By WILLIAM GALLACHER

Who fears to speak of Ireland
a Nation ?’ is still key question

N° country has suffered more
from imperialist oppressors
than Ireland. The centuries-long
- struggle of the Irish people. is a
story of appalling suffering, of
famine, oppression and martyr-
dom. -

Generation after generation it
went on. Thousands driven from
their homes and forced to seek’ a
_ new life in strange lands, thou-

sands more arrested and sent to
the “penal” colonies as criminals
for whom slave conditions of
labor were the rule.

If ever a people had reason to
hate the oppressors it was and is
the Irish people. The bones of
the millions who died of hunger,
like the blood of the martyrs,
should be a memory that nothing
ean erase.

e@ .
I was born and spent my early
years in an Irish colony in my
home town,-Paisley. The “Irish
Question” was the continual sub-
ject of discussion by the older
people. The Boys of Wexford, The
Wearin’ 0’ the Green and other
such songs were to be heard by
day and by night. And ever along
with these the challenging slogan,
“Who Fears to Speak of Ireland
a Nation?”

- Who fears to speak? Not an
Irishman in our neighborhood,
nor in any other Irish neighbor-
hoods. I know. I had to wait a
long time before I found: an ans-
wer to that question.

It is a_favorite trick of the
capitalists and their labor lack-
_ eys to blame all that happens in
the world, if it is against their in-

terests, on the Communists. <

Until the revolution in Russia
in 1917 or until Communist
parties were formed in many
countries around 1920, there was
no trouble of any kind in the
_ happy world of capitalism. The
workers loved their bosses and
-the colonial people gladly kissed
the jackboots of their oppressors.
At least that’s the impression one
would gather from the present-
day spate of propaganda.

But Ireland, apart from all

other areas of’ affliction, was “the

most distressful country,” long
before, centuries before, the re-
volution in Russia or the forma-.
tion of the Communist parties.
The tsars were still on the
throne of Russia, when the Kelly
family, like so many thousands of
others were driven out of Ireland
to seek a home in Australia. They
were still on the throne when
Wolfe Tone made his heroic bid

WHERE'S THE EDITOR? — HE'S. IN JAIL

for Irish freédom, when Finton
Lawler was proclaimed Ireland:
“a nation one and indivisible,”
and when the Irish Martyrs were
hanged in Manchester.
e

Yes, and the tsar was on the

throne when Connolly and Pearce |

marched out on to the streets of
Dublin at Easter 1916 and chal-
lenged the might of British im-
perialism.

That great rising was crushed.
Connolly badly wounded, was
court-martialled while dying in
bed, and after sentence of death

was passed, was carried out to the .

prison ‘yard in a chair and shot to
death.

WILLIAM GALLACHER

When his widow applied for his
body so that she might bury him
according to the rites of the Cath-
olic Church, her request was
spurned by the military authori-

‘ties and the British government

‘of which Arthur Henderson, pious
Labor leader (he was a lay preach-
er), was a member.

For six years Irish men and
women battled against the armed
might of Britain. |

But the rising, even though
‘crushed, aroused the spirit of the
Irish to a higher point of intensity
than ever before. The Republic
had been proclaimed and Irish-
men had died defending it. “Who
fears to speak of Ireland a Na-
tion?” — a nation long suppressed
but re-born on the streets of Dub-
lin and baptised with the blood of

the heroes of the Citizens’ Army

and the Irish Republican Army.
The British press kept up a con-

stant barrage of evil propaganda.

The courageous men and women

Krokodil looks at

Not long ago a sensational dis-
covery was made — nothing
less than the existence of a free
press in the United States. Na-
turally it was not possible to
make this discovery in the U.S.
itself. The freedom of the Am-
erican press was discovered in a
»Soviet magazine, Krokodil.
Intimated by Senator McCarthy,
people who work on the U.S. radio
do. not read the Communist news-
paper, the New York Daily Work-
er.
even suspected until now that a
free press existed in the US.
But some of them happened to
have noticed an article from the
~ Daily Worker republished in
 Krokedil. That was the birth of

this sensational discovery. Not —
by simple empirical means but —

by complicated logical deduction
the U.S. radio reached this con-

The U.S. Communist party

publishes its own newspaper.

That is why. they have- not”

rk! Se tia ar ee

The newspaper is not called to
account by the government and
its publishers and staff are not
punished. ' General conclusion:
The United States has a free
press. .

A stupendous discovery! What
iron-clad logic! Incidentally Am-
ericans would have known some-

what earlier that they were the .

happy possessors of a free press
had the: distribution’ of Krokodil

not been forbiddert in the US.— |

no doubt in the name of the afore-

- mentioned freedom of the press.

That’s what hasty measures lead
to! : ,
We shall not enter into polemic

with the American radio, we shall 23

limit ourselves to illustrating its
conclusions about the U.S. press

by a few scenes from life. The
truth and accuracy of these little”

scenes which reflect the events
of the past three years, will, we
trust, not’ be controverted even

_by the. Voice of America. —

who were fighting for Irish liber-
ation were described as “bandits,”
“terrorists,” “gun-men,” “coward-
ly murderers” just in much the

_ same way as are the Malayans to-

day.

The “Black and Tans” were let
loose to carry out the most bar-
barous activities, but the Irish
could not be subdued. In Britain
feeling among the workers, des-

_ pite malicious propaganda, was

steadily rising. Protests were flow-
ing in from all quarters of the
country, so Lloyd George and his
power-crazy crony Winston Chur-
chill started to manoeuvre—very
clever and very tricky they were.

They got the Irish representa-
tives over to London and succeed-
ed in seducing them away from
the Republic to a compromise
that made a balanced economy
for Ireland impossible and gave

Britain control of its most indus- -

trial and strategic area.

