AMERICAN IDEALS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 9, 2 March 1899, Page 15

AMERICAN IDEALS.

X the cours. of an address on 'Ireland's Influence Amoti" Hk -Nations, delivered in Boston in December List, Mgr. Comity, luelm of the Catholic University of America, speaking oi the propped Anglo-American Alliance, said — _ We are a democratic people, and need no political association with any of the royalties of the Old World. Our ideals our aspirations, our methods of government, all cry out against any alliance with foreign powers, which would in all probability be made at (he .sacrifice of our ideaK limit n P >n a hatred of tyranny and an aversion to royalty, planting itself upon the ■cdsfoiK-, of (he ii"his of conscience and the ability of: the peoiue to govern themselves our American nation need* no appeal to tottering monarchies, and should seek no olhan^e with royal thrones. We are made enthusiastic from time to time with the cry of humanity. Greece passed to freedom through that cry Hungary received its Parliament and equal rights. Crete was saved from'tho heel of the Turk. Cuba cried for aid. and President M'Kinlcy in his message last April. Paid we were to enter on a war for humanity s sake. If it be the hour for the righting of wron».- if, it be , . tb - c , day for human >ty, then what about this grand old land which has suflered during thpse centuries .' 1 f humanity be evoked where will its cries be found to be fiercer and longer continued > If gratitude for all that that people ha\e done for religion, education liberty, then, by all the titles that men value, Ireland should be tree. Jso alliance that will endanger her national hopes, no alliance that will not consider her claim to justice, can be considered by her children in America. No less notable were hit- closing words of counsel to the Irish or America. As citizens of this great Republic, he .said, our duty is clear. We have a magnificent inheritance, and v\e nui^t transmit it intact to those who succeed us. As children ol the Gael we have a record to be proud of. Preserve them and interweave them with your American life. Faith in God and love for Mother Church devotion to education, ambition to develop the splendid old language •ol the Gael, namely, conscientious loyalty to America, readiness to defend all her interest", homst, upright, pure lives— all these express our duty to the best Republic the world has ever known True to America and true to llrin, we shall bneome woithy to be associated with the men and women who are tfce honour and gloiy of mankind. Nothing liner on this subject has been said for yum/