IRISH IN AMERICA

Southland Times, Issue 18847, 12 June 1920, Page 10

IRISH IN AMERICA

PROPAGANDA AGAINST BRITAIN. RELATIONS MENACED. Mr D. Thomas Curtin, the well-known American writer, who recently completed an extensive tour of the United States and Canada, contributed the following article to The Times, London:— A remark made to me in 1917 in Dublin has again and again been refreshed in my memory by events in America, in every section of which I have been travelling since the close of the war, “The fundamental trouble with Ireland,’’ a leading Irish nobleman said to me, " is constipation. The Government have foolishly stopped emigration because of the war. Formerly, as the young men grew up, some 30,000 of them went away every year, mostly to America, and we were rid of them.” I wonder whether it over occurred to that nobleman to inquire what these young Irishmen do when they reach America. Irish influence is certainly to be found in the following extracts from the “platform” of the newly-formed Liberal Party. They will give an idea of one kind of campaign going on in America: - The Democratic Party have abandoned (he ideals of American liberty for which To,ooo American soldiers died and 300,000 sh"d their blood in Europe. They have violated Washington’s farewell address. They have helped England to get 1,300,000 square miles of territory and 11,000,000 new slaves out of Ameriem blood and money. They have helped France to get a slice of Germany. They have hcli>ed Italy to got a slice of Austria. They have helped .Lilian to gel a slice of China. The} - have helped England crucify Ireland. They have helped England crush Egypt. They have helped England oppress Persia. They have saved the British Empire and have helped* British Imperialism win supreme power in the world. They have given the British Empire six votes to America's one in the League of Nations. They have agreed to peace without victory and then crucified Germany. We are opposed to the League of Nations with or without reservations. The Liberty Party demand that (he Congress of the United States promptly recognise the Government which has been established by the people of Ireland, and that Congress demand that the brutal suppresion of the Irislt Parliament shall eea.se.

Most of till this will seem weird. Most of it is certainly weird. 1 would not say that, these contentious have the support of the majority of American Irish. But neither have they their active opposition, for the simple reason that to them, as to most people in America, the outstanding incontrovertible Act of the mutter apiniars to be that the British Government must employ physical force to maintain a system of government with which the majority of the people of Ireland are completely out of sympathy. FATHER PASSIVE OU HOSTILE. There are a large number of Americans of Irish extraction who would welcome a greater appreciation of what is excellent in Great Britain, together with a closer oond with America, always provided that the Irish question could he satisfactorily settled. Even some of the shunters for an independent republic have assured me, when removed from the stimulus of songs and phrases, that they would be satisfied with some such arrangement as the Horne Rule Act of 1014. Under present conditions, however, almost the whole of American Ireland will be either passive towards any step toward American friendship for England or will actively oppose it.

"Well what will that matter?” it may be asked.

Simply this. Whereas Great Britain lias to reckon with the oppisiiion of only a few million discontented Irish in Europe, she has to heal with lo million such in the United Slates. Bur even these are hut a mere minority in a hundred odd millions, you may feel. Trite. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of these islands are so familiar with the balance of power in the party system of government that they will readily understand how an organised minority may sha}>e and determine, epoch-making decision*. This is precisely what has happened during the past year in the United States. That the problem may he more accurately appreciated, I would remind the reader that the “thirty thousands” do not remain in ti 10 same relative position as at home. Particularly do their offspring rise in the professions and wealth and power. They are especially active in polities, and swarm in Government offices. For example, when the British ship in which f have just cross'd left port, every one of the five representatives of the various Anjerican departments through which all passengers must pass were American Irish.

During the peace negotiations Mr John (/Kelly, the Sinn Fein ’■'■press illative at Baris, said that, inasmuch as soft words had failed to impress President, Wilson, the Irish in America would adopt harsher methods. Thev wotdd kill his treaty. And thev did. * SENATOR LODGE’S INFLUENCE. The most important person for them to deal with in this was 'Senator Isnlge, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relation- Committee. Hi- family, transported to America in the early days of the Massachusetts Colony. is of old English stock. He grew up among the most exclusive conservative so- < ief-y of Puritan New England, a society traditionally out of sympathy with the Irish influx.

