The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1916-06-30

Continued From First -'age.l
Gus and otter tremhled when he came
TO passages that held deep significance
to the cause he was pleading
The text Of his speech follows:
Text Of speech from the Dock.
My Lord Chief Justice:
AS ] wish my words TO reach a
far wider audience than | see here.
intend to read all that l propose to
say. What ! read now In something
wrote more than twenty days ago.
There is objection--possibly not
good in law. but surely good on
merciful grounds--against the appli-
cation to me here of this English
sta tute Ave hundred and sixty-five
years old that seeks TO deprive an
freshman OF today of life and honor.
nor for 'adhering to the King $
enemies but for adhering to his own
people.
when the statute was passed in
1851. what was the state of mems
minds on that question Of far higher
allegiance~-that of man to God and
His Kingdom? The law OF that day
did not permit man to forsake his
church or deny his God, save with his
life. The hereto then had the same
doom rs the traitor
To-day, q man may forswear God
and His heavenly realm without fear
or penalty. all the earlier statutes
having gone the way of Nero's edicts
against Christians: but that constitu-
tional phantom the King can still dig
up from dungeons and torture cham
bers OF the Dark Ages a law that takes
mans life and limb for exercising
his conscience.
Loyalty Rests On Love
If 1T is true religion rests on love,
IL Is equally true that loyalty rests
on love. The law I am charged under
has no parentage In love, and II claims
allegiance Of today through the ignor-
ance and blindness OF the past.
Tried ny Fears of Dead Past.
Being tried, In truth. not by my
peers OF the life present hut by fears
OF the dead past not by the civiliza-
ton of the Twentieth Century, but
by the brutality OF the fourteenth;
not even by a statute framed in the
language OF the land that tries me.
but emitted In the language of an
enemy land--so antiquated is the law
that must be sought today to STAY an
Irishman whose offense is that ne puts
Ireland frst'
Loyalty is sentiment. not law 1t
rests on love, not restraint. The gov
eminent Oh iTelauu Dy England rests
on restraint. not love. and since 1t
demands no love. II can evoke no 10y
atty
But this statute is more absurd
even than 1t la antinuated II It be
potent to hang one Irishman, II is
sim more potent to gibbet all Eng
iiHhmen.
Edward III was king not only of
the realm of England, but also of the
realm OF France, and he was not the
king OF Ireland. Yet his dead hand
today may pull the moose around an
Irshman's neck, whose sovereign he
was not. but II can strain no strand
around a Frenchman's throat. whose
sovereign he was
We're Kings OF France.
For centuries the successors of Ed
ward III claimed to be the kings of
France, and quartered the arms of
France on their royal shield down to
the union with Ireland on January
i. 1901 Throughout these hundred
years these kings OF France were con-
SANITY at war with their realm in
France and their French subjects who
should have gone from birth to death
with the obvious fear Of treason be-
fore their eyes. but did the kings of
France resident here In Windsor or
the Tower OF London hang. draw and
quarter as traitor, every FFenchman
for 400 years who fell into their hands
with arms In their hands7
To the contrary, they received the
embassies OF these traitors, presents
from these traitors. even kinghthocd
ttseA AT the hands of these trHttors,
feasfer with them, tilted with them,
fought them--but did not assassinAts
them by law.
The iudicfal ASA snfna fion ~ -