The Irish standard. [volume], January 25, 1919, Image 4

About The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
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Published by the
JVORTHBRN PRINTING AMD PUBLISHING COMPANY,
411 to 410 First •••. No.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Published Saturday at Merchants and Jobbers Exchange
Building, corner First Avenue North and Fifth Street, Minne
apolis, Minn
W. Nicollet 2308. Trl-State 87 273
TERMS PAYABLE IN ADVANCE.
Oae rear
tlx months
"DAIL EIREANN
."
fe "Dail Eireann" is the name of the supreme gov
erning body of the new Irish republic, as fittingly
designated in the Gaelic language. It assembled
for the first time on Tuesday, January 21, at the
Mansion House in Dublin, when a declaration of
Ireland's independence was proclaimed and Cathal
Brugha (Charles Burgess), was chosen as speaker.
Twenty-five members who were elected at the De
cember elections by the Sinn Fein party, participated
in the historical proceedings, the remainder of the
members-elect being confined in British internment
prisons, among these being the brilliant leaders, De
Valera and Arthur Griffith. In accordance with the
policy and purpose of the Sinn Fein movement, to
emphasize distinctly the nationhood of the Irish
people* the proceedings were conducted in the Gae
lic language. A provisional constitution was adopt
ed vesting the legislative powers of the republic in
deputies elected from the existing parliamentary
constituencies, the ministry to consist of a president
and four executive officers—secretaries of finance,
home affairs, foreign affairs and national defense.
The "Dail Eireann" is to exercise control over the
raising of all revenues.
In the press dispatches are given parts of an ad
dress formulated to the Free Nations of the world,
which begins as follows:
"The nation of Ireland, having her national in
dependence, calls through her elected representa
tives, in parliament assembled, upon every free na
tion to support the Irish republic by recognizing
Ireland's national status and her right to vindica
tion at the peace conference."
The address further sets forth that Ireland is rad
ically distinct from England in race, language, cus
toms and traditions, and is one of the most ancient
nations in Europe. Through seven centuries of
oppression she has never relinquished her national
rights and has proclaimed them in every generation
throughout the era of English usurpation, down to
the last glorious resort to arms in 1916.
By the freedom of the seas her great harbors,
now empty and idle, will be opened to all nations,
instead of being a monopoly to England.
The address further proceeds:
"Ireland, irrevocably determined at the dawn of
the promised era of self-determination and liberty
that she will suffer from domination no longer, calls
every free nation to uphold her national claim to
complete independence as an Irish republic against
the arrogant pretensions of England, which were
founded on fraud and sustained by overwhelming
military occupation.
"She demands to be confronted publicly with
England at the congress of nations, that the civil
ized world, having judged between English wrong
and Irish right, may guarantee Ireland its perma
nent support for the maintenance of national inde
pendence."
So the Irish republic begins. It appeals to the
lovers of liberty through the world for recognition
and support. It is the translation into actuality of
the principles of democracy proclaimed as-well by
British statesmen and of those of the other Allied
nations as well as by President Wilson, as the basis
of all just government, and for which the world
•war was fought to victorious conclusion. The sin
cerity and good faith of these solemn proclamations
are now to be put to the test of application in par
ticular instances. In the cases of Poland, Czecho
slovakia, the Ukraine and other long oppressed peo
ples they have already been virtually into beneficial
fruition. The status of Ireland runs exactly par
allel with these, and the peace and safety of the
future of the world demands that the same reme
dial measures shall be extended to her. To treat her
otherwise would emphasize and aggravate her mis
ery, marking her as an outcast and friendless nation,
while the rest of the small nations are being en
dowed with the God-given rights of freedom.
Let the Peace Conference adopt the principle:
"Tros Tyriusquqe mihi in nullo discrimine agetur."
IS IT MISINFORMATION OR MALICE?
News dispatches pertaining to affairs in Ireland,
as distributed by some of the great American press
agencies, continue to bear prima facie evidence of
gross unfairness and inaccuracy. An Associated
Press news item of January 21, for example, con
tains the following:
"This is one paradox. Another is that these
Sinn Feiners, ejected by about half of the voters
in Ireland on a platform of independence from the
British empire were chosen members of the Brit
ish parliament, but specifically refused to recognize
that body and to call themselves members of the
British parliament."
