certainly less open
to question than the right of Englishmen or Americans to express their
sympathy with Cubans bent on sundering the last link which binds Cuba to
Spain, or with Greeks bent on overthrowing the authority of the Sultan
in Crete.

But for all American citizens of whatever race, the expression of such
sympathies ceases to be legitimate when it assumes the shape of action
transcending the limits set by local or by international law. It is of
the essence of American constitutionalism that one community shall not
lay hands upon the domestic affairs of another; and it is an undeniable
fact that the sympathy of the great body of the American people with
Irish efforts for self-government has been diminished, not increased,
since 1848, by the gradual transfer of the head-quarters and machinery
of those efforts from Ireland to the United States. The recent refusal
of the Mayor of New York, Mr. Hewitt, to allow what is called the "Irish
National flag" to be raised over the City Hall of New York is vastly
more significant of the true drift of American feeling on this subject
than any number of sympathetic resolutions adopted at party conventions
or in State legislatures by party managers, bent on harpooning Irish
voters. If Ireland had really made herself a "nation," with or without
the consent of Great Britain, a refusal to hoist the Irish flag on the
occasion of an Irish holiday would be not only churlish but foolish. But
thousands of Americans, who might view with equanimity the disruption of
the British Empire and the establishment of an Irish republic, regard,
not only with disapprobation, but with resentment, the growing
disposition of Irish agitators in and out of the British Parliament to
thrash out on American soil their schemes for bringing about these
results with the help of Irishmen who have assumed the duties by
acquiring the rights of American citizenship. It is not in accordance
with the American doctrine of "Home Rule" that "Home Rule" of any sort
for Ireland should be organised in New York or in Chicago by
expatriated Irishmen.

No man had a keener or more accurate sense of this than the most
eloquent and illustrious Irishman whose voice was ever heard in America.

In the autumn of 1871 Father Burke of Tallaght and San Clemente, with
whom I had formed at Rome in early manhood a friendship which ended only
with his life, came to America as the commissioned Visitor of the
Dominican Order. His miss