The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-01-03

word of sympathy for Ireland. The 100 per cent Americans were those who were wholeheartedly pro-British. do not know what is your opinion of. 100 per cent. Americans. I should imagine 1t would be one who takes America as the land to which his first duty is to be paid, the hand whose ideals he has adopted, whose laws as voter he is helping to form, whose institutions he acknowledges, and whose laws he obeys, the land to which he owes allegiance wholeheart- ed and undivided. His sympathies his generosity may be exercised on their behalf, but his allegiance is due to America and to America alone. That take to be the real definition of a 100 per cent. American today, and it is to you as Americans of that type l wish to speak.
 One great nation was pointed out to you as expressing the rights of small nations, as desiring to domi- else an absolutely unjustifiable autoc- racy, and you were called upon to rise up in your might and to go forth and teach that mighty nation that America would stand between the small nations of the world and all ty- rants You declared again and again that you were going to fight for free dmo for all people everywhere, that you were out for liberty and self-de-
 
 opnlent of every nation.
 "I want you to think over these !deais Tor moment, recall your thoughts and feelings of 1917 and IBIS think of the brave young hearts that went into the war beating high TOT freedom. l have no doubt but that many among them, young men of irish descent, went into that war with their great hearts feeling that in freeing the small nations of the earth were n Tro am quite sure that when you sent yodr sons and brothers and husbands lnlt unat war, you women of America Snd Wien you men of America went into that war and helped all won cos'd that you did believe in the ide Is Tor which you were going to fight. that you did believe and truly mean that you wanted freedom for all neo-. pies everywhere. War for Economic Supremacy, "We in Ireland watched Americas acton very closely. We were sorry when we found that America seemed 10 De going into the war on the side or the one nation in the world that were sorry to hear that you were eo- ing in, as you said, to crush a mighty nation because it was crushing small nations l do not say that Germany t t,aa no greed for power, she probably had. The late war was fought, what ever you Americans thought when you entered it, for no nigh and noble purposes, it was fought for economic supremacy between two mighty na- | tons that were already first cousins. | Whatever Germany's faults may nave been and l say it openly, we in | Ireland know and know with good reason that for every act of cruelty and oppression which she committed against nations under her power. we can show hundred, aye a thousand on the part of England which Ger many couldn't equal in cruelty and oppression.
 l England was very indignant at the violation Of Belgium's neutrality She glrded on her armor and went in with 1oud-voiced protestations of fighting for small nations She had a small nation at her shores almost which she held in subjection, which she is terrorizing again and again and she had but to withdraw her army of occupation to let the sunlight Of freedom shine on that land. Why 1T she was so keen on the freedom ot small nations, did she not show a good example and set Ireland free ] must confess that we rather wonder. ed that the common sense of Ameri ca did not ask itself that question.
 Tn time of mighty stress. a peoples common sense sometime es gets a little astray. You entered the war on what we considered the
 
 that ever wants to fight for real free. dom should get into double harness with England. England talks free.
 dom. it does not practice it. She talks Justice, she lives injustict. She talks truth, but as a great Irishmar
 who suffered keenly from her said
 She can lie like hell.'
 My friends, England's power o1 lying, and of deceiving the world bs
 htr lies is a tragedy through whici we in Ireland suffer and have suffer
 ed for generations. he has told lie. ) In America about us. She has tolt you that we are a race unfit to gov ern ourselves, that vt are a lazy, idle good -for-nothing people that we ar, constantly quarrelling among our selves and that she must keep } motherly and protecting guidanc, over us. She has told you he wa t perfectly willing to give us the free dom we wanted provided we onl, made up our minds what it was Sh, has told you there are two nations il Ireland, one in the north and tn,
 other in the south, and that if sh, t allowed us home rule even, the soutl would tear the north to pieces. America Believed England.
 You laugh, but you believed her
 American has believed all the lie f England has told. You believed he l lection the nation to which the worl, owes most in all that is beautiful an, 2 Dble. You have come out of tn l war after all your protetations, an, } you have not made the world saf for democracy, you have made it saf I for the British empire. You hay - not given freedom to all people e everywhere. Ireland lies at England S mercy today. Where is the liberty ' the elf-determination, the undictate D development that America pledge e her word when she entered the wa . to give to Ireland? You said a. r nations everywhere and we believe q you.
 Though you entered the war o o England's side, we said to ourselve ', that at last England had an ally ths e was honest, and that America woul V keep her word and that the end the war would mean Ireland's free r dom. Two years ago the war ended n America brought her armies hom, Y but she has not fulfilled her pledge f to the world. If it was right to com
 home and leave Ireland in subjectiol
 what right had Belgium to freedom | what right had Poland to freedom
 what right had Czecho-Slovakia n freedom? Who can prove that an d nation in the world has any right 1t freedn0, that Ireland nof9