The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-30
Death Penalty Imposed
 On Easement When Jury
 Declares He Is Guilty
(Continued from Page One,


 duty of Irishmen was to enter that army If small nations were 10 be the first consideration, saw no reason why Ire land should shed any blood for any peo- pie but her own. If that be treason l am not ashamed to avow it here. If the unlonists chose the road they thought would lead to the good side, I knew my road led to the dark side. Both of us proved right So I am prouder to stand here, in traitors dock, than to fill the place of my accusers. "Self-government is our right It is no more thing to be withheld from us or doled out to us than the right to life or light to sunshine or spring flowers" Throwing aside his manuscript, Sir Roger said:
 My lords, have done. Gentlemen of the jury, l wish to thank you for your verdict. l meant no reflection upon you when l said this was not a trial by my ! peers''
 KNIGHT SHOWS FEELING With sweeping gesture of his arm and with more feeling than he had shown before, Sir Roger continued: How would all men here feel''-his voice broke-"how would you feel if an Englishman had landed in England and had been taken to Ireland, if that man had been placed be-
 
 against him. believing him to be criminal?"
 Then the prisoner shook hands with a friend who was sitting below the dock while the usher placed the black cloths over the heads of the judges. The voice Tor the chief justice was firm, but his face was pale as he spoke the few words iS pronouncing the sentence. He began: Roger DavidsCasement, you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers of high treason, the highest crime known to the law and concluded by sentencing him "to be handed by the neck until you are dead''
 The prisoner, leaning on the iron railing of the dock with his tall frame, black beard and deep flashing eyes, was easily the most distinguished figure in the court excep Viscount Reading As the judge pronounced the sentence Easement smiled. Then a warder touched his arm and he Withdrew behind the green curtain from what may be his last appearance before the public which during the trial had regarded him without animosity, if not With some desree of sympathy
 There were numerous striking sen- tences in Sir Rogers speech.
 There is an objection, possibly not good in law, but surely good on moral grounds" he said, against the applica- . tion to me here of this old English statute. 565 years old. that seeks to de-. |prive an Irishman today of his life and honor not for. adhering to the Kings enemies, but for adhering to his own people.
 When this statute was passed in 1851, what was the state of mems minds on the question of far higher alle- glance, that of man to God and His Kingdom? The law of that day did not permit him to forsake his church or deny his God save with his life. The heretic then had the same doom as the traitor Today a man may forswear God and His heavenly realm without feor or penalty. all earlier statutes having gone the way of Nero's edicts against the Christians; but that con- stitutional phantom, the King, can still dig up from the dungeon and torture chambers of the dark ages law that takes mans life and limb for an ex- ercise of his conscience.
 LOYALTY RESTS ON LOVE
 If true religion rests on love, it Is equally true that loyalty rests on love. The law am charged under has no parentage in love, and claims that al- legiance of today on the ignorance and blindness of the past
 'T am being tried. in truth, not by my peers of the living present, but by fears of the dead past; not by the civil- lzation of the twentieth century, but by the brutality of the fourteenth: not even by statute framed in the lan-