J. D. Turner, Baltimore, Md.

W. C. Walsh, Cumberland, Md.

Joseph B. Fitzgerald, member Wolfe Tone Club, Jersey City, N. J.

Jerome O'Keeffe, Jersey City, N. J.

John G. McTigue, New York, N. Y.

R. T. B. Kelly, Gardner, Mass.

James Tumulty, 646 Bergen Avenue, Jersey City, N. J., president of Wolfe Tone Club, Jersey City, N. J.

P. J. O'Donnell, Detroit, Mich.

D. Lynch, Utica, N. Y.

Miss Margaret Bowers, New York, N. Y.

John B. Burke, Gary, Ind.

William J. Maloney, Gary, Ind.

M. C. Ford, Oklahoma City, Okla.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Mr. Chairman, I suggest the absence of a quorum. I would like the record to state the names of those present. The CHAIRMAN. The clerk will call the roll.

The clerk called the roll and the following members answered to their names: Senators Lodge, Borah, Brandegee, Fall, Knox, Harding, Johnson, New, Moses, Swanson, and Pittman.

The CHAIRMAN. There are 12 Senators present, a quorum. Judge Cohalan, you may put on your next speaker.

Senator BORAH. Before that is done, Mr. Chairman, I want to make a suggestion with reference to the gentlemen who are still to address the committee. The argument has been made by the advocates of the league and by some of our colleagues that under the league of nations Ireland would have a better opportunity or a better chance of having her affairs settled in harmony with her aspirations than without it. You gentlemen having kept close tab, undoubtedly, upon the debate along that line of argument, will appreciate what I say. I would like to have some one address his attention to that feature of the question.

Judge COHALAN. That will be done during the course of the hearing. Mr. Chairman, I want to put in the record a memorial, with certain figures.

The CHAIRMAN. They will be printed, and as our time is limited, we will not take the time to read them now.

Judge COHALAN. Very well. Mr. Chairman, I am also going to file Ireland's declaration of independence along with other official documents, and some extension of my remarks.

(The extension of Judge Cohalan's remarks and the declaration of independence referred to are here printed in full, as follows:)

The great trouble with the mass of the people of America on the question of Ireland is their viewpoint on the Irish question. Without intending to be unfair, they take for granted the justice of the English view. They find England, largely the mistress of the world and in many ways admitted to be the leader of modern civilization, in possession of Ireland.

They find, according to histories mainly written by England's friends, that she has been thus in Ireland for centuries, and they take it for granted that she must be there legally; that she is there as a matter of right. They take for granted, too, that in the evolution of civilization, in the making of history, that conditions required her to be there, and that England's claim to the overlordship in Ireland is a valid and just claim.

This view is strengthened by all the literature which most Americans ever read. The so-called English literature with which Americans come in contact usually rates England as the one great power which, through the centuries past, has been carrying aloft the torch of justice and progress into the dark corners of the world. So, it is not to be wondered at that many Americans are prone to think of England as the guiding star of civilization, educating and 135546-19 49

lifting up downtrodden, suffering people that have been tyrannized over by their national tyrants.

This is the view of England that Englishmen like to have the world take of their country. Because of this viewpoint, it is extremely difficult to get i before the American jury-fair as it intends to be the actual facts of history, not to speak of the present-day conditions as they exist in Ireland.

THE DOMINATING FIGURES IN ENGLAND.

The ordinary American, accustomed to giving almost all of his time to a study of the internal conditions of his own country, so far as his interests leads him on, has not learned to differentiate between the England which is and the England that, according to her writers and poets, seems to be.

He has not come to understand that the English democracy of which he hears and reads so much has little reality in fact, and that England still continues to be governed by a handful of men, representing, with but few excep tions, the same small group of titled land-controlling families that have governed England since the days of Henry XIII, if not, in fact, much longer. Since the downfall of continental aristocracies this is true of England more than of any other country.