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Note the phrase "elected by about half of the vot
ers in Ireland." This will, give us a notion of the
slant of the whole article. As the returns of the
election show that the Sinn Fein party has won at
least 72 out of the total of 105 parliamentary seats,
it will be seen how widely the dispatch varies from
the stubborn facts of the situation. The Sinn Fein
ers must have been past masters in the art of "Gerry
mandering" if they succeeded in electing over two
thirds of their candidates with only one-half of the
total electorate. The best estimate of the total
Sinn Fein vote is that it included three-fourths of
the whole polling.
Another portion of the same article states that
half of the Sinn Fein candidates-elect are in "various
English prisons, charged with sedition." The fact
is that these victims of British hatred and stupidity
are charged with no crime whatsoever. They re
main interned as prisoners, denied the right of trial
by jury, and would be glad of the opportunity to
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defend themselves against the charge of sedition
or any other crime that the British authorities may
fabricate against them.
Not content with misrepresenting what the Sinn
Feiners have done in the past, the press correspon
dent proceeds to volunteer the information that
"they are about to take measures which are purely
seditious and in direct violation of explicit law."
Had the astute and zealous correspondent been pres
ent at the Continental Congress held in Philadelphia
in 1776, he would no doubt have used exactly the
same words in relation to the transactions of that
body, which proclaimed that this country "is and
of right ought to be free and independent." By sug
gestion, at least, he would have indicated the de
sirability of arresting Washington, Adams, Jeffer
son, Hamilton and their associates and would have
raised a howl for action on the part of the British
authorities.
We submit that the American people have been
overly "fed up" with this camouflaged species of
British propaganda. It is the function of a quasi
public corporation, like the news agencies, to give
an accurate account of the facts, let the conclusions
be drawn as they may. These purvej'ors of general
news have been guilty of so many offenses of this
kind that they have forfeited public confidence, and
it has become a trite saying that they are unworthy
of credence. Especially is this true of items per
taining to Irish affairs which are notoriously un
trustworthy, the vast majority of them being taint
ed with malice and misinformation.
THE NATIONS AT THE WORLD GRAB-BAG.
"Claim everything," used to be the maxim of the
old time political bdsses in American politics and
this slogan seems to have been adopted by many
of the nations directly or remotely involved in the
deliberations of the Peace Conference. Proofs of
former occupancy or possession of territory desired
by these claimants, are forthcoming in amazing
quantity and quality. The Greeks, for example,
base their claims for certain districts in Asia Minor
and other places on the fact that pieces of Greek
statuary or architecture have been found in them
in archaeological researches. It is evident that the
complainants are not putting themselves in danger
of being estopped of the relief sought by any defect
or lack of sufficiency in their pleadings, for they
have "claimed everything within the scope of the
jurisdiction of the world tribunal."
To use a Hibernianism it may be said that most
of them expectto be disappointed as to the major
part of their claims. They are using the mitrailleuse
rather than the rifle in their hunting expeditions,
and if they fail to negotiate a sizable deer or bear
they hope to bring down at least a few quail or part
ridges. This grabbing propensity is not confined
to the nations more or less remotely connected wjth
the Allies, but is also noted among the vanquished
group, the parties of the second part. They, too,
are lining up with their former opponents for the
distribution of the prizes, like children at a Sunday
school celebration. But there must necessarily be
some blank numbers drawn, for there are not prizes
enough to go around.
Both sets of claimants need to be reminded of
the political variation of the beatitude "Blessed are
they that expect but little, for they shall not be'
disappointed."
PENAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE KAISER.
With his own hand the German kaiser has written
the words which may eventually establish his penal
responsibility for the outrages and barbarities of
the war and his punishment therefor. At the in
stance of Premier Clemenceau, two eminent French
jurists have made an investigation of the case of
William Hohenzollern from a purely judicial or
technical point of view. They are Ferdinand Ar
nande, dean of the Paris law faculty, and Dr. A. G.
Laypaydelle, professor of rights of nations in the
same faculty. The principal points considered were
the penal responsibility of Wilhelm, what tribunal
should judge him. and whether his extradition could
be legally demanded.
The findings of the jurists are that the kaiser is
responsible for the crimes of the war in virtue of
the fact that the German sovereign assumed to
derive his power only from God and the sword, and
the decision to make war belonged to him alone.
