Norwich bulletin., 1917-10-18
Vincit Amor Patriae.

Mir. Editor: If there are people who
 think they can make capital out of
 my utterances for their own sinister
 purposes. I make them a present of any advantage they can reap from
 my candor. I am not astute enough
 to hide anything. I am a poor hand
 at intrigue. I am not a politician of any kind. overground or underground.
 I am simply plain, honest man. who is not afraid to make up his mind, and to hold his own opinion, though
 it may not receive the benediction of the assailants: of the regulations of upright men, who have incurred the enmityv of emissaries of powerful
 foreign nation. I stand for a cause, Irist peopIe-indeed. for all people who are bulIied by force and abuse. A vast propaganda has been loosed on the American public by a motley troop of hireling writers who seek to poison the wells of Knowledge. Every degree Of turpitude, every variety of former opinion is represented by them. Some of them look only to the pay and are ready to do CT say what ever is ordered, others still have hesi- tations and limitations. some remi- niscence of the old patriotism some remembrance of gentlemanly training. All alike are serviceable to their mas ter, more serviceable than if they were uniform in their qualifications All front. all show. all make believe. How are such men with no convictions and facile pen to live? The career on which they had entered could lead only to immediate poverty. But such men do not hesitate long. They are busily engaged in trying to prove that cer- tain alleged acts of Irish American citizens, said to have been committed a year before "our beloved country' entered the war, prove that these cit izens are disloyal to the cause of America since it has gone into the war. They are alleged to have sought a 1 a for hut as their ancestors sought and obtained the aid of France, Spain, the Batavian republic and the United States for the freedom of Ireland in the past, the. aid of France. The attempt to prove that it is crime and a dishon- orable act to seek foreign aid, for Ire lands. freedom. before our country who make it are false to the princi- pies on which this republic is built and to all American traditions. It is impudence of high order to set up the 1 claim that working for the independ- l ence of Ireland is treason or dlsloy- alty to the United States. and is un- paralieled in American history. Every act every move, they charge against | ,rishmen was committed: if at all, | before America entered the war And ! when they claim that these alleged | acts were violations of American neu- l trality, done in the interests of Ger | u uluaHy' u IS lie out or whole cloth. It was for Irelands liberty, that Irish i men have always acted. Let them i prove single act of disloyalty | against any Irishman since the United | States entered the war, if they can. They cannot. for no act of disloyalty | las been committed.
 All Irish citizens are loyal to the f United States. They were always 1 oval. Their accusers dare not bare | he undersurface of their conscience l and stand before the trjbun31 of the A merican people and say the same. irish loyalty to the only nation on Icd's green earth is genuine. Their lccusers loyalty is all sham and their .fforts in the future to injure and dis 'redit loyal Irishmen will prove as ruthless as in the past Why so much horror, that the Irish republicans should in 1916 seek aid from the enc ny or England. which happened to be iermany, in their efforts to secure heir country's liberty. while our his or1ans and our people. for generations rave applauded the statesmanship and ne ability of our revolutionary fore athers as shown by their securing nemy of that time, which happened C be France. then under a Bourbon ting. Where is the consistency in aying that America was right to pur- ue that coure. and in the next breath aying that Ireland was wrong to pur- 1 ue the same course? When this pro uganda of particular venom brazenly nd without scruples seeks toj de- troy loyal and true Americans of rish ancestry 1t is time for Irishmen pred and died for the cause Of Amer ,an liberty protest against this re- ival of the Cromwellian methods in | he U. S. A. Norwich. Oct. 16. 1917.