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, fought them-but did not assassinate
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CLAN-NA-GAEL JOURNAL, PIIILA
DELPHIA, OCTOBER 22, I916
clslillillrs SPEECH
rllollllll DOCK
“My Lord Chief Justice:
“There is objection-possibly not
old, that seeks to deprive an
Irishman today of life and honor,
not for ‘adhering to the King's en-
emies,’ but for adhering to his own
years
“Beiiig tried, irtxtruth, not by my
not even by a statute framed, in the
language of the land that tries me,
but emitted in the languageof an
enem
be sought today to
man, whose offense is
government of Ireland by England
rests on restraint, not ove,:
since it.demands no love, it
evoke no loyalty. i
"But this statute ‘is more absurd,
good on me
' pression of sympathy extended to
land-so antiquated is the n-in
which I returned with a price upon
my head; away from my own coun-
trymen, whose loyalty was not in
doubt, and safe from the judgment
0 peers, whose judgment I do
not shrink from.
“I admit no other judgment but
eirs. I accept no verdict except
at their hands. .
“I assert from this dock that I am
being tried here not because it is
just, but because it is unjust. Place
before a jury o in coun-
trymen, be it Protestant, Catholic,’
Unionist, Nationalist, Sinn Feinaech
or Orangemen, and I shall accept the
' to the statute and
all its penalties ‘
. P
"If they adjudge me guilty, then
I am guilty.
“It is not I who am afraid of t eir
verdict; it is the Crown. If this '
not so, why fear the test? I fear it
not, but demand it as my right!
“I would add that the generous ex-
me from so many quarters, particu-
larly in America, have touched me
very much. In that country, as in
‘ sure my motives are un-
inspiration to Irishmen and all else-
where rightly struggling to be free.
“ o e to be acquitted of pre-
sumption if I say that the court I
seek now is not this High Court of
Justice of England, but the far great-
er, far higher and far older assem-
“The battle was to be fought in
Ireland in order that the political
‘Outs’ today should be the ‘Ins’ to-
morrow in Great Britain.
lo benefit Ireland was to be me
on the floor of Parliament,
the light could, indeed. be won
on a field of battle mifch nearer
iome, where the armies were to
composed 0f'Irishmen slaying each
other for some English party's gain.
“ e British navy was e c ar-
tered ‘transports’ that were bringing
to oilr shores numcrous assemblages
of military and ex-military experts in
the congenial and profitable business
of holding down the subjects of the
opulations abroad.
" ur choice lay in submitting to
oreign lawlessness or resisting it,
' not hesitate to choose.
U‘
a
meeting in Dublin on November 25,
1913, stated with sincerity the aims
of the organization as I outlined
them. V
“The -government that permitted
the arming of those whose leaders
declared ‘that Irish nationa unity
by force of arms,.within nine days
after the issue of(our manifesto of
good will to Irishincn of every creed
and class took steps to nullify our
clfort by prohibiting the importation
of arms into Ireland as if it were a
hostile‘, blockaded 'coast.
“ ince lawlessness sat in high
the army of occupation at the '
Curragh to obey the orders of
t e Crown. Now that we were
told we ought to enter that army,
e rn for a r missory note
(payable alter death) a scrap of pa-
per that might or mi ht not be re-
deemed, I felt that in America my
first duty was to keep Irishmen at
home in the only army that could
safeguard our national existence.
“If the small nationalities were to
be the pawns in this game 0 em-
battled giants, I saw no reason why
Ireland should shed her blood in any
case but her own, and if t
treason beyond the seas I am
harried to avow it or to answer for
it here with my life. V’
‘The difference between us was
that the Unionist champions chose
the path that they felt would lead
to the wool sack, while I went the
road that I knew must lead to the
dock. And the event proved that
we were both right.
“We had been told and had been
asked to hope that after the war
Ireland would get Home Rule-as a
reward of her lifeblood shed for a
cause, whomever else the success of
which should benefit, it surely can-
11 .
W at will Home Rule be in re-
turn for what the vague promise has
taken and still hopes to take away
from Ireland?
ome R hen it comes, if it
does, will find Ireland drained of all y
even, than it is antiquated; if it be
potent to hang one Irishman, it is
still more potent to gibbet all Eng-
lish .
II. was King not only
of the realm of England, but also of
strain no s ran
' Frenchman‘s throat, whose sover-
eign he was.
“For centuries the
Edward III. claimed
Kings of France and quartered the
arms of France on their royal shield
down to the union with Ireland on
January 1, 1801. ,
“Did ‘the Kings of France’ resi-
dent here in VVindsor or the Tower
of London hang, draw and quarter
as a traitor every Frenchman for -300
years who fell into their power with
arms in their
“To the contrary, they received the
successors of
to be the
.feasted with them, tilted wit
them by lawl I I .