To-day tradition is shattered, owing to the transformation of the one-time colony •>{ Pilgrim and Puritan into a State having one-third of its population of Irish descent, fts capital, Holton, is nourly 70 por cent. Irish. A very wealthy city, it is the centre of the American wool trade, (he core of the greatest shoe-manufacturing district of the country, also the headquarters of education and music. If is Massachusetts which sends Mr Lodge, who lives in a suburb of Boston, to the United States Senate.

Since the beginning of the Armistice Ireland's sympathisers in America have been more politically active than any other people. Moreover, they know precisely what they want, which may seem bewildering to the English traditional belief that they do not know what they want in Ireland. Were the Irish vote in Massachusetts to go splidly against Mr Lodge be would in all pliability be defeated. Consequently, whatever may have been Senator Lodge’s inspiration in blocking the Treaty, hi? acts have coincided almost identically with the policies laid down by the Irish defeatists. Him they laud, while President Wilson they execrate. When Mr Walsh, the other Senator from Massachusetts, rose to defend his opposition to (he Treaty on the basis of his Irish ancestry, and was attacked by Senator Williams, of Mississippi, as un-Ameri-can. he was defended point-blank by Senator Lodge, who took another occasion to utter kind- worda-about the Irish. To those of us reared in Massachusetts all this seems upside down. And thus do we witness, in the Old Bay State, the phenomenon, of huge Irish-Arnerican meetings linking to the names of Emmett, O’Connell, Parnell, Redmond, and De Valera the name of Senator Lodge with the cheer crescendo for Senator Lodge. And also do we witness the further phenomenon of an increasing number of the old New England aristocracy of pure English ancestry being won over to sympathise with the Irish cause.

Whatever belief may have Existed in America that the British Government made an honest attempt in 1917 in the Convention plan has been greatly weakened by the publicity campaign of De Valera and his co-workers. As for the new plan, it has created scarcely a ripple on the other side. I happened to be in Boston during and for a week following the recent visit of the Ulster delegation, where for obvious rea-

Hons a .special attempt would lie made to represent the Unionist side of (he case. The chief re.-ult of the visit was that it filled many friends of Great Britain with considerable dismay. The visitors started their addresses commemiably with a statement of facts of Groat Britain’s part in the war and the reasons why Ulster wished to remain in the Union. So far so good. Then came the calamity, for the speakers did not seem to be aware that controversy on different religious creeds is vert' much out of date on public platforms in American cities. Whereas He Valera has all along studiously avoided religion in his discussions, the Ulster delegates plunged headlong into a setting more suitable to that seventeenth century period which began at the White Mountain and ended at Westphalia than (o a metropolitan American audience of the twentieth century'. In the rough classifications and generalisations which one country is prone to make of another, all utterances of the visitors from Ulster were looked upon as English, while the work of the delegation in general was pointed to as English propaganda. Not only those of Irish descent, but many other Bostonians, deplored the. violent introduction of religion. HUSH PUBLICITY. Recent books on Ireland get prominent newspaper reviews, and are among the bestsellers. In the daily news crimes in Ireland are given considerable prominence, and for the most part are looked upon as an inevitable reaction against British rule. Let the reader remember that one eflcctivo phase of Irish publicity is the likening of the Irish fight for freedom to the American war for independence.

Although a few extremists would welcome an Anglo-American war as a iiieari--* to an . nd, for my own part I foci that one of the tiling least likely to happen on this planet is such a war. On I lie other hand, we mu.M expect the systematic blocking in Ameriea by a well-organised aggressive minority of anything felt to benefit Britain. The recent attempt by (he International Mercantile Marine Ir. purchase from the American Government some of the large ex-German passenger liners is a ease in [joint. The Shipping Board had practically completed arrangements when (he llearst newspapers which sometimes inspire hostility to Great Britain among the .American Irish, and are sometimes inspired by them, made a rapid

campaign of protest, issued slips to lie signed and sent to Washington, and, in short-, defeated the transart ion.

As an American who looked forward to • hand-in-hand friendship between my country ami Britain ns a result of the war. I f in disappointed at Iho present trend, as I have lived in it from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Frankness compels me to say that I find America farther from England to-day (and I advisedly say England and not the British Empire) than before the war. And I know the reason, for I have witnes•Hjrl it- from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have seen the driving of the wedge, and reyret that. the. Irish nobleman, satisfied with the exit of the thirty thousands, cannot see it, too —not only for the sake of the two great nations directly involved, hut also because numerous other nations may make alliances which threaten world peace ■ once they are convinced that the British | Empire and the United States will be un- ! likely to stand shoulder to shoulder.