MR DE VALERA

Evening Star, Issue 21079, 16 April 1932, Page 2

MR DE VALERA

LATEST CHARACTER SKETCH From the Liverpool ‘ Weekly Post ’ we take this latest character sketch of Mr Be Valera:— Christened plain Edward Be Valera, but transformed by the Gaelic revival into Eamou Be Valera, the most enthusiastic Gael could make nothing of his patronymic. The leader of Fianna Fad, the Irish Republican Party, is one of the strangest figures who has ever played a part in the confused drama of Irish politics, writes an Irish correspondent. Tall, gaunt, and angular, with a mop of untidy hair straying across his temples, there is nothing in the appearance of the man to suggest a popular idol. His voice, curiously-attractive at first, soon becomes monotonous, for its range is limited, and the dead level of its uniformity becomes infinitely wearisome. . , Yet this man, in spite of a series of blunders which would have blasted the career of any other politician, retains a hold on the youth of the Irish Free State which nothing seems able to shake. It must be conceded to him that he has a certain personal magnetism which draws people towards him. But it is significant that by none is he more intensely disliked than by those who in the past have worked in close touch with him. LEAP FROM OBSCURITY. Even to-day Bo Valera has many acquaintances and some friends, but no intimates. The explanation of this lies in the character of the man himself. ’ Sixteen years ago he was a professor of mathematics in a training college, employing his spare time in studying the Irish language and playing at soldiers with the Irish Volunteers. For a brief moment, at became grim earnest, and as a com-J mandant of tiie insurgents he leaped from the obscurity which had enshrouded him up to that time. The execution of most of the other leaders left him as the principal survivor of a lost cause, and when the Sinn Fein movement, following in its wake, swept the country Be Valera found national leadership thrust upon him. ANOTHER MOSES. He has never since been able to forget it or been willing to relinquish the role. In his own eyes he is Ireland’s Man of Destiny. Ho sees himself specially chosen by Providence to lead his people out of the wilderness of British rule into the promised land of an indeEendent Ireland, a land which under is own beneficent Government will flow with milk and honey. Be Valera no more''hates England or the English Spepple than Moses hated the ancient yptians. To him they are simply unlevers against whom the seven -plagues are to be employed only when efforts to touch the hearts of the Pharaohs of Downing Street have failed. None would rejoice more than he at their conversion to his point of view.

Down through the years since 1916 this conception of himself has been ever present to the mind of De Valera. It impelled him to regard his position as President of the phantom Republic of 1918-20 with a seriousness which his colleagues, and especially Michael Collins, could never bring themselves to share. There was no love lost between-Collins and De Valera, although the former, with Harry Boland, another Sinn Fein M.P., was responsible for, the daring rescue of De Valera from Lincoln Gaol in 1916. LED BY HIS HEART.

When the treaty of 1921 was signed De Valera was dumbfounded. False prophets had arisen among the chosen people. For nine years now he has been working to bring the people back to their own allegiance to himself. No Bourbon ever believed more firmly than De Valera in the dictum “ Tetat e’est moi,” and, like the Bourbons, he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing with the passing of the years. “ When I want to know what the people want,” he declared on one occasion, “ I look into mv own heart.” It is this inner conviction that makes him so arrogant and domineering, so difficult to deal with.

So lie lias gone his way through sixteen years of Irish history, shattering everything which stands in his path. He split the' Irish organisations in America, ho split the 1.R.A., lie split the Bail,he split Sinn Fein in 1921. and split Ids own remnant of it again a few years later. And in due course he will split Fianna Fail. Ho has tried to safeguard himself by providing that no matter what majority of his party is in favour of any particular course it cannot bo adopted as party policy until it has received his approval. FEARED, YET : For five years now he has been sitting oil the front Opposition bench in the Bail waiting for the dawn of the day of reckoning. Serene, cold, and aloof, none dares to disturb him. His principal lieutenant, Mr Sean Lemass, takes care to. leave a vacant seat between himself and his chief. Back benchers drop their eyes and become suddenly subdued when he passes in or out. They fear him—this man whom they follow so blindly. And yet sometimes from the gallery over their heads 1 have seen a different look in the eyes of some when their leader was speaking, a look expressive of varied feelings, struggling for mastery, with something very like contempt dominant. An ■ ascetic who lias renounced ail earthly pleasures, he does not smoke or drink, and indulges in no recreations.

He lives but for one object. Fanatical, ruthless, self-centred, and self-sufficient this man is dangerous. But to none is he more dangerous than to whatever cause he attaches himself, for the fates which guide his destiny have given him a genius for destruction.