of martial arms has been
heard and the stony kings of the past have been encountered in battle.
In Ireland we shall have our greatest fight of all to gain this freedom:
not alone material independence for man, but the freedom of the soul,
its right to choose its own heroes and its own ideals without let or
hindrance by other men.

We have many of the vices of a slave race, and we treat others as we
have been treated. Our national aspirations were overborne by material
power, and we in turn use cudgel and curse on our countrymen when they
differ from us in opinion and policy. Men, when they cannot match their
intellect against another's, suppress him and howl him down, putting
faith in their own brainlessness. I would make the most passionate plea
for freedom in Ireland: freedom for all to say the truth they feel or
know. What right have we to ask for ourselves what we deny to another?
The bludgeon at meetings is a blow struck against heaven. Those who will
not argue or reason are recreants against humanity, and are prowling
back again on all fours in their minds to the brute. It matters not in
what holy name men war with violence on freedom of thought, whether in
the name of God or nation they are enemies of both. We are only right
in controversy when we overcome by a superior beauty or truth. The
first fundamental idea inspiring an Irish polity should be this idea of
freedom in all spheres of thought, and it is most necessary to fight
for this because the devil and hell have organized their forces in this
unfortunate land in sectarian and secret societies, of which it might
be written they love darkness rather than light for the old God-given
reasons.

X.

Whenever in Ireland there has been a revolt of labor it too often finds
arrayed against it the press, the law, and the police. All the great
powers are in entente. The press, without inquiry, begins a detestable
cant about labor agitators misleading ignorant men. Every wild phrase
uttered by an exasperated worker is quoted against the cause of labor,
and its grievances are suppressed. We are told nothing about how
the worker lives: what homes, what food, his wage will provide. The
journalist holds up a moral umbrella, protecting society from the fiery
hail of conscience. The baser sort of clergyman will take up the parable
and begin advocating a servile peace, glibly misinterpreting the divine
teaching of love to prove that the lamb should lie down in