished by the world's history. The dulled legions of Russia responded slowly while revolutions burst forth throughout the vast Russian Empire. England declared war on Germany with her cabinet split in twain, the war denounced in Parliament, followed by sedi- tion in Ireland, protests in Canada, armed rebel- lion in the Transvaal and Orange State, mutinies in India and revolution in Egypt. The govern- ment of Portugal is still in a state of disorder over [29] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM its entrance to the war theatre. The divisions in Turkey are apparent. In Germany the people are united. All party lines have fallen — to be rebuilt after the war along new alignments, but now the motto is "One for all — all for one." While the whole world, with mixed feelings and bated breath, watches its most interesting figure — the Kaiser. They contrast that strong figure and resolute face with the weak apparitions and mediaeval figures of King George and the Czar of the Russias, and they find in the Emperor the very embodiment of the German progress and efficiency which earned the hate and jealousy of the mistress of the seas. All of the numerous German political divisions have been unified in support of the Kaiser — the great Socialist party, the Catholic party (the centre), the Conservatives, Poles, National Lib- erals and Progressives. The private life and domestic virtues of William of Germany typify in their practice the dominant and indestructible features of all that is best in the German character. He is one of the few kings in the history of the world untaintetl by scandal or weakened by vice. His aflfection for his family, his devotion to his friends, his [30] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM abstemious habits, the Spartan simplicity of his personal living, are admired by all observers. He rises at five in the morning, works many hours of the day and night and is Emperor in fact as well as in name. His motto is, "Rest means rust." He finds time for simple amusements, out- door exercise, and visitors find him one of the freshest and most alert men in Europe. No one more than he realizes that the German problem is economic, and therefore he studies all important works of political economy and is the keenest stu- dent on a throne of the progress of governments. He went to war, as he believed, to save the future of Germany. Mr. Andrew Carnegie said, "The Emperor was the most sorrowful man in the world when he realized that war could not be averted." For three centuries religious differences had created a sharp cleavage in the German states. Fierce and prolonged wars had been fought be- tween sects of Christians. Under the reign of the present ruler, Protestants, Catholics and Jews live together in the greatest harmony. The broad spirit and tolerance of the Emperor, his catholic view of all worshippers or non-believers, are con- trasted with the religious persecutions sponsored [31] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM by the Czar of Russia and the French Govern- ment. The latter drives the nuns from France during the same period that the Jews are being persecuted and murdered in Russia. The King of England refuses to permit his army to enforce the terms of a Home Rule Bill, thrice voted by Parliament, lest the law be followed by armed rebellion in the name of religion. Under Em- peror William, for twenty-six years Germany has known religious peace. [32] CHAPTER III ENGLAND LENGTHENING THE AMERICAN BREAD LINE Sympathy for the Belgians is general in Amer- ica and England has taken every advantage of that feeling to hide her tracks in the work of de- stroying American commerce on the high seas. The average American citizen is a curious com- bination of the Yankee trader and the senti- mentalist. More than any other nation, we are carried off our feet by great gusts of sympathy for a stricken people. This was the case with the downfall of Poland, of Hungary, and of Ireland. Only two foreigners that the writer recalls have been permitted to address the Congress of the United States. One was Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot; the second, Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish leader. But we soon forget our sympathy and reaction sets in when the principal American nerves, the pocket nerves, ache and throb too long. He is blind indeed who fails to see that the German cause has greatly advanced in the month of Jan- [33] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM uary, 1915, in all sections of the United States. Not only is Thought gradually working itself clear, but the American who wants to be fair is beginning to warm toward the side where 100,- 000,000 people struggle against 700,000,000, and with the products of the rest of the world aiding this huge majority and neutral countries work- ing overtime supplying the allies alone with arma- ment and war supplies. Overtopping all, the American is commencing to realize that canny England, not Germany, is depriving the United States of her commerce. Never does a German man-of-war seize an American ship for contra- band. All of these outrages have been per- petrated by the ruler of the seas. At last Uncle Sam is awake and is questioning England, as he questioned her in 1861, and the average citizen is sitting up and taking notice of the answer. The cotton planters down South last year, who sold Germany 2,35P,0P0 bales of cotton, are for- getting some of Belgium's horrors in their own woes as they realize that the British embargo cut off the German and Austrian market, drove cotton down to famine prices, enabled the shrewd English cotton mill buyers to get cotton at a frightful loss to the American planter and at a [34] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM huge profit to the English buyer. Your cotton planter is writing letters by the thousands now telling how the English worked the most success- ful trade trick known to man and, after making the planter practically give away his cotton, then lifted it from the contraband list so that Ger- many and Austria would pay more. But all at the expense of the cotton growers of the South. The sunburnt man under the soft wool hat in Dixie is digging up his school histories these days to remind his neighbors of Marion the Swamp Fox who hunted the British redcoats out of South Carolina, and he is reading up the rifle- men of the swamps and forests of the Southland who drove the last remnants of Great Britain from the United States in 1815, when Andrew Jackson, the son of an expatriated Irish linen weaver, from Carrickfergus, defeated Paken- ham at New Orleans. And when he considers his cotton losses and the history of his coun- try, his viewpoint of Germany changes won- derfully. Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, writing to Ambassador Pinckney at London, said: "Great Britain might feel the desire of starving an enemy nation, but she can have no right of [351 THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM doing it at our loss nor of making us the instru- ment of it." Great Britain has destroyed the commerce of the United States, an innocent party in the war, with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, and to an important extent with neutrals like Denmark, Holland and Italy. Her policy of starving Germany out is actually creating more cases of starvation in the United States than in Germany. There are few unemployed in Ger- many, because the government has succeeded in paying wages, through public and private work, to all left at home. Let us see why so many workmen in American vV» agricultural implement factories are idle. Last year Germany bought of us $3,000,000 worth of mowers and reapers; hay rakes, $64,000; plant- ers, $20,000; plows, $213,000; threshers, $261,- 000. At $2.50 per day in wages, that loss ac- counts for nearly 5,000 idle men. In brass goods she took $1,642,000, which loss throws 2,000 brass workers out of work. Starving out the Germans and Austrians will cost the farmers of the United States not less than $40,000,000 in a year. Germany absorbs one-half of the exported [36] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM American wood alcohol used in the arts. Last year she with Austria took $50,000,000 of our copper and copper wares. Averaging the wages of the Montana and Michigan miners at $4 per day, that means 40,000 copper miners and work- ers added to the bread line. In bleached cotton cloth she took from us $1,260,000; cotton waste, $1,000,000; corsets, $88,000 ; mixed goods, $178,- 000; phosphate, $2,700,000; binder twine, $91,- 000;dried apples, $1,208,000; ripe apples, $1,209,- 000; apricots, $800,000; peaches, $170,000; prunes, $2,110,000; glue, $78,000; rubber goods, $1,200,000; shoes, $132,000; iron and steel products, $4,800,000; adding machines, $370,000; cash registers, $1,200,000. Now figures are usually dry reading and we will not continue, but the statement can be safely made that England, by declaring practically everything contraband intended for Germany and Austria, excepting cotton, has thrown out of employment and reduced to a state of want from 350,000 to 450,000 men, to say nothing of the fearful curtailment of trade and traffic in other directions. The oldest living Americans recall the days when the American flag flew over thousands of [37] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM fast clippers, when more than three-fourths of the commerce of our country was carried in American bottoms. He reads from his history how England took advantage of the Civil War to seize American trade and, having destroyed our commerce as our country lay prostrate, the oldest citizen is surprised at the present genera- tion, which seems supine and helpless to protect its own products from the dominant power on the high seas. Men are asking themselves, at this hour, by what right does England persist in destroying our commerce, making an innocent nation suffer and increasing the store of human misery in this country. The patriotic American is insisting on an answer to the query why Amer- ican products on the high seas should not be held as sacred as though they were on land. The world may be suffering from Militarism, but America surely is declining because she is held at the mercy of a relentless foreign Navalism. The American war of 1812 with England was due chiefly to British interference with our ex- port trade. The writer has read the famous de- bate from the annals of Congress in January, 1812. John Randolph, of Virginia, denounced the bill to increase the army. He denounced his [381 THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM colleagues in the Senate who resented the un- friendly commercial acts of England in taking American goods as contraband. He was an- swered by Senator John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, who said: "A nation commands re- spect which insists on protecting its commerce. We resent the depredation on every branch of our commerce, including our direct export trade and the products of our fields and farms. What shall we do, abandon or defend our own commer- cial and maritime rights and the personal liber- ties of our citizens in exercising them?" One of the greatest men of the period, perhaps the greatest, was Henry Clay, of Kentucky, thrice a candidate for President, the idol and leader of the Whig Party. He was speaker of the House of Representatives and on the last day of December, 1811, he took the floor to defend the army measure, and he said: "For argu- ment's sake, let us concede the fact that the French Emperor is aiming at universal empire; can Great Britain challenge our sympathies when, instead of putting forth her arms to pro- tect the world, she has converted the war into a means of self-aggrandizement; when, under pre- tence of defending them, she has destroyed the ]39] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM commerce and abused the rights of every neutral nation and trampled on the rights of every na- tion; when she has attempted to annihilate every vestige of the public maritime code of which she professes to be the champion ? Shall we bear the cuffs and scoffs of British arrogance because we may entertain chimerical fears of French subju- gation? . . . We cannot secure our independ- ence of one power by a dastardly submission to the will of another. . . . When did submission to one wrong induce an adversary to cease his encroachments on the party submitting ? But we are told that we ought only to go to war when our territory is invaded. How much better than invasion is the blocking of our very ports and harbors, insulting our towns, plundering our merchants, and scouring our coasts? If our fields are surrendered, are they in a better con- dition than if invaded? When the murderer is at our doors, shall we meanly skulk to our cells, or shall we boldly oppose him at the entrance?" The English financial reports, commenting on the condition of the British Empire after six months of the war, reached New York about February 4, 1915. They fully corroborate the claim of the writer that the United States is really [40] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the chief industrial sufferer of all the great na- tions. Our people have been strung along and out-manoeuvred by the clever wiles of English diplomacy. The salve of flattery extended from the hands across the sea will not heal the business bruises dealt to Brother Jonathan by the clever financiers of Lombard Street. While the bread line lengthens in America, the unemployed are decreasing throughout England. The Cunard, White Star, Red Star, Anchor and other English steamship lines, headed by the dominating Eng- lish interests in Wall Street, have intrigued so well at Washington that all parties are playing into their hands and no relief is to be afforded American shipping. More frightful will be the peril to the United States if the submarine cam- paign launched by the Germans against merchant ships flying the British flag should continue as successful as it has begun. Nearly all of our commerce to Europe is carried in vessels flying the Union Jack, so helpless and unimportant are we on the ocean. Discerning Americans perceive that England, not Germany, has brought about this destruction of American shipping. We are not deceived by the figures showing increased ex- ports. Our working men in urban centres know [41] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM that wheat mounting up to $2 per bushel pads the export trade more than wheat at ninety cents per bushel, and corn, oats, barley and other farm products likewise. They realize the loaf of bread is six cents instead of five cents, and that means an extra tax of $16,000,000 on the breadeaters of New York City alone. The export of war- priced ammunition, wagons, horses, etc., etc., is no proof of a return to prosperity. The writer within a week has seen no sign of diminishment in the great armies of idle men surrounding American factories. Many American cotton mills are idle and many more are working on part time. The spinners and other cotton operatives' unions report more idle men and women than at any period since the year 1893. The cotton trade in England is boom- ing. The Lancashire mills, with low-priced American cotton, are running day and night. British consols are selling as well and at as high a figure as before the war. Great Western Rail- way shares of England, selling before the war at 114, are selling at 115 ; the same is noticed in the standard English railway shares. All of the English boats are rolling up enormous profits, while our Senators fight over personal, political [42] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM and extraneous questions, and cannot agree on any shipping policy. While Nero was fiddling, Rome was burning. Iron and steel in the United States is too cheap to be made at a profit and sold abroad on account of the freight rates being tripled by English ship owners. Whereas, the iron and steel trade of the English makers is flourishing. The United States Steel Company has cut out the dividend on its common stock, aflfecting very many thousands of investors, while the principal English steel mills declared divi- dends last month. The British manufacturer is attacking the Germans successfully in the former markets of the latter and organizing an effective foreign trade campaign because they have the ships. We have nothing but sympathy for the Allies and only relief ships for Belgium and few commercial ships to fly the Stars and Stripes on the seven oceans. The leading Anglo-American weekly is Harper's Weekly, and Great Britain has made times so "good" in America that Harper's Weekly is destitute of advertising. Despite six months of the war, the English coal exports only fell off 17,353,000, while ours fell off 31,000,000 tons. The American woollen manufacturing trade is depressed, while the English woollen business is [43] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM steadily improving. In six months the American woollen trade is reduced 24 per cent. ; in England, less than 18 per cent. In 1913 Great Britain ex- ported 97,593,400 yards of linen to the United States, and increased the amount to 107,550,300 yards in 1914, despite the war. A fair evidence of the prosperity of the English people rests in the figures showing a gain per capita in the amount of tea, coffee and sugar consumed. The imports and exports of silk by England have in- creased over 1913 and the year 1912. With Ger- many and France, in spite of the war, having found means to properly provide for the unem- ployed, with England doing up America in the trade of Europe, Asia and Africa, the question is often asked by the students of history, After fifty years of unexampled prosperity, have American business men grown stale and become enervated by past successes? Are they wanting in the in- itiative, daring, resource and alertness of their fathers, who built a merchant marine that coped with England successfully for half a century? This is the 15th day of February, 1915. The bread line grows instead of receding, and the world is in the seventh month of the war. The price of bread throughout the City of New York has risen another cent per loaf. The pangs of [44] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM hunger have reached the iron and steel districts of Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. Vast armies of the worried mechanics and laborers congregate about the shops and factories. Special patrols are established along the railway lines to keep men off the tracks, who, being pen- niless, are trying to steal free rides in the hope of getting work in the next town. The writer has seen the bread line this month in some seven American cities. One does not have to visit Europe to see the human misery caused by the war. Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of the Mayor's Committee on Unemployment, reports on Feb- ruary 8, 1915, that there are 200,000 more un- employed in New York City than last Winter. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company can- vass shows cases of unemployment in 35,000 out of 146,000 families whose members insured in that company. The custom collectors for all the important ports in New York report officially to the Secre- tary of the Treasury that there is an enormous congestion of farm products and merchandise of all kinds in every port in the United States which cannot be transported to Europe for want of American ships. [45] CHAPTER IV ALSACE Most Americans have sympathized with France in the loss of her provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, as the result of the Franco-Prussian war of 1871. This sentiment is worthy, but is not founded on material grounds to-day, because the record shows that this detached territory is far more prosperous under German administra- tion. In forty years the population of Alsace- Lorraine has nearly tripled, and produces a vast amount of grain, tobacco, iron and coal, and with an area of only 5,580 square miles, one-sixth the area of Ireland, is a veritable beehive of cotton, woollen, silks and chemical industries. Contrast the state of Alsace-Lorraine with that of misgoverned Ireland, where the popula- tion is to-day only one- third of the number of people living in Ireland seventy years ago. While English rule has been draining the life- blood of Ireland, leaving only the remnants of a people, this little territory along the banks of the Rhine has gone forward by leaps and bounds, [46] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM with the people so contented that sentiment alto- gether throughout the province has steadily changed in favor of Germany, and the Alsatians have furnished their full quota of soldiers for the Fatherland. Ireland, too, has iron and coal, and could manufacture cotton, wool and silks, but it is not for the commercial interest of England to have an industrial Ireland. She must always be confined under the British Empire to remain an agricultural spot, a rear garden to supply food for England. The district of Alsace-Lorraine contains the same percentage of Roman Catholics as Ireland, about 76 per cent. The beautiful Rhine flows all along its borders, filled with vessels carrying commerce of the province to the world. The River Shannon of Ireland is as grand and as beautiful, but you may go along its shores for days and never see a sail. The land along the Shannon is as rich and fertile as the lands on the banks of the Rhine. The harbors of the Ger- man river are no safer or deeper. For every $128 owned by an Irishman, the Alsatian pos- sesses $915. The farmer of these annexed Ger- man provinces can sell the products of his farm to any country of the world on the same basis as [47] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM any other province or colony of the German Em- pire. The Irish farmer must market his cattle and farm products through English ports alone. If he has cows or sheep to sell on the Continent he must first ship them to England, divide the profit with the middleman there, and take what is left. It was this infamous method of trade suppression that led to the successful revolution of the American colonists, who rebelled against laws which required American farmers to ship their products through English market channels. Germany removed from the provinces of Al- sace-Lorraine unjust, artificial checks, and pro- tected, rather than discouraged, the industries of her new provinces, which has steadily weakened the old attachment for France. The provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, with little more than one-half the population of Ireland, has sent 104,000 troops to the front in France for Germany, whereas, up to the 10th of October, scarcely 10,000 recruits had been secured in all of Ireland. In Ireland the people are not let know the extent of the German victories on land and sea, lest the knowledge would interfere with the ex- traordinary methods of securing recruits for the British armies. The Home Rule Bill, signed by [48] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM King George, to be amended by Ulster and to go into effect after the war, is the recruiting bait. Economic pressure will never permit Ireland to become a near commercial competitor of Eng- land. The latter with its 38,000,000 of people con- gested on a small island, cannot afford to have Ire- land manufacture the same line of goods. She must be confined to the products of the soil, to linens, and food products. Hence, a Home Rule measure which expressly prohibits Ireland from foreign commerce save through the British Par- liament. The Parliamentary Party is called Nationalist — a misnomer. Tis a far crv, hearkened back a century, from Mr. Redmond's purely local measure, installing his followers in the offices ex- pected through the execution of- the bill, to the dying request of Robert Emmet forbidding his countrymen to write his epitaph until Ireland should become a free nation. Who knows in the fulness of time but that Germany and destiny will write Emmet's epitaph ! As for the descendants of the Celts, if the issue is, according to Mr. Joseph H. Choate, the "intense hatred of Germany for England and her [49] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM lofty ambition to establish a world empire upon the ruins of the British Empire, their answer is: "The British Empire ruined Ireland — she can fare no worse and, with the friendship of Germany, her lot may be bettered." [50] CHAPTER V GERMANS IN THE UNITED STATES Europe, not England, is the Mother Country of America. Of the white men and women within the borders of the United States, we should be safe in asserting that at least twenty per cent, are of German stock. To call such a people Huns, vandals and barbarians should be con- sidered ridiculous in this country. They form one of the best elements in our vast heterogeneous and cosmopolitan population. The Germans make first-class American citizens; they are patriotic, literate and industrious; thrifty, sensi- ble and modest. Many Americans marvel at the patience of these worthy people, under the calum- nies hurled by thousands of vilifiers at the land of their fathers and mothers. From the dawn of American independence the German emigrants have been the friends of American freedom. They fought bravely and loyally on many American battlefields and they have given this country the greatest help in fur- nishing steadiness and stability of character. [51] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM It was Johann DeKalb, of Huttendorf, Ba- varia, who accompanied Lafayette to the side of George Washington in 1777. He served as major general of the Continental armies in New Jersey and Maryland until April, 1780. He lost his life in the battle of Camden in August, 1780. The writer remembers, near his boyhood home, the town Steuben, where the illustrious patriot, Friedrich Wilhelm Steuben, died in 1794. Sec- ond only to the immortal Washington, this gal- lant German soldier held up the courage of the starving patriots in the dark winter nights of Valley Forge. He gave up his own food to the privates. Washington acknowledged that to Steuben's, more than any other influence, was due the superb discipline and organization of the patriotic rebel army. It was he who received the first ofifer of capitulation from Lord Corn- wallis, the British commander-in-chief. In the Civil War the Germans dyed the fields of the South with their blood. The Union could not have been saved without them. In April, 1861, as the gallant Irish 69th New York Regi- ment was marching down Broadway, their band playing ''Garry Owen" and "The Star Spangled Banner," on their way to join the Army of the S52] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Potomac, three German regiments from Cincin- nati, Wisconsin and St. Louis were on their way to meet them. Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, the noted bandmaster, used to tell of the German military bands playing Irish airs on St. Patrick's Day along the banks of the Potomac. General Carl Schurz distinguished himself at the battle of Manassas and in the campaign in Tennessee. He became U. S. senator from Mis- souri, and as a statesman, writer and patriot he ranks as one of the foremost Americans. The German veterans of the Grand Army of the Re- public recall the glories of the blond-haired Ger- man boys "who fought mit Sigel" in the Civil War. Franz Sigel was a son of Baden, who or- ganized the first German regiment in New York. He was a hero of Carthage and Pea Ridge and he went down to enduring fame when, with 4,000 men, he held Maryland Heights against General Early and 15,000 men in 1864. The first German immigrants settled in Penn- sylvania, and their agricultural settlements were such that they were visited and studied by our Eastern colonist agriculturalists. The Thirty Years' War, extending over the soil of disunited and dismembered states, had wrought ruin and [53] . THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM destruction on homes and people when the Ger- man, Furly, obtained a grant of land in Eastern Pennsylvania and gathered his emigrants from along the banks of the Rhine. They landed at Germantown (which is now part of the city of Philadelphia) in 1683. These Germans were the first of our foreigners to organize against slavery. Then others came to New Jersey and New York, founding towns with such typical German names as Saugerties, Rhinebeck, Ger- man Flats, Mannheim and Palatine, N. Y. They settled Berks County, Pennsylvania, then Mont- gomery and Lancaster Counties, then they trekked on to Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina in 1732. They reached Georgia from Salzburg in 1734, followed by the Wurtembergers. When the War of 1812 broke out the German young men joined the army of Andrew Jackson and did their share in driving the British out of this country. From the year 1841 to 1900 — sixty years — there have been added to our population not less than 5,000,000 Germans. The marvellous prosperity of Germany under the reign of the present Em- peror has checked emigration, so that few of these worthy and welcome emigrants have been [54] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM coming to our shores in recent years. Men and women of German extraction dominate in num- bers the cities of Cincinnati and Milwaukee and are powerful elements in Chicago, St. Louis, In- dianapolis, Buffalo, Cleveland and Baltimore. In New York City they form about twenty per cent, of the population. In religion there are about as many Catholic as Protestant German- Americans. The German character has been an important element in the upbuilding of the United States. They are our largest savings bank depositors and home builders; their instrumental music and their singing societies have brought many happy hours to American hearts and homes. Their love of children have made them the toymakers of the world. The Nuremberg toymaker was freezing in the trenches last Christmas eve and many an American child felt the effect of his absence. America has reason to be thankful for the ad- vent of German people to her shores and for the long and constant friendship of the German Em- pire. Our country has had two wars with Eng- land and has been on the verge of two more — in 1861 and in 1893. We have been at war with [55] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Spain, with Tripoli and with Mexico, and we have been nearly at war with France. With Germany we have not had the slightest misun- derstanding, and her government and people have always been our good friends. We have broken our treaty with Russia because American Jew- ish citizens cannot cross her territory. No greater calamity could befall modern civilization than the dismemberment of Germany with the aid of medieval and intolerant Russia. More power, say we all, to the strong arm of the gal- lant and resolute von Hindenburg in the East, who so far has resisted Russian invasion of Ger- many. No country, excepting the United States, per- haps, has, in the past forty years, made such advances in economic production as Germany. Americans owe this wonderful people a great debt for the instruction the Germans have given them in chemistry, medicine, surgery, electricity, in waterpower development, inventions and vari- ous discoveries and improvements in art and science. The Germans taught our farmers how to avoid waste and how to increase crops. Their municipal governments are the models from which our progressive city officials draw their most valuable lessons. Germany was the suc- [56] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM cessful pioneer in workmen's compensation laws, which were first copied in this country by Wis- consin, where the Germans are so numerous and influential. Insurance against accident, disease, death and old age is thirty years old in the Fatherland. The German success, against great natural obstacles, is due to a wonderful spirit of co-operative effort, organization, thorough- ness and solidarity. We know the traits of the Germans in Amer- ica. A people who can hymn for the Father- land on the battlefield, who love their homes and who are kindly and hospitable, their enemies will never convince us in the United States that they could become aggressors against the peace and civilization of the world. The Germans in America are the same in heart, in character and in feeling as the people of the Fatherland. They could not be disloyal if they tried. No less an American authority than the late United States Senator John Sherman of Ohio, when Secretary of the Treasury, said that the whole of Germany, including the government, was the friend of the Union in the Civil War. Prussia loaned a large amount of money to the United States when our country was hard pressed. [57] CHAPTER VI WHY ENGLAND WILL NEVER GRANT FREEDOM TO IRELAND "Every attempt to govern Ireland has been from an English standpoint, and as if for the benefit of Englishmen alone." — Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet. England will always remain the sole enemy of Ireland. Economic and industrial pressure make her the natural and logical destroyer of Irish in- dustry and commerce. If I were an English man- ufacturer or trader I, too, would help to crush any movement to make Ireland free. We would not want a rival in our own line at our shoulder, cutting down our profits and interfering with our commercial success. Self-preservation is the first law of nations as well as individuals. England has fixed the limits in the shape of an Irish truck garden which will furnish food for the English green hills of Inishowen, overlooking the wonder- ful harbor of Lough Swilly, County Donegal, de- serted then, but at present holding the great Brit- ish fleet. Twenty miles from this spot the super- [58] ROBERT EMMET "When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written." LIBRARY OF IHE UNIVERSITY OF IIIINOIS THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM dreadnaught Audacious sank to the bottom of the, sea at the hands of a deadly torpedo launched by a German submarine.