Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-02-14

NAHAA $50 1900 $50
tional and political institutions; they
have charged her with the assassina-
ton of their people: they have
charged her with the suppression of
their trade and commences: they have
charged her with the wasting of
their fields and the enforced ignor-
ance that has left them today the
most backward people in Western
Europe. They have charged against
her more crimes than the Poles have
charged against the Russians; more
than the Hungarians. fifty or sixty
years ago. charged against the Aus
trians: lore than the Netherlanders,
when they were under the yoke of
Spain, charged against the Span
iards. They have ~professed to hate
her, and if the charges they make
against her + true, they would be
ours if they did not hate her.
In every country outside the Eng
ish flag in which they have been.
they found England's answer to
their charges at work. They found
the name of the Irishman vaguely
associated in the minds of foreign
peoples with barbarism, with MUIR
der. with loud boasting and little
doing. They found England's answer
to their charges set out in this man
ner: THE Irish are a people in a
low state of mental and moral de-
velopment. idle, turbulent, IMPROVE
dent and incapable of any kind of
ordered existence except under a
strong hand" That is Engiand's
case 90 the world to whose ear they
appealed. The Irsihman Nabroad
finds himself Gas the natural result
of this lying propaganda) in a posi-
ton the man of no other country
occupies. He is eternally on the de-
fensive for himself and his nation
unless ne takes the towards course,
as some of the Irish do. and continu-
ing his own nationality smirkingly
calls himself "a Britisher."
Now, either Ireland's charges
against England are true or they are
false. If they are false. they are
a nation of liars and they deserve
all that England has done to them.
If they are true, then to effect SYM
pathy with England today is mean
hypocrisy. Either England is their
tyrant or they have slandered and
libelled England. Which is the
truth?
There is in Ireland and in other
countries including the United States
a breed of beings which can recon-
Gle Heaven and He'll. In days of
peace they sometimes talk of war,
in days of war they babble of peace.
England is the enemy with them
until England gets into serious trou-
BILE and then they find something in
the character of England's opponent
to prevent them doing aught but
support England. These fellows,
when they are not mere truckstelt,
aer born slaves. They have neither
truth nor principle. No man in
Ireland or outside of Ireland needs
to be told who they are; their work,
not their personality, concerns the
Irish people. This class. more than
the rigors and expressions of Eng
land. have forced upon so many of
the Irish people the slave mind.
The charges the Irish make against
England they hold to be true. Ii
is true that England has destroyed
their national and political institu-
items. II is that h has suppress
ed their trade and commerce, it is
true that she has as~sassinated their
people, II Is true she has consistently
plundered and oppressed them. il
is true she wasted their fields and
wasted their minds. 1t is true in
the history of modern Europe that
there is no parallel TO the treatment
of Ireland by England. Because of
this they regard no enemy of Eng
land as an enemy of theirs.
The slave mind has been the curse
OF ireland, for it is the very root of
the lack of self-reliance, which has
reduced the stateliest race in Europe
the Gaels-to what they are today.
1t has destroyed their moral courage
n has a tendency to make some
of them shifty. mean, evasive in
speech and argument. Where the
free men of any other nation are
straight and direct. 1t is this slave
mind that gives voice to the cant:
1T is better to live under the devil
we know than the devil we don't
know The plain idea that Ire
land should be under no foreign
devil of any kind is too big for the
slave mind to entertain. The thought
that Ireland be again as she was in
the days of our Gaelic ancestors. and
as she was for a brief period in the
days of Henry Gratten-a free and
Independent nation-the slave mind
cannot grasp.
The slave mind is to be found
everywhere in this country as well
as in ireland and other countries,
on u platforms. in our press, often
in u pulpits. 1t was Henry Graf
ten, perhaps the greatest of the Irish
constitutional leaders. who declared
that if the interests of the Empire
clashed with the liberties of Ireland.
then he, and every Irishman, would
cry: Live Ireland; perish the EN-
pire." 1t was Oleonwell, his sue
cessor. who gave us the w~atchword:
Ireland for the Irish or the World
in a blaze" 1t is the slave mind
which ignorantly pirates of German
atrocities in Belgium while the
dried blood of the unarmed men,
women and children, shot down in
the streets of Dublin by cowardly
soldiers of England, the Scottish
B~orderers. is still darkly visible on
the door posts of Bachelors Walk.
Z. n. KENNEDY.