The dominating figures in England to-day-those in actual power-are the Cecils and their relations. Lloyd-George or some other figure that has come to represent democracy or radicalism, if you will, in the eyes of the world, is put forward as the premier of governing authority. But the will that dominates, controls, and finally directs the policies and actions of England is that of the master spirit Cecil, no matter which member of that family or its connections it may happen to be.

In the last generation it was the Marquis of Salisbury, former premier of England, the man who said, some forty years ago, that England and America were natural rivals in every court and in every port; the man who more than any other-with the exception of Joseph Chamberlain, the great radical who ratted and joined the forces of conservation—was responsible for the destruction of the two little Republics in South Africa.

It was this same Salisbury who said, in the days when the Irish were carrying everything before them in the Parliamentary fights in the House of Commons, that the Irish were no better than the Hottentots and should receive the same treatment. It was the same man who represented England in the Congress of Berlin and of whom Bismarck said-because he quit when opposed by superior force-that he reminded him of a lath, painted to look like iron.

Salisbury was aided and was succeeded by his nephew, Arthur James Balfour, who became Premier of England, first Lord of the Admiralty, and a number of other high-sounding things, but who has never been able to wipe out the title of "Bloody Balfour" conferred upon him by the people of Ireland when be was chief secretary for Ireland, and, among other things, ordered the shooting, if necessary, by the troops, in cold blood, of the defenseless, unarmed people of Mitchelstown.

Balfour is still to the fore and is probably the chief governing force in England to-day, except in so far as he is displaced by his cousin, Lord Robert Cecil, son of the Marquis of Salisbury and father of the proposed League of Nationswhich would, if it became effective, undo the work of the revolution and put us in the position of again being a vassal state of England, subject to the control of the Cecils or any other landed aristocracy that might, in the future, control the destines of England and the world.

These are types of the men who dominate England, and, through her, control the British Empire. The little King George V, first cousin to the late Emperor of the Germans and the Czar of the Russians, at present represents the German royal family as King of England and Emperor of India.

He rules over every third person on earth and over almost every third square mile of land on earth. He is actually master of all the seas and is at the head of a government more powerful than any which ever before existed in all the history of mankind.

Englishmen like to say that King George reigns but does not rule. That is true. The real ruling force is that handful of aristocrats who represent the landed feudal aristocracy of England and who form the most absolute, most arbitrary and most powerful autocracy the world has ever seen.

ENGLAND MAKES OTHER NATIONS SUPPLY THE SOLDIERS.

The history of England differs from that of every other country. No other country before her has reached her dominant place among the empires of the earth. Rome approached nearer to England than did any other country in similarity of methods by which she acquired world control. Her imperial motto, "Divide et Impera," marked the policy by which she subdued almost the entire world of her day and ruled the known world without a rival for centuries.

The gen

But Rome acquired most of her power through her own soldiers. erals who led her armies to victory were of Roman blood; the soldiers who swept everything before them on the field of battle were Roman legions, who found few who could stand before them. They risked their own lives, their own blood, for the quarrels of their country, in order that her will might be imposed upon other countries.

England has improved on all this. She follows the Roman motto, but because England leaves the control of the policy of her government in the hands of her diplomats, other nations, other races, are made to supply the generals who win the battles, and the soldiers who bleed, in order that England may grow great.

ENGLAND'S POLICY TAKES ADVANTAGE OF FRIEND AND FOE.

The policy which had its beginning under Henry the Eighth has been consistently carried forward, subordinating every other interest to that of the growth of England and the extension of her power. It has been carried on through all the ages by every government which comes into power in England, no matter what its domestic policy may have been.

Englishmen may differ upon domestic problems-upon questions of taxation, of education, of religion-but as against all foreigners they are a unit and their policy is always consistently to take advantage of all openings given them throughout the world, to make and unmake alliances, to make and break treaties, to take advantage of friend and foe in order to add to the wealth and power of England and to break down those who have stood against her. One of the results of this policy is seen to-day in the proud boast of England that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Her flag flies in triumph over territory in every continent and in most of the important islands of the seas. It is carried aloft as the flag controlling the power of every sea of the world. Her forts guard practically all the great narrow waterways of the earth, with the exception of the Panama Canal. Yet here, by reason of her extraordinary influence over American legislation, England has acquired for her commerce all the rights and privileges enjoyed by American commerce, although the Panama Canal belongs to us, was built by America and paid for by America's treasures.