* Nowhere in the world are there so many great natural harbors as on the west coast of Ireland — Donegal Bay, Sligo, Killala, Clew, Galway Bays, the mouth of the Shannon, and Dingle Bay could hold the fleets of the world. Ireland contains 33,000 square miles, England 58,000. Ireland is more fertile than either Eng- land or Scotland. The population of England is close to 35,000,000; Ireland is stripped down to 4,000,000 of inhabitants, and ought to be able to support in comfort 15,000,000 of people. The island contains coal, iron, marble, copper and various resources not possible of development be- cause of English control and opposition. Her industries are confined to a small section of the Northeast, held in hand by the descendants of in- vaders, fortified originally by conquest, and rarely do you find a pure native holding any important business station in any of the thirty-two counties of the island. The prevailing fashion is to class the natives as lazy and incompetent without scru- ♦Although three months have passed since the Audacious was sunk, no Irish newspaper has published the news. 159] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM tinizing the historic and economic reasons which have brought them to their present plight and left them at the mercy of the conquerors. Few of her critics take into account the repressive com- mercial codes of centuries, lifted too late, in part, to restore industry. The English Parliament enacted laws which ruined the once prosperous manufacturing industries of the country. As soon as Ireland developed an important direct ex- port trade, England crushed the life out of it by export tariffs, hostile duties aimed at Irish ex- ports solely. At one time Irish woollens were the first in Europe. The output of her looms found their way to all the cities of the continent. The cloth makers of England successfully petitioned the Parliament to place an arbitrary, preferential export duty on Irish woollens, which annihilated the industry. That trade never recovered from the blow. England gave bounties to manufac- tures in various lines, subsidies to ships, but none went to Ireland. After bankrupting Ireland, she removed these restrictions in the midst of the Con- tinental war, exactly as she promises Home Rule now, as an emergency measure to superinduce re- cruiting for the British army. The Irish Volun- teers of a hundred years, or more, ago were or- [60] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM ganized as the result of the suppression of Irish trade. They forced the government to supply them arms in the same maner as the Irish Volun- teers of to-day. The great wars on the continent frightened England into granting an Irish Par- liament in 1782, which was taken away from Ireland twenty years later. Pensioners of the government and traitors destroyed the national cause then as they are trying to do to-day. That brief period of a free country was the one bright epoch of modern Irish history. The factories were occupied and increasing in numbers and output, the harbors were filled with ships, and immigration exceeded emigration. Irish inde- pendence and growing commerce aroused fear- ful jealousies on the part of her more powerful neighbor, who proceeded to crush Ireland again by acts of repression. This led to rebellion and bloodshed and the execution of Rob- ert Emmet, followed by the destruction of Irish industries. Then came seventy years of horror, broken only by the gurgling cries of a strangled people. Young Ireland rose in 1848, led by a dozen educated young men, but the effort was futile. Famine had done to death a million people the year before, another million fled to foreign [6i] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM shores, the life blood of the nation was exhausted, but her children, scattered to the four corners of the earth, preserved good memories. One afternoon I was in a small boat on Sligo Bay, a place visited by few tourists. Scarcely a sail was visible in the great harbor provided by nature, neglected by man. We were rowed up the Garvogue River by a very old man to Lough Gill. No lake or mountain scenery in Switzer- land or Colorado is more beautiful. And yet no boat nor hotel nor sign of habitation on that lake or near it. Six miles distant was the dying city of Sligo with 10,000 inhabitants, old and poor, the remnants of a stricken race. Sligo has nothing to show at the end of 900 years but the melancholy ruins of a once flourishing town, her aged men and women and their rags. Long since the most of the stalwart youth departed for for- eign shores. In the long twilight we saw the Irish Volunteers drilling on the green turf, grim and silent. They speak low in Sligo, almost like a whisper, the faces seem to have recorded in them the Hnes of the woes of centuries, and in the si- lence of the day they eye the great harbor, un- flecked by the white sails of their childhood ; and they seem to look across the seas to their chil- [62] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM dren in America. There was a day when the cattle ships for the Continent stopped at Sligo. When the cattle is sold now it must be first shipped on a small steamer to Glasgow or Liver- pool. The English middleman must have his profit. Iron is abundant in Sligo, but no captains of industry are there to mine it. An Irish- Ameri- can dredging contractor who stood near said that with men and money he could make that harbor one of the world's best located shipping ports. As a race the Irish do not excel in finance, in bartering or in trading, although it must be said that in the last three decades they have shown con- siderable advancement in those lines of commer- cial effort. But in huge constructive projects they are foremost. As railroad and tunnel builders, penetrating mountains, damming rivers, sea dredging, building skyscrapers, harnessing the forces of nature, the sons of the Irish bog and ditch diggers, the children of the emigrant labor- ers, are the great engineering contractors of the world. They are daring and fearless, no physical 'difficulty seems to awe them and they tackle the most dangerous operations which involve the loss of life and money underground. In a syndicate of fifteen men, who ofifered the United States Gov- [63] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM ernment to build the Panama Canal, thirteen bore Irish names. These are the practical men of affairs, badly needed in Ireland, who could lead the way for the industrial development of the country if her English fetters were removed. That her sons can succeed in keen commercial struggle is admitted throughout the world. The only two Irish parliamentary leaders known to the present generation are the late Charles Stew- art Parnell and the present Mr. Redmond. Both men are of the land-owning class and view Ire- land from an agrarian rather than an indus- trial point of view. The Land Act has proved a great blessing to agricultural Ireland. It was passed by the Tory party. Parnell was a revolu- tionary and a Protestant, although a practical statesman. He led successfully the Land League movement, founded and organized by Michael Davitt. I first met him in America as a boy thirty years ago. He looked more like a college pro- fessor than an Irish agitator and he hated the English Government of all parties thoroughly and whole heartedly, and never disguised his hate. Redmond was supposed to be one of his disciples, and we heard Redmond say in Buffalo one night, "I would tear with my own hands into shreds the [64] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM British Act of Union with Ireland." He got $14,000 from the audience that evening. Poor Parnell Hes in his grave, under a green sward, in Glasnevin Cemetery, DubHn. No monument is there, but a fine one commemorates his memory in Parnell Square, Dublin ; and one bright May day I saw some men and women placing great wreaths of flowers on that silent grave. One was marked, "Done to Death. From the workingmen of the Midland Railroad"; another read, "From the women linen workers of Antrim," and another, "Sacred to the memory of our chief. From the lace workers of Kerry." The effort to side-track Nationalist Ireland, if the dead could speak, would make the voice from the tomb protest as Redmond appeals to the peasants to die for England. As a land owner, John Redmond, according to Irish reports, was one of the first to rush in and sell his estate to the tenants under the Wyndham land purchase act. He put the top figure on his land and secured the maximum figure from the land board, according to reports. Immediately the other landlords said, "Redmond is your leader, naturally he has vast influence with the land board ; we will take the same rate per acre as Red- mond." Good judges in Ireland say that this ex- [65] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM hibition of greed on the part of Redmond cost the tenants at least $9,000,000 in excess land prices. Parnell never cared for money and died poor. His motto on the land question was, "Keep a firm grip on your homesteads." Redmond was finally made leader because he was a lieutenant of Par- nell. His London social environment has caused him to forget the dying warning of Parnell, "Ire- land, never trust England !" Mr. Redmond consented to leave out of "Na- tionalist Ireland" six counties, including the an- cient see of Armagh. This concession to the Orange Tories deeply shocked the real National- ists. Saint Patrick founded Christianity in Ire- land and built the first church at Armagh, in the year 445. The present cathedral, the see of St. Patrick,' is the grandest church in Ireland, pre- sided over by Cardinal Logue. I happened to be within its walls one day in August last when the bells tolling overhead announced the death of His Holiness Pope Pius the Tenth. The Primate of all Ireland is marooned or sequestered under the amending act, as agreed to by Redmond, to get along as best he may or be thrown to the Orange wolves of Antrim (Belfast). A friend from Armagh writes that Redmond has been able to [66] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM secure only six Nationalist recruits in the town. No country can hope to be permanently pros- perous which is nearly or altogether dependent on farming. There must be manufacture and com- merce to furnish life blood for a nation. How much would the marvellous efficiency of Germany count for to-day in the world if she relied alone on intensive farming. England, having the ear of the world, pleads she went to war to save the small state of Belgium. Part of the world for- gets she destroyed the last surviving republics in Africa, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, because of her greed for the diamond mines and the gold of Kimberly and Johannesburg. In the analysis of the Home Rule Bill I show that Ireland by its terms is effectually stopped from developing foreign trade, and is subjected to in- creased taxation from the burden of an office- holding brigade without being able to increase her resources from the profits of manufacture and commerce. [67] CHAPTER VII WHAT GERMANY COULD DO FOR IRELAND Ireland, as a free and independent nation, with Germany as her friend and ally, could be made into an important industrial country. There is no hope for an industrial Ireland under English domination. The island, first of all, must have capital to develop railways, mines, waterpower and harbors to insure commerce. And that es- sential element English bankers will not supply; so long as Ireland is a West British agrarian col- ony no other country will furnish money for her development; and her own people are too poor to do it. The critics of Germany, since the war, ridicule the constant, pathetic, plea of German kultur. They do not realize that word has a dif- ferent meaning from "culture" in England or the United States. The German uses that word to define the social organization and its ramifica- tions, the efficiency, unity, solidarity and thor- oughness of an organized people. The writer at- tended two German schools in Syracuse when a boy and was trained first to think in the German [68] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM way. The writer well remembers the first and last thought of the German professor was to teach the child his lesson well and thoroughly. Your true German scholar is the most scientific of men, because he has mastered the difficult art of being thorough. England, eternally jealous and hateful of Ire- land, has never given her people any chance for scientific development. The door of hope is closed in this age of specialization to the sons of Ireland. In no sense could Ireland become an economic or commercial rival of Germany. Her geographical position, the character of her soil, her language, and the difference in her basic pro- ductions, would prevent her from becoming a trade rival of Germany.* The latter country would always want a friendly nation, just to the ♦The Irish railways are owned by the same capitalists who own the English railways and are interested in English manu- factures. Economic necessity requires that the Irish railways must always be kept secondary to the English lines and so han- dled as to transport farm products. They are rarely extended so that factories or minerals might be developed in Ireland. The concerted policy of England is to destroy Irish trans-Atlantic passenger ports in the same way they have destroyed Irish freighting direct to countries other than England. All of the large Cunard liners skip Queenstown, and the last large ship to drop the old port, from whence millions came to this country, was the White Star liner Olympic. In the year 1912 the Liver- pool Chamber of Commerce adopted a resolution calling on the directors of the Cunard Steamship Company to cut out land- ing or stopping in Ireland. [69] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM left of England, who could always be counted on as a friend in time of need. England only buys from Germany what she has to in manufactures and things chemical. She must first protect her colonies, who reciprocate with tariff preferences and trade agreements. Ireland, having no col- onies, would be able to trade on a large scale with Germany and the Continent. In many parts of the world, prior to the declarations of war, the Hamburg-American and the North German Lloyd steamship companies had taken away from English companies a vast amount of trade. On the shores of a friendly Ireland, the nearest of the British isles to the United States in distance, on the west coast, are wonderfully situated bays, where the harbors and docks could be so im- proved that the largest steamers would dock. England and France held Belgium, Japan and Portugal with them as allies by financing the government and the industries of those countries. There is a vast amount of English money invested in Belgian industrial properties. Under England an Irish bond or consol would not be worth the paper on which it was written. But, Ireland free, and a friend of Germany, could borrow funds from the latter to develop her great waterpower, [70] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM her commerce and industries. Looking ahead, Germany would plainly see that she would insure her future in the Atlantic Ocean and weaken England in the struggle for the world's trade by strengthening Ireland, who would also have the aid of the vast and prosperous German and Irish population in the United States. There is no other country in the Old World which could teach Ireland the things she needs the most in material development. The economic progress of Germany in the last twenty-five years is the period of the greatest development of any people. Ireland, excepting for brief periods of industrial and national freedom, has been struggling for centuries for her economic development in various forms, and in the year 1915 is the poorest country on the continent. Germany, in the short space of twenty-five years, has become a rival of the British Empire in every country in the world. Dr. Karl Helfferich, di- rector of the Deutsche Bank, in the view of the writer, has best expressed the German idea of kultur in the fewest words. The power that creates and increases the wealth of a people is labor, — from the purely manual labor of [71] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the wage-earner to the purely intellectual labor of the scholar. The vehicle of labor is man, or — as regards the whole state — the population. The result of labor is the production of goods. The productivity of labor is intensified by perfect- ing technical equipment and organization. For the people as a whole the increased efficiency of labor finds expression in the statistics of produc- tion, trade, and transportation. The final purpose of economic labor is consumption. The surplus of goods produced over and above the necessary expense of production constitutes the in- come of the people. The surplus of the income of the people over their consumption constitutes the increment of the public well-being. The ideal economic development is that a growing population be able to increase the net efficiency of its labor, and thereby its "income," to such a degree that, at the same time, a higher standard of life — in other words, a more plentiful satisfaction of material and intellectual wants — and an enhancement of the public wealth be attained. Twenty-five years is a very short period in the life of a nation. Germany contained 48,000,000 people in the year 1888, at the opening of the present war her population rose to 67,000,000. Her excess of births over deaths is 800,000 per [72] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM annum and she must find room and livelihood for her surplus population. The excess of births over deaths in Germany to every 1,000 inhabitants is 11 per cent., as com- pared with 9 per cent, in England, 9 per cent, in America and no excess in sterile France. To meet this rapidly growing population, Germany has been forced to find new means of remunera- tive employment. Her land is very old, she has been compelled to study scientific and intensive farming, and to acquire and make every known mechanism to draw food from the ground. More wonderful is her development in science and in applying scientific knowledge to labor. She leads the world in chemistry and physics and, perhaps, in electricity, her only real competitor being the United States. No country in the world has approached her in substituting skilled labor for common labor. This great change has been effected by machinery. She is foremost in the world's development of waterpower. Ger- many is ahead of all other countries in the use of gas engines. Her motors are the world's models. Liebig, a German chemist, worked out the theory of fertilizing soil which has proven the salvation of our older Southern States. In [73] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM dyes, tars, acids, use of by-products, use of car- bons, processes of making iron and steel, alumi- num, treatment of wood, preservatives, saving wastes, the whole world kneels at the feet of Germany; and, in a great degree, the ability of England, through her warships, has shut off these indispensable exports, thus increasing the human misery and, in some places, the starvation which prevails in the United States at present. The trade schools of Germany have been copied in all lands. In co-operative employment of workingmen, in old age pensions, in working- men's compensation acts, in employers' liability acts Germany has long led the world. All of the various employers' compensation measures in American commonwealths have been founded on German laws and experience. Her workingmen have $3,000,000,000 in savings banks and her working class supports the huge war loans. Aside from her savings banks, the co-operative savings societies of Germany hold $6,000,- 000,000. One out of every four Germans, male or female, is a wage-earner. In sanitation, in public hygiene, in housing the people, she is first ; whereas, England has more paupers than any country on the Continent, more people living in a [74] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM single room than any country in Europe or America. Thirty years ago Germany had 268,000 thresh- ing machines, to-day she has more than 1,000,000; in 1882 only 19,000 mowing machines, to-day 301,000; she led the world in the last few years in her harvest yields per acre. The discovery that beets could be used to make sugar has cheapened and revolutionized the pro- duction of sugar; this very important discovery was made in Germany, which is first in beet- sugar production. By the year 1912 Germany had overtaken England in the production of coal and was second only to the United States. She is exceeded alone by our country in the produc- tion of iron. In thirty years her post-office re- ceipts have jumped from $95,000,000 up to $394,- 000,000. The Reichsbank does a business of $85,000,000, the Deutsche Bank of $30,000,000 per annum. Her railway employees doubled in twenty-five years. The only country in the world to come anywhere near equalling her in railway development in twenty-five years is the United States. Her inland waterways have reached the vast sum of 7,000,000 tons carrying capacity. In thirty short years she has actually tripled her [75] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM exports and incomes. Her nearest competitor has been the United States. Yet in thirty years, whereas the imports of the United States have increased 137 per cent., the imports of Germany gained 244 per cent. ; whereas, the exports of the United States gained 208 per cent, and Great Britain 119 per cent., Germany increased her ex- ports 185 per cent. In spite of a restricted and limited seacoast, Germany has become the second maritime power on the globe. Her banking system is the most elastic and perfect in the world and, considering that the war utterly destroyed her foreign com- merce, the fact that there have been no large failures, no business panics or widespread unem- ployment and that all of the American corre- spondents agree in the statement that the Ger- man people, despite the cataclysm, feel least the shock of any of the belligerents, we may well con- clude that a New Ireland could learn its most useful lessons of progress from the culture and firm friendship of the Fatherland. A few days ago a distinguished United States Senator, in the Senate, debating the Immigration Bill, said: Germany has been developed to such a degree of [76] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM prosperity, during forty- four years of the German Empire, as to be able to utterly change her labor con- ditions. In the year 1871 two-thirds of all German labor was common, the poorest paid labor. To-day two-thirds of all the labor in Germany is skilled labor, thrice the wages of common labor, and only one-third is common labor. The productiveness of Germany has been enormously increased, and that has been possible, in part, by reason of the fact that Germany has devel- oped skilled labor and intellect to a degree not equalled by any country in the world. That statement remains uncontroverted, and is proven by the facts and figures of the world's pro- duction and commerce. The "Home Rule Bill for Ireland" does two things, and two only. One is to fix her for all time as an agrarian country, with no labor but the poorest paid labor in the world, agricultural labor. The first is economic, the second is political; the last gives Ireland more secure control over purely local and internal legislation and produces 1,400 new polit- ical jobs for her various politicians.* England has done everything in its power to make war inevitable. — George Bernard Shaw. ♦England sells to Ireland nearly $300,000,000 per year in manu- factures, which Ireland must pay back in farm products. The chief exports of Ireland are her children, her live animals, and her food, the three commodities needed most by the country. She sends her best cattle, hams, baCon and poultry to England, and her healthy ambitious boys and girls are sent abroad. [77] CHAPTER VIII HOW ENGLAND DESTROYED IRISH INDUSTRIES The Irish railways are not only inferior to American lines, but they are the poorest, the slow- est and the costliest in Europe. There are three or four fairly good express trains, but in the main the service is poor and would not be tol- erated in the New World. Suffering for want of industry, railroading or steam shipping does not pay in Ireland, hence transportation is handi- capped. Nowhere in a modern country is elec- tricity so far behind the times. There are nu- merous waterfalls and much natural water power, but that art of harnessing the forces of nature is practically unknown in Ireland. Robert Kane, in his "Industrial Resources of Ireland," says that the island contains great de- posits of valuable iron ore. England, as a com- petitor, prevented their development. All capi- tal, in large sums in Ireland, must be obtained from London, and no loans are made by which the mineral resources of the island could be used. Up to the year 1651 iron was exported to Eng- [78] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM land by Ireland, but prohibited from England by law as soon as English iron mines were inter- fered with by Irish competition. The same fate met Irish coal on the petition of the Wales coal- mine owners. As timber is necessary in shoring mines, all the timber near the mineral deposits was hewn and shipped abroad. There are 70,000 acres of good quality of coal lands which have not been opened. Griffith, geologist, says solid, workable coal is found to the depth of 120 fath- oms. As late as 1846 about 26,000 tons of cop- per was produced. The clay in Ireland is ex- tensive in quality and deposits. The silk* and cordage industry flourished in the eighteenth century, but was killed off by arbitrary tariffs de- signed to destroy manufacture. In 1640 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (the Governor) wrote thus to his King: I am of opinion that all wisdom advises to keep Ire- land dependent on England as long as is possible, and estopped from the manufacture of wool. Nottingham said the object of English rule in ♦Anthony N. Brady, of New York, who died recently and left the colossal sum of more than $100,000,000, was born in France, due to the fact that his father was an Irish silk weaver driven out of Ireland and who secured employment at his trade in Lyons, France. [79] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Ireland is "to cramp, obstruct and render abortive the industry of the Irish." The Poyning Act compelled all vessels loaded in an Irish port to proceed to an English port, thus destroying the Irish merchant marine. Various navigation acts prevented Irish vessels from having direct Conti- nental trade. Cattle could be killed in Ireland, but the carcass must be sent to England. Acts of Parliament destroyed a once great wool in- dustry by requiring the sheep to be sent to Eng- land, and the price of wool to be fixed in London. Barlow's "Ireland" says: Deprived of the means of subsistence at home, thousands of Irish manufacturers emigrated to France and other countries, where they assisted the inhabi- tants in the augmentation and improvement of the quality of woollen goods. Another arbitrary measure excluded Ireland from trading with any British colony. Irish fishermen were prohibited from sending their boats off to the banks of Newfoundland. Adam Smith, the political economist, said: To prohibit a great nation from making all that they can of their own produce or industry is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. In 1867 Lord Duffer in wrote: From the reign of Queen Elizabeth, England never [80] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM for a moment relaxed her relentless grip on the trades of Ireland. One by one her industries were strangled until at last every fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed. Last fall the writer attended in Dublin a so- called National Exhibition of Irish Industries. The real Irish showing was pitiful — scarcely a single article of industry shown, aside from agriculture, raw material or minerals, was made in Ireland. All wares bore English or Continental trade-marks. And yet during the brief period of Irish inde- pendence, from 1782 to 1802, the commerce and industry of Ireland prospered. In 1798 the Earl of Clare said proudly, "There is not a nation on the face of the globe which has advanced in man- ufactures with the same rapidity." Her silks, cottons, fabrics, hats, soap, flannels, leather and other industries rose by leaps and bounds, amaz- ing the industrial world, until the relentless an- tagonism of England was aroused, and the con- queror again set at the fell work of destroying her competing neighbor. [81] CHAPTER IX Ireland's commerce "Every Irishman owes it to his country, his race, and the world to work for the break-up of the British World Dominion. Either the Em- pire or Ireland must die. Until the Irish the world over get it into their heads that Ireland is NOW, as during the past 750 years, fighting for her very life against an unscrupulous and implacable enemy the cause of Ireland is hope- less." — John F. Kelly, Ph.D. In investigating an important or prosperous country one is confronted at once with a mass of valuable governmental data and a great variety of business works and reliable statistics. So few factories are there in most of Ireland, so little commerce, so few people directly interested in the subject, that, the government indifferent or neg- ligent, with only exceeding difficulty do we secure late or reliable data. When you go into the great bookstores of America, which advertise "Irish books, great variety," you will rarely find a volume on an Irish commercial subject. There will be mostly fiction, written from the English, [82] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the wrong point of view, descriptions of ruins and scenery, fairy tales, ballad poetry, drama and sketches of Irish life. In dealing with this chap- ter we have to do the best we can within narrow but certain limits of information. The linen industry is the most important, and its survival was due originally chiefly to the superior quality of the flax sown on the fertile fields of Ireland. This industry is controlled by descendants of the invaders of the middle century, who drove the natives away from that section of the country into the bogs and mountains of the west. They have built up the important city of Belfast, which has become the largest town, containing, with its suburbs, some 500,000 inhabitants. The place is busy but gloomy, and contains only one beautiful building, the City Hall. As a "loyal city," in the year 1637 it won over Dublin the privilege of levying special duties on goods against the rest of Ireland, and that act of favoritism made it a seaport. It is naturally badly located as compared with a dozen harbors in Ireland, which have no commerce, but the ingenuity of man is employed to make up, in part, the natural deficiencies. Last year some 30,000 ships entered or cleared the harbor, carry- [83] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM ing 3,500,000 tons. All the rest of Ireland cleared about 20,000 ships and not more than 2,500,000 tons. The largest single industry is the great shipbuilding works of Messrs. Harland & Wolff, employing 12,000 workmen. I noticed the great new ship Britannic, over 50,000 tons, in the water last September. It will be too large to dock at Queenstown. As the large ships often skip Ireland, one can readily see how the com- merce of the country is affected. Some of the docks in Belfast are nearly 900 feet long. Very little of the capital operating any of the great in- dustries is Nationalist, which section is discrim- inated against in promotions and in the skilled trades. The Irish Sea fisheries are very valuable, but the profitable method of deep-sea fishing is to use steam trawlers, too costly a vessel for the native fisherman to buy, and the salmon industry is, therefore, neglected. Fifty years ago the Irish fisheries employed 56,000 men; now the number is not more than 24,000, and the business has passed over largely to Scotland and England. The Irish salmon sold last year was not more than $900,000, yet there is no finer salmon in the world. The coast abounds in herring and mackerel, but [84] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM lack of capital, organization, and the entrance of steam trawlers have caused its decline. In the year 1870 the cotton mills employed about 6,000 hands. The industry is nearly dead, scarcely 500 men being employed, the business having passed over to Lancashire. The Irish woollen industry within a century was larger than the linen industries, and its disap- pearance virtually sounded the death-knell of Irish manufacturing hopes, when 1,200 of her weavers emigrated to Philadelphia in 1870. The English manufacturers of woollens, alarmed by the popularity of Irish woollens throughout the continent, prevailed on Parliament, as I have stated before, to pass an act prohibiting Ireland from sending woollens abroad ( see Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. IX, Ireland). The brewing and distilling business is the second largest indus- try and its preservation is due to the unique qual- ity of fresh water. It is the chief industry of Dublin. The laces and embroideries are largely manufactured in private homes by cottage women. The exports from Ireland direct to foreign ports is reduced to some $6,500,000 (1910), while the imports were some $54,000,000. With such a balance of trade against her, Ireland must con- [85] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM tinue to suffer until she has manufactures to send abroad and bring back money. Mr. John F. Kelly, Ph.D., of Pittsfield, Mass., is furnishing a series of able letters for the Irish World on the subject of Irish industrial de- cline. Mr. Kelly has sent the writer a copy of a pamphlet entitled "A Plea for the Industrial Re- generation of Ireland," by Dr. Robert Ambrose, member of Parliament. As this writer has made a close analysis of the industrial and commercial necessities and possibilities of Ireland, it is pos- sible to use his data and argument. The water power of Ireland, the greatest in Europe in area, and the cheapest power for fac- tory purposes, is wholly undeveloped. The people burn peat from the bogs for fuel, for, although coal exists, it is not mined. By extracting the moisture from the peat, through a German process invented in 1897 (Stemmler), peat fuel could be used for manufacturing. Ireland contains iron, copper and coal. What is it, then, inquires Dr. Ambrose, that keeps Ireland poor, and hozv can she give employment to her own children? He answers the great question with singular felicity, and we cannot improve on his words : "There are two conditions absolutely necessary [86] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM for the full development of the resources of any country. First, the fostering care of a native government elected by and responsible to the pub- lic opinion of that country. Second, free and un- fettered opportunities to trade with whomsoever that country wishes. Any country that is wanting in either of those two conditions is bound to go to the wall. Ireland is wanting in both. She has neither the blessings of the fostering care of a native government nor the free and unfettered opportunities of trading with whomsoever she likes. Therefore Ireland has gone to the wall." By what standard can you judge of the pros- perity of a country? 