The Irish standard., 1915-12-25

the Advice and Sympathy Of the
Race Beyond the Seas be Extended
For the Guidance of the leaderless |
Millions at Home.
Conditions in the cid land make it
imperative that all Irishmen> in Ameri- |
ca should give expression to the patri- |
otic sentiments which animate the
race on this continent 1t is our duty
to voice vigorous protest against the
indignities that are being imposed up
on the remnant of our people in the
cradle-land of the race
Conscription, though not yet ordered
in Britain, is practically I'll force in
Ireland. Recreant leaders have been
persuading and cajoling the young men
of the country to offer up their lives
for England, in war for English su-
premacy. The Irish people, sudden
ly confronted with problems of the ut
most perplexity, have been striving to
find some way to save Ireland with
out leaders. Those who have offered
patriotic counsel have been either i'm
prisoned or deported, and all the re-
pressive methods of the old regime of
tyranny are now in full operation.
While the faithless leaders have
been engaged in attempting to mis-
guide their former followers, the De-
tense of the Realm Act has been in
voked to crush every open defiance of
the law of the sword. Newspapers
have been suppressed, their machinery
seized and their editors imprisoned.
Any individuals who stood upon their
native rights as Irishmen and spoke
for Ireland were treated as enemies
to England.
An atrocious war of intimidation is
now progressing with all the old fury
and all the ancient cruelty. The SLAM
ders and sneers of the English are re-
vived and flung in the faces of the
helpless people, and the intolerance
and bigotry which placed the stigma of
inferiority upon our race before the
public opinion of the world is again
being Haunted insultingly.
Once the Irish race fled from the
house of bondage. Today they cannot
flee from the shame of wearing red
coat or from the peril of resisting the
ruthless law of the alien. One incident
of recent occurrence aroused the in
dignation of all the members of our
race, in whatever quarter of the world,
or under whatever flag they dwell.
This incident was the mobbing and
humiliation of some hundreds Of young
Irishmen who were seeking to escape
conscription at Liverpool by emigrat-
ing to the United States.
Rt. Rev. Edward Thomas O'Dwyer,
Bishop of Limerick, is one of those
bold and honest Irishmen who do not
fear the English government, and who
dares even in this hour to enunciate
the feelings which throb in the recess.
es of every true Irish heart. His
words, published in the newspaper Of
ireland, deserve to be seen by every
Irish eye and pondered in every Irish
mind in America:
"The treatment of poor Irish emf.
grant lads at Liverpool is enough to
make any 1rishman's blood boil, !"
writes Bishop O'Dwyer. "What wrong
have they done that they should re-
ceive insults and outrage at the hands
of a brutal English mob?
"They do not want to be forced
into the English army and sent to
fight England's battles in some dis
tant part of the world. They are sup.
posed to be free men, but they are
made to feel they are prisoners who
may be compelled to lay down their
lives for a cause that is not worth
three rows of pins to them.
These poor Connaught peasants
know little or nothing Of the meaning
of this war, and much prefer to be al
lowed to till their own potato gardens
in peace. ..
1T seems cruel and wrong to attach
them because they cannot rise to tht
level Of disinterested imperialism
such as that of T. P. O'Connor ant
others.
'What have their forebears eve
got from England that they shoul'
die for her? John Redmond will ga.
that the Home Rule Act is on tn
statute book, but any intelligent Irish
man will say that it is simulacrun
of home rule and was passed with tn
expressed intention that it shoul
never go into effect.
"This war may be just-or 1t ma
be unjust. Any fair-minded man wi
admit that it is England's war and nc
1reland's. Yet poor fellows who do nc
see the advantage Of dying for such
cause are to be insulted as 'shtrkel
and cowards.' II there Is to be col
scription, let It be enforced all aroun'