The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1918-12-21

Ear0eu, NEW 1Ork C1Cy, WIFI the CIOV-
krnor of the State, the Justices of the
\ Supreme Court, and other local author
tiles, and His Eminence, the Cardinal
\ Archbishop, of Boston, and the Gov
sfernor as the principal speakers, this
wireless message was sent the night
of December TO-, to President Wilson,
on board the George Washington, on
his way to France:
'Twenty-five thousand American cit
liens assembled in and about Madison
Square Garden, with Cardinal O'Con-
nell of Boston and Governor Whitman
of New York as principal speakers.
wish you Godspeed and safe return
and urge you to demand at the peace
congress self-determination for the
people of Ireland"
Justice Golf presided, and Cardinal
O'Connell and Governor Whitman were
received with enthusiasm.
His Eminence gave at the outset his
reasons for accepting the invitation
to this meeting; of the essential JUS
tice of the Irish demand, and of the
tremendous services which the faithful
Catholics of Ireland, migrating to this
country, have rendered to the Church.
first in the smallness and poverty Of
their early exile; then in the strength
and prosperity of their loyal American
citizenship. We quote:
"Can any of us among the Church's
leaders ever remain silent and inactive
when there is at stake the welfare Of
daily bread and the roof that shelters
us?
Gin Gods name let us now speak out
fearlessly for Gods cause, for the
cause of justice to ALL weak and
strong, small and great, or let us be
forever silent.
"The doom of autocracy has already
sounded. The silent millions of Rus
STA, patient for centuries, have rushed
madly into the vortex of revolution.
Even in Germany, which seemed so
content with itself, new force is
pushing out the older forms.
OBVIOUSLY, therefore, we are at the
end of a period, and a new one is be.
ginning. Is it strange that when Po-
land and Serbia and the Czechs and
the Slovaks and the Serbs and the
Ukrainians are clamoring for national
rights and national recognition that
Ireland, for full seven centuries domi-
mated by foreign rule acquired only
by force and even today exercised by
force, should now more than ever call
upon the world, but most of all upon
America, as the bountiful mother of
true freedom, to help her regain the
treasure stolen from her, and rein.
state her in full possession of her com.
plete liberty?
''Ireland's position as nation is
nothing new which the war has just
succeeded in creating. Never since
the day her crown was stolen has she
ceased to claim it back. In every cen
tury for 700 years by protest, by ap
peal, by Parliament, by arms when
other means seemed futile, but in any
event by one means or another, as she
found it in her power to use them
ireland has never failed to keep alive
her own sense of distinct nationhood
and impress it as palpably as condi
lions would allow upon listening
world.
Gas profoundly Christian nation
she has chung to the law of God in al
these demonstrations of her loyalty tt
herself. Rarely, very rarely indeed
has she permitted even cruelty to goat
her into forgetting it.
"But ever and always every method
she adopted, every leader who spoke
her cause, every victory won, ever!
defeat suffered, every weapon used
every strategy designed. ever and eve
and ever, the same ultimate purpose i!
clearly visible, and that purpose is thu
vindication of Ireland's right to gov
eminent only by consent of the gov
erned
'That is the principle which ulti
mately won Americas freedom, ant
it is because America understands tina
principle that Ireland today relies up
on America to echo it throughout tn
world for Ireland's liberty.
'Is it the Eo'eheviki only who nov
/. are to be acknowledged as free? i
it because being Catholic, the 'risI
people repudiate BoIshevism that the.
are now to be repudiated and thei
just claim forgotten and neglected?
"Let them beware in time who en-
courage by their actions and words to
day before the court Of the world sucI
dangerous conclusions as these.
Els it really true that the blood o
millions has been shed that right alon
should rule the world, and that tn