Under the German constitution he could not be
forced to this decision, thereby escaping in part at
least its responsibility. A letter written to the Aus
trian Emperor in the early days of the war is cited
which contains these self-accusing sentences: "My
soul is torn asunder, but everything must be put
to fire and blood. The throats of men and women,
children and the aged, must be cut, and not a tree
or house left standing.
"With such methods of terror, which alone can
strike so degenerate a people as the French, war
will finish before two months, while if I use humani
tarian methods it may prolong for years. Despite
my repugnance, I have had to choose the first sys
tem."
The "I" and "my" in the above quotations may be
the words that shall spell the doom of the former
emperor in an international tribunal.
It is also found in* the report that he cannot be
arraigned under the existing common law, but that a
new jurisdiction must be created to deal with such
crimes and that inasmuch as he is not a political
refugee his extradition may be lawfully required.
Thus the arm of justice is reaching out for the blood
thirsty and ruthless monster that has brought 'death
and woe into innumerable households throughout
the world, and given mankind the cruelest blow in
all its history.
CLEAN IRISH SOLDIERS.
A British officer serving with the Leinsters in
Macedonia pays this tribute to their cleanliness and
high morale. The letter is quoted from Marie Harri
son's recent book, "Down in Ireland
"Their language is not far from being as spot
less as their clothes These Irishmen find that
they can get along quite well without bad language,
and they do. They are, of course, practically all
Catholics, and that accounts-for it. It accounts,
too, for the fact that one never hears an echo of that
lewd, indecent talk which forms seventy-five per
cent of the conversation in some English settle
ments, nor any of the obscene songs with which
(English soldiers sometimes amuse themselves."
A?6,
IS NORTH DAKOTA THE ONLY STATE
IN STEP?
In nearly every part of the world democracy
seems to be gaining ground except in Portugal and
North Dakota. In these two widely separated dis
tricts there seems to exist a tendency to revert to
the monarchial or imperial systems of government.
Even the bolsheviki profess to aim to be a govern
ment of the people, for the people and by the peo
ple, but they restrict the meaning of the "people"
so as to exclude persons who are guilty of owning
a piece of property, having a few kopecks saved up
for a rainy day, or having learned to read and write.
To be one of the people in their acceptation of the
term one must be a simon-pure proletariat, free of
any monetary or property incumbrances, and more
or less of a manual worker, and strictly illiterate.
If they could be persuaded that all the people must
be dealt with fairly in the regime of government
their schemes of reform and reorganization of so
ciety might be entitled to more serious considera
tion. Nevertheless it may be said of them that they
are groping though in the dark toward those prin
ciples of democratic administration which in the
future must lie at the foundation of all civilized gov
ernments.
But with Kaiser Townley in the saddle in North
Dakota, the trend of things is distinctly otherwise.
The "Nonpartisan" leader presides at Bismarck
with genuine Bismarckian methods. He has inau
gurated in the Flickertail state a series of reforms
"that are well calculated to make ths adventurous
firm of Lenine and Trotsky gfreen with envy." Thd
newspapers are to be hog-tied by designating offi
cial organs in the several counties as the exclusive
recipients- of public business, with the purpose of
starving out the independent publications and avoid
ing their criticism. State and school funds to the
extent of $80,000,000, are to be put under the sole
control of the Nonpartisan boss and his kitchen
cabinet, and may be diverted to any enterprise or
adventure they may take a notion to plunge into.
Statutes have been already framed in anticipation
of these financial orgies. They are as broad as a
church door and as deep as a well and their malle
ability, ductility and elasticity are guaranteed
against all legal tests inasmuch as the same powers
that enacted them can also control their interpreta
tion and application in the courts.
Co-operative stores, mills, factories, creameries,
packing plants, elevators and banking institutions,
are to be launched into business forthwith as "emer
gency" measures, thus obviating the danger of a
referendum, that quondam vaunted panacea for all
the evils of legislation. With one stroke of his all
powerful pen designating all the new-fangled legis
lation as "emergency" measures the imperious
Townley has nullified the spirit and intent of the
referendum law, thus relieving the electorate of the
state of the burden of thinking and judging of the
important issues involved.
