THE KEY TO THE AMERICAN HEART IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1919, Page 28

THE KEY TO THE AMERICAN HEART IRELAND.

Mr. Shaw Desmond, in the London Daily Express, says that Ireland is the key to the American heart, and that he had not met one American who was not in favor of Irish freedom. All the Americans ho had met regarded Ireland as - what Gladstone once called it, ' “the ghost of British politics.” “It is a fact that in the American imagination the most important omission at the Peace Conference was the non-recognition of Ireland. It is a fact that de Valera is getting a reception in the States that no crowned head could hope for. “It is a fact,” he adds, “that the masses of IrishAmericans who laid down their lives fighting against Germany are regarded as having given their lives for Ireland. It is a fact that one of the most popular men in the States, the son of a famous father, Colonel Roosevelt, jun., was downed at St. Louis because of his criticism of Sinn Fein banners in the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade, which I saw pass my room from noon until 5 row on row of decorated and wounded Irish soldiers in khaki —and all Sinn Feiners. It is a fact that men like the English Chief Secretary for Ireland have incalculably advanced the Sinn Fein propaganda in the States by their special pleading.’ “It is a fact the American Senate by 60 to 1 voted that the Sinn Fein leaders should be heard at the Peace Conference. “This thing cannot longer be postponed. Even from the standard of expediency put forward by Mr. Lloyd George, and which gave so much offence throughout America to friends of England, it must be settled. The Irish press in the States is one of the best organised and most influential, as it is undoubtedly the most eloquent, each day reaching the ear of millions. The Irish vote is, without question, the best organised section of public opinion in the States. There are twenty millions of them to do it. “If the solution be not found and the Irish ghost laid, this question will remain as the menace eternal to the good understanding of England and America. It will lead in the States to a. big increase of Republican Sinn Fein opinion, which is already spreading fast outside Irish-American circles. And it will imperil the whole future of the world by the embitterraent of the two AngloSaxon peoples.”