1. By the standard of living. 2. By its commerce and carrying power. 3. By its export trade — (a) In manufactures. (&) In surplus produce. These are fair tests of the prosperity of a coun- try. In the standard of living the people of Ire- land are below the average on the continent. The low cost of their maintenance or subsistence per diem proves indubitably the force of this state- ment. Ireland exports considerable foodstuffs, [87] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM although small per capita. All political econo- mists agree that it is a bad sign when a country is compelled to export the most and the best of its food. For every dollar of exports, Ireland im- ports eight or ten dollars, for want of manufac- tures, and no advocate claims, in any way, that the proposed Home Rule Bill will materially de- velop the foreign trade or manufactures of Ire- land. It means that the people must use an in- ferior quality of products, and give to the world their best hams, bacons, flax, lace, cattle and but- ter. They must deny themselves of their own finest products and must sell their best to provide the necessaries of life. We spent nearly nine hours on the Irish rail- way, 170 miles, reaching Limerick from Sligo, a town of 40,000 inhabitants, the city being the centre of the vale, in the heart of one of the most fertile farming sections of the world, where it seemed as though every acre of green land could raise a wondrous crop, and yet here is a brief resume of the facts and figures of Lim- erick commerce : In 1852 the foreign tonnage at the port of Limerick amounted to 124,419 tons, and the British and coasting trade to 90,002 tons, making [88] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM a total of 214,421 tons. At the present time there is no government report of Limerick foreign ton- nage, because it is reduced to nothing and not worth recording, and yet there is no finer city in Ireland, aside from Dublin and Belfast. In the year 1854 the customs collected at Limerick the sum of $815,000, and 101 ships registered from this port. Seventy years ago the foreign exports from Limerick amounted to $6,000,000. The city then had several foundries, leather factories, soap, hat, hardware, glove, comb, linen, cotton factories, two paper mills, salt works, lace mill and twenty flour mills. All these plants have practically vanished. The port of Galway had a large tonnage at one time; nothing left to-day. In 1851 Galway con- tained fifty-four factories. As far back as 1835 the town was busy with cotton and muslin works, exports in that year amounting to $1,250,000. All these industries have been transferred to Eng- land. Water ford is the place which sends Mr. Red- mond to the British House of Commons. Decay set in long ago, and the industries are in ruins. The woollen mills are no more. At one period there existed a cotton mill, eleven miles from the [89] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM place, which employed 1,800 persons. The raw cotton spun exceeded 2,000,000 pounds per year. The mill made 6,000,000 yards of bleached calico prints a year. The product of the mill was sent to foreign countries, but first through an English port. A famous glass works was in operation from 1783 up to 1852. The five shipyards have been vacated. In the year 1813, Waterford ex- ported to foreign lands goods in the large sum of $11,000,000. As late as the year 1835 the trade, exports and imports, amounted to $16,- 700,000. New Ross sent twenty-seven merchant ships from her port in 1851 ; not one is left. The foreign trade of Wexford footed up $4,000,000 isui835. The yarn market and linen hall have /Deen destroyed. In 1852 the foreign trade of Sligo amounted to $2,000,000; of Coleraine, $850,000; of Tralee, $250,000. Skibbereen, an interesting town in the County Cork, visited recently by the writer, is without commerce or industry, as formerly. At one period industry was flourishing. The exports in 1835 amounted to $200,000. CORK Cork was a flourishing city as late as 1852. She had a foreign trade of 184,678 tons and a [9o] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM coasting trade of 472,701 tons, consisting of a fleet of 409 vessels. Some 260 clerks were em- ployed collecting the duties. The mills made woollens, canvas, sheetings, leather and shirts. One firm employed 1,000 hands making silk and lace. There were seven iron foundries, two brass mills, five shovel factories, and two ship yards. One of the first iron ships was built at Cork. In 1835 the trade in and out of the port footed up to $28,000,000. In 1835 the exports from Youghal were esti- mated at $1,300,000. As late as the year 1851 this port had registered 574 vessels. There is scarcely anything remaining of this commerce. In the year 1852 Westport possessed a foreign trade of about 20,000 tons, and a domestic trade of 8,000 tons, and 46 vessels were employed ; the customs amounted to $650,000. Ballina was an- other important port; its business is now quite dead. In the year 1853 Newry had a trade of 178,000 tons. There were two spinning mills, costing $1 ,750,000. The ships of Newry sailed the BaUic, Mediterranean Sea, and were driven from the seas by a law which required them to reship and land at English ports. The exports in 1835 [91] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM amounted to $4,200,000, the imports to $2,- 800,000. Dundalk in the year 1853 had a trade of 147,000 tons, with 28 regular ships, customs $192,000, cotton mills employing 2,000 hands. The goods of Dundalk were carried to St. Peters- burg, Riga, Dantzic, Rotterdam, Oporto and German ports. Drogheda had a trade of 260,000 tons in 1852, and shipbuilding works, while thirty- five pilots worked out from that port. An iron foundry employed 300 men. The exports from Drogheda in the year 1835 amounted to $3,830,000 and the imports to $1,280,000. DUBLIN In the year 1852 the shipping trade of Dublin amounted to 1,591,118 tons, with 464 vessels, cus- toms $4,670,000, and was the chief silk manufac- turing city of Great Britain. There were 28 iron and 21 brass foundries, long since disappeared. There were 114 cut-glass works, 43 carriage fac- tories, 21 paper mills, 18 hat factories and 168 various manufactures. The writer has visited all of the cities of America and many foreign cities. Of the large towns seen, beyond a doubt the capital of Ireland is the poorest, the most squalid and miserable. [92] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM The only interesting things about Dublin are the ruins of its former greatness, the cemeteries, parks and decaying structures. The monuments to the dead are notable. There is scarcely a ripple on the Liffey aside from some boats from a brew- ery. Fifty years more will see Dublin altogether an English city. The cockney songs of the Lon- don music halls are the favorites, and the bal- lad poetry of Ireland is disappearing, the street crowds have come to resemble the poor of Lon- don, and the patriots are harried. Many of the young politicians, the door of industry long closed, are secretly or openly endeavoring to get on the payroll of Dublin Castle or in the civil service, and that clever Irish politician and organizer, Joseph Devlin, and his practical henchman, Nu- gent, have landed many of them there. To sum up, under English misrule, the foreign trade of Ireland in sixty years has dwindled to a pitiful figure, so that to-day Ireland has prac- tically no commerce. How horrible is the betrayal of a decimated, stricken people by job-seeking leaders, who would destroy the remnants in order that their oppressors might be delivered from the vengeance of Germany! During this period the trade of England in- ]93] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM creased to nearly 70,000,000 tons. The exports of little Holland last year, scarcely 1,000,000 more inhabitants than Ireland, amounted nearly to a billion dollars; stricken Belgium to $680,000,000. As Ireland has little manufacturing outside of the northeast corner of the country, the various preferential tariff rates of the British colonies benefit England alone. As long as the control of factories and shipping lies in English hands, no treaty or preferential system of duties can hope to benefit Ireland. Her products are chiefly farm products, hams, bacon, eggs and poultry, which are shipped to England, a class of products which are not shipped abroad and exchanged for the products of British colonies favored by special tariff rates. The people of Ireland can only make arrangements as middle-men and ship their prod- ucts outside of England by indirection, through Liverpool or other English channels. In studying the commerce of Ireland and con- trasting the returns of the year 1913 with Ger- many, we find that on an average the business done by the average four inhabitants of Germany is equal to the commercial results of thirty-nine Irishmen. In Holland, a small country, the [94] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM wealth per capita is six times as great as Ireland. The English profess to despise the Turks, yet the average son of the Ottoman Empire possesses more of the world's goods than the Celt. The Irish prosper in all countries save and excepting Ireland. There is no chance for real Irish prosperity under English rule, unless the yoke of bondage is thrown off and the nation becomes free and inde- pendent and works out her destiny, with the aid of her successful sons and daughters throughout the world, and establishes a friendly alliance with a country which is not a natural or logical rival and is not interested in her exploitation. Let not the patriots remain discouraged. The watch fires of liberty burn for centuries. The nations have fallen and thou art still young, Thy sun is just rising when others have set, And though slavery's cloud o'er thy morning has hung, The full moon of freedom shall beam on thee yet. [95] When the German gunners fired the shots which struck the tower of the Cathedral at Rheims, that act was denounced as an Atrocity, although the army sig- nal scouts of the Allies occupied the tower. When the American gunners made the "beautiful shot" which struck the unoccupied tower of the ancient church at Vera Cruz, Mexico, who in the United States cried out — Atrocity? [96] CHAPTER X ENGLISH ATROCITIES IN IRELAND A FEW days after the taking of Louvain, Belgium, by the German army, I met a Roman CathoHc bishop in Ireland, on the road from Dublin to Belfast. He was a strong character and a great prelate, at the head of an important diocese. The only news of the alleged atrocities at Louvain the earnest bishop had taken from the Dublin Freeman's Journal and the Belfast News-Letter. The news turned out to be false, as we have learned from the American newspaper correspon- dents who visited the scene. In Ireland, of course, no correction of the horrible falsehoods about German barbarisms have been made, and many natives actually believe stories of atrocities long since exploded in this country. The German atrocity game in the United States died with the return in October of Irving S. Cobb, of the Sat- urday Evening Post; John T. McCutcheon, of the Chicago Tribune; James O'Donnell Bennett, and the denials of the Associated Press and United Press correspondents. But the good bishop of [97] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Ireland swallowed the story, and, in righteous in- dignation, said he would publicly denounce the German Huns and Vandals on the morrow. Lou- vain is a spot of tender memories in the Irish heart, and the English newspaper tricksters well knew their advantage in the references to "out- rages" at Louvain. The writer was reminded of the fact that the existence of an Irish seminary at Louvain was merely another historic evidence of the days when the English conquerors, under Cromwell, offered a reward of $25 for the head of every priest and $25, the same rate, for the head of wolves. The priests were hunted like wild beasts, and, in order to maintain a seminary, they were forced to flee to the shelter of Louvain. We asked the bishop if the worst charged at Louvain were true, could Belgium approach the horrors of Dro- gheda, Ireland, under the reign of Oliver Crom- well. Matthew Carey, a reliable historian, writes : Of all the cases of murderous cruelty that marked the career of the government in Ireland, the most atrocious occurred at the surrender of Drogheda. The history of the Huns, Vandals, Goths and Ostragoths may be searched in vain for anything more shocking. [98] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Cromwell had besieged this town for some time, and was finally admitted on promise of quarter. The gar- rison consisted of the flower of the Irish army, and might have beaten him back, had they not been se- duced by his solemn promise of mercy, which was observed till the whole had laid down their arms. Then he commanded his soldiers to begin the slaugh- ter of the entire garrison, which slaughter continued for five days with every circumstance of brutal and sanguinary violence that the most cruel savages could conceive or perpetrate. Lest the above sentences may be considered some exaggeration, here follows an extract from the official report to London, signed by Oliver Cromwell : It has pleased God to bless our endeavors at Dro- gheda. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs. I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defenders. I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives, those that did are in safe custody for the Barbadoes. Broudine says that children at the breasts of mothers and the aged were murdered. In Wex- ford two thousand men, women and children were slaughtered in the streets of the town. [99] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM THE WEXFORD MASSACRE They knelt around the cross divine, The matron and the maid — They bow'd before redemption's sign And fervently they prayed — Three hundred fair and helpless ones, Whose crime was this alone — Their valiant husbands, sires, and sons Had battled for their own. Had battled bravely, but in vain — The Saxon won the fight. And Irish corpses strewed the plain Where Valor slept with Right. And now, that Man of demon guilt, To fated Wexford flew — The red blood reeking on his hilt, Of hearts to Erin true ! He found them there — the young, the old — The maiden and the wife; Their guardians, brave in death, were cold. Who dared for them the strife. They prayed for mercy — God on high Before they cross they prayed. And ruthless Cromwell bade them die To glut the Saxon blade ! Three hundred fell — the stifled prayer Was quenched in woman's blood; [ loo] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Nor youth nor age could move to spare From slaughter's crimson flood. But nations keep a stern account Of deeds that tyrants do; And guiltless blood to Heaven will mount And Heaven avenge it, too ! Three thousand men, women and children, of all ranks and ages, took refuge in the Cathedral of Cashel, hoping the Temple of the living God would afford them a sanctuary from the butcheries that were laying the whole country desolate. The barbarian Ireton forced the gates of the church, and let loose his blood- hounds among them, who soon convinced them how vain was their reliance on the temple or the altar of God. They were slaughtered without discrimination. Neither rank, dignity nor character saved the noble- man, the bishop or the priest ; nor decrepitude nor his hoary head, the venerable sage bending down into the grave ; nor her charms, the virgin ; nor her virtues, the respectable matron; nor its helplessness, the smiling infant. Butchery was the order of the day, and all shared the common fate. — Carey, p. 351. In the Sydney papers, London, 1746, is given an account of Sir Richard Cox's services in Ire- land, where he makes the following boast: As to the enemy, I used them like nettles, and squeezed them (I mean their vagabond partyes) soe hard, that they could seldom sting ; having, as I believe, [lOl] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM killed and hanged no less than three thousand of them, whilst I stayed in the County of Cork ; and taken from them in cattle and plunder, at least to the value of twelve thousand pounds, which you will easily believe, when you know that I divided three hundred and eigh- ty pounds between one troop (Colonel Townsend's) in the beginning of August. After which Colonel Beecher and the western gentlemen got a prey worth three thousand pounds, besides several other lesser preys, taken by small partyes, that are not taken notice of &c. Lord Clare stated that 11,697,629 acres had been confiscated in Ireland, as foUow^s: Forfeited up to the close of James Fs reign 2,836,837 Forfeited up to close of Charles IFs reign 7,800,000 Forfeited at the revolution 1,060,792 Total 11,697,629 So that the whole of our island has been confiscated, with the exception of the estates of five or six families in the reign of Henry VIII, who recovered their pos- sessions before Tyrone's rebellion and had the good fortune to escape the pillage of the English republic inflicted by Cromwell; and no inconsiderable portion of the Island had been confiscated twice, or perhaps thrice, in the course of the century. . . . The situa- tion, therefore, of the Irish nation at the revolution, stands unparalleled in the history of the inhabited world. [102] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM The writer thought it more than passing strange in the islands of the West Indies to find black, brown and yellow men with such pro- nounced Celtic names as O'Brien, Brady, Mc- Carthy and O'Neil, many of them speaking only the Spanish or mixed native tongues, only to learn they were descendants of expatriated Irish, sent to the West Indies as slaves by the English, and, as the stock had run out, gradually took up with and married the native women of mixed bloods. During the Cromwellian period a hun- dred thousand and more Irish children were taken from their parents, put in chains and trans- ported in the fetid holes of slave ships to labor as slaves on the tropical plantations of the Eng- lish West Indian colonists. Thirty thousand were sold to the American colonists. Stations were established in Ireland where these unfortu- nates were confined before being sold into slavery. Ireland must have exhibited scenes in every part like the slave hunts in Africa. How many girls of gentle birth must have been caught and hurried to the private prisons of these men- catchers none can tell. We are told of one case. Daniel Connery, a gentleman of Clare, was sen- [103] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM tenced, in Morrison's presence, to banishment, in 1657, by Colonel Henry Ingoldsby, for harboring a priest. "This gentleman had a wife and twelve children. His wife fell sick and died in poverty. Three of his daughters, beautiful girls, were transferred to the West Indies, to an island called the Barbadoe's; and there, if still alive (he says), they are miserable slaves." In 1653 slave contracts to supply Irish girls were entered into by English army officers. Cromwell suggested that boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen be seized. A contract was made for 1,000 boys and 1,000 slave girls to be transported from Galway in October, 1655. No age was spared, no sex, no degree; Nor infants in the porch of life were free; The sick, the old, who could but hope a day. Thomas Addis Emmet, one of the most careful of historians, states "to kill an Irishman on sight was not unlawful." THE TREATY OF LIMERICK The writer stood near the Treaty Stone of Lim- erick early one morning in September last listen- ing to some market men denouncing the Germans for the violation of the treaty with Belgium. [ 104] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM History must either deny or justify the contention of Germany that the march across the Belgian frontier was rendered necessary by conditions which are being discussed at present in the heat of awful passion, and, in the opinion of the writer, the hour has not come to argue the case with the spirit or intelligence necessary to form a fair judgment. But the broken Treaty of Limerick is a frightful historic fact, and there in the heart of the city, close to the beautiful flowing river vShannon, stands the memorial, and lodged on the uppermost square of the structure is the stone. The inscription reads: The Treaty of Limerick Signed A.D. 1681 The other monument in Limerick is the statue of General Patrick Sarsfield, one of the great heroes of Ireland and foremost soldiers of Europe. Ireland, unfortunately, had taken the side of the weak King James, who was defeated by King William, a native of Holland, who spoke no English. The last fighting man in Ireland to face the great Dutch warrior, whose fame is second only to Napoleon Bonaparte, was the in- comparable Sarsfield, who held out at Limerick [105] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM to the last, long after King James had fled, after his overthrow at the battle of the Boyne, which was fought for some days, and decided on July 12, 1690 (Orangeman's Day), a circumstance which has exercised a most powerful effect on the course of Irish history for two centuries. There was only one general in Ireland worthy to cope with the Dutch king, say the military critics, and that man was Sarsfield; but James, being a king, wished to have the engagement fought under his leadership, and lost. After King James fled to France, the gallant regiments of Sarsfield fought on and refused to yield to superior forces. The French, under Lauzan, deserted Sarsfield at Limerick, where he was besieged while King William destroyed the country surrounding Limerick. Sarsfield, in the night, led his troops out over Thomond Bridge, crossed the Shannon at Killaloe, and won a vic- tory. The battle lasted several days, and the English forces retreated. The women fought under Sarsfield with great intrepidity. King William retreated to Clonmel, and left for Eng- land, from Dungannon, leaving the army in Ire- land in charge of Ginkell. The French again de- serted Sarsfield and embarked for France. Gin- [io6] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM kell, with a great army, besieged Limerick, which Sarsfield defended for seven months. Finally, Ginkell, who was anxious to end the war, and Sarsfield, being alone, although holding the city, signed the celebrated Treaty of Limerick on October 3, 169L Just then the French fleet arrived in the Shannon River with an army and navy sufficient, with Sarsfield, to defeat the Eng- lish. But the gallant hero refused to break the treaty, despite the entreaties of his officers. He ordered his army to the Continent, as agreed, where he died on the battlefield of Landen, lead- ing a famous charge at the head of the Irish Brigade at the moment of victory. The Treaty of Limerick guaranteed civil and religious liberty, and was a sort of a Magna Charta for Ireland. The treaty was quickly vio- lated, proscription followed, 2,000,000 acres of land was confiscated, and the trade and commerce of the island transferred by law to England. The violated Treaty of Limerick was followed by all the horrors of the Penal Days, as well as the period of greatest decay in Irish commerce and industry. No English historian has endeavored to justify the breaking of Limerick's historic treaty. [107] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM LEST WE FORGET The Irish people are anxious for fear the Ger- man aircraft will hover over Ireland and drop bombs on the towns. Sir Edward Carson of Ulster warns the people of Ireland to beware of the certainty of attacks from the skies. We are in position to state that assurances have been re- ceived from the German Government that it is not its present intention to attack Ireland from the air. After England has been subjugated and conquered the Germans will take over Ireland and make of it a free nation. The Irish press denounces the Germans in un- measured terms for dropping bombs on the unde- fended English towns. The same newspapers praised the English aeroplane fliers, earlier in the war, who dropped bombs on German fishing vil- lages on the way to the German naval base. They have approved the daring French aviators drop- ping bombs on undefended German towns. They seem to have forgotten the fact that the French airmen dropped bombs on the undefended Ger- man town of Nurnherg even before war was de- clared. The Germans are merely retaliating with their Zeppelins and other aircraft by attacking coast and arsenal towns containing munitions of war, wireless stations, coast artillery, barracks, [io8] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM and places believed to be occupied by soldiers. Of course, this murderous art of modern warfare on both sides causes one to shudder, but the Allies began it and are now paying the severer penalty because of the greater skill of the German airmen. When the English soldiers in 1814 destroyed Washington, the American capital, applying the torch to the national capital buildings, burning the White House, the home of the President, and fired the newspaper plants, there was much righteous indignation. Green's "History of England" states that this work of vandalism was pursued under strict orders from the British Government. "Willingly," said the London Statesman, "would we throw a veil of oblivion over our transactions at Washington. The Cossacks spared Paris, but we spared not the capital of America." (From the New York World, January 28, 191 5.) INQUIRY IN BRITAIN FINDS NO OUTRAGES DONE TO BELGIANS THOUSANDS OF CHARGES MADE AGAINST GERMANS IN- VESTIGATED BY GOVERNMENT AND FOUND BASELESS Washington, January 2"/. — Of the thousands of Belgian refugees who are now in England not one has been subjected to atrocities by German soldiers. [ 109] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM This, in effect, is the substance of a report received at the State Department from the American Embassy in London. The report states that the British Govern- ment thoroughly had investigated thousands of reports to the effect that German soldiers had perpetrated out- rages on the fleeing Belgians. During the early period of the war columns of British newspapers were filled with the accusations. Agents of the British Government, according to the report from the American Embassy at London, care- fully investigated all of these charges; they inter- viewed the alleged victims and sifted all the evidence. As a result of the investigation the British Foreign Office notified the American Embassy that the charges appeared to be based upon hysteria and natural preju- dice. The report added that many of the Belgians had suffered severe hardships, but they should be charged up against the exigencies of war rather than the brutality of the individual German soldiers. [no] CHAPTER XI THE IRISH HOME RULE BILL "Mockery of Irish Independence is not what we want. The bauble of a powerless Parlia- ment does not lure us." — Thomas Davis. "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." — Edmund Burke. The present writer has in his possession one of the few copies of the Home Rule measure signed by the King, subject to Ulster amendments and the partition of Ireland along newly marked religious lines, the whole shaky structure to be held back until after the settlement of the war, and offered now as a legislative recruiting bait to catch soldiers. The most widely circulated newspaper in Ire- land is the Dublin Freeman's Journal, the chief organ of Leader John Redmond. A recent issue (November 21st) continues to publish the most startling stories of "German Atrocities," known to be false on this side, but designed to help re- cruiting. Here are a few of the scare headlines : [III] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM MURDER AND RAPINE. GERMAN'S WARFARE ON THE DEFENCELESS. GERMAN SAVAGES. DEVILS AND BEASTS. "The first Prussian soldier that lands in Ire- land will be the public executioner, etc." Edi- torially, the paper bemoans the failure of Irish exports last year and says that Ireland's economic path is the reverse of any other country, and that Ireland alone, among European countries,^ has an excess of food exports over manufactures. Of course, having no industries to enable wage- workers to eat the products of Irish farms, the surplus must be exported. Could Germany do worse ? I was surprised in Ireland this fall to find many farmers in the south of Ireland opposed to the Home Rule Bill, solely on the ground that their taxes would be increased by the army of office- holders created under the local government. As there are few factories, outside of three counties, it follows that the burden of carrying the new [112] THE KING, THE KAISER. AND IRISH FREEDOM government must fall on the farmers. And, with an amended bill, which Mr. Redmond agreed to accept last spring in conference, eliminating the chief industrial boroughs of Ulster from the act, the farmers would be further burdened by the office-holding class living off the rates col- lected from the poor districts. The great manu- facturing cities of the United States, to a con- siderable extent, relieve the farmer from exces- sive state, often county, and national taxation, because of the heavy assessments placed on fac- tory property, or stock and bonds relating to it. Agricultural laborers are the poorest paid class of laborers, and have no money to spare beyond the bare subsistence from the land. The factory worker is often a skilled wage-earner, and it is this class only, unknown to most of Ireland, who can insure the prosperity of a nation. An Irish manufacturing world would not only furnish the farmer with a home market for his products, but would furnish a steady guarantee of good prices so the farmer would have more money for his family. The nearest to the best known condition of prosperity is where a country supplies diversi- fied manufacture, commerce and agriculture. When Ireland relied solely on the potato for [113] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM life, the black blight of famine swept over the land, and millions died from starvation, the plague, or fled the country. THE TERMS OF THE HOME RULE BILL The text of the opening clause of the Home Rule Bill follows: A bill to amend the provision for the government of Ireland. Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lord's spir- itual and temporal and Commons in this present Par- liament assembled and by the authority of the same, as follows: LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY 1. On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland an Irish Parliament consisting of His Majesty the King and two houses, namely, the Irish Senate and the Irish House of Commons. 2. Notwithstanding the establishment of the Irish Parliament or anything contained in this Act, the supreme power and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and un- diminished o'er all persons, matters and things within His Majesty's dominions. The Irish Parliament shall not have power to make laws in respect of the following matters, in particular, or any of them, namely : [114] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM I. The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a Regency or the Lord Lieutenant, except as respects the exercise of his executive power in relation to Irish services as defined for the purposes of this Act. Or (2) The making of peace or war or matters arising from a state of war or the regulation of the conduct or any portion of His Majesty's subjects during the existence of hostilities between foreign states with which His Majesty is at peace in relation to those hos- tilities; or (3) the navy, the army, the territorial force or any other naval or military force or the defence of the realm, or any other naval or military matter; or (4) treaties of any relations with foreign states or relations with other parts of His Majesty's Dominions, or offences connected with any such treaties, or rela- tions, or procedure connected with the extradition of criminals under any treaty, or the return of fugitive offenders from or to any part of His Majesty's Do- minions; or (5) dignities or titles of honor; or (6) treason, felony, alienage naturalization, or aliens as such; or (7) trade with any place out of Ireland (ex- cept so far as trade may be affected by the exercise of the powers of taxation given to the Irish Parliament, or by the regulation of importation for the sole pur- pose of preventing contagious disease). Quarantine or navigation, including merchant shipping (except as respects inland waters and local health or harbor reg- ulations) ; or (8) lighthouses, buoys or beacons (ex- cept so far as they can consistently with any general Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom be con- structed or maintained by a local harbor authority) ; [115] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM or (9) coinage, legal tender, or any change in the standard of weights and measures; or (10) trade- marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright or pat- ent rights; or (11) any of the following matters (in this Act referred to as reserved matters), namely: (a) the general subject matter of the Acts relating to land purchase in Ireland; the Old Age Pensions Acts, 1908 and 191 1 ; the National Insurance Act, 191 1 ; and the Labor Exchanges Act, 1909; (b) the collection of taxes; (c) the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the man- agement and control of that force; (d) Post Office Savings Banks, Trustee Savings Banks, and friendly societies; and (e) public loans made in Ireland before the passing of this Act, provided that the limitation on the powers of the Irish Parliament under this section shall cease as respects any such reserved matter if the corresponding reserved service is transferred to the Irish Government under the provisions of this Act. Any law made in contravention of the limitations im- posed by this section shall so far as it contravenes those limitations be void. EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY Clause 4. — (i) The Executive power in Ireland shall continue vested in His Majesty the King, and nothing in this Act shall affect the exercise of that power, except as respects Irish services as defined for the purposes of this Act. (2) As respects those Irish services the Lord Lieutenant or other chief executive officer or officers for the time being appointed in his place on behalf of His Majesty, shall exercise any pre- I116] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM rogative or other executive power of His Majesty, the exercise of which may be delegated to him by His Maj- esty. (3) The power so delegated shall be exercised through such Irish departments as may be established by Irish Act or subject thereto by the Lord Lieuten- ant and the Lord Lieutenant may appoint officers to administer those departments, and those officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Lord Lieutenant. (4) The persons who are for the time being heads of such Irish departments as may be determined by Irish Act or in the absence of any such determination by the Lord Lieutenant and such other persons (if any) as the Lord Lieutenant may appoint, shall be the Irish Ministers. IRISH PARLIAMENT 1. There shall be a session of the Irish Parliament once at least in every year. 2. The Lord Lieutenant shall in His Majesty's name summon and prorogue and dissolve the Irish Parlia- ment. 7. The Lord Lieutenant shall give or withhold the consent of His Majesty to bills passed by the two Houses of the Irish Parliament, subject to the follow- ing Hmitations, namely: (i) He shall comply with any instructions given by His Majesty the King in re- spect of any such bill; and (2) he shall, if so directed by the King, postpone giving the assent of His Maj- esty to any such bill presented to him for assent for such period as His Majesty may direct. Clause 8. — Part i. The Irish Senate shall consist of ["71 THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM forty senators, nominated as respects the first senators by the Lord Lieutenant, subject to any instructions given by His Majesty in respect of the nominations, and afterward by the Lord Lieutenant on the advice of the Executive Committee. The term of office of each senator shall be eight years. Vacancies in the Senate to be filled by the Lord Lieutenant. The Irish House of Commons shall consist of 164 members, returned by the constituencies of Ireland. AN ATTENUATED MEASURE The act is more surprising in what it estops Ireland from doing than for any great meas- ures of legislative relief whereby a nation is made healthy and enduring in the economic sense. The representation of Ireland in the British House of Commons is cut down from 105 to 42. As the principal power over Ireland is still in- vested in the British House of Commons, the re- duction will seriously affect the influence of the Irish members at London. The changes for the good of Ireland are briefly as follows: An Irish treasury and fund is created which collects the proceeds of all taxes levied in Ire- land. All local taxation is handled by the new administration. The Irish Parliament cannot change the tariffs on exports or imports, but can [118] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM control and rearrange its internal finances, sub- ject, of course, to the veto of the nominated Sen- ate and the King. Irish control is given to all purely local improvements. Various funds, now managed in London, are transferred to Ireland, the money to be disbursed by joint exchequer boards. The Irish Government can make loans without going to London. PROVISIONS AS TO JUDICIAL POWER Clause 2"] — A Judge of the Supreme Court or other Superior Court in Ireland, or of any County Court, or other Court with a like jurisdiction in Ireland, ap- pointed after the passing of this Act, shall be appointed by the Lord Lieutenant and shall hold his office by the same tenure as that by which the office is held at the time of the passing of this Act, with the substitution of an address from both Houses of the Irish Parlia- ment for an address from both Houses of the Parlia- ment of the United Kingdom, and during his continu- ance in office his salary shall not be diminished or his right to pension altered without his consent. Clause 28. — (i) The appeal from Courts in Ire- land to the House of Lords shall cease, and where any person would but for this Act have a right to appeal from any Court in the land to the House of Lords, that person shall have the like right to appeal to His Maj- esty in Council, and all enactments relating to His [119] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Majesty the King in Council and to the judicial com- mittee of the Privy Council shall apply accordingly. (2) When judicial committee sit for hearing any ap- peal from a Court in Ireland, in pursuance of any pro- visions of this Act, there shall be present not less than four Lords of Appeal within the meaning of the Ap- pellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, and at least one member who is or has been a Judge of the Supreme Court in Ireland. (3) A rota of Privy Councillors to sit for hearing Appeals from Courts in Ireland shall be made annually by His Majesty in council and the Privy Councillors or some of them on that rota shall sit to hear the said appeals. A casual vacancy occurring in the rota during the year may be filled by Order in Council. (4) Nothing in this Act shall affect the jurisdiction of the House of Lords to determine the claim to Irish Peerages. Clause 30. — (i) Where any decision of the Court of Appeal in Ireland involves the decision of any question as to the validity of any law made in the Irish Parliament and the decisions not otherwise subject to an appeal to His Majesty the King in council, an ap- peal shall lie to His Majesty the King in council by virtue of this section, but only by leave of the Court of Appeal or His Majesty. (2) Where any decision of a Court in Ireland involves the decision of any ques- tion as to the validity of any law made by the Irish Parliament, and the decision is not subject to any ap- peal to the Court of Appeal in Ireland, as appeal shall [120] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM lie to the Court of Appeal in Ireland by virtue of this section. Clause 31. — (i) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any Act, every subject of His Majesty shall be qualified to hold the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland without reference to his religious belief, (2) The term of office of the Lord Lieutenant shall be six years without prejudice to the power of His Maj- esty at any time to revoke the appointment. (3) The salary and expenses of the Lord Lieutenant shall be paid out of moneys provided by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, but there shall be deducted from the transferred sum in each year toward the payment of the Lord Lieutenant's salary a sum of £5,000. All existing British officials in the Civil Service of Ireland are continued in office, but the Irish adminis- tration can create new offices for departments in the new bill, not hitherto organized. The Irish Parlia- ment shall have no control over the police or constab- ulary for at least six years. It is up to tTie King to decide whether he shall turn over the government buildings in Ireland to the Irish Government. POWERS OF VARYING TAXATION The bill confers on the Irish Parliament the following financial powers : I. It may add to the rate of excise duties, customs duties on l3eer and spirits, stamp duties (with certain exceptions) . [121] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM 2. It may add to an extent not exceeding ten per cent, to the income tax, death duties, or customs du- ties other than the duties on beer and spirits imposed by the Imperial Parliament. ^. It may levy any new taxes other than new cus- toms duties. 4. It may reduce any tax levied in Ireland with the exception of certain stamp duties, etc. The Imperial Treasury v^ill collect the revenue arising from any increases in taxation enacted by the Irish Parliament in the exercise of those powers and an addition will be made to the trans- ferred sum of such amount as the Joint Ex- chequer Board may determine to be the produce of the additional taxation. Similarly if taxation is reduced by the Irish Parliament a deduction will be made from the transferred sum corre- sponding to the loss of revenue due to the repeal of a tax or to the collection at the lower rates. The Irish Exchequer will, therefore, gain or lose by any increase or decrease in taxation enacted by the Irish Parliament, but the net revenue of the Imperial Exchequer will remain unaffected by such changes. If excise or customs ^duties are imposed at dif- [ 122 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM ferent rates in Great Britain and Ireland, re- spectively, provision is made for the adjustment of taxes paid in respect of articles passing from one country to the other. As administrative dif- ficulties might arise in certain cases if the ten per cent, limitation mentioned above were in terms to prohibit additions to the taxes in ques- tion to an extent of more than ten per cent, of the normal tax, the bill effects the object in view by enacting that only such proceeds of the tax as do not exceed ten per cent, of the yield of the imperial tax shall be transferred to the Irish Ex- chequer. The bill makes no specific reference to the powers of the Imperial Parliament to levy taxation in Ireland. The provision in Clause 1 that the supreme power and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain with the existing powers of the Imperial Parlia- ment rules in this regard. The governmental revenues of Ireland are scarcely above $54,000,000. The Home Rule Bill will give financial control to the Irish admin- istration of about $35,000,000. The best esti- mate in Ireland is that about 1,400 offices will be created under the act, which will be given to the present followers of the politicians in control of [123] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the Parliamentary Party. The increase in taxa- tion can only come out of excise taxes or raising the value of land, as Ireland, or that portion of it included in the act, has few manufactures. There is no hope for an industrial revival through an act which expressly prohibits Ireland from having any control whatsoever over foreign trade, treason, aliens, quarantine, navigation, lighthouses, coinage, legal tender, trade-marks, patent rights, police, banks, or merchant shipping. But will this attenuated and disappointing measure be finally adopted after all? (1) The Conservative Party in England have declared that their opposition is in no way abated. (2) The Ulster Unionists have renewed their cove- nant against any form of Home Rule. The Ul- ster Unionists are powerful, because they are backed by the whole of the conservative and aris- tocratic forces in England. In addition to this normal backing, they have now put the Liberal authors of the Home Rule measure under obli- gations to them. The Ulster leaders have handed their volunteers with their arms to the British War Office. They must have been given some assurances before they did this. The assurances that the Ulster Unionist leaders would ask [124] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM would be that the Home Rule measure should be allowed to remain a dead letter.* ♦Professor Robert Ellis Thompson, of Pennsylvania, is one of the most noted of American political economists. He says that "Ireland is in the best position possible for protesting against the whole system, of which she has been the most con- spicuous victim. Some of her American friends plead that Eng- land has been so good to her that she owes to the British Empire the utmost exertion in the present crisis. They point to the concession of Home Rule as binding the country to per- petual loyalty. "They do not seem to be aware that any self-governing colony of the empire, not excepting the Boers, who were fighting Great Britain so recently, enjoys far more Home Rule than the new legislation will secure to Ireland. They all have in their hands the fiscal legislation, which enables them to secure the pros- perity of their people by developing their industry. Ireland' is denied this most strictly, and is left still dependent upon the fruits of her agriculture, with the certainty of famine whenever the crops fail. "They remind us that Ireland gets a larger share of the old age pensions than either England or Scotland. They forget that the poverty of Ireland, caused by the destruction of her manu- factures, has driven and is driving out so many of her able- bodied people, as to make the proportion of aged people in the census far greater than in any other country of the world. They speak reproachfully of the scanty response to English recruiting for the war. Do they expect Ireland to deplete her scanty popu- lation of military age by sending out for England the soldiers the latter cannot enlist at home?" [125] CHAPTER XII OUR INTERFERENCE IN IRELAND John Redmond is the chosen leader of the Irish Nationalist Party — that is, of the poHtical group which alone can speak and act for Ireland. The Irish people are the best judges of the war situa- tion in their own land. They have to live in Ire- land. What business have persons of Irish blood, citizens of other countries, to be giving gratuitous advice to the people at home, who re- sent all this outside interference and are able to decide what is best for themselves? This is the view taken by most Americans. To the average man this view of Ireland seems the only sane and sensible one. He is surprised, therefore, that any considerable number of American citizens are found interfering with the will of the Irish Parliamentary Party; and, knowing little of the history of Ireland, our average friends become impatient with our singular attitude, and advise us to mind our own business, adding, if the Irish want to follow Redmond's appeal for troops and go off to the Continent and get killed and wounded [126] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM for the British Empire, let them go — it is none of our affair. This argument would be most effective and un- answerable if made to any race in the world other than the Irish. If the Germans or the French in America were advising their brothers in the old land not to fight for their country, they would present a spectacle which would cause general criticism and resentment. They would not dream of making such a protest. They take no active part in the affairs of the country from whence they emigrated, and their interest is merely sentimental. The Irish race presents a unique and isolated position. It is the one nation in the world where for every one of its sons living in Ireland at least five live in some other country. There are more persons of Irish blood in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago than any city in Ire- land. There are nearly as many Irish in Liver- pool or Melbourne as in Dublin or Belfast. Marcus Daly of Butte, great copper mine owner, once remarked that the Irish of Montana pos- sessed more wealth than two of four provinces in Ireland. The Southern Cross of Buenos Ayres, Argen- [127] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM tine Republic, an Irish paper, contains more col- umns of advertising than any newspaper in Ire- land. There are many newspapers in America which specialize in Irish news. Some of them have managed to get along for many years with- out having to furnish any other class of news. Others publish an Irish page or two of news from the various counties in Ireland. In each diocese there are Catholic papers, and the majority of them give space to Irish affairs. The Irish so- cieties are numerous, some of them wealthy, and they keep alive the patriotic spirit. They hold thousands of meetings, outside of Ireland, to re- new the memories of great anniversary days — Robert Emmet, the Manchester martyrs, Wolfe Tone, Thomas Moore, and others. And they have practically, by common consent, made the birth of Saint Patrick a national holiday in the United States. The true Irish exiles, transplanted to lands of freedom, long to see Ireland a free nation. They know they can succeed and do succeed in com- merce and industry everywhere in the world out- side of Ireland. The spirit of freedom has pre- served the homogeneity of the Celts, and the eter- nal principle of liberty is the keynote for all hn- [128] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM portant Irish-American societies, celebrations, newspapers, and dramas, and they seem able to hand down that spirit through three and four generations. Make of Erin a mere West British dependency and you have destroyed the soul and spirit of the movement which has been inspired by the love and faith of the emigrants. LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary, Where we sat side by side On a bright May momin* long ago, When first you were my bride. The com was springin' fresh and green, The lark sang loud and high, And the red was on your lip, Mary, And the love-light in your eye. The place is little changed, Mary, The sky is bright as then, The lark's loud song is in my ear And the com is green again ; But I miss the soft clasp of your hand. And your breath warm on my cheek, And I still keep listening for the words You never more will speak. 'Tis but a step down yonder lane, And the little church stands near, — [ "9 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM The church where we were wed, Mary, — I see the spire from here. But the graveyard Hes between, Mary, And my step might break your rest, — For I've laid you, dariing, down to sleep, With your baby on your breast. Fm very lonely now, Mary, For the poor make no new friends, But, O, they love the better still The few our Father sends! And you were all I had, Mary, My blessin' and my pride ; There's nothing left to care for now, Since my poor Mary died. Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary, That still kept hoping on. When the trust in God had left my soul. And my arm's young strength was gone ; There was comfort ever in your lip. And the kind look on your brow, — I bless you, Mary, for that same. Though you cannot hear me now. I thank you for the patient smile. When your heart was fit to break. When the hunger pain was gnawin' there, And you hid it for my sake ! I bless you for the pleasant word When your heart was sad and sore, — [130] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM O, I'm thankful you are gone, Mary, Where grief can't reach you more! I'm biddin' you a long farewell, My Mary kind and true; But I'll not forget you, darlin*, In the land I'm goin' to. They say there's bread and work for all, And the sun shines always there, But I'll not forget old Ireland, Were it fifty times as fair. And often in those grand old woods, I'll sit and shut my eyes, And my heart will travel back again To the place where Mary lies ; And I'll think I see the little stile Where we sat side by side, And the springin' corn, and bright May morn, When first you were my bride. As the expatriated sons of Ireland found refuge in the four quarters of the globe, among them were many men and women of genius, their thoughts turned to the land of their hope and sorrows, and they are the men who have made possible every reform secured by agitation, and no important social betterment ever comes with- out ceaseless agitation. There are no "Scotch" [131I THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM or "Welsh" members of Parliament, but there is an Irish Nationalist Party of seventy or more. And there could not possibly have existed a purely Irish party without the moral and practical as- sistance of patriotic men and women in various parts of the world. Irish freedom and liberty means something more to us than mere senti- ment and pride. No material or individual bene- fit can come to any American from the success of the Irish cause. A number of our best men, with fine minds, who might well have succeeded in other pursuits, have become impoverished waiting, and watching, and working to see the beacon fires of freedom burning on the shores of the Emerald Isle. It is not the millions and millions of dollars sent across the seas that we regret, but the thing we cannot let escape our minds is the hideous fact that the money to save Ireland built up a political machine which is now crushing the young Irish, driving those to war who should have been saved for Ireland. America was the country which opened its great arms and provided a harbor of refuge for our exiles, and worthy adopted sons, indeed, many of them proved to be. Our friends, who know where the real work [ 132 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM of Irish emancipation was often started, realize the peculiar reasons which exist for the apparent interference of men and women of Irish blood with Redmond's plan of surrendering the youth of Ireland. Michael Davitt may be said to have founded the Land League which enabled the present Irish Party to live and exist for thirty years on a great issue, "the land for the people." Davitt, in 1846, saw his home destroyed by the English soldiers. He saw his father and mother starving, begging for bread on the streets of England. As a child he lost his right arm in an English factory. He joined the Fenian movement, was arrested in 1870, convicted on the evidence of an informer — Corydon — and sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor. He was released in 1877, came to the United States the next year and settled in Brook- lyn, where he and Mr. John Devoy laid out the plan for the land movement, which brought into being thousands of branches of the Land League in various parts of the world and saved the Irish national movement. Without the aid of several millions of dollars from America and a world-wide propaganda, the British Govern- ment would have suppressed the League and the [133] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM landlords would still be in possession of the land. All this vast supply of energy, time, money, press and organization has l^een given to make Ireland free, and mostly by agencies outside of Ireland; hence, the feeling of horror to see the cause be- trayed that the British Empire may be saved to exploit Ireland further. [134] CHAPTER XIII ENGLISH SOCIETY TEMPTS IRISH LEADERS American visitors to London express themselves in terms of amazement over the noticeable efforts of Irish leaders to ascend the ladder of high society, to become drawing-room favorites or se- cure the social attentions of dukes and duchesses. One of the "patriots" kept four Irish-American visitors waiting outside the House of Commons three hours while he was taking tea with a duchess and a countess. When they finally got his ear, for five minutes (they had come 3,000 miles), the only subject he could talk about was the charm and grace of the duchess, who had evidently patronized and flattered him to his bent. One of the party, who had contributed $6,000 to the cause of Ire- land, was so disgusted with that leader that he withdrew from the movement on his return to America. Not a word was said by the member on the subject of Irish progress. An Irish speech in a London drawing-room is a gentle, cooing, purring sort of an address, fit only for mollycoddles to hear, and positively [135] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM painful and humiliating to real Nationalists. The ladies of the nobility stare through their lorg- nettes at the Irish member of Parliament as though he were some curious specimen of the human animal, and as he delivers himself of cer- tain harmless generalities that are not in dispute, the ladies applaud and compliment the orator on his charming grace and tact. During the past decade the Irish "patriot" was sure of vying with the Indian princes or the blacks from Africa as a social top liner, and "my lady's receptions" in the London social season are considered incomplete without an "Irishman." Of course, the blooded aristocrats privately view them as interlopers, and secretly detest them as "social climbers and bounders," but tolerate their presence in the drawing-room as a necessary attraction and the source of some little amusement for their women. The Irish social climber who can tell a good story or sing a good song may become a social lion ; but if he should attempt to discuss Home Rule with his society friends, that would be the end of his drawing-room career. He has children to educate and advance, age is telling on him, the patronage of the powerful and wealthy is necessary, and the Anglicizing of the family proceeds apace. [136I THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM How different the roars of the Irish social lion on this side, when the campaign for funds is under way! Then it is, "Ireland must be free from the fcentre to the sea." If the British Grov- ernment could be destroyed by metaphors, he would have succeeded in a single night. The orator is three or four thousand miles away, the London newspapers publish little or no American news, the Irish member can tug away at the Brit- ish lion's tail in entire safety in Carnegie Hall, New York; the Academy of Music, Philadelphia; the Tivoli, of San Francisco, or the Auditorium, of Chicago, and other towns, the band playing "The Wearing of the Green" and "God Save Ire- land," and a great-hearted Irish audience waving the green and the red, white and blue colors, and the golden shekels pouring in the laps of the visitors to keep the party alive in Ireland. The greatest Irish leader in the past sixty years was Charles Stewart Parnell. The one su- premely valuable piece of English legislation, the Land Act, we owe to him. Parnell was an iron disciplinarian when in his prime. He knew cer- tain weaknesses of the Irish character; their de- sire for society, their facile success in the draw- ing-room, and he was aware of their temptations [137] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM through poverty, through convivialities, through their affections, their love of horses, and he knew that all these pleasures and successes were controlled by an enervated and jaded aristocracy seeking new sensations. Parnell established a rule in the Irish Party that no member should attend the social functions of the society set which rules London. This made trouble for him, naturally, among the wives and daughters of members of Parliament. His reply to this criti- cism was in this comment: "The very best party that Ireland can send to the English Parlia- ment will not last ten years intact. English Sj^- cial influence, English suavity and English gold will break up any Irish combination in due time." And the very thing is happening to-day that this leader foresaw. One of the foremost American newspaper writers, an Irishman living in London for several years in close touch with the Irish members, remarked, "Why, those lads are Irish only when they are in America; they are dena- tionalized in London." The only Irishman who makes a business of writing on Irish topics for the American news- papers is a clever journalist, T. P. O'Connor, member of Parliament, representing one of the [ 138 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM city of Liverpool seats. His constituency is largely Irish, and he has been elected as an Irish