Neither individual or corporate bankruptcy has
any terrors for the great flax financier. He has faced
the inquisition of his own creditors so often that he
has become an expert in this line of procedure. His
chief, concern is that the farmers of the. state shall
"go along" cheerfully in paying their yearly tribute
of dues into the Nonpartisan treasury, and that the
pay checks of the officials shall be forthcoming
with due regularity and sufficiency. As long as this
procedure continues to yield the requisite revenues
for the maintenance of the organization there will
be no deficiency in the Wallingford financial proj
ects and adventures supplied to the farmers in re
turn for their credulity and coin.
And if bankruptiy happens to the state, why
Townley, like Mr. Britling, "will see it through."
Bankruptcy is Townley's specialty. He evidently
assumes that the great majority of the people of
North Dakota are of that class of which one is said
to be born every minute.
SHALL WE TALK TO THE STARS AND
PLANETS.
One of the first "flashes of thought" that may
divert human interest from the war and its burden
some problems comes from Marconi, the inventor
of wireless telegraphy. He foreshadows the pos
sibility of communication with the stars through the
medium of the ether which pervades all space and
is the transmitter of light. The messages cast upon
the etherial waves ten years ago, he states, have not
yet reached the nearest stars, but they have not yet
stopped, so far as he knows, and are still hurtling
onward at their initial speed toward the stellar re
ceiving stations, if any such there may be. The
language in which they are framed may not be
intelligible to the inhabitants of these distant orbs,
but if they are sufficiently alert they may at least
learn that there is "sorrr&hing stirring" in the cos
mos and they may in some way learn that the dis
turbance is originating from the remote and per
haps invisible planet. If they manifest any interest
in the matter we can resort to our mathematics, ac
cording to which two and two make four but that
may be at variance with their laws of reasoning, and
they may reach the conclusion that we are so hope
lessly backward that it may not be worth while to
establish'communication with us. Mathematics,
however, is our only chance, because its laws seem
to govern throughout the universe, as is seen in
the accuracy of the determination of various celes
tial phenomena.
After we have gained a speaking introduction
through our mathematical qualifications we may
Venture to talk about the weather, fashions, baseball,
politics, the bolshervikists, and tjtie League of Na
tions—matters which perhaps have never -engaged
the attention of these super or sub-entities of the
other stars or planets.
Go to it, Mr. Marconi. The inhabitants of old
earth who have become well nigh disgusted with
the terrestrial order of things, will joyfully acclaim
the success of your high adventure.
THE IRISH STANDARD Saturday, January 25,1919
THE SPIRIT OF IRELAND STILL LIVES ON.
(Rev. Terrence J. Shealy, S. J., New York.)
The one awful failure of a nation is to fall from
her ideals, to give up striving, to sell her soul to
lower and avarice, or aught that serves the sordid
?way of pride and passion. That indeed is failure
which succeeds at the price of virtue and honor.
Ireland might have been rich and favored. She
might have merged her identity and her faith in an
ilien empire and alien worship. But she fought and
died she starved and agonized and in defeat she
has conquered. Her spirit still lives on.
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HORSE SENSE AND HISTORY APPLIED TO
AMERICAN ANGLOPHILES.
A tendency to what might be called "sloppiness"
has manifested itself recently among certain news
paper and magazine writers, and in other quarters,
with reference to the historical relations between
America and Great Britain since the beginning of
our national history. Many of our overzealous
Anglophiles would go so far as to re-write and re
cast the story of our glorious and successful strug
gle to cut loose from the tyrarfny and oppression of
the "mother" country so as to inculcate into the
minds of the children of the present and future gen
erations of Americans different views of those re
lations than those that have been handed down
in the accepted American histories, According to
some of these "authorities" the Revolutionary war
was a gigantic mistake, and the Declaration of In
dependence should be abrogated so as to make the
record of our relations with our British "cousins"
entirely harmonious and amiable. The war of 1812
should be entirely forgotten and English co-opera
tion with the Confederacy in the Civil War should
in no sense be regarded as being based on the hope
of destroying the Great Republic of the West.
