The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-11-01
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT De VALERA
Continued from page 81

they hadn't other lives to offer up if
| they could achieve similar success.
There is no tragedy as far as they are
| concerned. They have won and got
everything they fought for. They
have not been deceived; the Almighty
has been particularly good to them
and their memory.
Wasted Lives.
| The tragedy of the thing has been
these couple of hundred thousand
young Irishmen who, with the enthu-
siasm of the love for liberty of the
| people of Ireland, went out under Eng
| lands banner, and whose bones are
bleaching along the whole wide bat
| tie front, from Dunkirk to the Persian
Gulf. 1t was along this long battle
| front, that the dying sOldier-fghting
! in a foreign army, thinking he was
! doing something for Ireland-when
his life's blood was flowing over his
hand, said, "Oh, that this was for Ire
! land" So, l can't but feel sure they
knew before their death, they were
betrayed. They knew, so far as that
part of the work which meant free
dom for Ireland, or the gratitude of
nation that couldn't understand it,
they must have felt the tragedy Of it,
And if they had any solution, it was
simply that they meant well, and
| hoped that from the sacrifice which
| they at any rate made in a good cause,
some good might come to their coun-
| try.
| [ feel We are carrying on the work
of these men and those who died in
| jail, because they knew England bet
ter than those others; not because
they loved Ireland better, but they
| knew England better.
| These were people that use their in
| tellect and their knowledge, and their
| common sense to restrain their emo
! lions and direct them, so the fight they
| fight would be one that would be real
| ly fight for liberty. and fight such
| that when they had fallen, they could
die in the full consciousness that they
| have been undeceived, and that their
| sacrifice has not been in vain.
That is the only difference between
! the two sections of the people in Ire
! land-part of the people who are
called the people of common sense
were the dreamers, and We, the peo-
pie on the other side, were the people
with hard heads who said, IF this is
world war for freedom, there is part
of the line which we can keep in that
| battle front There is one section
here in Ireland. We do not have to
cross to Flanders to fight for liberty;
we do not have to cross to Flanders
| to destroy imperialism. Imperialism
is the same everywhere, whether it is
under the crown of George Y or under
the crown Of kaiser, or anybody
else We do not need to go to Flan-
ders if it is to strike blow for the
general cause of liberty, to strike
blow against armed imperialism. We
could do that at our own doOrsteps."
And so we struck at armed imperial
ism where we found it, at home.
And those of our own race died
helping Lloyd George win his little
side shows. How anybody that had
read history could be deceived by
that passes my understanding. Well
we knew what was the meaning OF
Lloyd Georges little side shows on
the Persian Gulf and all the other
places on the battle front. When Eng
land was asking you for help, when
Haig had his back to the wall, why
ask you for troops, when they had
100000 troops in Ireland that they
could have released? They could
have released them with a word-not
with a word, but with the single act
of letting Ireland have it's freedom
and myself told them; it was at the
time America came into the war, and
then for the first time, there was a
hope at least that the war might be
one really for freedom.
Hoped, in America.
A few days ago I was in Cincinnati
One of the speakers reminded the PEG
| PIE tIidt Oh ludt pidllOIln SOuI 1Col
dent, two or three months.-after the
Easter week episode, that your Presi
dent stood on that platform and asked
if anyone of his audience could tel
him what the war was about, because
if they could, he would be obliged, as
he did not know So, two or three
months after, because of our action
in this war, England sets out to stat
America in the back-this war was
one which your own President, three
months after we had fought in Dub
lin, said he didn't know what the wal
was about.
Nothing delighted the hearts of oul
people more than that this nation
would not be an ally of that nation
but declared itself only an associate
Because you did that, you were able
to declare a war of your own; anC
we had confidence you might bring il
to a conclusion so far as liberty was
concerned, because your traditions
like England's, led us to hope yol
would be true. We believed you would
} be true to the end, because your his
/ tory gave us reason for believing that
: 1t was for the first time that there
r was any hope in the Irish people
} There was hope in it, first because YOU
tpoI or,I in n