MOLDING PUBLIC OPINION OF THE WORLD.

Another and, if possible, more important result of this policy of England is the extraordinary control she has gained over public opinion in every country in the world. Her soldiers have won battles for her on land, her admirals have won fights at sea, but these are as nothing when compared to the triumph of her diplomats. No group of men in the history of the world can compare in skill, in adroitness, in finesse, in influence, with the diplomats of England.

The visible British Empire is an external monument of their triumph, but the invisible British Empire, with its control of influences in every government on earth, its thousand and one ways of making opinion through the press, the magaznes, the pulpits, the schools, of every race and in every clime, is a vaster, more far-reaching monument of their finesse, their adroitness, their ability to make black seem white.

The Romans were satisfied with their triumph at arms. When their soldiers had beaten down those of the opponent, the generals and princes of the vanquished were brought to Rome and made to walk sub jugo through the streets, chained to the wheels of the chariot of the Roman Consul.

The English diplomat, more skilled in human nature, more subtle, more farreaching in his plans, is not satisfied with such outward marks of triumph. He carries on a campaign throughout the world, to justify his actions, and, if possible, to ease his own conscience. As an example:

ENGLAND ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE SOUL OF IRELAND.

Even though England by brute force has been in possession of the body of Ireland for centuries, the English diplomat continues his fight to destroy the soul of Ireland. Even though he has proclaimed, at the birth of each succeeding generation, that he has again conquered Ireland, he still keeps looking in vain for a declaration from the people of Ireland that they have been conquered. He tells himself that he has beaten the Irish because of the thousand and one cruelties he has practiced upon them, but he knows in his heart that he can not conquer the Irish people while one man and one woman of Irish blood survive.

He knows if the world does not know-that the people of Ireland want absolute independence. He has been able with a thousand subterfuges to confuse the thought of the world on the question of what Ireland wants, but he can not deceive himself.

The Balfours and Cecils of this generation know, as well as Burleigh, their relative, in the days of the reign of Elizabeth knew, that what Ireland wants is to have England get out of Ireland, bag and baggage, and leave the people of Ireland to govern their own country in their own way.

IRELAND IS UNITED FOR ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE.

In the last analysis, the question between England and Ireland is simplicity itself. There are two nations, each of which wishes to rule, govern, own Ire land. One is the Irish nation, to whom Ireland belongs, for whom it was set apart by God Almighty Himself from all the rest of the world.

The Irish people have dwelt in Ireland for thousands of years, distinct and separate in a hundred ways from all other peoples, set apart in nature, in thought, in language, in custom from the rest of the world, marked by the hand of God with an individuality all their own.

The Irish people have their own strength, their own virtues, their own gifts, their own weaknesses, but differ from and are different to any and all other races of men. The Irish people have absorbed all other strains of blood that have gone into the strange country of Ireland so as to have made strangers I who have gone there, after a few generations, an integral part of themselves, or, as an old writer phrased it, "more Irish than the Irish themselves."

The other nation that wishes to own, govern, and rule Ireland is the English nation, belonging to England but foreign to Ireland. A nation of great gifts, great failings; a nation that may yet, in the providence of God, reach the point where it can be made to see that it will be greater to conquer themselves than to conquer a city or a world; greater to bring peace, contentment, and opportunity for decent living, not to some portion of itself but to all its people, so that it may not be said in the future, as it was said in the past, in a recent report of a British commission, that one-third of the people of England did not have a week between themselves and starvation.

IRELAND ONLY WANTS WHAT BELONGS TO HER.

If the question between Ireland and England were between two individuals, no jury sitting in any part of America would have any difficulty in disposing of the matter. Ireland does not ask anything of England except to be let alone. She wants only what belongs to her. She wants only that which was her own. She wants to govern herself and her own people in her own way, according to her own standards, and with absolute religious freedom and political equality for all of her children.