This belated and ill-advised attempt to- camou
flage the events of our history in the interests of
"Anglo-Saxonism" is one of the by-products of the
world war, in which America became associated
with the Allied powers, and incidentally with Great
Britain in the cause of universal civilization and hu
manity, But it should not be presumed that in cast
ing our lot with the forces of civilization as against
the barbarous legions of Hundom that we have re
pudiated the historical ideals and policies of our
American nationhood. We would not undo the past
if it were in our power to do so, and we will still
continue to cherish and revere the heroism and pa
triotism of the Revolutionary Fathers despite the
futile efforts of the new would-be historians to re
open the judgments of history in the interests of
Anglophiles.
In this connection we are glad to note a sense of
reaction against the Anglo-Saxon propagandists
who would white-wash and deodorize some long ad
judicated issues. Anent our relations to the "moth
er" country. Replying to an editorial that ap
peared in the Minneapolis Journal, a few weeks ago
under the caption "There is a Difference," Mr. John
Pike Hummel of Dundas, Minn., adduces some well
marshaled points touching upon this subject, which
are well worth remembering. He states:
"Nor are you safe in considering methods of
warfare as a basis for comparison.- You have com
pared the French revolution and continental wars
with Anglo-Saxon warfare. Must I refer you to
some points of history which you seem to have
overlooked—to the massacre of the defenders of
Acre by Richard I in the Third crusade to the
English plundering expeditions into France of the
Hundred Years' war, in which the burning at the
stake of Joan of Arc was but an incident to the
ruthlessness of the Wars of the Roses? Perhaps
you have forgotten Cromwell's ferocious warfare
in Ireland only a year or two after Marston Moor,
and_ the terrors of the Wellington campaign in
Spain. Must I remind you that in the wars of the
American revolution and 1812 the British were al
lied with Indian- savages and that British officers
sometimes accompanied these savages and paid
bounties on the scalps' of American settlers, men,
women and children? I will quote the indictment
against the British king in our Declaration of In
dependence as having 'ravaged our coasts, burnt
our towns, destroyed our people. transport
ing armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the
works of death, desolation and tyranny already be
gun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages.' I
will further remind you of their wanton burning of
the White House and our national capitol in 1814,
together with the library of congress with its prec
ious records and archives of their alliance with the
unspeakable Turk in the Crimean war of the shoot
ing of Hindu prisoners from the mouths of cannon
in the Sepoy mutiny of the brutal execution of
Scheepers,.in violation of the Geneva conference, in
the Boer war, and of the crowding of Boer women
and children into concentration camps with the
death rate at 110 per thousand per month."
In conclusion, Mr. Hummel adds:
"It is not pleasant to recall these things, but I
must make plain why we must consider our civili
zation distinct from any other. Let us thank God
that we are simply Americans, with a clean record
of our own."
Mr. Hummel might have fairly added further
cogency to his argument if he had included in his
able marshaling of the foregoing historical facts
the brutal treatment that the British government
is at the present moment doling out to the several
hundred Sinn Fein prisoners now detained in pris
ons and internment barracks. Many of these have
been done to death by the abuses and deprivations
they have suffered since their incarceration. They
have been denied the right of a trial by jury, that
fundamental principle of modern jurisprudence, and
no definite or specific charges Have been made
against them, and they are still prisoners more than
two months after the signing of the armistice.
If "there is a difference" in the Anglo-Saxon and
Teutonic savagery, as seen in this present instance,
it will require the eye of a Briton or an Anglophile
American to see it and differentiate it. It is not
readily seen or comprehended by the ordinary in
dividual who cannot see through a grindstone.
Mr. Hummel is to be congratulated for his Amer
ican horsesense' as applied to the matter in ques-'
tion, as well ^s for the irrefutable marshaling of his
torical facts bearing upon the same.
THE INNOCENT KAISER ABROAD
That the kaiser had his mind concentrated always
on maintaining peace in the world is abundantly
proved by a post bellum .inventory of his private
belongings, showing that in the imperial wardrobes
there were but 598 German and foreign military and"
naval uniforms. With such a meaiger supply of
martial accoutrements no wonder Herr Hohenzol-?
lern so stubbornly opposed the outbreak of the war.
He was in the position of a prima donna with a
trunk full of paraphernalia, who yet has "nothing
to wear." Many other equally convincing argu
ments could be adduced to show that the treacher
ous onslaughts of the Belgians and French found
him wholly unprepared for such an unforeseen and
unexpected happening.
The Dutch should keep a weather eye on their
dykes and windmills.