The Irish standard., 1919-10-11

of the Redmonds and the billions, of
the OBriens and the Devlins COM
bined. He has revolutionized the at
titude of the Irish Hierarchy, at one
time openly hostile to him and his
party. Results of this sort, as the
Liberal Manchester organ remarks,
are never achieved by mediocrities;
and those British newspapers which
at first hailed De Valera as an inter-
lOper and a foreigner, coming from
nowhere and representing nothing, are
now inclined to agree that, humiliating
as it must be to the London politi-
clans, he has matched wits against
theirs; even Lloyd George, to say
nothing of Carson, seem a trifle inef-
tcient by comparison.
The prison experiences OF the past
four years have aged the man, and
he now appears, with his lined and
pinched face, somewhat older than his
81 years.
The father Of the president is un-
derstood to have been a political refu-
gee from Spain when he met and mar
ried in Ireland the girl who was to
become the mother of the Sim Fein
hero.
Little Eamonn learned to lisp the
English tongue in America. When he
first arrived in Bruree, County Liner
ick he was only six. He spoke Span
ish and French from childhood; and
in Ireland he learned to ride like a
centaur and to swim and to shoot.
He was educated at big school near
Blackrock College. His mother all
her life cordially detested the Eng
ltsh and from the first her son was
passionately Irish with strong tend
ency to play with tin soldiers.
He must have been born with the
linguistic gift, for it is affirmed that
he spoke Gaelic fluently when he was
but IL years Of age. His mathemati-
cal genius-the most astonishing of
his endowments-disc itself at
II. Before he had passed on to the
College of Blackrock he was applying
mathematical formulas to every con-
ceivable problem. His sense of pro-
portion and Of order, his foresight,
his constructiveness, his ability to
plan far ahead, are aspects to all who
know him of his mathematical genius.
He was a successful tutor in conse-
quence and he astonished the exam
iners when applying for his degree
with abstruse calculations of plane
tary weights that revealed no error
at any stage of intricate computa-
tions that filled reams of paper In a
quieter period of history, writes one
who knows him to London paper,
he might have become Newton or
worked out fresh theories of dynamics.
He seems to have thought at one time
Of entering the army, for his military
aptitudes, among his fellows at any
rate, are rather high indeed.
His ringing laugh, his athletic
prowess, unexpected in one of his ro-
mantle and poetical personal appear
ance, and the alertness of his manner
do not suggest the brooder over fig
ures.
He is a brilliant talker, says the
London News, and he seems to have
no reserve on the subject of his
dreams of glory for Ireland. His cour-
age is beyond question and he readily
faced death at Boland's bakery in the
Easter Rising. He received a death
sentence calmly, with one of his favor
ite works, the Confessions of st.
Augustine" under his arm. We could
continue in this strain had we the
space at our disposal But we think
we have said enough to give our read
ers slight glimpse of the character
of the great man who will speak to
us here in Minneapolis on the sacred
cause of Ireland.