The Irish standard., 1916-04-08

In these days, however, it is time
we practiced the lesson we have
learned-the lesson of federation. We
scorn the intolerance of the rigid Pur-
itan, who, under Cromwell in Ireland,
massacred Catholics, and in New Eng
land under narrow leaders, burned
old women as witches.
We read even on the pages of Amer
lean history records of intolerance
which Americans of this generation
would fain forget. We can never for
get, however, that when our Irish
exiles, without education, money or
friends, poured across the Atlantic
during the early years of the nine
teenth century, that the spirit of in
tolerance in some cities was as a
wall of BRASS The cold silence,
the sneering comment, the hostile
newspapers, made plain the spirit of
intolerance in its most odious form.
The hard face of uncharitableness was
turned to the exiles, and in the Know
Nothing riots the victims were Irish
and Catholic. In the Pennsylvania
coal regions, in the midst of our great
cities, in public affairs, in society and
in those occupations in which our
people sought to earn livelihood, we
have experienced the effects Of intol-
erance, with all it's humiliations and
all it's injustice.
Yet we have remained singularly
free from the prejudices of which we
were the victims. We are still "the
fighting race" as sanguine and ag-
gressive as ever, and as willing to-
give full play to our instincts of gen.
erosity. We, in these days, can hold
fast to the sentiment so aptly versifed
; by our own Moore, who addressed his
famous satire on Intolerance to the
people of Ireland when similar condi--
tions existed to those of our times:
And thou, my friend, if in these head.
long days,
When bigot Zeal her drunken antics.
plays
So near a precipice, that men the
while
Look breathless on, and shudder while
Il they smile
Could thou but see what verdure
paints the sod
Which none but tyrants and their
slaves have trod,
And didst thou know the spirit kind
and brave
That warns the soul of each insulted
slave,
Who, tired with struggling, sinks be-
meath his lot,
And seems by all but watchful Fate
forgot
Would burn, to think that such a
blooming part,
Of the worlds garden, rich in ma
ture's charms,
And filled with social souls and vigor-
Gus arms,
Should be the victim of canting
crew,
So smooth, so godly-yet so devilish,
too;
, Who, armed at once with prayer
books and with whips,
Blood on their hands and Scripture on
their lips"
These words were written when the
burning flame of partisan Dassion con-
sumed the prosperity and freedom of
the Irish people. The conditions
which exist now are not dissimilar.
, Yet we must guard against the en-
trance of the Satanic spirit of intol-
erance into our Order. We must re-
member that our Order, which has
preached liberation, should practice it
as an example to others; and that
Hibernianism, which has never failed
, to encourage any movement which
contributed to the liberation of the
mind from prejudice, should be true
to it's own precepts and traditions
There will always be some men of
limited understanding who prefer to
grope in the darkness of ignorant ages
rather than stand forth in the sun of
intelligence which has overspread the
worlds civilization, but such men are
in so small a minority in our organ
&C. --tinued on Page 81