“The judicial assassination of to-
obligation entered into between them
a.-id certain princes, chiefs and lords
of Ireland. This‘ form of legal right,
‘ King of Eng-
ower to impeach
Irishman for high treason under
this statute of King Edwar
"And w at is the fundamental
charter of an Englishman's liberty?
That he be tried ‘by his peers.
I assert that this
Irishman charged
with this ollence - a foreign court;
this jury is for me-an Irishman-
not a jury of my peers, to try me
in this vital issue, for it is patent
to every man's conscience that it is
his indefeasible right; if tried at all,
itnder this statute for high treason,
that he be tried in Ireland before an
' by an Irish ju
an
Irishmen is be-grudged by the power
of Eng an . ,
"Yet for me, an Irish outlaw, there
is a land of Ireland, a rig t in re-
land, and a charter for all Irishmen
to appeal to as a last resort; a char-
tcr that even the very statutes of
England cannot deprive us of-nay,
more, a charter that the Englishmen
themselves assert as the fundamen-
of the law conuectin t e
two kingdoms. ,
“To Englishmen I set no evil ex-
blage of justice-of the people of
Ireland.
"Since in the acts which led to
this trial it was the people of Ire-
land I sought to serve-an
alone. I leave my judgment and sen-
tence in their hands.
"Ireland has outlived the failure
of all her hopes-yet she still hopes.
Ireland has seen her sons, aye, and
her daughters, suffer from genera-
tion to generation, always for the
-u
o
S
has passed on to withstand the same
oppression.
“A cause that begets this indomit-
able faculty, preserving it through
centuries of miscry.and the remem-
lirance of lost liberty-this surely is
the noblest cause men ever strove
ample, for I made no appeal to them.
I asked no Englishman to help me.‘
I asked Irishmen to fight for their‘
rights. l
“If I did wrong in making tliati
appeal to Irishmen to join me in an
effort to fight for Ireland, it is by
ris men an t em alone, that I
can be rightfully judged.
“ ‘s court and its jurisdic-
tion I appeal to those whom I am
alleged to have wronged, and those
whom I am alleged to have injured party
y my ‘evil example,’ and claim that
they alone are competent to decide’
my guilt or innocence.
"It was not I who landed in Eng-
land, but the Crown who dragged me
. here, away from my own country to
for, ever lived for, ever died for]
“My counsel referred to the Ulster
Volunteer movement. Neither I no
any leaders of the Irish Volunteers,
founded in Dublin in Novem er,
1913, had any quarrel with the Ulster
Volunteers. as such, who were born
a year earlier.
“VVe aimed at winning Ulster Vol-
unteers to the cause of a linited Ire-
land. It was not we Irish Volunteers
who broke the law, but the British
-
Government Eefmltled
the Ulster Volunteer: to e armed
by ' is men: to threaten not
merely the English party in its hold
on ofh e, ut to threaten that party
through the lives and blood of Irish-
men.
places in England and laughed at
the law as a custodian's law, wh
wonder that Irislllncli refuse to ac-
rept the verbal protestations of Eng-
land’s Lord Chancellor as a suf -
cient safeguard for their lives and
iberties?
“l, for on was determined Ire-
land was much more to me than
‘Empire,’ and if charity begins at
home, so must loyalty. Since arms
were so necessary to make our or-
ganization a reality, it was our bou
den duty to get arms before all else.
“I decided, with this end in view.
to go to merica, with surely a bet-
ter right to appeal to Irishmen there
for help in the hour‘of our great na-
tional trial than those envoys of the
‘Empire’ could assert for their week-
end descents on Ireland or their ap-
peals to Germany.
“l.Vithin a few wecks of my ar-
rival in the States a fund that had
been opened to secure arms for the
volunteers in Ireland amounted to
many thousands of pounds. In every
case the money subscribed, whether
it came either from the purse of
wealthy men or the still readier
pocket of the poor man, was Irish
I
o .
"Then came the war. As Mr. Bir-
rell said, ‘The war has upset all our
calculations.
‘It upset mine none the less than
Mr. Birrell's and put an end to my
mission and peaceful efforts in
America.
“We had seen the working of the
rish Constitution in the refusal of
'5-
or
that is vital to her very existence-
unless it be that unquenchable hope
that we build on the graves of the
dead. We are told that if Irishmen
-no by the thousands to die, not for
Ireland, but. for Flanders and for
Belgium-for a patch of sand Oil the
dessert of Mesopotamia or a roc
trench on the heights of Gallipclli-
they will be winning self-government
for Ireland. I
"But if they dare lay down their
lives on their native soil, if they dare
even dream that freedom can be won
only at y men resolved to
light for it there, then they are trai-
tors to their country.‘ ’ ,
‘If we are to be indicted as crim-
inals-to be shot as murderers and
imprisoned as convicts because the
offense is that we love Ireland more w
than we value our lives-then I know
not what virtue resides in any offer
of self-government held out to brave
men on such terms.