While Griffiths and Collins were
in London sacrificing the Trish
Republic, I was in Dublin with

Cathol Brugha, minister for war |
in the Republican government,

Liam Mellows, Madame Marke-
vich and others discussing what
had to be done in the new and
desperate situation.

For my heart had always been
with the struggle of the Irish peo-
ple. I was in prison in Edinburgh
when the rising took place, and
from there my heart went out to

my old comrade, Jim Connolly, .

and the poet, Padraic Pearse, who
led it. As soon as I got out of
prison I got in touch with the
“Rebels” and as chairman of the
Clyde Workers’ Committee (Shop
Stewards) was able to be of con-
siderable service.

Thad at that time a good word
for Archbishop Mannix. He was

‘with the people struggling to be

free. But not any more. Ireland

is now betrayed by Irishmen.

Servile, soulless Irishmen, who
have pushed their way into the
labor movement as reliable men
against the Communists and who.
in the process have turned their
backs on Ireland and even par-
ticipated in its final betrayal.

So when we put the question
“who Fears to Speak of Treland
a Nation?” we can give the
answer, “Irishmen who as the
right wing of the labor movement
seek to deceive Irish Catholic
workers and keep them if they
can at the mercy of the oppres-
sors of Ireland, to be used for the
purpose of oppressing other peo-
ples.”

Scene: The Editorial Offices of
the New York Daily Worker
“May I see the editor, John
Gates, please?” :
“Only by permission of the
prison authorities”
“D’you mean to say the editor
of the Daily Worker does not re-
ceive visitors in his office?” _
“No, he can see them only in
prison on special days. Good
morning.” : j

“Good morning! Long live our.

free American press!”
me \

“Ig the Daily Worker corre-

spondent James Dolsen free right
now?” ie
“No, mister, he ain’t.”

“How long will he be? .I could -

wait a little” ~

~ “Certainly, if you want to.

He’ll be free in twenty years.”

“Oh, I can’t wait that long. |

Long live our glorious free Am-
erican press.” _ ope
“Can you tell me please which

cell is?

British ‘Equal Pay’ campaign

Hundreds of women assembled outside the British House of |
Conimens on March 8 to cheer a delegation arriving with two monster
Equal Pay” petitions with a total of 680,000 siqnatures. The “Equal
Work, Equal Pay” campaign is being conducted by the Whitley Council
National Staff Side, National and Local Government Officers’ Associa
tion and National Union of Teachers. March 9 was marked throug” .
out Britain as “Equal Pay” day. Here a group is shown parading neat
the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragette leader, in Lo™

don’s Victoria Tower Gardens.

The compromise Lloyd George
and Churchill succeeded in get-
ting Griffiths and Collins to ac-

cept, meant that the industrial ~

head of Ireland (the six counties)
was cut off from the agricultural
body.

The partition of Ireland left a

British puppet government in the

North and an Irish government
with a completely unbalanced
economy in the South. Stronger
and ever stronger grew the cam-

' paign for the removal of parti-

tion, for “an Irish Republic, one
and indivisible.”

When the de Valera govern-
ment succeeded the Cosgrove
government, it ended the “Irish
Free State” and proclaimed itself
the Republic of Eire, this being
the Gaelic for Ireland. But it was
only a pious resolution.
governs only what was known as
the “Trish Free State” and it has
no jurisdiction whatever over the
Northern Counties.

When the Labor government. ©

came into power in Britain in
1945, the Irish people actually

vaunted U.S. freedom of the press

is editor Walter Lowenfels’ of-
ficegee 4 ;

“You want to know where his
‘ : In the federal peniten-
tiary, mister.” "

“Thank you. Three cheers for
the freedom of the American
press.”

* * *

“ should like to hand in this’

manuscript to Alexander Trach-

tenberg’s publishing firm. When

does he receive authors?”
“Parcels may be handed. in at
the prison-on specified days.”
,Am I free to hand in anything
I want?” ‘
“Yep, you're free to hand any-
thing in and the prison authori-
ties are free not to accept it.”

“Long live the freedom of the

American press!”

Scene: Some Other Newspaper
_ Offices

“Where is the editor of Politi-
cal Affairs, V. J. Jerome?”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 19, 1954 —

It still.

' out of a job he’ll have plenty

believed that it would adhere to
“Socialist” principles and remov®
partition. ‘
An .act of parliament takes
away from the British people the
power to right a great wrong of
petrated by Lloyd George 2%
Winston Churchill. This act ‘
parliament lays it down that pat
tition can never be removed, }
matter how strong the feelin
may be in Britain, without
consent of the small gang of
dictators in the six counties
‘Northern Ireland. it
That “Labor” act of parliamey
was the final betrayal of Irela”
and commits all Labor leade®
Trish included, to the Tory P? i
of permanent partition and po
manent British occupation of #@
land. :
Only the Communist party ss
Britain and the Communist party
in Northern Ireland take 4 yh
solute stand for an end of part :
tion — for “Ireland one and i,
‘divisible.’ Only a people’s go e
ernment in Britain can undo tb
wrongs so maliciously imP®
upon the Irish people. |

ry
of

“Jn prison.” * ¢pe
“Where is Al Richmond, —
managing editor of the San Fe

cisco People’s World?”
“In prison.” os
“And the northwest editor,
ry Pettus?”
“Tn prison.”

<=

Scene: A Factory
_ “Hiya, boss.” © es
. “Hiya, Cherry! What’s new
‘Tye found out that Smii
secret reader of the Daily wor’
er.” : 4
“Put his name on the blac”,
and tell him he’s free from
morrow. I’m not one to oF
the freedom of my workers: og
“Long live American £re¢
boss.”
“You said it. When 9”
free time to read that paper.
@ Translated by Ralph *7
and reprinted from Kre
No.6) 1954, 2