Nationalist for thirty years. The writer spent a day among the Irish of Liverpool last August. They are extremely poor, having been landed in this English city after the famine, and employed mostly as laborers on ships and docks. O'Connor has long become altogether West British, and his writings ought not to be accepted by American newspapers, as they give the English and not the Irish point of view. He is well known in Lon- don as a hack journalist, and for ten years past his tributes to the British army have been nauseat- ing. The four leaders of the party who are forcing recruiting are Redmond, Dillon, Devlin and O'Connor, aided by William O'Brien of Cork. All but Devlin are old men, dead to am- bition, doubtless exhausted by the long struggle, and ready now to surrender the lives of the young men of Ireland in return for a few legislative concessions. They follow the line of least re- sistance, and no longer oppose the pushing young politicians who wish to advance themselves in English society, or secure employment in the British civil service. A curious confirmation of the decadent state [139] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM to which social climbing and cringing to the aris- tocracy has brought the Irish Party, hks just come to hand. The Irish Nationalists on this side of the Atlantic Ocean have been saying that at last the country was going to have its first viceroy under Home Rule, and he would prob- ably be an Irish peer recommended by an Irish Government. The race for the great office under the "Home Rule Act" is confined to two aris- tocrats, one the keeper of the king's stables, the other a polo player, both noblemen. The follow- ing cable dispatch appeared in the New York Tribune: FIGHT ON FOR POST OF IRISH VICEROY NATIONALISTS WANT EARL GRANARD, CHURCHILL AIDS LORD WIMBORNE London, Dec. 14. — The contest between Lord Wimbome and Earl Granard for the post of Viceroy of Ireland, which Earl Aberdeen is about to resign, is the most exciting feature of domestic politics at the moment. Both already hold offices in the government, and it is understood that Wimbome has the strongest pull with the Cabinet. Winston Churchill is using all his efforts to secure the office for his first cousin. Granard finds his main support among the Irish Nationalists, who do not care overmuch for Churchill [140] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM or his relatives and think that the appointment of Granard, an Irishman, first Viceroy under Home Rule would be appropriate and desirable. Granard's other chief source of strength is from the Court, where, as master of the horse, he has made himself very popular, and although in theory the Court does not interfere in political appointments, it can often put in a decisive word where there is a difficulty of choice. Since Wimborne has represented the Irish Govern- ment in the House of Lords he has found its atmos- phere chilling. His success with the British polo team in the United States was achieved under the utmost discouragement at the hands of the polo authorities here, actuated, absurd as it may appear, by political hostility because he was a supporter of the Home Rule Bill. Granard, as a Catholic, has been nominally disquali- fied from being Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with five- sixths of its population Catholic, but under the Home Rule Bill this remnant of the penal laws has been re- moved. Wimborne is a Protestant, and it is contended in his favor that should Sir Edward Carson attempt to fulfil his threats of revolt in Ulster after the war it would be advisable that the Ulster Orangemen should not have the excuse of charging the King's representative in Ireland with religious bias, which, of course, they would do. Premier Asquith has rarely had a more awkward decision to make, both on personal and ministerial grounds. A delicate feature of the case is that the wives of the Cabinet ministers and leading ladies of [141] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the Court and society are pulling every imaginable string on behalf of their particular candidate. It is possible that the Premier may find himself driven in self-defence to put both Wimborne and Granard aside and select some compromise candidate. Lord Wimborne, the Englishman, has been given the high office in preference to the two Irish peers who have been writing for it — Lords Fingall and Granard. The outgoing viceroy, Lord Aberdeen, has had the bad taste to lay claim to an almost sacred title. He wishes to be known as Marquis of Aberdeen and Tara. Tara was the seat of the high kings of Ireland from pre-Christian times. These kings — "em- perors of the Scots" or "Gaels" ("Imperator Scotorum") — were always known as kings of Tara. Hence, all Irish Nationalists regard it as an outrage and almost a sacrilege that this ven- erable name should be tagged on to a British nobleman's title. The spectacle has excited even an English poet, William Watson, to write a de- nunciatory poem against Lord Aberdeen. It has been published in the London Evening Nezvs: TARA PROFANED Tara, the palace of Kings, the hill of fate! Tara, the throne of song, the hallowed shrine ! [ 142 I THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Tagged as a tassel to your Marquisate, Made an appurtenance of your house and line ! Who cares though you were Marquis ten times o'er ? Bemarquis'd or bedecked — who cares a straw ? But linked with Erin's immemorial lore, Her memories sacrosanct, her mount of awe ! Nay, why so modest? Why so humble? Why Pause in your too meek flight on Tara Hill ? "Marquis of Aberdeen and Sinai" — Consider : were not this ev'n better still ? God made me English — English through and through — But bound to Ireland by one bond supreme. I know her soul — something unknown to you — Her vision and her passion and her dream. I know, as all know who have breathed her air, How transient, how unrooted in her heart, A mere ephemeral thing of passage there, Were you that in her glories claim a part. And this last insult before gazing men — This ignominy bitterest yet by far — She will remember and forgive not when You in Time's volume an erasure are. You soon enough will be by her forgot. Lodged in some suburb of her thoughts were you; [143] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM But this will as a proverb live of what Dull, sightless, soulless statesmanship can do. This profanation, blind and coarse and crude. Of things the holiest held from sea to sea — This is immortal as ineptitude; This is eternal as stupidity. And even to this from all the ages past, Through all the long self -torturing Ireland came: Left to her disillusions at the last, And Tara fallen a pendant to your name ! [144] CHAPTER XIV FOMENTING RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES The British Government is straining every effort to prejudice the Christian population of neutral countries against Germany. With that aim in view, for the first time in centuries, England has sent a duly accredited ambassador to the Vatican at Rome. The English newspapers are filled with the alleged important news of this mission. From Rome appear frequent despatches suggesting that the Turks are murdering Christians at various points and driving them out of the holy city of Jerusalem. The alleged ill-treatment and im- prisonment of the venerable Cardinal Mercier of Belgium has been shown to be merely an invented story designed to inflame Catholic opinion. The arrest of the venerable bishop of Lemberg in Poland by the Russians is not an invention, but little is being said about it in the press of this country. The lies have to some extent affected the Irish clergy and, to a lesser extent, are be- lieved by the clergymen in the United States and other neutral countries. A special drive along [145] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM this line is being made by English publicists to enlist Catholic support and sympathies, as the Roman Catholic population in North and South America is fully one-half of all of the people on the Western Hemisphere. If English diplo- macy at Rome could, in any manner, secure a declaration from the Vatican denouncing the "atrocities" on the part of the Germans, the Brit- ish authorities figure that a proclamation of that significance would be worth 150,000 recruits and, what is even more important, give England the moral support of a majority of the Christian world, which she lacks to-day. All sensible Catholics should be on guard against the sinister news bearing Rome dating, and they should re- sent the British efifort to inspire hatred of Ger- many along religious lines. Catholics can hardly forget that the people of Austria-Hungary are nearly all Roman Catholics and that the dual monarchy has been the bulwark of Catholicism in Europe in much the same way that the Rus- sians have supported the Greek Orthodox Church. The Austrians have long been loyal and de- voted supporters of the Pope, while the head of the Greek Orthodox Church is the Czar of Rus- [146] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM sia, who now appeals to "My dear Jews" to save the Russian autocracy after the recent massacres at Kishiniff and other places. It is well known the present French Government is made up chiefly of atheists and has, practically, destroyed the Roman Catholic Church organization in France. In Germany, on the other hand, there exists full religious freedom and liberty, and a very large and devout Catholic population, fully two-fifths of the German people. A striking instance of this devotion is seen in a letter printed in the Koelnische Volkszeitung last month, from a German army chaplain, giv- ing an impressive description of service held for German soldiers in a church in France, when after Mass the local cure pathetically urged the French people to emulate the example of the sol- diers and return to God. The letter reads as follows : The cure of lives in a deserted castle, about fif- teen minutes' walk from the church. The owner of the castle furnished a few rooms for him when the church's bad patronage had been declared property of the state at the time church and state were separated. I held service in his church on Sunday. It was filled to overflowing. To the right sat the soldiers, with the officers at their head; to the left the women and chil- [147] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM dren of the congregation. I delivered a short sermon and afterward celebrated High Mass. The soldiers sang their German songs with such enthusiasm that it was a pleasure to hear them and at the end sang the Doxology. A great number of soldiers and their of- ficers received communion. The pastor and the con- gregation did not take their eyes away from the un- usual performance. After the service the soldiers marched out of the church solemnly. As I stepped into the vestry room the French priest looked at me in amazement. He said nothing and stepped before the Communion Table in order to announce the Masses for the following week to the congregation. Every Monday there was to be High Mass for the soldiers in the field, every Tuesday High Mass for those who had fallen. Then he continued, more loudly and with greater stress : "My dear parishioners, I will not keep you long to- day. The German soldiers preached the sermon for you. The Germans are our enemies, it is true. But a nation of men and soldiers who, with their officers at their head, hallow Sunday by enthusiastic songs, by receiving the Holy Sacrament, by their pious bear- ing, and who without shame or fear acknowledge their faith before the whole world, commands our respect and admiration and makes us sad when we think of our own present condition. "Poor France, once so great and now so humbled ! No, we may not murmur nor complain because God is chastising France with this terrible flail of war. We [148] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM must patiently bear this punishment, and we must imi- tate the example of the German people. We must return to the Grod of our fathers ; then God will bless France again." There are many false stories circulating through Ireland charging the German Govern- ment with discriminating against Catholics and, in some places, actually persecuting them. These writers assert that the German bigots, with the spirit of hate in their hearts, in penetrating Bel- gium, deliberately destroyed convents, shrines, churches and sacred things. The writer received some letters from Ireland where people actually believed that the Germans murdered the Sisters of Charity in the hospitals and never permitted themselves to march past a convent without abus- ing and maltreating the nuns and burning the buildings to the ground. John Redmond has been the principal offender in this respect, often publicly charging the Ger- mans with being the destroyers of convents and churches. Therefore, the writer asked Doctor Dernburg for some information as to the rela- tions of Protestants and Catholics in Germany, the feeling and attitude of the government [149] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM toward Roman Catholics and received the fol- lowing interesting reply: Of all the nations harboring a mixed Protestant- Catholic population, Germany has the largest percent- age of Catholics. Indeed, many parts of the country are nearly purely Catholic as, for instance, the old Archbishopric of Cologne, the Bishopric of Trier, a very large part of Posnania, the upper part of Silesia, as well as the greater part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Two of the four German Kings and their houses are Catholic, namely the King of Bavaria and the King of Saxony, and if a change in the throne of Wurttem- berg occurs, the throne will fall to the Catholic line of the house of Urach. — Indeed, more than one-third of all Germany is Catholic, together more than 23 million people, which corresponds to the representa- tion of the German Catholics in the Reichstag who have a party of their own called the Centre Party, that musters about 115 votes out of a total of 397. It stands to reason that in such a community the utmost good feeling between the members of the vari- ous confessions is a necessary condition for all prog- ress, and it has, therefore, been the aim of the Ger- man statesmen (out of five Chancellors, the third, Prince von Buelow, was a very devout Catholic and the wife of the fourth. Princess von Buelow, is one also) to secure to both confessions the utmost freedom and development and the greatest liberty for the exer- cise of their creed. The greatest noble families are Catholics. The Grand-Marshal at the Court of the [150] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Empire, Prince Fuerstenberg, is a Catholic ; so are the Duke of Arenberg, Salem and Croy, and others too numerous to mention. So ever since Prince Bismarck in 1878 made a per- manent settlement with the Holy See, there has always been a perfect equality between the two confessions, and absolute freedom for the practice of their devo- tion and a perfect obliteration of all confessional lines as far as the government of the country is concerned. In Germany nobody is asked what his confession is, no discrimination of any kind is made, and there is no country in the world, on the confession of Catho- lics of all nations, that is more friendly and more im- partial than Germany. How could it be otherwise? In the Bavarian Ministry of nine members just one Protestant holds a post, and the Prime Minister has been the acknowledged leader of the Centre Party for twenty years. I state this because of the many state- ments that have been made that the German army has especially wrought destruction to Catholic convents, churches, schools and to the clergy, and because accu- sations of this nature have been made to perverters of public opinion in America against my Bavarian coun- trymen. Nov^ as I said before, Bavarians are mostly Catho- lics, and very devout ones too, and the invention of such stories show at the same time their utter falsity as well as the amazing ignorance of those who pretend to elucidate the American public. All those stories can be dismissed, on the evidence presented, as absolutely worthless, and they simply [151] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM prove that the effort to revile Germany in any possible way does not stop at the falsest inventions. AN ATROCITY FABLE The following story, an absolute "fake," ap- peared in numerous newspapers throughout Ire- land January 9, 1915: IRISH NUNS AT YPRES HOW THE BRITISH ARRIVED The Weekly Dispatch of Sunday published the story of Dame Theresa Howard, O.S.B,, a niece of Mr. John Redmond, who went through the siege of Ypres with fourteen other Irish nuns at the Royal Benedic- tine Abbey at Ypres. The nuns are now safely lodged in Oulton Abbey, Staffordshire. The following are extracts from the diary of Dame Theresa : — "Oh, last night, it was awful. For a long time the guns went on, but in the darkness they ap- proached and entered — the Uhlans are upon us. "It is all over with Ypres ; the guns we heard all yes- terday were the last defence of the Belgian Army — or rather police — and they were only a hundred against fifteen hundred. They are all over the town, and the Burgomaster is a prisoner. What is going to happen? "The German occupation was becoming more and more terrible. Every day brought fresh atrocities, and every moment we thought we were to be the next victims, and we would hide in the cellars for fear they [152] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM should see us in the convent garden or at the windows. "We were actually engaged in the Litanies with the words, 'From all evil, good Lord deliver us,' etc., each Sister joining in the responses, 'Good Lord, deliver us,' with a full soul, when we suddenly heard the heavy tramp, tramp of soldiers, and the sound of sing- ing. We trembled, thinking of the terrible Uhlans, answering *God Lord, deliver us,' in their midnight carouse, but judge of our surprise and amazement when we found out that it was an English song min- gled with our cries of supplication, came, as it were, in answer, 'Here we are, here we are, here we are, again.' We almost joined in, but, of course, we dare not. But irnagine the thrill of joy that went through our hearts. Then outside in the streets we heard the clamors of the populace joining in with *Alo, alo,* and cries of joy. We were just wondering in our ;^rish hearts whether or not it was an Irish regiment that was the first to enter, thinking of the dear old standard with the harp on it, of the days of the Irish Brigade. Suddenly we got our answer. In gruff brogue we heard the song which everyone seems to be singing everywhere, 'It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go.' "The British have come to stop. "The battle is raging again. Can Ypres fall again? Wednesday, 28th October — The German shells fell on the town to-day. The first fell in the sleepy moat just outside the ramparts. We have now to live in our catacombs; even the sanctuary lamp is out, and the chapel no longer contains the Blessed Sacrament. [ 153 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM "It was no longer possible to stop in Ypres, and so we determined to get under the English authorities as soon as possible. We each had our little parcel. Everything is in ruins." The Bavarian regiments, ninety-eight per cent. Catholics, accompanied by priests, were stationed near the Royal Benedictine Abbey near Ypres. The closest official investigation on the part of the archbishop of Cologne confirms the claim of the German authorities to the effect that no nun was harmed, all were treated respectfully by these really devout Bavarians, who escorted the Sisters to places of safety. Fancy pious Sister Theresa, the good niece of John Redmond, sup- plicating to English soldiers and being saved by them from the Bavarian Catholic barbarians, and the dear nuns listening to the White Way dis- trict London cockney song of "Tipperary" as a saving melody instead of "Adeste Fidelis." It is enough to make one laugh were it not for the horrible use in Ireland to which this outrageous story will be put. On Sunday, February 7, 1915, Cardinal Von Hartman, of Cologne, addressing a vast meeting of Catholics in the great Cathedral of Cologne, said: [154] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM The Emperor William is the foremost defender of Christianity. Throughout the world we no longer know parties. In the words of the Emperor, "we know only Germans." That sentiment finds an unani- mous echo among all Germans and our children wher- ever found in all sections of the world. Our people are as one. We are making headway in the West and successfully resisting invasion in the East, and God will never permit atheistic France, nor orthodox Rus- sia, nor jealous England to destroy the religious life of the Fatherland. We place our faith in this just cause. We pledge to our noble empire the intrepid support and unfaltering allegiance of the 26,000,000 Catholic subjects of the German Empire, and we con- trast the love, regard and tolerance of the Emperor for our people during the past twenty-six years of his reign with the persecutions of the Christians in France and the Jews in Russia. May the Ruler of Battles, to whom we faithfully pray, continue to bring victories to the brave armies of our soldiers ! [155] CHAPTER XV RECRUITING THE IRISH NATIONAL VOLUNTEERS Ireland, having inherited nothing from Eng- land except sorrow and misery, is always asked to furnish her best blood for her exploiters whenever their empire is in danger. The Ro- mans, too, placed their slaves in the front of the line. Sixty years ago the Irish were forced into the British war against Russia, and thousands of them perished in Crimea. The patriots of that day protested, as they do to-day. Irish leaders then forced the poor peasants, after the famine, to lay down their lives for England in return for broken promises, in the same way and by the same methods that the present leaders are forc- ing the peasants to-day to die for a country which has only wronged them. The following street ballad of the Crimean war period, written by Charles J. Kickham for the purpose of discouraging enlistments, fits the pres- ent-day situation: [156] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM PATRICK SHEEHAN My name is Patrick Sheehan, My years are thirty-four, Tipperary is my native place, Nor far from Galtymore ; I came of honest parents, But now they're lying low, And many a pleasant day I spent In the glen of Aherlow. My father died : I closed his eyes Outside our cabin door ; The landlord and the sheriff, too, Were there the day before ; And there my loving mother And sisters three also : Were forced to go with broken hearts From the glen of Aherlow. For three long months in search of work I wandered far and near; I went then to the poor-house i For to see my mother dear ; i The news I heard nigh broke my heart ; But still, in all my woe, ! I blessed the friends who made their graves I In the glen of Aherlow. \ Bereft of home and kith and kin, | With plenty all around, \ I starved within my cabin, { And slept upon the ground. j [157] I i THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM But cruel as my lot was, I ne'er did hardship know, Till I joined the English army, Far away from Aherlow. "Rouse up, there," says the corporal, "You lazy Hirish 'ound ! Why don't you hear, you sleepy dog. The call to arms sound !" Alas ! I had been dreaming Of days long, long ago ; I woke before Sebastopol, And not in Aherlow. I groped to find my musket. How dark I thought the night ! O, blessed God ! it was not dark. It was the broad daylight. And when I found that I was blind. My tears began to flow : I longed for even a pauper's grave In the glen of Aherlow. O blessed Virgin Mary, Mine is a mournful tale : A poor blind prisoner here I am, In Dublin's dreary jail. Struck blind within the trenches. Where I never feared the foe ; And now I'll never see again The glen of Aherlow. [158] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM A poor neglected mendicant, I wandered through the street ; My nine months' pension now being out, I beg from all I meet. As I joined my country's tyrants, My face I'll never show Among the kind old neighbors In the glen of Aherlow. Then Irish youths, dear countrymen! Take heed of what I say : For if you join the English ranks You'll surely rue the day. And whenever you are tempted A soldiering to go, Remember poor blind Sheehan Of the glen of Aherlow. The Irish National Volunteers, organized to defend the cause of national Ireland, numbered, before the war, perhaps, 160,000 young men, the best physically and mentally in Ireland. They were organized in battalions, regiments and com- panies, drilled frequently, often at night, and went to camp. They formed the body in the Brit- ish Islands out of which real soldiers can be most quickly made. It was to them that the heads of the army turned eagerly, and it was to them that Mr. Redmond made his frantic and unpatriotic [159] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM appeal on behalf of the British army. Mr. Red- mond, until lately, refused to encourage or en- dorse the volunteers. In one year the body had grown into the most powerful and formidable organization in Ireland, and the old politicians trembled. In the interest of unity and harmony, and lest the world would consider them factionists, rather than have new divisions in Ireland, and in order to present a solid front to the Orange Tories, Mr. Redmond was permitted to name one-half of the directorate and members of the executive board. Ten days before the outbreak of war the Scottish Borderers, a regiment of the King's troops, had fired on an unarmed crowd in a Dub- lin street; several men were killed and a number were injured. Ireland was in a ferment, civil war was threatened, and the leadership of Red- mond likely to close in disaster. Then the great war of the world broke forth like the fury of hell and the more mercurial of the Irish were convinced that the "German barbarian hordes" were at their cabin doors. Thereupon, the offi- cial leader of the Irish Nationalist Party, on the floor of the House of Commons, pledged the Irish National Volunteers to defend the shores of Erin [i6o] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM from the oncoming Teutonic hordes. To some extent the prestige of Mr. Redmond was restored. Many Celts believed his proposition to the gov- ernment sounded fair and reasonable, and sup- ported his declaration. The Volunteers figured the move as one certain to bring to them neces- sary arms. Then followed the unexpected ap- pearance of the Irish leader demanding that the young men of Ireland, the volunteers, join the British army and die, not within their own shores, but in Belgium and in France, and under the col- ors of their oppressors. His best friends write over to this country privately and acknowledge his "fearful blunder," but argue that it is neces- sary "to save his face for the sake of the Home Rule Bill after the war," and adding that few of the Volunteers are recruiting an)rway. Mr. Redmond and his recruiting allies are working to overthrow the constitution of the Irish Volunteers, which reads : 1. To secure and maintain the rights and lib- erties of all the people of Ireland. 2. To train, discipline and equip for this pur- pose an Irish volunteer force. 3. To unite in the service of Ireland the men of every creed, party and class. [i6i] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM No funds would have been sent from this side except for the principles outlined above. Despite all the appeals of Mr. Redmond, the complete machinery of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the power of the government, the promise of Home Rule, a vast recruiting and agitation fund, dire poverty and distress increased by the war, unem- ployment, lying stories of German brutalities, not one company, regiment or battalion has voted to recruit or enlist in the army. A few thousand individuals have been secured, but the appeal has altogether failed, as admitted by the London press.* As the London Times has admitted, the whole of Ireland is under martial law. The censorship is rigid. The patriotic newspapers are being sup- pressed by the government, including The Irish Volunteer, the organ of the National Volunteers. The weekly journal, Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone"), and other papers have been destroyed. The Irish World of New York, with a large list of readers in Ireland, has been prohibited from ♦The Belfast News of January 14, 1915, which is the leading Ulster daily newspaper, jeeringly says that Nationalist Ireland has not furnished up to this date more than from 3,000 to 4,000 recruits, despite the fervent appeals of the Irish memhers of parliament. [162] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM entering Ireland. A number of persons have been sent to prison for distributing patriotic let- ters and pamphlets. Many of the Irish National Volunteer companies have changed their meet- ing places, and in secret are pledging eternal fealty to the cause of Irish freedom. More than 70,000 men have met within a month, and, by resolution, have bound themselves to abide by the following declaration of policy hereafter : 1. To maintain the right and duty of the Irish nation henceforward and to provide for its own defence by means of a permanent armed and trained volunteer force. 2. To unite the people of Ireland on the bases of Irish nationality and a common national in- terest ; to maintain the integrity of the nation and to resist with all our strength any measures tend- ing to bring about or perpetuate disunion or the partition of our country. 3. To resist any attempt to force the men of Ireland into military service under any govern- ment until a free national government is empow- ered by the Irish people themselves to deal with it. 4. To secure the abolition of the system of governing Ireland through Dublin Castle and the [163] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM British military power, and the establishment of a national government in its place. The Volunteers never sing the words of the English music-hall song, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary." The air is a fair marching tune, but the words and sentiment are un-Irish. Songs of Piccadilly and Leicester Square do not appeal to the hearts of Irish mothers. They know, if the children recruit, not only will the road to Tip- perary be mighty long from Europe, but that most of their sons, their sole support, will never live to see Tipperary again. "TIPPERARY" Who is it stands in front of the door ? Mary O'Fay, Mother O'Fay. An' what is she watching an' waiting for? Och, none but her soul can say. There's a list in the post office long and black, With tidings bad and woeful sad ; The names of the boys who'll ne'er come back, An' one is her darling lad. We showed her the list : but she cannot read, So we told her true, yes, we told her true. Her old eyes stared till they'd almost bleed, An' she swore that none of us knew. [164] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM She's waiting now for Father O'Toole, Till he goes her way at the noon of day. * * * * Who is it sprawls upon the sod At the break o' day ? It's Mickey O'Fay. His eyes glare up to the walls of God, And half of his head is blown away. What is he doing in that strange place, Tom and shred, and murdered dead ? He's singin' the psalm of the fighting race And his soul soars wide o'erhead. Who shall we blame for the awful thing — For the blood that flows and the heart- wrung throes ? Kaiser, or Czar, statesmen or King, Och, leave it to Him Who knows ! The Irish National Volunteers have before them the glorious example of the Volunteers of 1782, who achieved the legislative independence of Ireland. They first organized in the Protes- tant Church of Dungannon, County Tyrone, all or nearly all Protestants. They demanded liberty for Ireland. England was being defeated by America in the war of the Revolution, and dreaded another insurrection in Ireland. She finally yielded, and on the 16th day of April, 1782, [165] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Henry Grattan moved the declaration of rights, which made Ireland free and prosperous for a brief period of twenty years, when the infamous act of union with England was formed.