“Self-government is our right, a
thing born in us, no more to be doled
against suchta state of things as no
savage tribe would endure without
resistance, then am sure it is bet-
ter for men to fight and die without
right than to live in such a state of
rights as this. - ‘
“Where all your rights become
only accumulated wrongs, where men
must beg wit bated breath for leave
to subsist in their own land, to think
their own thoughts, sing their own
songs, garner the fruits of their own
labors, then surely it is the braver,
saner and truer thing to be a rebel
against such circumstances as this
than to tamely accept them as the
natural lot of men.
“My Lord, I have done."
President Wilson and
Mr. O’I..eary
Woodrow Wilson,
President of th
Elberon, N. J
Alznir. we greet you with r. pnpiilal‘ dis-
approval of your pro-British pnlil-ies. last
(yrur from the Twenty-third New York
Congressional District, and now from
your own State and from the voters of
your own party. Senator Martina won
because the voters of New Jersey do not
want ‘any truckling to the I‘-ritish Em-
pire nor do they approve of dl4:tato‘rship
e United States,
loans, the ammunition traffic, are issues
in this campaign. ‘
no you know that William S. Ileunet,
a Republican Congressman, ran in the
Democratic primaries‘: in the Tvrrntyitlrlrd
New York Congressional District. and
polled 36 per cent. of the total Demo-
cratic vote against his regular Demo-
t-ratic opponent? Anglomuniacs and Brit-
isli interest may control newspapers, but
they don't control votes. The people
may be readers, but they are not follow.
are of the newspapers. When, sir, will
You respond to these evidences of popu-
lar disapproval of your policies by ac-
tion? The Martina election and Bennet:
vote prove you have lost support. nmong
Democrats. Every vote for Martine was
5 vote against you, as wastrvury Demo-
cratic vote that went for Mr. Ilennet. in
the Democratic primaries in the Twenty-
third Congressional District.
JEREMIAH A. 0’LEAItY,
President American Truth Society.
And this is Mr. unison‘. reply:
Shadow Lawn, Elberon, N. .1,
your te -
access to many disloyal Anicriunns, and
I have not, I will ask ‘win to county this
nressrisb to t em.
VVOODROW WILSON.
GERMAN U-BOATS AND
ENGLAND
The wonderful achievement of the Ger.
man [753 in delivering her mail in the
United States and within ll
space sinking nine enem Inert-hnutmeu,
has given another chill to John izuir.
boasting. Tn. starving out prrrrrs which
England hoped to be ellective against
Germany (whom by the way she has long
since lost all hope of beating in any -
other way) is being used axaiiiiit. herself
with such easel that John Bull is likely
quarrel.
does not finish the job on hand by lore-
ing England to relinquish her hold on
the nation and people she oppressed for
centuries and thereby cast off he
resources tliali have enabled her for so
long to be the world‘: greatest bully and
hypocrite any premature peace will leave
(as Roger Casement. well laid) lfnltlltnd
‘ end o am new iinatrons
against Germany and what she failed to
do in the present war she will endeavor
to achieve in a future coutlict.
E
-i
IRISH REPUBLIC‘S FLAG
HOISTED ON GERMAN U-B '1‘
Mr. James O'Brien, one of New-
port‘s prominent Irishmen, presented
an Irish Republican flag of green,
hite an
XVaker, of the German
put into Newport on Oct. the sth,
and within a few hours after sent
nine enemies’ ships to the bottom of
the ocean.‘ As Mr. O'Brien handed,
the flag to Lieutenant VVaker the ‘
to us or withheld from us y an-
other people than right itself-than‘
the right to feel the warmth of the‘
sun or smell the flowers-or love our
in .
“It is only from the convict that
these things are withheld for a crime
committed and proven-and Ireland,
that has wronged no in ' '
man. sought no dominion over oth
-Ireland is treated today among the
nations of the world as if it were a
convicted crimina .
“If.there be no‘ right in rebellion
lieutenant at once recognized it and
ve it the German naval salute. He
then placed it beside the German cal-
and, blowing his whistle. the en- l
tire crew of the submarine came on i
7:
an
of Ireland. '1' e erman officers
then said, “The first English ships
e sink we will hoist this flag ’
honor of Ireland." The llag was dis-
played and cheered as the submarine
departed, and it was the only thing
the submarine carried out o New-
port. ‘