The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-12
LETTERS TO EDITOR
The Sim Fein Claims
Editor of The Age-Herald.

To the Editor of The Age-H Herald. We knew of the Sim Fein claim that Irishmen won the war for American in- dependence; we knew of the Sim Fem claim that the Irish put down the re- bellion in the south, but we didn't know until we read the Sim Fein statement 1 in a recent issue of The AgeHerald l that the volunteers of Ireland were so | numerous that "proportionately they | represented an army of 11,000, 00V Amer jeans" Truly it is only a question oi | time before the Irish win the late war l The statement that says Irish vol
 unteers went to their graves in Francs and Gallipoli believing that the Irish issue, in it's international aspect was
 an integral part of the new interna- tional aspect of all national issues, the right to government only by the con | sent of the governed or, in other words, they died for the doctrine of self determination.
 This is a miserably poor brand of propaganda to put before an intelligent
 people, and in spite of Sim Feiners ev- | ident opinion to the contrary we dc claim to be reasonably intelligent An American army of 100000 mer would be 10 per cent of the whole pop ulation of the United States, so it fol- lows that Ireland's army in the late
 war must have been 10 per cent of Ire- lands population of 4,390, 0,000-that is
 439,000 men.
 | It is. of course, a matter of record l that Ireland's contribution of men to
 the allied cause was per cent of her population. Therefore, if the Sim Fem statement is correct. the other per | cent must have been the number re- cruited by the Irish bond salesman, De I " o,oJ aha hV stabbing the allies in the back as these | traitors did at critical period of the | war.
 l De Valera, in a speech in Ireland dur | ing the war, said that 'the tie of hay- | ing a common enemy is link between 1 Germany and Ireland,' which somewhat
 damages the claim that Ireland (mean- | ing, of course, Sim Fein), took mag l rificent part in the war against Ger | many.
 | It will be noticed that the Sim F'ein
 statement,carefully refrains from men,
 tioning the fact that 25 per cent of the ! Irish people, the Ulster unionists, fur 1 nished the great majority of Irish sol
 diers on the allied side. Belfast city alone with a population of 3S4.0o0, sent | 46 900 volunteers to the British army, nearly in of the population. splen- 1 did record, indeed.
 Yet these Sim Feiners have the ef- frontery to claim rcedit for these mems l loyalty to Britain. It is. I think, the most astonishing piece of dupfcity on record.
 | Does any 100 per cent American think l that Great Britain should refuse to 'al- 1 low these loyal Ulstermen to remain under the British government, wnicn | they respect. and of which they are a part, and instead force them under a | Sim Fein government, which they fear
 and hate? No real American thinks that.
 De Valera threatened Ulster with the vengeance of Sim Fein if she persisted ! in her loyalty to Britain In July, 1917, he stated that Ulster must be coerced ! if she stands in the way At Bees | brook. Ireland, on January F. 1918. he I threatened to blast them out of the way. This is the sort of thing against which the loyal Ulster Protestants are arrayed and to which they will never yield.
 | Ulster asked that. Ireland be sub ! jected to conscription in exactly the sa me manner as England, Scotland and Wales, but the Catholic Bishops met
 and denounced it as "an oppressive and
 inhuman outrage" and called on Irish
 men to meet an every parish and in the presence of their priests to pledge
 themselves not to fight against the Germans Father Fin1ay, the Jesuit professor of theology in Maynooth
 College. Ireland, justified this resist l ance by proclaiming that the <1risf 1 bishops were above Parliament and the laws of Parliament"
 I In the last paragraph of the Sim
 Fein statement the friends of Irish freedom claim that the Irish soldiers died believing that they went to theil l death for the ideal of self-deterni ! nation. This is absurd, because nobody ever heard of the self-determinatior
 phrase until long after the United | States entered the war, and recruiting | in Ireland has stopped nearly three years before. and anyhow it didn't ap- l ply to either Germany or her allies ] If any faction in Ireland Is entitled to
 self-deterrnfnation 1t is the Ulster