The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1922-01-18
IRISH BITTER ENDERS


Peace in Ireland is apparently but phantom
hope. The mutterings of civil war are hearc
in the Irish Free State before its government
has been officially constituted, According tc
statements issuing from the radical wing of the
Sim Fem party, headed by De Valera, the fight
which has been waged after the manner of or
gained banditry against the British government
in Ireland is to be continued against the govern
ment created by the Act of Parliament constitute
ing the Irish Free State.
/ It does not require much perspcacity to dis
cover that the radicals Of the Sim Fem party in
Ireland are more concerned about the continu-
ance of the American contributions to the cause
than about peace or selfgoyernment. Their lead
ers have found sedition highly profitable; they
have been able to collect millions in this country
under the representation that they were waging
a revolution to secure self-govenment in Ireland.
While their forces never took the field, they kept
up a guerrilla warfare, burning and Staying in
secret behind mask labeled Self-government. ="
Now the time has arrived when the moderate
element of Ireland has won the very self-govern-
ment for which the Sim Fem radicals claimed
to be campaigning; and the followers OF DE Valera
promptly announce that it is not what they want
ed that though the contents are as represented
they are dissatisfied with the label on the pack
age, and they are going to fight.
Their position is somewhat embarrassing to
Walsh Hearst and the other supporters Of the
Sim Fein radical wing in this country for when
the agreement establishing the Irish Free State
was drafted by the British government, Hearst,
Walsh, ct al, came out with statements to the
press advocating its acceptance. But De Valera
and the other radicals say they will have none
of it.
Ratification by the Dali Eireann Of the act con.
shutting the Irish Free State was victory for
Griffith, Collins and the Irish moderates over De
Valera, Brugha, Stack and the other radicals. 1t
meant their overthrow and sounded the knell of
De Valera's aspirations to be the first President
of the Irish Free State. Curiously enough, The
Dispatch received few weeks ago a copy of al
sent by De Valera to the American
press thanking it for its efforts in supporting the
cause of self-government in Ireland, which had
eliminated in the constitution of the Irish Free
State. That was before De Valera and his fol
lowers found that they not to be the heads of
the new government, that they had been repudat-
ed by the majority of the Irish people themselves.
Since they cannot rule, they are apparently
bent on continuing their campaign Of terror in the
south and west Of Ireland. They will fight the
of their own people with the same
coWardly methods they used against the British
What the end will be is the secret
of the future; but it is apparent that the I'M
mediate result will be the resumption Of the war
fare that will keep Ireland in state of anarchis-
tic ferment. Plainly it was not peace or liberty
that the Sim Fen radicals sought, but personal
dominion. They wanted to get their hands on the
government and the finances of Ireland. Disap-
pointed in their first attempt, they are going toI
make a second.
AS one views the developments in the south and
west of Ireland the attitude of Ulster in keeping
out of any entangling alliance with them becomes
more understandable in this country The people
are so divided against themselves that selfgov
for the present, is impossible. 1t leads
to no government at all. The people suffer cruel
y, not only from violence, but from starvation
'or with the country in continual fement mol
industry can function except in a very feeble man
Ter and the people get neither freedom nor bread
Well may they eXclaim with the unfortunate
Madame Roland, Liberty; what crimes are COM
nitted in thy namew
l-----
Some of these days there will be a football