* Grattan's amendment for legislative independ- ence, as adopted, follows: That the kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof; that there is no body of men competent to make laws to bind the nation, but the king, lords, and commons of Ireland, nor any parliament which hath any authority or power of any sort whatever in this country, save only the parliament of Ireland: to as- sure His Majesty, that we humbly conceive that in this right the very essence of our liberty exists, a right which we, on the part of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birthright, and which we cannot yield but with our lives. After England was forced to capitulate to the United States, two years after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, she proceeded to quar- rel with Ireland. Content seemed to reign in that country. As year by year her commerce gained ♦Even under the Union the legal and constitutional title of the British kingdoms is "The Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland." This title should be given on all official documents. But as time goes on the kingdom of Ireland is left more and more in the background. [i66] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM and her industries throve, the spirit of English trade jealousies was enkindled and the speedy ruin of Irish commerce was resolved on. Eng- land played Ireland false as soon as the Volun- teers laid down their arms. Grattan trusted the word of England on the terms of the final adjust- ment. The history of this sordid and wretched betrayal of the national agreement is confirmed by all historians, including Gladstone and Morley. Eighty thousand soldiers were let loose on an unarmed and helpless people to destroy them at will. Our American correspondents, without ex- ception, returning from Belgium, have told us that the stories of German atrocities are false. But the story of English atrocities in Ireland in 1796 are confirmed by all historians. I quote from one of the most careful authori- ties, A. M. Sullivan: Irresponsible power was conferred on the military officers and local magistracy. The yeomanry, mainly composed of Orangemen, were quartered on the most Catholic districts, while the Irish militia regiments suspected of any sympathy with the population were shipped off to England in exchange for foreign troops. The military tribunals did not wait for the idle for- malities of the civil courts. Soldiers and civilians, yeomen and townsmen, against whom the informer [167] L THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM pointed his finger, were taken out and summarily ex- ecuted. Ghastly forms hung upon the thickset gib- bets, not only in the market places of the country towns and before the public prisons, but on all the bridges of the metropolis. The horrid torture of pick- eting, and the blood-stained lash, were constantly re- sorted to, to "extort accusations or confessions." Lord Holland gives us a like picture of "burning cottages, tortured backs, and frequent executions." "The fact is incontrovertible," he says, "that the people of Ire- land were driven to resistance (which, possibly, they meditated before) by the free quarters and excesses of the soldiery, which were such as are not permitted in civilized warfare even in an enemy's country. Dr. Dickson, Lord Bishop of Down, assured me that he had seen families returning peaceably from Mass as- sailed without provocation by drunken troops and yeo- manry, and their wives and daughters exposed to every species of indignity, brutality, and outrage, from which neither his (the bishop's) remonstrances, nor those of other Protestant gentlemen, could rescue them. No wonder the gallant and humane Sir John Moore — appalled at the infamies of that lustful and brutal soldiery, and unable to repress his sympathy with the hapless Irish peasantry — should have exclaimed, "If I were an Irishman, I would be a rebel !" THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CASUALTY LISTS In Ireland the poor people are waking up to [i68] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the fact that the British, now, as always, put the Irish in the forefront. Although they form a small percentage of the army, as well as of the British population, the daily mortality rate among the Irish troops on the battlefield reaches an abnormally high proportion. The London Times publishes daily a list of the killed and wounded, the preponderating names being Irish. We have before us a copy of the London Times of Friday, January 8, 1915, which gives a list of the killed and wounded reported in one day. IN THE RANKS The following casualties among non-commis- sioned officers and men of the expeditionary force are reported from the base. Every man is a private unless otherwise described: UNDER DATE OF NOVEMBER 24. KILLED. Royal Scots Fusiliers, Ashcroft, 10701 J. Givens, 6247 T, Beattie, 10816 J. ; Graham, 9789 P. Bruce, 10057 Drmmr T. Hacker, 10879 A. Clark, 10809 Cpl. D. Hagan, 10274 H. Coll. 90SS D. Harris, 10504 A. Collins, 6558 C. Harris, 11040 F, Connor, 9419 L. Hendry, 9942 J. Doran, 9708 W. Hooton, 9137 Lce.-Cpl. W. Drysdale, 10924 S. Hughes, 10760 T, Gillet, 7199 A. Johnston, 9276 J. [169] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Johnstone, 10799 E. Keatley, 10489 H. King, 9946 T. Laird, 9861 J. Lawrence, 8676 A. Lindop, 10692 G. Lunn, 97 1 1 A. Lunn, 9208 T. MacGuinness, 10403 J. McAuliflFe, 9331 j. McBride, 10128 J, McCartney, 5753 R. McLaughlin, 9943 J. Mallon, 9796 R. Mayhew, 9411 Bndsmn. E. Miles, 8332 Lce.-Cpl. T. Mills, 8071 Lce.-Sergt. F. Minter, 9751 W. Monger, 10648 J. Mooney, 9814 J. Morgan, 10683 F. Nelson, 5776 Sergt. J. Oglivie, 10282 W. Page, 10722 D. Parsons, 10170 C. Provis, 9291 W. Roper, 10678 A. V. Shearman, 9233 H. Smith, 10313 W. Stringer, 6420 Sergt. H. Taylor, 8864 Lce.-Sergt. R. Watson, 10025 Cpl. W. White, 10229 Cpl. H. Wilson, 8698 J. Wood, 10391 H. Woodfield, 5243 Co. Qrmr. Sergt. T. King's Own Scottish Borderers. Boath, 8958 F. Brown, 7609 J. Cairns, II333 !• Carty, 10048 J. Cook, 8394 H. Dawson, 8149 W. Elliott, 9127 A. Goodman, 11174 W. Keegan, 5853 Corp. W. Nelson, 5840 Lce.-Corp. J. Norton, 11889 C. Smith, 7420 D. Smy, 9417 Lce.-Corp. F. Turner, 11647 B. Urch, 10456 R. Seaforth Highlanders. Black. 8667 Lce.-Cpl. Campbell. 9470 T. Devlin, 8128 J. Docherty, 6871 J. Findlay, 6960 J. Hambly, ^40 C. Hislop, 6643 G. Irving, 6481 J. Kirkwood, 6785 J. MacAulay, 6893 J. McKinnon, 6369 N. Mackie, 7150 A. Matheson, 676- Drumr. R O'Brien, 8662 J. Park, 81 15 W. Reid, 9349 Lce.-Sergt. D. Robertson, 7594 J. Ross, 6428 D. Salmond, 7882 C. Solers, 10597 J- Thomas, 6899 J. Thompson, 9759 J. Walls, 1461 A. [170] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Other Regiments. Brooke, 6506 Sergt. W., Royal Engineers. Byrne, 4108 G., Irish Guards. Gould, 28767 Corporal J. D., Royal Engineers. DIED OF WOUNDS. Campbell, 6460 T., Royal Scots Fus. Chambers, 5578 Col.-Sergt. P., Royal Scots Fus. Couper, QiiiS W., Coldstream Guards. Dix, 2537 Trpr. J., 6th Dragoons (attached ist Life Gds.). Drumm, 2667 F., Irish Guards. Grahame, 62588 Gunr. A. G., Royal Field Artillery. Hanley, 6741 H., Scots Guards. Harrison, 6745 H. J., Coldstream Gds. Henson, 6067 Lce.-Corpl. T. G., 4th Dragoon Gds. Innes, 9732 W., Gordon Highrs. Kean, 8789 C, Scots Guards. Maclntyre, 10501 Lce.-Corpl. R., Royal Scots Fus. McCormack, 4094 J., Irish Guards. McDonagh, 3310 J., Irish Guards. North, 5759 Trpr. T. W., ist Dragoon Gds. (attached 1st Life Guards). Pumphrey, 2265 J. R., Northd Hussars. Randell, 7926 H., Scots Guards. Riordan, 3728 J., Irish Guards. f(iXle^ f n Qnc 2)ai? Irish Names 42 All Others .77 I171I CHAPTER XVI THE WOMEN OF IRELAND In many parts of Ireland there is only one male left to a family. The mothers of Ireland are opposed to losing the last boy for England. Dele- gations of noble women from Ireland have come to America appealing to their countrywomen to write letters to Irish families urging them to re- fuse their children for the slaughter. They dare not take the platform in Ireland any longer or use the Irish newspapers, as the country is under martial law and any open effort to prevent re- cruiting is punishable as an act of treason to the Crown. These women have been holding meetings in New York and various cities, largely attended by earnest, intelligent, refined women of Irish ex- traction. In pathetic interest, education and en- tertainment these weekly gatherings are unique and novel even in jaded New York, but the care- less or hostile press gives them no attention. One of these many meetings of women was held the other night in the Blue Room of the Hotel [172] wrm-\' W^ - HHHii^ ^^^ Jg t ^^ '^■'***^l f' ^ ffi ( ^ Ml 1 ^' 'k^^^ :: I.' "■ , , , ' % ^HHSK^B "- ,*'*". ^^I^^^^^^BR -p: l^-r ^^HM^^^^^^I ^^BmS^.- ■■ l|up^^H..~ '--^^^If^^H ■Hf _^ ^■E -^^^^ ■ ,f^^ '■•'*^ SARAH CURRAN FIANCEE OF ROBERT EMMET "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers around her are sighing, But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps. For her heart in his grave is lying." — Thomas Moore. LIBRAHY OF IHE UNIVERSITY OF H mno'^ THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM McAlpin, with three well-known New York women in charge — Dr. Gertrude Kelly, Mary Atwood Tabor and Dr. Madge McGuinnis. Emily Gray gave selections on an Irish harp. One of the speakers was the venerable Margaret Moore, who went to prison with Parnell in 1879. The old lady preserves a wonderful, clear mind, and her speech was accorded a great reception. She said : You have been told that I stand here to-night to represent the past. It is not a dead past, however. It is full of inspiration, hope and encouragement, which we now hope to see grow stronger and greater in the dawn of a new day of freedom for Ireland. Women always came to the rescue in Ireland when Ireland needed them. When the Milesians came to Ireland, Queen Scotia and her three daughters fought in the field. She fell in battle; and from that time on there never has been a day when women were not ready and willing to strike for Ireland's cause. The women of Limerick took their place beside the men. Then came another day of spirit for Ireland. The Land League came. At first the Land League was scoffed at. Then the government became uneasy about its power. Then they passed the Coercion Act. Then some of the leaders were taken up. It was in these days that Michael Davitt could not bear to see her work go down in destruction. He could not bear [173] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM to see the flag of freedom go down in the dust and be trampled on by its enemies. He knew how brave his mother was in the days of eviction. He remem- bered the bravery of the women of the Fenian days. And he called on the women of Ireland to come for- ward in Ireland's danger. Since I was a baby I was interested in everything for the welfare of my native land. In those days stones were thrown at us, not by us. We did not mind that; they did us no harm. The Land League grew apace. One can hardly understand how the dead hearts of the people seemed to revive as they knew that the women were standing behind the men, and the men could not turn back on the onward march because of the women who stood behind them. I had believed that Ireland's chains, rusted by the blood and tears of centuries, were in such a condition that even a woman's weak hands could break them asunder. Then Mr. Pamell came. I would like to make a personal remark here. While some newspapers spoke of me as going to jail for rioting, I never was in a riot. I never threw a stone in my life. I went to jail for attempting to "excite disaflfection in the hearts of Her Majesty's subjects." The women did their work gloriously. We worked so well and so strong that we were able to bring about the downfall of the Chief Secretary for Ireland — Buckshot Forster. We have seen strange changes in Ireland since those days. We women did not give up the fight. The [174] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM men came forward when they got out of jail and they took the banner from us, and they did not even thank us for holding it for them. To-day we are facing a greater crisis than ever. Ireland must keep her men at home, and every Irish- man and Irishwoman in this country and in Ireland should be aware of the many reasons why Ireland should never fight for England. There has been more blood shed by England and for England than would buy freedom for the whole of Europe. That day must end. If Irish blood is shed it must be shed for Ire- land only. Men calling themselves Irishmen will dare to come forward and ask the youth of Ireland to join and become corrupted by the most immoral army in Europe. Referring to Lord Roberts, Mrs. Moore said: I am glad they did not put him in Westminster Ab- bey. That place is desecrated enough as it is. This Christian for whom they played "Onward, Christian Soldiers" — he in a letter to the departments of India demanded with authority that they should see to it that a certain number of attractive healthy women should be provided for the entertainment of the sol- diers. Are Irishwomen to let their sons go into any army where their morals will be destroyed? We are very proud of Irishmen who refuse to go forth to fight in this war. Even if they are unemployed they will know it is better to starve at home. [175] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM We know that before this war began Roberts went to King George and whispered in his ear, "Don't sign that Home Rule Bill or the army will revolt." Then came French and others, and they said, "We will not lead troops against the North." And a few days afterward they wanted the very men they threatened to fight for "their King and country." I deny that the Irish have a king. They have a country only, and let them look to that. Let them keep their country free and keep her in the proper place. Let them not forget their history. Let them not forget their ruins. Let us hold up the hands of our sisters in Ire- land. Let us hold up the hands of the men in Ireland. And with God's help we will try to help them. We want freedom for the land that bore us. Mrs. Padraig Colum of Dublin read a speech dealing in a comprehensive way with the state of things in Ireland, and the Irish volunteer move- ment. [176] LIBR'^KY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS THEOBALD WOLFE TONE "The connection between Great Britain and Ireland is the curse of the Irish nation, while it lasts my country cannot be free nor happy. Success in the eyes of the vulgar, fixes its merits. Washington succeeded, while Kosciusko failed. I await the Death which awaits me." CHAPTER XVII LEADERS OF IRELAND The little island across the sea has produced more than her share of heroes, patriots, poets, dram- atists, statesmen and soldiers, and by the same token she has managed to furnish an unusual number of weak leaders, traitors and inform- ers. For every Irishman sent to the scaffold or the dungeon, there has been another to swear his life away. It was the bribery and the weakness of some of the Irish princes which enabled the Anglo-Normans to extend their sway over large portions of Ireland in the twelfth century. In the next six hundred years of her history we find the work of martyrs and patriots checked or de- stroyed by treason in her own ranks. The life of Robert Emmet might have been saved but for the wretched informer who spied on his last meet- ing with the beautiful Sarah Cur ran. The United Irishmen Society was struck a fatal blow in 1798 by the treachery of one of its members, Thomas Reynolds, which caused the death of Lord Ed- ward Fitzgerald. This rebellion was watched by [177] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM George Washington from America with the deep- est interest and sympathy, as some of his friends in the American revolution were participants, and he was grieved at Mount Vernon, the last year of his life, when he heard of the failure of the revolution of 1798. Lord Cornwallis, whom Washington had taken prisoner at Yorktown, was the English commander who crushed the men of '98. The hero was Wolfe Tone, who, captured after heroic defence, begged that he be shot like a soldier, not hanged as a felon. His petition was rejected and he was said to have committed suicide, although some writers insist that he was murdered by his jailers, who feared openly to kill, except as a soldier, a man who was captured in the uniform of a French colonel. The Act of Union 1802 between Great Britain and Ireland was forced through by shameless bribery and promises of office. Lord Castlereagh purchased twenty-five Irish members of Parlia- ment, the necessary number to pass the measure. The two men who betrayed their unfortunate country to England were Lord Castlereagh and Lord Clare. The first died by his own hand, the second, bitterly regretting his infamy, died of a broken heart, [178] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Lord Byron, the great poet, when he heard the fate of Castlereagh, wrote : "So Castlereagh has cut his throat ! The worst Of this is — that he cut his country's the first! So he has cut his throat at last! He! Who? The man who cut his country's long ago." Fourteen new government places were created for Irish members. Thirty-two new peers were created, every one being an Irish member of the House of Commons who had voted for the Act of Union. Something like $2,500,000 was spent in bribery by the Crown agents. The salaried places given to deserting opposition members amounted to $340,000 per annum. Sixty-one titles were granted. Of the 162 men who voted for the union, 116 held government places by 1803, and 34 bought fine estates. After the Young Irelanders were driven to death or prisons in 1848, the leaders were John Sadlier of Tipperary and William Keogh of Athlone. The first was a banker, the second a lawyer. The two led the Catholic defense move- ment and were alluded to sarcastically by the English papers as the "Pope's Brass Band." The pair were strict Constitutionalists, viewed with suspicion by the crushed remnants of the revolu- [179] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM tion, but as reactions always follow revolutions, the patriots could only look on. The issue of the hour was the Tenant Rights Bill and opposition to the British Government. Sadlier, Keogh and O'Flaherty held the balance of power. The fate of a new ministry was in their hands when ter- rible news arrived from London in 1852 that the Irish brigade in Parliament had sold their coun- try for the jobs. John Sadlier was Lord of the Treasury, William Keogh was made Irish Solici- tor-General, and Edmond O'Flaherty was ap- pointed Commissioner of Income Tax. The argosy containing patriotic hopes was wrecked. As time went on the Irish drew away from Sadlier in horror. Confidence in his banks was de- stroyed, and in the dead of the night he walked out of his English town house. Early in the morning passers-by noticed a body lying on Hampstead Heath. John Sadlier had taken poison and died by his own hand. The news cre- ated a frightful panic in Ireland. Mobs of coun- try people stormed the Sadlier banks, only to learn they had lost their all. Even the poor guardian funds were gone. England in Ireland, as everywhere else that her misrule has gone, has depended upon gold to [i8o] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM sustain her power. Wherever she can find a Benedict Arnold, a Castlereagh, a James Carey, she has poured out her gold like water in order to get men to betray the cause of their country and to introduce dissension and distrust into the ranks of those who oppose her. Her motto always has been — like that of Rome — Divide et impera, and signs multiply both in Ireland and America that she is at her old game among the needy, the unscrupulous and the envious ones of the race, to make them misrepresent real conditions and induce their too trustful countrymen to forgive the past and come to her assistance in this hour of dreadful danger. But she has played the game once too often, and even the timid and weak men who were tacitly or openly on her side because of her supposed invincibility are now awakening to a full realization of her real weakness, and con- tempt and dislike are now rapidly replacing the dread which they had for her at the outbreak of this war. The extraordinary achievements of the German Navy — the Hogue, Cressy, Aboukir incidents, the sinking of the Audacious on the Irish coast and of the Formidable in the English Channel — ^have destroyed the prestige of the Eng- lish Navy and made Irishmen realize that the in- [i8i] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM vasion both of England and Ireland are reason- able probabilities, and in view of such a contin- gency the appeals of Redmond and his allies to young Irishmen to go with the English army or navy are falling on deaf ears.* ♦Mr. Bourassa Refused a Hearing — Meeting at Ottawa Broken Up (Toronto, December 17). — A meeting at Ottawa, which was to have been addressed b}j Mr. Henri Bourassa. the leader of the Nationalist movement in Quebec, was broken up under dramatic conditions. There was constant interruption from two or three hundred members of the Sons of England Lodges and other elements of the audience. They demanded that he should wave the Union Jack, but Mr. Bourassa, who preserved his good temper throughout, said : "I am a British subject, but I will not wave the British flag under compulsion." As he remained obdurate the crowd invaded the platform and the curtain was rung down. For several hours hundreds re- mained in the theatre singing patriotic songs and cheering. Later Mr. Bourassa read his speech to a small company at the Chateau Laurier._ His chief argument was that the first duty of Canada was to itself, and the principle of autonomy and the rights of minorities were not contrary to the idea of the British connection. — From our own correspondent. [182] DANIEL O'CONNELL "thk great liberator" CHAPTER XVIII YOUNG IRELAND OF 1848 The men of '48 ! The brief and ill-starred revo- lution in Ireland in the year 1848 developed a galaxy of young men and women of genius, equalled, perhaps, though not surpassed, by the heroic and brilliant Girondists. The daring deeds of revolution is always the work of youth. That the Ireland of to-day seems to lack the spirit of active patriotism may be ascribed to the preponderance of the aged among her declining population. The proportion of old people, apply- ing for age pensions, startled the pension officials, and an investigation showed that Ireland had more old people and fewer young men, in pro- portion, than any country in the world. Her present political leaders are nearly all old men. Daniel O'Connell is believed to have been the most powerful and effective orator of the last century. The late Mr. Gladstone and other au- thorities agree that no man of modern times af- fected so many persons through the art of pub- lic speaking. The writer has stood on the an- [183] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM cient Hill of Tara, where O'Connell once spoke to 200,000 people, the largest audience on record, and Lord Byron said his words could be heard distinctly on the farthermost edge of the crowd. Wendell Phillips, America's famous platform orator, visited the House of Commons to study the method of O'Connell's oratory. Afterward Mr. Phillips said, "this is the man, there are the lips, the most wonderful to speak the English tongue." To this day you see Irish pilgrims from all parts of the world visiting the mausoleum in Glasnevin to place their hands on his coffin. He won religious liberty for his country. And he rested. History is merely a record of change, and no leader of the people can afford to stand still. Young Ireland demanded political, as well as religious, freedom. The veteran was amazed that any one in Ireland should question his leader- ship. His pride and prestige seemed hurt. He denounced the young men and women of the new party as firebrands and ungrateful fanatics. He constantly kept telling them that his conserva- tive policies would bear fruit; they must wait. But he failed to see that the new generation was slipping away from him, determined to challenge his supremacy. The brave old lion was tired and [184] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM needed a rest, and he should have given up the leadership. The fate of revolutionists who rest is certain. Danton, tired and weary, went to the country, while Robespierre took advantage of his absence from the conflict and sent him to the scaffold. Revolutions wait not on the old or the weary. And then crashing down on unfortunate Ire- land like a wild whirlwind of horror and destruc- tion in the seasons of 1846-47, came the frightful famine. The neglect of Ireland, the woes of cen- turies, the maladministration of her conquerors, the failure of the government to cope with the wretched conditions, bureaucratic delays, brought on in the fog and blackness of the night the most terrible fate that can befall a people — star- vation. O'Connell broke under the frightful strain. He had lived too long, because he had lived to see the destruction of his country. He went to Italy and died at Genoa on the 15th of May, 1847. One day in 1842 three young men were walk- ing in Phoenix Park, Dublin. They were Charles Gavan Duffy, Thomas Davis and John Blake Dillon. They decided on an independent policy, and they founded a newspaper, The Na- [185] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Hon. This journal finally became the guide and counsellor of the young men of Ireland. From this band of young men and women, working on that paper, burst forth a new Irish poetry and literature, which has been translated into many languages and is still preserved in every library and will live for centuries. They were the first to break down the antagonisms between Protes- tants and Catholics. Thomas Davis was a Prot- estant in religion, and he wrote : What matter that at different shrines We pray unto one God? What matter that at different times Our fathers won this sod? In fortune and in name we're bound By stronger links than steel ; And neither can be safe or sound But in the other's weal. And oh, it were a gallant deed To show before mankind How every race and every creed Might be by love combined — They struggled to improve the tone of Irish life. They denounced the taking of office by patriots, on the ground that once a man gets on a British Government payroll he loses interest in the cause of Ireland. [i86] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Glorious are the names of the young Ireland- ers. They were sentenced to convict colonies, and yet they lived to become leaders of public opinion throughout the world. Duffy rose to be prime minister of Australia; McGee became a cabinet minister of railways in Canada ; Meagher, the great orator, commanded the American Irish Brigade of the Civil War, and died as governor of Montana. Richard O'Gorman died the fore- most member of the New York Bar. Kevin O'Doherty was leader of the Queensland legisla- ture. Richard Dalton Williams, the poet, died a distinguished physician at New Orleans. The small band of revolutionists produced three great literary women — Eva Mary Kelly, Lady Wilde and Ellen Downing. The literary works of John K. Ingram, James Clarence Mangin, Sam- uel Ferguson, Denis Florence MacCarthy make priceless the literature of the Young Ireland movement. William Smith O'Brien, a Protes- tant, was the active leader. In 1843 he announced, after serving fourteen years in the British Parlia- ment, that England was the enemy of his country and there was no hope for Ireland in the union as it existed between Ireland and Great Britain. The first man, since Robert Emmet, to advo- [187] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM cate physical resistance in Ireland, was one of the '48 men, John Mitchel, the grandfather of Mayor Mitchel of New York. He was the son of an Unitarian minister in an Ulster county. The government passed through Parliament a law designed to make the speeches of Mitchel and others treasonable. John Mitchel was arrested on the 22d day of May, 1848, and found guilty in two days. He was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation to the convict colonies across the seas while twelve thousand government troops surrounded the court house to prevent a contem- plated rescue. When asked by the Court if he had anything to say, he replied: "My lords, I knew I was setting my life on that cast. The course which I have opened is only commenced. The Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant promised that three hundred should follow out his enterprise. Can I not prom- ise for one — for two — for three — ay, for hun- dreds ?" His friends in the courtroom cried out, "Promise for me, Mitchel! Promise for me!" Arms were drawn, the troops drove back the crowd. The prisoner was carried to the cells below. Early in the morning, heavily manacled, chains from his wrists to his ankles, he was car- [i88] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM ried out to sea. The police destroyed the Nation office and arrested Duffy, then followed the ar- rest and conviction of the remaining leaders. O'Brien, Meagher, MacManus and O'Donohue were sentenced to be Hanged, beheaded, disem- bowelled and quartered. The ferocity of the sentences affected callous England, and they were commuted to life-long imprisonment in the con- vict quarters of Australia, where the prisoners were transported July 29, 1849. The speeches from the dock of these young Nationalists, sentenced to die, occupy an impor- tant place in the world's tragic literature. The circumstances under which they spoke never caused them to falter. They were about to die, but they were to die for Ireland. Not one failed or faltered, and their young voices ringing out in the courtroom have been heard all over the world. It is that spirit which tears the heart- strings of the sons of Irish emigrants the world over at the call of Redmond for Irish lives to save England. All the government jobs of the British Empire would not have moved the Young Irelanders of 1848 to recruit for Eng- land. "The liberty of the world," said Daniel O'Con- [189] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM nell, facing the Young Ireland leaders, "is not worth the shedding of one drop of blood." Alas for the memory of O'Connell! If that doctrine were true, we citizens of America would have no imperishable memories other than as a colony of Great Britain. There would be no Washing- ton's Birthday holiday, no Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, no immortal friend of freedom, of the poor and lowly, Abraham Lincoln. The glory of America, as of Ireland, rests with her patriots, heroes and republicans who dared face and contest, in the name of liberty, hostile majori- ties at home and abroad. The line between suc- cessful revolution and failure is extremely nar- row. Not one out of a hundred succeeds. Suc- cess is followed by power, temporary gratitude, glory, honors, monuments ; failure is followed by suffering, misery, ofttimes obloquy and death. The martyrdom of failure and revolution are twin brothers. The sacrifices of the Young Irelanders made possible Parneirs movement, the various Land Acts and the right of the natives of Ireland to own the soil of their country. The writer believes that the writings of John Mitchel are the greatest force for the perpetuation of the [ 190] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM spirit of Irish freedom. From his cell in New- gate Prison he wrote to a friend: "For me, I abide my fate joyfully; for I know that, whatever betide me, my work is nearly done. Yes; moral force and 'patience and perseverance' are scat- tered to the wild winds of heaven. The music my countrymen now love best to hear is the rat- tle of arms and the ring of the rifle. As I sit here and write in my lonely cell, I hear, just dying away, the measured tramp of ten thousand marching men — my gallant confederates, un- armed and silent, but with hearts like bended bow, waiting till the time comes. They have marched past my prison windows to let me know there are ten thousand fighting men in Dublin — 'felons' in heart and soul. I thank God for it. The game is afoot at last. The liberty of Ire- land may come sooner or later, by peaceful ne- gotiation or bloody conflict, but it is sure; and wherever between the poles I may chance to be, I will hear the crash of the downfall of the thrice-accursed British Empire." Mitchel remained, undaunted in spirit, for seven years in the convict colony of Van Diemens Land. Conspirators in the United States effected his escape. He arrived safely in San Francisco, [191] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM California, October 12, 1853. He founded the Daily Citizen of New York, and moved to the South, where he was editor of the Richmond Ex- aminer, and, strange to say, espoused the cause of the Southern Confederacy, two of his sons dying on the battlefields of the South. Mitchel was a private in the Southern army, was taken prisoner by the Federals, released through Irish friends, returned to New York in 1867, founded the Irish Citizen, was elected member of Parlia- ment from Tipperary County, while in New York, returned to Ireland, and died shortly after. John Martin was the friend of John Mitchel. He took up the cause of Mitchel and founded the United Irishman. The government destroyed his paper, and he established another, the Irish Felon. He was incarcerated in the dungeons of Newgate. From the depths of his underground cell, filled with slime and water, he wrote these words to the patriots of 1848: **Let them menace you with the hulks or the gibbet for daring to speak or write of your love of Ireland. Let them threaten to mow you down with grape-shot, as they massacred your kins- men with famine and plague. Spurn their brutal [ 192] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM acts of Parliament, trample upon their lying proclamations — fear them not !" John Martin was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to Van Diemens Land, the convict colony. He said in court: "My object is to assist in establishing the na- tional independence of Ireland for the benefit of all the people of Ireland. National independ- ence will prevent much of the pauperism, starva- tion and misery which prevails in Ireland." On one of those stormy days of 1848, William Smith O'Brien said: "Irish freedom must be won by Irish courage. Ireland's problems can only be solved by a republic." O'Brien headed the revolution. A large reward was oifered for his apprehension. His military following was finally reduced to hundreds. His little army de- stroyed, O'Brien fought with a handful in the mountains. At last he was captured and taken to Thurles. His trial lasted two short days, and he was sentenced to be hanged, beheaded and quartered. He was reprieved, sent to Maria's Island for life, where he was treated with great severity. Through the aid of friends in Tasmania he nearly escaped. His health failing, he was trans- [193] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM ported to Port Arthur. His friends secured a pardon in 1854, and he returned to Ireland after an exile of eight years. He died in 1864, broken in health and spirits. Of the Young Ireland leaders the name dear- est to Americans is Thomas Francis Meagher. He won fame as a writer and orator at the early age of twenty-three. He was opposed to what has been termed O'ConnelFs doctrine of passive resistance. In speaking against this theory, he said: "I am not one of those tame moralists who say that liberty is not worth one drop of blood. Against this maxim the noblest virtue that has saved and sanctified humanity appears in judgment. From the blue waters of the Bay of Salamis; from the valley over which the sun stood still and lit the Israelites to victory; from the cathedral in which the sword of Poland has been sheathed in the shroud of Kosciusko; from the convent of St. Isadore, where the fiery hand that rent the ensign of St. George upon the Plains of Ulster has mouldered into dust ; from the sands of the desert, where the wild genius of the Al- gerine so long has scared the eagle of the Pyre- nees; from the ducal palace of this kingdom, where the memory of the gallant and seditious [ 194] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Geraldine enhances, more than royal favor, the splendor of his race; from the solitary grave within this mute city which a dying bequest has left without an epitaph, oh! from every spot where heroism has had a sacrifice or liberty a triumph, a voice breaks in on the cringing crowd, that cherishes this wretched maxinv cry- ing out, 'Away with it ! away with it !' " Meagher was arrested in 1848. Out of a jury of 300 drawn in Clonmel only 18 Catholic names appeared in the panel. He was found guilty and transported to the Australian convict colony. His speech from the dock is famous in history. Among other things, he said, "Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails on me the penalty of death; but the history of Ireland ex- plains that crime and justifies it." Meagher escaped to America in 1852. He founded the Irish News in New York, and be- came one of America's celebrated orators. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 he raised a zouave company, joined the 69th New York Regiment, a famous fighting regiment under Colonel Michael Corcoran, and then organized one of the most celebrated divisions in the Army of the Potomac, Meagher's Irish Brigade, com- [195] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM posed of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsyl- vania, Ohio and IlHnois regiments of men born in Ireland. His brigade was cut to pieces in the sanguinary battle of Gettysburg. Meagher es- caped with his own life, and, after the war, was appointed governor of Montana, where he was drowned by accident in 1867. When Mitchel fell and the Nation and the United Irishman newspapers were destroyed, Keven Izod O'Doherty established the Irish Tribune. The government seized the paper and placed O'Doherty in the Newgate dungeon. He was found guilty on the third trial and trans- ported to the convict station in Australia. He managed to get away and reached France. He had been engaged to the beautiful and gifted Eva Kelly of the Nation staff, whom he married in 1856, and he became a famous surgeon in Australia. On the 10th day of November, 1861, the most wonderful funeral but one, the exception being the funeral of Charles Stuart Parnell, was seen in Dublin. The bones of Terence Bellew Mac- Manus, who escaped from the convict camp of Australia, were brought from California. Six thousand miles away they brought the remains of [196] LIBR'-KY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS JOHN ATITCHEL "The game is afoot at last. Tlie liberty of Ireland will come later with the downfall of the British Empire." THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM one of the expatriated of '48. From all four corners of the world the exiles gathered in Dub- lin, the world's greatest funeral — from the United States, Canada, Australia, South Amer- ica, India, West Indies, the Continent the exiles delegated men and women to follow the coffin to Glasnevin. For much of the history of Ire- land is written, not in books, but on the tombs of the dead. [197] CHAPTER XIX THE UPRISING OF 1865 The ill-starred revolutionary movement of 1865, known as the Fenian movement, failed sadly, yet history records that the uprising led to the birth of the Home Rule Party, the defeat of the land- lords in their long political control of Ireland, and to the scaring of England into granting some local reforms. The records of history will be searched in vain to prove where England ever made any concessions to Ireland except through fear of revolution or because the Irish held the balance of power in the House of Commons. The Fenian movement was organized in New York, and America furnished the supplies. It was a purely revolutionary society directed at the British government of Ireland. The foremost leaders were James Stephens, Charles J. Kick- ham, John O'Leary and Thomas Clarke Luby, all but O'Leary being Protestants. It is a curious fact in the history of Ireland that a majority of her foremost rebels have been Protestants, as well as being poets and writers. The leaders of [198] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the Fenians in New York were John O'Mahony, Michael Doherty and Colonel Michael Corcoran of the famous fighting 69th Regiment of New York. They had the support of three New York newspapers. In April, 1865, the Civil War in the United States was closed by the surrender of the South at Appomattox and the Irish regiments enrolled in the Fenian organization by the thousands. Large sums of money were secured for the arm- ing of the Fenian brotherhoods in Ireland. The British Government struck quickly before the guns from America could be delivered. The leaders were arrested and charged with high treason. Stephens effected a prison conspiracy and escaped, Luby, O'Leary and Kickham were sent to prison for twenty years at hard labor, others were sent to prison for life, many were flogged on the backs with whips steeped in vine- gar. The uprisings in seven counties were put down. The inevitable Irish traitor appeared in the per- son of Corydon, the informer. Off Sandy Hook, New York, a ship lay. On board were five thou- sand stand of arms, three pieces of field artillery and ammunition. In charge were officers of the [199] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Irish Brigade fresh from the Union army. Most of the American people were secretly or openly in sympathy with the revolutionists, because of the opposition of England to the American Union in the Civil War and on account of thf admiration in the United States for the valor and patriotic devotion of the Irish soldiers in the War of the Rebellion. Friendly American sym- pathizers had contributed large sums of money to the Fenian cause. The ship reached Sligo Bay, but the revolution was at an end in Ireland. The trouble had spread to the English cities, where the Irish were numerous. In 1867 two conspirators, Kelly and Deasy, were arrested in Manchester, England. The Fenians resolved on rescue. The two were handcuffed and locked in the prison van guarded by twelve policemen. A party of thirty men attacked the van. They de- manded of Sergeant Brett, who was inside, to deliver up the keys. He refused and a revolver shot was fired at the keyhold to break the lock. By mistake Sergeant Brett was hit by the bullet and died. The prisoners were rescued and es- caped. A few days later William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, Thomas Maguire, Michael O^Brien and Edward Condon were tried for the [200] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM murder of the policeman. They were found guilty of wilful murder, although the killing was an accident. Condon said: I only trust that those who are to be tried after us will have a fair trial, and that our blood will satisfy the craving which I understand exists. You will soon send us before God, and I am perfectly prepared to go. I have nothing to regret, or retract or take back. I can only say GOD SAVE IRELAND. At daybreak on the morning of the 23d day of November, 1867, Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were led forth to die. Long lines of troops sur- rounded the jail. A savage crowd of Manchester people watched the execution. All three died bravely. Their bodies were refused their rela- tives, buried in quicklime and in unconsecrated ground. In Dublin 60,000 men marched behind three empty hearses as an evidence of protest. "god save Ireland" High upon the gallows tree Swung the noble-hearted three, By the vengeful tyrant stricken in their bloom ; But they met him face to face. With the courage of their race, And they went with souls undaunted to their doom. [20l] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM "God save Ireland!" said the heroes; "God save Ireland !" said they all. "Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battlefield we die, O, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall !" Girt around with cruel foes. Still their spirits proudly rose, For they thought of hearts that loved them, far and near ; Of the millions true and brave O'er the ocean's swelling wave, And the friends in holy Ireland ever dear. "God save Ireland!" said they proudly; "God save Ireland !" said they all. "Whether on the scaffold high. Or the battlefield we die, O, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall I" Climbed they up the rugged stair. Rung their voices out in prayer. Then with England's fatal cord around them cast, Close beneath the gallows tree, Kissed like brothers lovingly. True to home, and faith, and freedom, to the last. "God save Ireland!" prayed they loudly; "God save Ireland !" said they all. "Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battlefield we die, O, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall I" [ 202 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Never till the latest day- Shall the memory pass away Of the gallant lives thus given for our land ; But on the cause must go, Amidst joy, or weal, or woe, Till we've made our isle a nation free and grand. **God save Ireland!" say we proudly; "God save Ireland !" say we all. "Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battlefield we die, O, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall !" Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were humble men, but their terrible fate and the belief in their in- nocence caused Parnell to take up the struggle for Ireland. Our true men and v^omen never forget the cause of Irish liberty which ever re- verberates in their ears from the clanging of the chains in the prison dungeon to the dying cry of "God save Ireland" on the scaffold at Man- chester. The world can thank or curse, as the case may be, the Fenian Revolutionary Brotherhood for the submarine which is doing such deadly execu- tion, especially on the part of Germany in the North Seas. The great inventor, John P. Hol- land, improved and developed the submarine, and his improvements first made it practical. Holland [203] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM was a young inventive Irish genius, an ardent Irish revolutionist of the Fenian brotherhood or circle led by the celebrated Catalpa Jim Reynolds, who organized a band of patriots, who success- fully effected the rescue of the Fenian political prisoners from the Australian convict colonies about forty years ago. As a conspirator, Holland thought out the idea of a submarine boat to be used under water to destroy the English fleet. There was much feeling throughout the United States against England after the Civil War, and many citizens believed that war between the two countries was imminent. The plan of Holland was to use the submarines against England near American and Irish harbors. The Fenian Brotherhood supplied Holland with some $50,000, and he constructed the first known successful sub- marine, christened it the Fenian Ram, and dedi- cated the underwater craft to the Irish Republic. This led Holland to develop submarines, and the world acknowledges that to the brain of Holland chiefly is due the creation of the modern sub- marine. [204] t CHAPTER XX THE SITUATION IN IRELAND The first contested election for a member of Parliament in Irelahd, since the Home Rule Bill was signed by the king, was held in Kings County recently. This county is strongly Na- tionalist and has been held by the Irish Party, under the leadership of Parnell and Redmond, almost unanimously, for thirty years. The Red- mondite convention, the political machine in Ire- land, nominated P. F. Adams for the seat of North Kings. The Nationalists, who are opposed to Redmond, decided to run an independent can- didate against Mr. Adams. The regular party was shocked that any such impudent challenge to Redmond's leadership should be made at this juncture and all the powerful machinery of the party, supported by the government, was brought to North Kings to crush the insurgents. Outside of the district little attention was paid to the contest, as the Parliamentary Party scoffed, at first, at the candidacy of the Anti-Redmond Nationalist. The whips of the party said that [205] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Mr. E. J. Graham, the independent, would secure no more than a handful of votes. A dozen of Redmond's members of Parliament stumped the district appealing for support of the party can- didate. Loyalty to the country, loyalty to Red- mond, demanded the triumphant election of Mr. Adams. "All England is watching the result in Tullamore," said John Muldoon, member of Parliament. Speaking at Tuam on the Sunday before the election, John Redmond said that Graham had flouted his leadership and repudiated the Parlia- mentary Party and the convention. Mr. Red- mond closed his speech with this final appeal: I call upon the electors of Kings County to crush, through the ballot box, this act of insubordination. The result of the first contest since the Home Rule Bill was passed came as a surprise and shock to Mr. Redmond and to the government. The vote follows: Graham (Anti-Redmond) .... 1,667 Adams (Redmond) 1,588 As soon as the government received word of the result at North Kings, the military and police authorities stopped the publication of Ireland, a [206] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Dublin daily paper which was hostile to the Irish Party. Ireland is under martial law and all the forces of the government are employed to crush, as an act of treason, any criticism of the authorities which now include Mr. Redmond. Free speech and a free press are denied. The following in- timation was received by the writer, who is a subscriber to a paper called Eire or Ireland, in Dublin, lately suppressed. It is simply copied from a Dublin paper and press censored: "A circular issued on Saturday "to the readers of Eire . . . Ireland" and signed by Messrs. Arthur Griffith and Sean T. O'Ceallaigh, refers to the suppression of the Irish Worker and other papers. It states that, although the printer of the Worker endeavored to comply with the de- mands of the British military authorities, he "had his private property seized and his means of live- lihood taken away." The circular concludes: "In the circumstances, the printer of Ireland has felt himself unable to continue printing that jour- nal. The editor of Eire wishes to add that the printer of Ireland has acted throughout with courage, and if he could not further continue to [207] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM print the journal, in view of the fate of a man whose printing office has been invaded by armed force and whose property and means of liveli- hood have been summarily confiscated, despite the fact that he had, to the best of his judgment, complied with British military orders, no reflec- tion rests upon Mr. Mahon" (the printer of Ire- land), In a word, Ireland is treated by England and her allies as a conquered country; all real news is suppressed; newspapers are seized, and any man daring to express an opinion in opposition to the policy or action of the authorities is in hourly danger of arrest. But history shows that Ireland and her national spirit thrive on persecution. Al- ready this is evident again. The Volunteer move- ment, which Redmond tried first to suppress and then to split, has broken away from him, and under the leadership of Professor MacNeill has drawn into its ranks the best of the young man- hood of Ireland. The political machine on whicH years of effort were expended is breaking under the strain put upon it by the unpopularity of the doctrines now preached by the new loyalists, Redmond, Devlin and Company, and all signs point to the bursting forth of the old spirit of [ 208 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM opposition to England and all things English, and to the raising aloft of the old flag of Ireland. Advices received very recently prove that Eng- land is alarmed at the evidences of seething dis- content and the fact that many Nationalists are breaking away from John Redmond and rebelling against his leadership. The London Times (weekly edition) of De- cember 11, 1914, published the following news from Ireland: SEDITION IN IRELAND SEIZURE OF "IRISH FREEDOM" A number of police-constables in Dublin visited newsvendors' shops in every district in the city on Thursday evening last week and seized all the copies on sale of the publication known as Irish Freedom. They also raided the offices of the paper, and seized all the copies there. The printers of the following publications, Irish Freedom, Sinn Fein, Ireland, the Irish Worker, the Irish Volunteer, and the Leader were warned that if they printed matter calculated to promote disaffection or to impair recruiting they would render themselves liable to trial by court-martial, and to the confiscation of their type and plant. A public meeting to protest against the action of the [209] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM police was held in Beresford-place, Dublin, on Sunday. A company of the "citizen army" of the Transport Workers' Union, with rifles, occupied a position in Liberty Hall overlooking the meeting. Mr. James Connolly, who presided, said that had the police or military tried to disperse the meeting, the rifles would not have been silent. He also said that arrangements were being made to continue the sup- pressed papers in another form. Speeches were made against Mr. Redmond and the Nationalist Party. John Redmond is to-day acting in harmony with the traditional policy of the British Govern- ment in Ireland. The Liberal government, v^ith his tacit consent, has prohibited the Irish World of Nevi^ York from entering Ireland, although the Irish World has long been his chief newspaper support in America and had raised $800,000 to sustain the party. That journal could not agree with the policy of recruiting advocated by him, and for that reason Redmond betrays the Irish World to the government and destroys its large circulation in Ireland. The majority section of the National Volun- teers who refused to follow Redmond are being persecuted by the government. A young man, employed as a salesman by a Dublin wholesale [210] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM grocer, was discharged by his Tory employer for differing with Redmond's policy, and writes that he expects to be imprisoned unless he leaves the country. Officers of the volunteers have been dis- missed from railways, breweries and insurance companies. Government servants, suspected of having similar opinions, have been dismissed. Houses are being searched for arms, suspected meetings are patrolled by armed soldiers, no re- volver can be sold in a hardware store unless re- ported, gunsmiths have to send inventories of their stock to the authorities. The government seized a lot of rifles on the way to Ireland. Thou- sands of letters from Americans to relatives and friends in Ireland are opened, and men are jailed daily for protesting against recruiting. Although the German torpedo boat sunk the super-dreadnaught Audacious, two months ago, just off the County Donegal, naturally the big war news event for Ireland, not an Irish news- paper dare print a word of the disaster. The British newspapers blame the "extremists" for the small number of Nationalists recruiting, but say that Redmond has done the best he could and is to be made a peer of the realm after the war. [211] THE KING. THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM The recruiting posters for the army afford curious reading for the student of Irish history. There is one posted over the walls and bill- boards of County Cork. Men of Munster UP WITH The Irish Brigade All Ireland is Joining Are We Afraid? NO! The Royal Munster Fusiliers, The Royal Irish Regiment, Leinster Regiment and Connaught Rangers NOW recruiting — join at once and be foremost in the fight for IRELAND AND FOR LIBERTY Mr. John Redmond, M.P., says: And for my part I trust and believe that the man- hood of Ireland will not be content only to remain at home waiting and watching, while other men are risk- ing their lives to defend their liberties. Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., says: The hour has come, every man worth his salt, worthy of belonging to our fighting race, has got to step into the fighting line. [212] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Mr. Joseph Devlin, M.P., says : Irish Volunteers, emulate the example of your fore- fathers who fought in the Irish Brigade in France. I am proud of the 700 young National Volunteers of Belfast who have responded to the call of duty. Besides your pay, your wives, children and depend- ents will be cared for during your absence. Per Week Wives will receive 12/6 Each child 2/6 Mothers and other dependents, from 3/ to 20/ Disabled — The government has undertaken that any man permanently disabled will receive an ade- quate pension to recompense him for the loss he sustains in wage-earning capacity. THE PRINCIPAL CORK EMPLOYERS Have promised to keep your places open for you at the end of the war, and will also see that your family and dependents are as well off during your absence as they are at present. Joseph Devlin', asking for an Irish brigade, like the Irish brigade of Fontenoy and Landen, is a spectacle of slavish submission which causes patriotic men to hang their heads in shame. The contrast between an Irish brigade, in 1915, fight- ing for England against the intrepid Germans, [213] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM always the friends of the Irish throughout the world, and the heroes of the Irish brigade who won the battle of Fontenoy, defeating the Eng- lish, is simply indescribable. Devlin's compari- son is sacrilegious enough to awaken from the tomb Thomas Davis, the national poet, who made the stirring ballad about the Franco-Irish victory at Fontenoy: O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he com- mands, "Fix bay'nets ! — Charge !" Like mountain storm rush on those fiery bands, Thin is the English column now, and faint their vol- leys grow. Yet, mustering all the strength they have, they make a gallant show. They dress their ranks upon the hill to meet that battle wind. Their bayonets the breakers' foam, — like rocks the men behind! One volley crashes from their line, when through the surging smoke, With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza ! "Revenge ! remember Limerick ! dash down the Sassa- nagh!" Like lions leaping at the fold, when mad with hunger's pang, [214] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Right up against the EngUsh line the Irish exiles sprang : Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with gore, Through shattered ranks and severed files and tram- pled flags they tore. The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, fled, The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead. Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack. While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun. With bloody plumes the Irish stand, — the field is fought and won. Joseph Devlin is the boss of the Irish political machine. He operates the levers through the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which is organized most effectively to control the country, the Parlia- mentary Party. As an organizer, Devlin is able, ambitious and shrew^d. He expects to become the real political power, in the event of Home Rule, and he has succeeded in placing many of his fol- lowers on the British payroll. The writer learned in Ireland that Joseph Devlin had been the most successful Irishman of the present generation in [215] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM securing employment under the British Govern- ment for the party workers. There are very few exceptions to the rule that once an Irishman gets on the government pay-roll it is the end of him as a patriotic force. The Devlin machine through- out Ireland operates the Ancient Order of Hi- bernians, which is a political organization quite unlike the order in America. The Hibernians in Ireland, under the able and shrewd manipula- tion of Joseph Devlin, national president, form an organization as practical as Tammany Hall and better ore:anized. THE SHAN VAN VOCHT* O, the Germans are on the sea, Says the Shan Van Vocht ; The Germans are on the sea, Says the Shan Van Vocht ; O, the Germans are in the bay. They'll be here without delay And the Orange will decay. Says the Shan Van Vocht. O, the Germans are in the bay, They'll be here by break of day, And the Orange will decay, Says the Shan Van Vocht. ♦A century-old song modified/ [2l61 THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM And where will they have their camp ? Says the Shan Van Vocht. Where will they have their camp? Says the Shan Van Vocht. On the Curragh of Kildare, The boys they will be there With their rifles in good repair, Says the Shan Van Vocht. To the Curragh of Kildare The boys they will repair, And the leaders will be there, Says the Shan Van Vocht. Then what will the patriots do ? Says the Shan Van Vocht. What will the patriots do ? Says the Shan Van Vocht. What should the patriots do, But throw off the red and blue, And swear that they'll be true To the Shan Van Vocht? What should the patriots do ? And what color will they wear? Says the Shan Van Vocht. What color will they wear ? Says the Shan Van Vocht. What color should be seen Where our fathers' homes have been But their own immortal green ? [217] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Says the Shan Van Vocht. What color should be seen? And will Ireland then be free ? Says the Shan Van Vocht. Will Ireland then be free ? Says the Shan Van Vocht. Yes ! Ireland shall be free From the centre to the sea ; Then hurrah for Liberty ! Says the Shan Van Vocht. Yes ! Ireland shall be free. [218] CHAPTER XXI HOW ENGLAND SERVES UP THE NEWS FOR THE WORLD John Mitchell, the grandfather of the present young Mayor of New York City, said that, wrong or right, "England has the ear of the world." During the first two months of the war it is esti- mated that 90 per cent, of the war news printed in average American newspapers came through English channels and by English press arrange- ments. In order to suppress news from Ger- many, the German cables were cut before August 5th. A flock of British special writers appeared in the United States. The Germans labored under the disadvantage of their language in this strange country. The letters from their profes- sors and authors were poorly adapted to the American newspaper style and habit of reading, .| and the artists who write our wonderful head lines, innocently, humorously or purposely, as the case may be, caused them to vary in grotesque wordings. Then, too, the pleas were too long to [219] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM be read by the spoiled and impatient American newspaper reader.