Ireland does not ask one inch of territory that is not contained within the four seas of Ireland. She does not ask to impose her will upon a single person who dwells beyond her shores. She appeals to the free people of the earth for the opportunity to go her own way, in peace and harmony with all the rest of mankind. She offers not alone to forgive, but so far as she can, even to forget past dealings with England and to dwell in peace and amity and concord with England as a neighbor.

But she refuses, as she has refused for 750 years, to permit the strangerEngland-to govern her, to control her resources, to shut her off from contact with the other nations of the earth, to keep her out of her high place among the nations. She says, with the voice of a united people-not in a quarrelsome way, but in the quiet voice of reasoned judgment—that as she has fought for

750 years for her independence, so she is prepared to fight, if necessary, as long again in order to attain that independence, and to resume her place among the independent nations.

Her sons say for her, quite calmly, with knowledge of the fact that though scattered all over the world, they yet remain a great race, that England with all her power,' with all her subtlety, with all her barbarity, can not destroy them or wipe them out. That the fight which England waged through so many centuries can only end when England shall withdraw her last soldier from Ireland and leave that country, which she has been robbing for centuries, to govern and rule herself.

The diplomat of England has succeeded in many parts of the world as has no other diplomat in the history of mankind, but he has failed in Ireland as absolutely and completely as any diplomat has failed in other parts of the world.

It may be said without exaggeration that England has tried for centuries every form of tyranny, of cruelty, of inhumanity in her treatment of the people of Ireland. Her chief spokesman, Lloyd-George, admitted in the House of Commons last year that England had made an absolute failure of her government of Ireland, and that to-day she was as unpopular with the mass of the people of Ireland as she was in the days of Oliver Cromwell.

BELGIAN ATROCITIES DUPLICATED A HUNDRED-FOLD IN IRELAND.

In the early stages of the late Great War, the world was made familiar with the story of the treatment the Belgians received in their own country at the hands of the invaders. It was but the recital and summary of England's treatment of Ireland. Not an atrocity was charged against the Germans in Belgium, not a cruelty was practiced, not a crime committed, which could not be duplicated one hundred-fold in England's treatment of Ireland.

Proof of this fact need only be taken from the admissions of English historians; from the declarations of English statesmen-the only difference between Belgium and Ireland being that the atrocities in Belgium extended over a period of three or four years, while the atrocities of England in Ireland have extended over the centuries.

Belgium to-day, with a chorus of thanksgiving from all over the world, has resumed her place among the free nations of the earth and is to be indemnified in so far as money can indemnify a suffering country for losses sustained.

Ireland to-day, after seven and a half centuries of greater suffering still lies prostrate at the feet of England, while English statesmen, with a smug hypocrisy all their own, dilate with well-stimulated astonishment on the dreadful fact that England can not leave Ireland to be governed by Irishmen, because, forsooth, the Irish can not agree politically among themselves.

NO SUCH POLITICAL UNANIMITY EXISTS ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD.

The fact is, however, that there is in Ireland to-day a degree of political unanimity greater than exists in any other country on earth-very much greater than that which exists in England, where Lloyd-George and his confreres are kept in power through a political coalition between eight different groups, and much greater than exists in our own country.

Ireland is the only country in the world in which a plebiscite has been taken since the armistice was declared last November. The result of that plebiscite was that the people of Ireland, by a vote of more than three to one, declared in favor of absolute separation from England and in favor of the establishment of an Irish republic.

This was on the 14th of last December. On the 21st day of January of this year the elected representatives of the people of Ireland met in convention at the Mansion House in the city of Dublin, declared the existence of the Irish republic, and made an appeal to the free peoples of the earth for its international recognition.

In furtherance of that appeal, Eamon de Valera, president of the Irish republic, and several members of the Dail Eireann (Irish congress) are now in this country. They seek to lay before the people of America actual conditions as they exist in Ireland to-day. They ask a hearing in order that America may understand that what the people of Ireland are asking is full recognition of their status as a free and independent people.