New-York tribune., 1918-05-19
Think, Ireland!
To the Editor of The Tribune.
CIR: Yesterday the Irish Nationalists
~ sent out statement about con-
scription in Ireland, and it ended

1--WE beg of the American people and
government, in memory of the bonds of
sympathy which have existed between the
American and Irish nations ever since the
foundation of the Republic, to urge upon
their British allies the duty of immedi
ately applying in the of Ireland those
principles of democratic freedom and ma
tlonal determination magnificently
set forth in President Wilson's decara-
tions. the benefit of which is denied to
Ireland, while the Irish people are called
on to fight for them in foreign lands"
The fault-the awful fault-of this re-
quest to our President and to us stands
out in that last sentence-"while the
Irish people are called on to fight for
them in foreign lands"
The Irish people are not called on to
fight for the English. The Irish people,
along with every other people that live
on this earth and have any notion Of in
dividual liberty and free government, are
being called on-no, not called on, not
asked, one by the other, or one for the
protection of the other, but each and
every are being forced to fight for them
selves and for the cause of all. They
can't help it. If the aspirations of ma
tionality, if the personal safety of any
man in the use CT his home, in the society
of his wife and his children, in the pur-
suit of his business, is going to be here
after what we thought it was when this
war broke out, then every one of us,
American, Irish, English, Scotch, Welsh,
French, Italian, Belgian, Japanese, Chi
nese, Latin-American, every human crea-
ture to whom individual liberty and free
government have become the breath of
life, is the personal enemy of the German
Emperor, his military autocracy, his
people and his allies, and, without regard
to any other matter whatsoever, must
fight them until they are beaten-until
their idea of world supremacy is shot
into illi1nitable space
What is the worth of the concession by
England of Home Rule to Ireland when
England has become the vassal of Teu-
ton power? What is the worth of a Ger
man assurance to Ireland that it's people
will have the democratic freedom and
national self-determination" that our
President nobly holds to be the right of
all, when Germany says that to the Rus
sian provinces and on the very instant
thereafter murders their people and
plumbers their homes.
| had an inherited feud with ENGLAND
and it lasted to the day the Germans
sank the Lusitania. England hired Hes
slams, for these Germans so love murder
that they will do it for shilling, to kill
my Irish great-grandfather and they did
it at the Battle of Princeton. love Ire
land and love freedom; love the very
thought of freedom everywhere and in
everything that does not involve an
others injury But who on earth can
want Home Rule at the hands of these
German fends? Who on earth wants
Home Rule with a German gun pointed
straight at his home? Who can believe
in liberty and dissociate himself from
those who are risking their lives to main
tain it?
Did you notice what that German mon
ster said the other day about having gone
over the hundreds of thousands of acres
IN Belgium and France which he had
devastated, whose cities he had DESTROYED
whose homes he had plundered and
knocked to the ground, whose people he
had driven to frozen and starving death.
whose places of worship his unspeakable
brutality had not spared-did Won see
what he said about thanking God that
these horrors had been spared to Ger
many, and about wishing that all the peo-
pie IN his Internal fatherland could see
what he had seen and what by his wicked
orders they had done?
has this creature another God than He
VINO SAID, whatsoever We would that
men should do unto you do We even 50 to
them? This blasphemer of the onlv con-
ceptlon of God that good-meanine men
can entertain, shall we have peace with
MN? Irish or English, Jew or Gentle.
heathen, as we have talked of heatheps in
our mistaken hymns and prayers. can wa
nave peace with him or with anv one in
or out of his realm who iustiie. hic r,-
speakable conduct or sympathizes with
his Infamous intention?
Ii there is any Irishman whose hate of
England for the moment tempts him to
40 that' God, how beg him to stop and
think; to think of Belgium, Ruman;a
oourland, the Ukraine, Serbia. France
ana then ne should think of Ireland
LEMUEL ELY QUIGG.