The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-04-28
Kindness. if not Of love and admira.

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where a stupid thing, because it is a
crawling thing, and there is no more
stupid an Institution on earth than
Dublin castle-the representative Of
imperial and alien force in this coun-
try. Just at present it has done an
unexpectedly foolish thing. In this
city there is a weekly publication
called the United Irishman, which is
an organ of advanced nationalists, and
sees no good in constitutional agitation
that finds its goal in the big talking
shop at Westminster. A few days ago
the current number Of the paper was
seized, but not until thousands of
copies Of it had been bought by the
people. The pretext for its suppress
sion was that it was "a seditious pub
LEGATION, calculated to produce disaf-
lection and contempt among the SUBJ
jects Of her majesty the queen, and to
bring into contempt her majesty's
crown and dignity" OF course, Dub
lin castle could not contemplate with
out shuddering such dire results as
quoted, and so the police were sent in
hot haste to seize the rebellious organ,
which is little eight-page sheet in
large print. 1t has been in existence
little over a year, the issue seized
being No. So. Its editor is man
named Arthur Griffith, and one of it's
most virile and brightest as well as ir-
reconcilable writer's is Frank Hugh
O'Donnell dashing free lance in po-
litical and literary fields. 1t was not
anything he wrote, however, that
brought down the mailed hand of Dub
lin castle on the poor little United
Irishman.
Maude Come, "the Irish Joan Of
Arc" whom you we'll know in Amer
lea, welded the pen which distilled
disloyalty. The article which horri-
fed the foreign garrison was entitled
"The Famine Queen" and was trans
lation from L'Islande Libre, publica-
ton which Miss Come conducts in
Paris for the exploitation of Irelands
grievances and of Irish national
thought. The article decidedly was a
caustic one, but it had history to JUS
tify it's recital of the perennial famines
in Ireland and India and elsewhere
which have marked and filled with
agony and misery the long years of
Victoria's reign. Besides the signed
article Of Maud Come the paper con-
tanned other editorials somewhat dis
loyal in their tone as we'll as q slash
ing article translated from the Paris
Libre Parole on British Civilization"
and written by Edouard Drumont.
1t is safe to say that the suppression
of the United Irishman is now regard
ed even by loyalists as that kind of a
blunder which Napoleon described as
worse than Il crime. 1t brings before
the eyes Of the world the fact that the
boosted freedom of the British consti-
tuition, so far, at least, as Ireland is
concerned differs little from what is
called dcspotism in Russia and the
lese-majeste assumptions and persecu-
tions of Victoria's royal grandson,
Kaiser William. All Europe can now
see that in a portion of the United
Kingdom, of which Tennyson sung
that every subject was free to speak
what he willed, it is lawful for the
government of the day to suppress any
paper to which it has any objection.
But the government would never at
tempt such q high handed proceeding
in England and 1 could mention more
than one paper under the very shadow
Of the throne which speaks as disre-
spectfully Of royalty as the United
Irishman did. OF course the results of
this piece of petty tyranny will be to
defeat not only the intentions of it's au.
thors, but to make involuntary nation
alists out Of many who have been hold
ing faith in the policy of constitutional
agitation. It will likewise be great
boom and boon for the paper attacked,
since it's seizure does not extend to it's
suppression altogether.
Hereafter its press will be hard
worked to supply the demand and the
prosperity which it has long sought is
already dawning upon it. That is al
ways the case. In the old days of
heated agitation another castle govern
ment equally as foolish as this one
temporarily suppressed paper called
United Ireland and thus gave it an eX-
traordinary boom. 1t is the best way
to teach n dissatisfied and coerced peo-
pie that the best paper to take and to
read is that which the alien authorl-
ties dread most The conclusion is a
natural one and may be, too, wise
one. 1t is pertinent also here to re-
call that this is not the first United
Irishman that has been suppressed
John Mitchell once published one
which played no unimportant part in
the history and literature Of this coun-
try, and for the publication in 1t Of n
"seditious" article in May, 1S4S, that
brilliant and irreconcilablc young Ire
lander was convicted on q charge of
treason and sent convict to Van Die
mans Land to expiate his treason
against foreign rule. The strangest