* One man, above all, has caused truth as to Germany finally to work itself clear in the light of reason. I refer to the achievements of Doc- tor Bernhard Dernburg, of Berlin, former Min- ister in the German Cabinet, living at present in New York. This man has stripped the mask of hypocrisy off the face of John Bull, exposed the falsity of his claim to be the saviour of small nations, and pilloried the English writers with proven facts and figures, which literary feats, so able, thorough and skilful, have captivated the imagination and impressed the reasoning powers of the thinking section of the American public. While the English writers for American publi- cations are quarrelling among themselves as to the causes or necessity of the war, and calling their opponents names or applying epithets. Dr. Dernburg never loses his temper, steadily aims and hits the bull's-eye, and is an epitome of the faith, steadiness and efficiency which charac- terizes Germany. There is a charm to his diction ♦The writer refers only to writers and publicists in Germany, The brilliant and effective work of Mr. Herman Ridder, editor of the New York Staats Zeitung, is invaluable, likewise many German newspapers printed in the United States, [ 220 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM and an element of grim humor which make his letters seem like literary gems. He lived in New York for many years, where he was trained as a banker, and his father was owner of the Berlin Tageblatt. He has convinced many Americans of the falsity and injustice of much of the news car- rying London dates. This poisoning of the -world's news during the world's struggle is grad- ually being resented by American journals. The following editorial appeared in the New York American oi December 10, 1914; HOW ENGLAND MAKES AND UNMAKES NATIONAL REPUTATIONS "That acute observer of international affairs, Mr. Arthur Moore, sets forth very clearly one of the reasons for England's domination of world opinion. It is quite true as he points out, and as every Ameri- can traveler abroad notices, that the American news selected for publication by London papers is largely that of matters discreditable to us as a social organiza- tion — lynchings, murders, large defalcations, Con- gressional futilities, etc. And any man of cosmopoli- tan habit knows that the news we get of Continental Europe, through London, is equally misleading. It is for this reason that even in peace times The American maintains in Paris and Berlin its own news bureaus, and has its special correspondents scattered [221 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM all over Europe. While, during the existing strug- gle, it is fortunate in being able to present to its read- ers the war news gathered by the London Times and the London Telegraph, it supplements and corrects the news thus obtained by the reports of the Berlin Lokal Anzeiger, the Paris Matin and its army of special cor- respondents in the theatre of war. Withal a large staff of editors is kept busy correcting the tendency of British correspondents to exalt their nation's virtues at the expense of the rest of the world." — Editor of The American. Mr. Arthur Moore says : "England has controlled the news of the world for more than a century. It has been her greatest diplomatic weapon. It has probably gained more for her than her huge navy and her fine army. More than once it has saved her from serious loss. "Not one great event but has been seen for the rest of the world through English eyes or told to the rest of the world as England wished to tell it. The traditional racial characteristics of each of us were fitted upon us by England for all the world to learn by heart. And the myth of "Brit- ish fair play" stands above all the characteriza- [222 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM tions we suffer under as the greatest masterpiece of them all. SORT OF "news" LONDON TRANSMITS «1 'Europe knows America and we misunderstand Europe through news bearing the London date. Negro burning, the Camorra, bull fights, the Dreyfus case, Russian Jew slaughters, pass to and fro as "news" through London. "Since the establishment of the Triple Entente, London remade the French character for the world. On the date of the Entente's beginning, the myth of French decadence became the miracle of French renaissance. From the same moment the "bear that walks like a man" was trans- formed by Dr. Dillon and a host of lesser Eng- lish into a simple Christian hero. "Every one remembers the English-told story of the Japanese-Russian War, that story that drove us mad with admiration for the Japanese, Eng- land's allies; that made us forget the great im- selfish friendship of Russia in the time of our own great war. From London the news poured into our newspapers always for Japan, till we served as England's tool to help humiliate Rus- [ 223 ] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM sia by a disastrous peace and hated the Japanese since the next day after the treaty was signed. OUR PANAMA ARGUMENTS SUPPRESSED "Our own Panama Canal controversy with Eng- land is fresh in the minds of all. Our side, just if ever anything was just, never was heard by the rest of the world, scarcely was heard by us. In every German, French and Italian journal we were spoken of as a nation without honor, as cheats and thieves by birth and traditions, always in dispatches from London. The facts were twisted and misrepresented in these London "news items," and interviews with every promi- nent man who took the English side were sent broadcast until even we ourselves were shaken in our faith in our cause. It is all over now, the English control of the distribution of interna- tional news beat us, that and nothing else. And it is something not to be good-naturedly for- gotten. "The menace of German militarism became known to the world, curiouly enough, about the time that the French became regenerate and the Russians finally "tucked in their shirts," that is, about the time of the formation of the Entente. [224] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM From that date onward till the beginning of the war we heard more and more of this new menace that had taken the place of the Slav hordes as the world-wide bugaboo. And it was not from France, but from England, that the tales of this new terror came. "When the great war broke upon the world we were already prepared to believe everything against the Germans, as we were ready to be- lieve everything against the Russians when they were fighting the Japanese, allies of England. A MONOPOLY OF NEWS VALUABLE "Newspapers do not manufacture news. They can only collect it from the best available sources and present it to their readers in the most ac- ceptable form. That the best available source oi all international news is now, as it always has been, England, is the fault of no one. But it is a serious fact that ought to be realized fully and constantly by every man and woman who reads the newspapers in these times. To-day almost all the important news is foreign news, and it is news about events that are changing the whole world. Never before has England's monopoly of international news been of so tremendous a [225] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM value to England or so dangerous to the rest of the world. "One need not be pro-German to fear and to distrust the use to which England may put this tremendous power that she possesses; one need only be a little thoughtful. We may well be called upon as a nation to play a very important part in the final adjustments following this con- flict. And if we open-eyed fall a victim once more to this most powerful weapon of British diplomacy we may fail in playing our part in a manner that we may lastingly regret. Day by day our judgment is being undermined by this force in the hands of England. But knowing it we ought to guard against it, pro-German and anti-German alike, till the war is over." "The English mobilization of the news" is a phrase that exactly describes British press activ- ities. It has been used by an Austrian journalist, Mr. Rudolf Kommer. "We were intensely struck by the literary quality of the 'atrocity stories,' " says Mr. Kommer, describing his im- pressions of London in the first days of the war. "While our colleagues in Germany and Austria and France and Russia were admiring the over- [226] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM whelming features of the mobilization of the armies, we were exhausting ourselves in admira- tion for the English mobilization of the news/' The strict censorship exercised by the military authorities in London is merely the reverse side of English journalist activity. The newspaper readers in the British Islands have been told all about the insurrections in Hungary and Bohemia, but they have not yet heard about the sinking of the Audacious off the coast of Donegal east. However, none of the results of the war so far has come through and the following account of the prisoners of war in German hands was given in The Irish Times of January 7, 1915 : PRISONERS OF WAR IN GERMANY A FORMIDABLE TOTAL The following official statement has been issued from the German Chief Headquarters: The total number of prisoners of war interned in Germany, not including civilian prisoners, is 8,138 officers and 577,475 men. The figures do not include a number of those taken prisoner in the course of the pursuit in Russian Po- land, nor those at present on their way to concentra- tion camps. The number of interned prisoners is made up as follows: [227] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM OFFICERS MEN French 3,459 215,505 Russians 3,575 306,294 Belgians 612 36,852 British 492 18,824 Totals 8,138 57M75 Among the captured officers are stated to be seven French generals, eighteen Russian generals, and three Beligian generals. The official statement continues : The Russian state- ment, alleged to have been issued by the Russian War Minister, that 1,140 German officers and 134,700 men have been captured by the Russians, is incorrect, as the Russian figures include all civilians arrested on and since the outbreak of the war. The number of actual prisoners is not more than 15 per cent, of these figures. Mighty marvels of transformation in the ra- cial and national character of the Allies have been performed by the British journalists. And many of the American editors have literally swal- lowed these fantastic and absurd characteriza- tions, dated London, without giving a thought to history. Furnish us dispatches, false or true, but dispatches ! We care not who furnishes the news let us, but write the lurid headlines! The [228] * THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM decadent, obscene, irreligious French nation, as England regarded that great people not long since, are now passing through a period of renais- sance. The pathetic stories of nuns and heroic priests from France make us forget Viviani, the French premier, who said, in driving the nuns out of France, that he had "extinguished the lights in heaven." The Russians who, according to Kipling, were styled the "bear that walks like a man," are now the intrepid guardians of civili- zation, while the Sepoys, who were tied to and shot from the mouths of English cannon only sixty years ago, are styled "our brave and swarthy allies from India." [229] CHAPTER XXII NEW YORK PUBLIC OPINION The discerning and thinking American citizen pays little attention to the fickle thing called "majority of public opinion." You can travel on the Continent, all the way from Barcelona, Spain, to London, and you will see thousands of monu- ments erected to commemorate the memory of patriots, but never one was in a majority at first, or for most of his life. Every work of revolu- tion has come from a determined minority. George Washington, the Father of our Country, was at the head of a resolute minority. If he had failed, England would have hung him on the scaffold, like Emmet, as a rebel. Woodrow Wilson, in his "History of the American People," writing of the American Revolution, says: "It is the familiar story of revolution; the active and efficient concert of a comparatively small number at a moment of doubt and crisis." Garibaldi, with ten thousand followers clad in red shirts, united Italy and made a kingdom out of political fragments. The [230] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM immortal Robert Emmet mustered no more than a few thousand followers, but his name is ven- erated, and his short life commemorated more than any other in Ireland's long and pathetic history. New York City is to-day the stronghold of Toryism and English snobbery, as it was in the days of George Washington and Abraham Lin- coln. In the dark days of 1776 and of 1861 the so-called "public opinion" of New York and the newspapers of the city opposed the national and patriotic cause. Washington distrusted the New York City merchant class. In 1861 Abraham Lincoln was caricatured as an ape by the metro- politan press, inspired by London. For fifteen decades the New York City newspapers, or the majority of them, have been led in international politics, and in the world's business, by London. Their real influence in the United States is small, and steadily receding in the West, which controls the country in public affairs. The favor of certain New York City newspapers is disastrous to all national aspirants for public honors. The dele- gation from New York State, the largest, is the most impotent in Congress. The voice of New York City is local and does not even control the [231] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM commonwealth of the State of New York — to say nothing of the United States of America. The Irish emigrants of New York in 1776 were the first to enroll in the Revolution, and George Washington became a member of the first Irish Revolutionary society in New York, the Sons of Saint Patrick. Without the support of the Irish, the colony of New York would not have em- braced the American Constitution. When the Declaration of Independence was submitted, New York was loyal to England. Thomas Jefferson announced his distrust of New York. George Washington, satisfied of the devotion of Phila- delphia and Boston, determined that he would transfer his headquarters to New York, and re- lied on the intrepid Irish patriots for support. He took charge of a hostile commonwealth (see Woodrow Wilson's "History of the American People," page 243, Vol. 2). There were enough Tory sympathizers to lose him New York, and fearing treachery on the part of the residents, Washington retreated from New York in the fall of 1776. "These are the times that try men's souls," said Thomas Paine in December, 1776. Confident of New York, the British followed Washington to the Delaware. The soldiers of [232] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Washington were starving when 1,800 Irish rifle- men reached him from New York, and the Sons of Saint Patrick sent him $24,000 in gold. This brought his force up to 7,200 fighting men. The English army in America was then 18,000 troops. The year before, the first general to die was Richard Montgomery, friend of Washing- ton, native of Raphoe, Ireland. The year 1777 was a terrible year for George Washington. He was outnumbered, betrayed, his troops were freezing and starving, and Brit- ish gold controlled New York. The English had hired the Hessian mercenaries to fight, when, according to Woodrow Wilson, historian, "as the year drew to its close the great Frederick of Prussia had forbidden troops hired in the other German states to cross Prussian territory to serve the English in America." Valley Forge is the Limerick of America. The English hired the savage Mohawk Indians to destroy the wives and children of the American colonists. France took the side of America because she was at war with England on the Continent. Paul Jones bom- barded English ports in 1779, and 116 years later (1915) the Germans are firing on the same Eng- lish cities. The English bought Benedict Arnold away from George Washington by the promise [233 1 THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM of high office, exactly as the English Government of 1914 has bought John Redmond, the Irish leader, by the promise of office under the local Home Rule Bill. The treason of Benedict Arnold is recorded in his pass to Major Andre, the British spy, Septem- ber 22, 1780, which read: "Permit Mr. John Anderson to pass to White Plains on business." I cannot help thinking that the prospect of high office under the local Home Rule bill has been all persuasive in inducing John Redmond to adopt a course that will lead to many friends of Ireland comparing him to Benedict Arnold. Let Erin remember the days of old, 'Ere her faithless sons betrayed her, When Malachi wore the collar of gold, Which he won from her proud invader. When her Kings with standard of green unfurled Led the Red Branch Knights to danger, 'Ere the emerald gem of the western world Was set in the crown of the Stranger. The sons and descendants of the Celts and the Gaels, throughout the imperial commonwealth of New York, have repudiated the treachery of Redmond to the cause of "Ireland a Nation." In the largest halls of New York, Carnegie Hall, Terrace Garden, the Academy of Music in Brook- [234] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM lyn, vast multitudes have gathered to denounce the betrayal of the national cause. The women have vied with the men in the enthusiasm of their gatherings. The Sons of Ulster, Leinster, Mun- ster and Connaught, through their brotherhood of county societies, representing practically all the men of New York who have ever done any- thing for Ireland, have voiced the true feeling. The fourth of March, 1915, the anniversary of the martyr — Robert Emmet— is near at hand. Hundreds of meetings are under way for that day. All will extend sympathy and encourage- ment to our German friends and neighbors. True Nationalists have been taught for generations that in England's emergency will be found the sole opportunity for the liberty of Ireland. On August 18, 1914, President Wilson ad- dressed to the American people a powerful appeal in behalf of a broad neutrality. In "The White Papers," republished from the New York Times, an able and influential newspaper, the following copy of the proclamation appears : I suppose that every thoughtful man in America has asked himself during the last troubled weeks what in- fluence the European war may exert upon the United States, and I take the liberty of addressing a few [235] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM words to you in order to point out that it is entirely within our own choice what its effects upon us will be and to urge very earnestly upon you the sort of speech and conduct which will best safeguard the nation against distress and disaster. The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American citizens say or do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of im- partiality and fairness and friendliness to all con- cerned. The spirit of the nation in this critical matter will be determined largely by what individuals and society and those gathered in public meetings do and say, upon what newspapers and magazines contain, upon what our ministers utter in their pulpits and men proclaim as their opinions on the streets. The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish one nation, others an- other to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy re- sponsibility ; responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty to its Government should unite them as Americans all, bound in honor and af- fection to think first of her and her interests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinions, hot against each [236] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opin- ion, if not in action. Such diversions among us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might seriously stand in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people, holding itself ready to play a part of impartial media- tion and speak the counsels of peace and accommoda- tion, not as a partisan, but as a friend, I venture, therefore, my fellow-countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutral- ity which may spring out of partisanship, out of pas- sionately taking sides. The United States must be neu- tral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon ever transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the strug- gle before another. My thought is of America. I am speaking, I feel sure, the earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful American that this great country of ours, which is, of course, the first in our thoughts and in our hearts, should show herself in this time of peculiar trial a na- tion fit beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undis- turbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the effi- ciency of dispassionate action, a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels, and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly service- able for the peace of the world. [237] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Shall we not resolve to put upon ourselves the re- straint which will bring to our people the happiness and the great and lasting influence for peace we covet for them? WooDROw Wilson. Although six months have passed, we find the New York Times one of the most flagrant daily violators of the President's admonition. A sample of the Times* "neutrality" may be noticed in an editorial of February 10, 1915. The Times says: The chief moral superstition in Germany to-day is that concerning divine right. The future of the Ger- man people is being sacrificed to that exploded notion. Six months of war with no result save "calumnies and hatred and bitter hostility everywhere" is enough to dishearten the German soldiers and the German peo- ple. There have been other results — Germany has brought upon itself not alone the condemnation of the civilized world outside, but sore distress and priva- tion within the Empire. The proofs of it are too nu- merous to be ignored, and they are multiplying rapidly. Grermany is like an invested fortress. Then follow^s a long and labored article show- ing that the Allies are vv^inning the war and that German victory is impossible. All this notwith- standing the fact that Germany has won all of the greatest battles in the war thus far, holds all of [238] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Belgium, a considerable section of France and Russia, and has electrified the world with her naval exploits. The New York Herald indulges daily in the most venomous cartoons directed at Germany. Mr. Joseph Choate, former Ambassa- dor to Great Britain, and former President Eliot, of Harvard College, vie with the English pub- licists now visiting the United States in literary efforts aimed at the destruction of Germany and the triumph of England. We have waited pa- tiently for six months before launching this much- needed book, which represents a vast and grow- ing American public opinion, and much as we regret to have the appearance of disregarding the plea of our President for neutrality, to all fair- minded men the facts contained in this work are very necessary in order to offset the unneutral propagandas. [239] CHAPTER XXIII IRISH OPINION IN SOUTH AMERICA The sons of the Irish emigrants expatriated to the tropics and south of the equator are not de- ceived by the appeal of John Redmond to save Ireland from the ruthless German invaders. The Irish in South America and the West Indies, while not numerous, are important, and they are usually men of standing and exercise a good in- fluence on their neighbors. The Irish mission priests are noted for their bravery, intrepidity and skill in handling the natives. After the famine of 1847 in Ireland many peasants reached the coasts of South America and settled on the pampas land of Argentine or in Brazil, Chile, Peru and along the Caribbean Sea. The sons of these men have heard the story of England from the lips of their fathers. A considerable number of Irish emigrants married natives or women of mixed blood, and it is curious to meet black, brown and olive-skinned men bearing the names O'Brien, Donnelly, Brady, O'Callihan, O'Hara, Maloney, McDonnell, O'Ryan and Delehanty, [240] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM speaking Spanish or Portuguese with a tincture of Irish brogue. The oldest Irish families are located on the Pacific Coast side of the Continent, mostly in Peru and Chile, although the last twenty-five years have brought more Irish emi- grants to the east coast of South America. They form important colonies in the towns, and a num- ber raise sheep, cattle and coffee in the interior. They are not fooled by lies about the Germans, like their countrymen in Ireland, where there are not more than 500 Germans in the island; but in the tropics the Irish resident knows the Ger- man as the most thorough and efficient of indi- viduals, and the type to be studied and followed. In the West Indies he saw the jealousies excited in the British colonies by the success of the Ger- man salesmen, bankers, and merchants gradually overpowering the English traders. He witnessed the Hamburg-American lines gradually forcing out the English steamships in the first-class steamship cargo, tourist and passenger business throughout the tropics and in the West Indies, where even the colonists of the English posses- sion, Jamaica, preferred the German boats to Hayti and Porto Rica. Your emigrant in the Latin-American countries knows only too well [241] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM the superiority of the Germans in the world-wide ' commercial struggle. Consequently he is not car- ried off his feet by scare headlines in the Amer- ican, English and Irish newspapers now flooding the tropics. He sees all the colonists at close range, he has his country and her history before him, and that is why most all of the Irish in the West Indies, Central America and South Amer- ica are outspoken in their opposition to recruiting Irishmen to fight England's battle and save her from decline as a world power. Argentina, with a population of 5,000,000, is the most important country in South America, that is, the most prosperous, and contains the fin- est city in the New World, Buenos Ayres, second only to New York in grandeur, the Paris of the Continent. The leading newspaper in South America, printed in English, devoted to the Na- tionalist Irish movement, is the Southern Cross of Buenos Ayres, well printed, widely circulated and of international interest. This journal repre- sents the views of the Irish who live in the tropics or south of the equator. This periodical reaches the United States, where it is frequently quoted as a unique proof that a paper printed in English, devoted to Ireland, of rare literary value, can [242] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM exist in Argentina. The following opinions of the Southern Cross is the real view of the Latin- American Celts: "WILL IRELAND BE FALSE TO HERSELF?" ^'Ireland would be false to her history and to every consideration of honor, good faith, and self-interest if she sent her children to die on foreign battlefields, fighting the battles of the stranger." "John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parlia- mentary Party, has issued the following mani- festo : The whole-hearted endorsement by the Irish peo- ple and the Irish Volunteers of the spirit of my decla- ration, made on the impulse of the moment, and with- out seeking for any conditions whatever, that the de- fence of Ireland might safely be left to the sons of Ireland themselves, shows the profound change which has been brought about in the relations of Ireland to the empire by the events of the past three years. "We Irish all agree that the defence of Ire- land ought to be left to the sons of Ireland; but the British do not agree to it and so do not leave the defence of Ireland to the Irish. "The Irish people know, and appreciate the fact fully, that, at last, after centuries of misun- [243] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM derstanding, the democracy of Great Britain has finally and irrevocably decided to trust them, and to give them back their national liberties. By overwhelming British majorities a charter of liberty for Ireland has been three times passed by the House of Commons. A new era, it ap- pears, has opened in the history of the two na- tions. "IRELAND GETS LITTLE MORE THAN A PROMISE OF HER rights" "The question is not whether the British democ- racy trusts the Irish, but whether the Irish can trust them. It is false that the British democ- racy has finally and irrevocably decided to give the Irish their national liberties — as yet we have got nothing. Even the paltry and meagre Home Rule Bill can be revoked at any moment ; and in any case an amending bill will be brought for- ward before the law is put into execution. More- over, by this Home Rule Bill Ireland does not come into her national liberties; she gets little more than a promise of the rights that any camp municipality enjoys in this country. "The Home Rule Bill was not passed by an overwhelming British majority; if it depended [ 244 J THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM solely on the British vote, it would not have passed; it was the Irish vote that pulled it through. "Mr. Redmond further states: During the long discussion of the Irish problem in Parliament and on the platform we promised the Brit- ish people that the concession of liberty would have the same effect in Ireland as in every other part of the empire, and notably in recent years in South Africa, that disaffection would give way to friendship and good will, and that Ireland would become a strength, instead of a weakness, to the empire. The democracy of Great Britain listened to our appeal, and have kept faith with Ireland. It is now a duty of honor for Ireland to keep faith with them. "Why should Mr. Redmond make these prom- ises ? Who authorized him to do so ? When did British democracy keep faith with Ireland? and when and where did Ireland promise them any- thing ? One would think by the manner in which Mr. Redmond puts it, that Ireland had no right to demand Home Rule, that this was a gratuitous gift on the part of the British Empire. "The Home Rule Bill does not grant to Ireland the liberties enjoyed by other parts of the empire, such as Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc. 'Mr. Redmond makes special reference to [245] i(^ THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM South Africa, where, according to him, disaffec- tion gave way to friendship and good will. "Mr. Redmond's assertions have been disproved by facts. At the present moment a great part of Transvaal and of the Orange State is up in arms against the British Empire. General De- larey, who opposed the war against Germany, was assassinated in Pretoria. By whom? Gen- eral Delarey was one of the heroes of the Boer War and was very popular all over South Africa. "Mr. Redmond said also : A test to search men's souls has arisen. The em- pire is engaged in the most serious war in history. It is a just war, provoked by the intolerable military despotism of Germany. It is a war for the defence of the sacred rights and liberties of small nations, and the respect and enlargement of the great principle of nationality. Involved in it is the fate of France, our kindred country, the chief nation of that powerful Celtic race to which we belong; the fate of Belgium, to whom we are attached by the same great ties of race, and by the common desire of a small nation to assert its freedom ; and the fate of Poland, whose suf- ferings and whose struggle bear so marked a resem- blance to our own. It is a war for high ideals of human government and international relations, and Ireland would be false to her history, and to every consideration of honor, [246 J THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM good faith, and self-interest, did she not willingly bear her share in its burdens and its sacrifices. We have, even when no ties of sympathy bound our country to Great Britain, always given our quota, and more than our quota, to the firing-line, and we shall do so now. Words, words. If the empire is at war it should fight its own battles. Mr. Redmond says the war is just, but the Irish people do not know, nor have they sufficient elements at their disposal to pronounce judgment on the justice or causes of the war. We feel for France and for Belgium and hope that Poland may obtain her own. One thing we know, that the Poles, if they cannot ob- tain freedom, would prefer to be under Austria than under Russia, the ally of England. "Ireland would be false indeed to her history, and to every consideration of honor, good faith and self-interest if she sent her children to die on foreign battlefields fighting the battles of the stranger in a war that she has neither provoked nor knows anything about. Those who have brought on and declared this war should fight it out. Whenever Ireland has made war, her sons have been men enough to do the fighting ; they did not remain at home and ask the stranger to do it for them. [247] THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM Ireland is not alone in this way of thinking. The Argentine Republic, Brazil, Chile and all the Latin-American Republics, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Switzer- land, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc., have decided to take no sides in this war. Why does not Mr. Redmond appeal to the sympathy of those strong nations, instead of seeking to deprive Ireland of the few children that remain to comfort and help her in her hour of need? "The Swiss Government was advised by one of the belligerent powers to protest against Germany for violating Belgian neutrality. The answer was swift and curt : "Switzerland has enough to do to defend her own neutrality." "no irishman should ever enlist in Eng- land's service" "Mr. Redmond says that the Irish fought be- fore for Great Britain. The most of those who did so had enlisted in the British army before war, and therefore were forcibly obliged to go, but in any case if some Irish were fooled once it does not follow that they should always be fooled. No Irishman should ever enlist in the British army in time of peace or war ; that is our principle, and [248I THE KING, THE KAISER, AND IRISH FREEDOM it is the principle of every true Irishman from O'Neill to Parnell. "Mr. Redmond further says: We have a right, however, to claim that Irish re- cruits for the Expeditionary Force should be kept to- gether as a unit, officered as far as possible by Irish- men, composed, if possible, of county battalions, to form, in fact, an "Irish Brigade," so that Ireland may gain national credit for their deeds, and feel, like other communities of the empire, that she, too, has contributed an army bearing her name in this his- toric struggle. Simultaneously with the formation of this Irish Brigade, for service abroad, our volunteers must be put in a state of efficiency as speedily as practicable, for the defence of the country. In this way, by the time the war ends, Ireland will possess an army of which she may be proud. I feel certain that the young men of our country will respond to this appeal with the gallantry of their race. The British, or, if Mr. Redmond wishes, the Imperial Government, has not consented to grant this right. This confirms what we say, that the Irish should not enlist for service in this war. "let irishmen learn and beware"