Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-08-24
iRELAND'S YOUTHFUL LINCOLN
AND HIS UNFINISHED LABoRS
A PItIful Sacrifice to the Fanatlelsn,
That Always Has Made Ma
tlonal Martyrs

tlonal Martyrs
rs 1T the fate of the Irish people to be
forever divided against themselves?
What thoughts are now in the mind of De
Valera. whose warm and generous friend
Michael Collins was? What new and In
eradicable hates will spring from the killing
of one of the most devoted friends that Ire
land ever had to make new divisions in
land weakened and sick at heart with in
herited hatreds?
The habit of martyring great men is not
by any means a monopoly in Ireland. All
peoples, or. rather. the seers of red In the
lunatic fringe that forms about every great
popular cause, succumb to It at regular
intervals. But the circumstances Of Collins
end were strangely pitiful and ironically and
insanely cruel. Had he ever been afraid of
n fight or otherwise than smlingly con-
temptuous of the assassns who skulked In
pursuit of him or unwilling to confront an
enemy upon even terms, his death by shot
from ambush would not seem so intoerable
as it does. nor so completely outside the
decent order Of war or peace.
The bullet that ended tae life Of this
genius Of Ireland may have been fred by
one of the bush fighters that the radicals
have imported from Australia or by an un-
thinking rebel under orders in ambush or by
some one of the youths Of the land who have
been infamed to a degree of fanaticism by
older men who ought to know better. In
any case it will leave a lasting mark upon
the face Of contemporary Ireland. And
such is the way of mankind that the death
of the ablcst and bravest of Irish leaders
may be the thing needed to bring the mis-
guided factionalists to their senses and to
an understanding of the harm they are doing
to their country, their traditions and their
peoples hopes.
Upon all Americans of Irish birth or SYM
pathy the affair near Cork ought to have
lasting effect for good. 1t has been clear
for n long time that this large group was
almost universally in support of Collins and
the Irish Free State Government and the
principle of compromise with England which
that Government represents. even though the
Dublin regime did not seem to be altogether
in accord with the traditional conception Of
a free Ireland. Yet 1t has been passive in
the presence of persistent agitation carried
on by an embittered minority determined to
choose chaos in Ireland rather than the
system of constructive and progressive COM
promise which Michael Collins and his as
sociates perfected and realized.
To world that is warmly friendly to-
ward Ireland and ready always to recognize
the justice Of it's claims to independence and
rightness of it's aspirations as a racial and
national entity and, indeed. to some of the
most ardent Irishmen in Ireland, the bitter
ness of the conflict in the South has been be-
wilder!ng.
Judgments pronounced at this distance are
dangerous. since it is impossible to bring
all the details of a situation as complicated
as the Irish one into the focus of an over
seas view. But we know that an overwhelm-
ing percentage of the people in Southern
Ireland support the Free State Government
that the guerrllas organized as De Valer-
lists have wrought devastation in the eco
nomic, social and political system Of the
South counties and that Collins differed only
in method and not in the degree of his pa
triotism from the men who shot him. And
we fear that Ireland, on the road to peace,
on the way to freedom, at the open portals
| of new and prosperous national life, will
again be frustrated by Its patriots and
returned to the confusion Of fifty years ago
and opened again for an invasion of British
arms unless the fates provide n leader as
| able and courageous as Collins was to undo
| the work Of random assassins.
.'It Is about time" says Bernard Shaw.
| himself an Irishman and an inexorable
| critic Of the English theory Of control in
| Ireland, that Irishmen stopped talking Of
| dying for their country and prepared to live
| for It,"
Similarly It is about time that the radt-
Gals of the republican cause ceased to pro-
vide ammunition for the British reactionaries
| who labor twenty -four hours a day to con-
vince the world that Ireland is ruled by
emotion rather than logic, and that anything
| like a free government Of the country would
be impossible.
! As matters are going now the outside
world hears only Of ambushes, assassina- =
| tions and red hot factional war in Ireland.
1t is not permitted, because Of the general
clamor, to hear of the constructive work
being done by intellectual. devoted groups In
| Dublin and elsewhere.
1t must seem to any reasonable person
that friends of Ireland in the United States
would now endeavor to help the builders of
the new Ireland. The wild work of the
wreckers has been permitted to go far
enough. All the world of men, in a quest
for peace. is trying to forget ancient griev-
ances and the injustces that are past
Surely it is folly for Irish men and women
to feel that Ireland ought to bleed to death
for the past and close her eyes to the prom
ises of the present and the future.