The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-13
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Irish American Loyalty

To the Editor of The Age-Herald. | I regret very much that my recent communication does Not ring true-to Mir Mackey. will Lake yet another effort, for I would like very much to hay. MT. Mackey enrolled as a fellow member of that society he now looks
 on with suspicious eye. the Friends of | Irish Freedom.
 MT. Mackey says, Surely MT. Reilly does rot want any sane person to be- l lieve that the efforts of the Friends l of Irish Freedom are being exerted on
 behalf of America. It is not America
 first but Sim Fein first"
 1 Will not MT. Mackey give us Irish Americans who are also Friends of Irish Freedom credit for any patriot ism. Surely the record of the many brave Irish sh-Americans who sweilei the ranks of Americas army most of whom are now members of the F. Q. l F., should teacn him otherw.se. The same boys. if today it were a question of the Irish republic or the American
 republic. would unhesitatingly cling to America. The love of the Irish-Arier ican for the land of his forefatherS is the love of a man for his mother, but man takes to himself wife. and when he does he leaves that mother and, still loving the mother that bore him, clingS to his wife, so too the Irish American. It is rather ungenerous of MT. Mackey to question Irish- Amer ican loyalty to the institutions and the flag of free America.
 MT. Mackey objects to the disloyalty of the Sim Feiner to England when England was in a death grapple with Germany. but Ireland never owed loy atty to-England. Ireland. since Der mot McMurrough brought over ths Normans in the days of the second Henry. has been in a chronic state of ~Lo11 accepted English government, there- fore no loyalty was due. But apart from that. how loyal has Ulster been of late? How loyal is Ulster today? Within the memory of living man Orange orators have threatened to kick the kings crown into the Boyne The opposition of the Ulster leaders to the miserable pittance of home rule that poor Redmond was willing to ac. cept encouraged the German militar- ists prior to the war. Sir Edward Carson was, on one occasion, the honored guest of the present William Hohenzollern. The recent utterances of that same Sir Edward on July i2 last has called down the rebuke of even the London Times.
 MT. Mackey still speaks of disunited Ireland. In that he follows the present rather patent British propaganda, which is, to have the Americans believe that Ireland is split up into a least two prac- ticaliy numerically equal factions. Elm phatically sucn ic not the case. Presi- dent De Valera, who despite his Spanish patronymic and his New York nativity is yet kindly Irish of the 1rish,," speaks for the Irish nation today. In my other letter I said, and this will bear repeti- ton, that there is greater majority for Irish independence Tn Ireland than could be shown by the colonies in the days of IL moro down to date to emphasize this point. Today Lloyd Georges govern ment represents but 60 per cent of the people of England but the Welsh wiz ard speaks for England. President Will son had only few thousand majority in an election where millions of votes were cast. yet he speaks for America today. In the general election last De- cember the followers of Sim Fein won this is conservative estimate, repre- sents 75 per cent of the people of Ire- land.
 As for the missing of President Will sons name at some meetings of the F. o. I. F. Is it not a fact that the few who did were sternly rebuked by Presi- dent De Valera few extremists are to be found in every party, but they no more represent the party than a few quacks do the medical profession or a shyster lawyer or two the profession of law. The present peculiar position of Ire land comes from the logical following cut by the Irish people of the following declarations of the President of the United States:
 We shall fight for democracy. for the rights and the liberties of small na- tions." Again, We are fighting for the liberty. the self government and the un- dictated development of all nations" and a little later, We are fighting for the settlement of every political relation ship on the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people con- cerned, and not on the basis of the ad- vantage of any other people"
 These words stirred hope in the op- pressed peoples of the world. The Pole sheard them. organized his government and was welcome. The Czecho- Slav and the Jugo-Slav heard. organized their