The Irish standard., 1919-02-01
Made Strong
Presentation
America Has Always Sympathized
With Nations Struggle for
Freedom.
lnexorable Logic of Situation De
mands Freedom of ireland From
British Domination.
Ensland's Sincerity in Her Professions
During the War Will Be Measured
In Treatment of Ireland.
The World Cannot Live in Peace,
Half Slave and Half
Free.

Hatf slave ana f1air
Free.
Under the heading of ''If any Sub
ject European Nation Has the Right
to Be Free, Ireland Has the Right"
the Examiner of last Tuesday printed
the following:
In an interview printed in New
York the other day Justice Cohalan
said:
In spite of martial law and of a
large English army of occupation. and
without any bloodshed the people of
Ireland by more than two-thirds vote
have broken down and destroyed the
old political machine which had con-
trolled the country for more than a
generation and have declared more
unequivocally and decisively than did
the people of America before the Revo-
luton their intention of governing
themselves without permission or hin
drance from any foreign power.
America has always sympathized
with peoples who are struggling to be
free. Never was there greater reason
for such sympathy than now, when
the making of just and permanent
peace depends upon doing justice to
all people, and to none more than to
the people of Ireland, who have once
again so decisively and so impressively
shown their intention and determine
ton to be free.
The world is hoping and praying
for such a peace, and England will
have no greater statesman or friend
than the one who will commit her to
such a peace and turn the enmity
and hostility felt to her in so many
quarters of the world into friendship
and amity.
The Irish people have natural and
inherent right to be free and inde-
pendent
They have a natural and inherent
right to a government which derives
it's powers from the consent of the
governed.
If this is not so, then our Declara-
tion of independence is simply verbi-
age and the professions with which
we went to war were unworthy pre-
lenses.
If the world is not safe for the free
democracy of Ireland, then it is not
safe for any democracy which a
stronger pation may desire to rule.
If England has the right to govern
the Irish people against their consent,
then Germany had the right to govern
the Poles against their consent, Aus
tria had the right to govern the Czechs
and Slovaks against their consent,
Russia had the right to govern the
Films against their consent.
There is no escape from the mex
orable logic of these comparisons.
If the Irish people have not the
natural and inherent right to be free
and independent of government con-
Quoted without their consent and
against their interest, no people has
the natural and inherent right-and
the only basis of liberty and inde-
pendence is not RIGHT but MIGHT.
And there you have the doctrine of
despotism and militarism, disguise it
in whatever sophistry you viii.
The hundred thousand American
men who laid down their lives in this
war did not make that supreme sacri-
fee to pull down the supremacy of
might over right in one portion of
Europe only more firmly to establish
that odious doctrine in another por-
tion of Europe.
We do not see with what face our
representatives at the Peace Confer
ence could demand independence for
Bohemians, Sovaks, Jugo-Slavs and
every other small people in one part
of Europe and refuse to demand inde-
pendence for the Irish people in an
other part of Europe.
The argument that the Irish people
could not defend their small nation
from the attacks of more powerful ma
tions applies to ALL small nations