The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-18
COMP ARES IRISH
 SITUATION WITH
 OUR OWN IN 1776
Sim Fein Publicity Man Says DeValera w as Prisoner While United
 States Was at War

In deferse of Eamon DeValera, so-
 called president of,the Irish republic
 who visits Birmingham on Wednesday,
 Charles F. Sweeney Washington news paper correspondent and assistant secre-
 tary of the United States war labor
 board during the war, who is in the city,
 declares DeValera, when a prisoner in
 England was in complete harmony with
 the war aims of President Wilson, and that DeValera asserted, if he were presi- dent of the United States, he would have declared war on Germany on the Kali
 ser's announcement of mereciless and un- restricted submarine warfare on mer-
 chantment.
 MT. Sweeney is in Birmingham as
 member of the American Commission for
 Irish Independence, of which Frank F.
 Walsh, former chairman of the federal
 industrial relations commission and of the war labor board, is president. He
 is conferring with local friends of Sim
 Feinisin as to arrangements for DeYa- lcras visit here.
 In a statement issued last night, he
 asks Judge Wilkinson to produce proof of his statement that the hands of Sim
 Feiners are dripping with the blood of American soldiers and sailors" He also Q6nleS lndIl duy OIl6IlStS were OIlOlCu tO Americans by the republican party (Sinn
 Fein) in Ireland or by any other respon- sible group of Irish citizens.
 On the other hand, he said, all hands in Ireland ceased opposing the war when America entered it, and the Irish people pinned their faith in the fourteen points of President Wilson, the one which gave them hope being the statement of the right of all peoples to determine for ar which they wanted to live.
 "The gravest of the charges brought in Birmingham, from an American point Of view" Mir Sweeney said, '.is that the Irish led by DeValera ,'harassed and mistreated all of the American soldiers with whom they came in contact If this were true, I should not be found among the admirers Of DeValera for I was loyal to America during the war, before the war, and am today, and believed that we were 100 per cent right and Ger many was 100 per cent wrong.
 ''I was fortunate enough to be entrusted by the United States government with & mission to the other side during the war; and I would have considered myself for tunate had I been permitted to follow the flag into Germany. Consequently I could hardly sympathze with one who harassed those who were fighting my fight.
 Judge Wilkinson says he knows how the Irish led by DeValera, committed these unspecified acts of opposition and enmity to the American troops. The fact is that there was not one act of oppo- sition to Americans by the responsible Irish organizations during the war, or one act of opposition to the war itself, after the entrance of the United States into the conflict Dr. DeValera and the other leaders of the Irish people were serving life sentences in British prisons when America entered the war, and few months after their release were thrown back again without charge, without trial. and were powerless to commit any such acts, even if they had such in- clinations. As is well known Dr. DeVa- iera did not escape from the British prison at Lincoln, England, until Feb ruary 1919, so that so far as he per sonally is concerned, he must be acquit- ted of acts against America or any other nation while the United States was at war.
 When he was in prison he learned of the American entrance into the conflict He read the war aims of President Will son, and he completely accorded with them. I have seen notes scrubbed on bits of paper by him in Lincoln prison which the conviction that President Wilson was in a better position than any other individual in the whole his tory of the world to set the affairs of the world on such a basis of justice and equity as to relegate the necessity of war to the pages of the past. More than this, President DeValera has told me, and the Irish people, that had he been presi- dent of the United States when the Kali ser announced his policy Of merciess and | unrestricted submarine warfare on mer- chantmen he would have gone to Con- gress with demand for declaration l of war against Germany. He said he | would have done this because, as an | American, he could have done nothing l else when the integrity of his country l and the safety of it's people were threat | cred by another power.
 An earnest search for evidence of !, conflicts between American sailors and l young lrishmen in Queenstown, Ameri- l car headquarters in Ireland, has re- | vealed nothing more terrible than that i several American sailors and several l Irish youths engaged in a fist fight fol- fn rl1a