The Irish standard., 1919-10-11
BY Eamonn De Valera, President of
the Irish Republic.

order In which the rule of right might
replace the rule of violence in which
war with it's economic waste and hum.
an misery might be prevented and a
lasting peace guaranteed, is a project
in which every nation of the world
and every individual man and woman.
is concerned. During the war many
hero on the battlefield had his will
nerved to sacrifice, many sad heart
at home was lightened, many a man
and many woman had a new hope
born in their breast when President
Wilson announced his design of a
League of Nations and gave the guar
antee of this great liberty-loving
United States that it would be accomp-
lished.
Leagues of Nations the world al
ready had in plenty, but this was a
league unlike any that history had
told of, in that by explicit terms in
which it was announced-terms that
left no loophole for misconstruction-
this new league was not to be one of
ascendency of the privileged few but
an open field with a promised charter
of liberty and an equality of rights
amongst all nations, the small as we'll
as the great.
Because it was such a league guar
anteed by all the sincerity of pur-
pose that unequivocal statement as
we'll as a thorough grasp and appre-
citation of fundamentals could give
evidence of the heart-broken people
everywhere, suffering from the ag-
gression of force, believed in it, trust
ed it, supported it.
1t is impossible for us to make you
realize how the Irish people felt as
they studied the declarations of
President Wilson. Every speech, ev-
cry message of his spoke as if Ireland
was the chief example he had in mind,
though he did not explicitly mention
lit by name. Every general principle
he enunciated applied to Ireland, ev-
cry special reservation fitted Ireland
as it fitted no other people and no
other land unless one were to suppose
that the president was unaware that
there was such a place as Ireland on
the globe.
No Irishman could forebear believ-
ing that the president meant Ireland,
meant it in a special manner and
meant to apply his principles to Ire
lands case when the negotiations for
peace and the drawing up of consti-
tuition for the League of Nations would
give him the opportunity.
Long even before America entered
it, the war had ceased to be a war
between any two narrow sets of COM
batants. 1t had through the profess
sions Of the statesmen taken on the
character of world war. 1t had been
accepted by the peoples as a war for
general principles rather than for par
ticular interests, for liberty for all,
not for domination for a few, and it
assumed that in the conference or con-
gress which would close it these gen.
eral principles would be maintained.
The Irish people trusted the declar-
alton Of your president as they trusted
no other. They believed they were
reading truth when they read that the
objects for which you were about to
pour out your blood and your treasure
were the freeing Of peoples every.
where from tyranny, and from ex-
ploitation by the militarily strong.
Every utterance of your president
rang true. They saw the war ending
in the destruction of all wars and in
the establishment of peace which
would be enduring because based on
the secure foundation of even-handed
Justice.
That government everywhere should
be based on the consent of the gov
erned, that no nation should be forced
under sovereignty under which 1t
did not desire to live, that people
should not be bartered about from
sovereignty to sovereignty as If they
were chattels, that men should be
free everywhere to choose their own
way of life and obedience-it was i'm.
possible to believe that these were
empty phrases, mere glitter, those
gems in which the plain people every.
where crystalized what was in their
own thought-the essence of the con
ception of national self-determination
With such a champion in earnest, Ire
land was bound to be free, her age
long struggle against annihilation
ended, her weary fight for freedom
crowned with final victory.
Had any other nation but Americs
been the security for these as the
objects of the war the majority Of
the people of Ireland would not have
needed. Lloyd Georges oath before