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Show Ireland's Appeal Co Jfinciica m BY MICHAEL DAVITT. It about tiiu'1 Ireland recognized the fact that a most imperative duty appeals to her undivided energies before it is tooo late, namely, the duty of saving Ireland to the Irish people. 'This, my friends, is the supreme danger now threatening Ireland, the cause of Avhich avc are assembled as-sembled here today to uphold, and it is to cmpha-siizc cmpha-siizc the peril vith Avhich the continued emiera-tion emiera-tion of our people to American menace the hold of the Celtic rarcc on Ireland that mas mainly brought mc once again to this side of the Atlantic. I wa shere in this city addressing the Irish societies soci-eties of Chicago fifteen years a?ro today. Within that time fully SuO.OOO young men and young avo-men avo-men have crossed fvom Ireland to these l" nited Sttaes, not to return, but to remain. AlloAving half of these to have been njen. the loss to Ireland ! and the gain to the republic Auld be a quarter of a million of the youngest and .brawniest, of our manhood. In all human probability as many more young people will follolw in the footsteps of these already here during the next fifteen yiirs. 'By the end of thH- generation, unless this deadly dead-ly drain is arrested, thi' Celts in Ireland -will be in a minority; which means' iJiat the conquest- ot our country, after its hundrcrds' pf years of resiance, will. have been all but consummated. The notion obtains in many minds here 5k America that nothing Avould haA-e been or could , have been done at home dining the past tAventy years Avere it not for the unstinted monetary support sup-port which has floAved across the Atlantic. Thar is a delusion. It is not America that has beetn pouring its treasures out to Ireland, but the other way about. Forty thousand of our young people come here from the old land every year to addd to the wealth-producing power of the- states. Economically Econo-mically valued, these emigrants arc worth $1,000 each lo ihe industrial assets of Uncle' Sam. This amounts to the tidy sum of $-0.0000.0(Y annually contributed to the United States' stock of Avealth-producing Avealth-producing energies by one of tho poorest European countries. Since I spoke here last, Ireland ha in this manner enriched this country to th extent ot tjinoo.ooi'.ooo Avortn or an unearnea inrrerjicm or wealth-producing power. We, surely, are entitled to a modicum of return sympathy from the land which Ireland's offspring have benefited to this enormous en-ormous extent. And now, what are our oavh kith and kin doing, anyhow, for the cause of the land of their birth? Unquestionably, you are helping England a thousand thou-sand times more than you are aiding up, though you are doing it not with that motive or intention. Every boy and girl encouraged to come out here is a loss to Ireland and a gain to England politically politic-ally that is, there is a weakening of our resisting forces, a lessening the Celtic volume of our population, popu-lation, Avhich lessens aso the strength with which we are still to carry on the struggle for" nationhood. nation-hood. Every ocean passage paid for here and gent to Ireland is so much money paid to indtve a young man or- woman to desert the country at;d leave England with a weaker Ireland to keep down. It is also right you should remember that with this eternal drainage of the very best of our youth away from the country, there is the double injury done to Ireland of causing her to lose her AAeaKli-producers AAeaKli-producers just when she has completed their education edu-cation and equipment for industrial pursuits, and that there is no hope of their offsprirng being added add-ed to a population thus doubly weakened' My friends, it will be one of the cruellest iron-, ies in human history if it turns out. as it threatens to do, that the A'ery people whom English rule has driven in the past from our country to the United States, are destined to conquer for England by enticing en-ticing the remainder of the Celtic people to desert the common fathprland. .It is. pf course, held that the people who come here from Ireland are induced to come because 4i;: ,.c.,.f., :n i, ,..,i i ti,). tneir prospects win do improved tnereDv. mac has been the case in the past, I admit. Millions of our people haA'c been bettered, materially, under the conditions' of freeedom and progress which obtain ob-tain here, and the race itself has gained in strength and 'fibre by the change. But there is a rational limit to CA'ery movement beyond which an evil is created that more than balances the advantage hitherto accruing. It is not noAV the poor who come here from Ireland to improve themselves, but the fairly well-to-do sons and daughtersr of comfortable comfort-able farmers. It is the poor Avho are left behind, and here, again, is yet another dealy injury inflicted in-flicted upon our country by our oavu race, against Avhich there appears to be no adequate remedy. I know America, I think, as well as most observers who travel. I am familiar with the life of your manufacturing centers, of your mines and other industrial avocations, and I unhesitatingly assert that life in Ireland today, for a boy or girl of the aA'erage farminer class ,is a better life in every Avay, and must be a happier life than life is here under jour trying climatic conditions, and the AA-age-earning' pursuits oav your mills and mines. My message, my friends, from home, is not one of discouragement or of despair. Quite the contrary; con-trary; it, is a message summed up in the Avords "Sursum corda." Celtic Ireland is neither dead i n sleeping. Our people are becoming more Irish in senti-Uitiit. senti-Uitiit. action and language' every day. The agreement for the revival of the Celtic tongue, Gaelic mu.sic and literature is one of almost al-most boundless hope for the future national avcI-fare avcI-fare of our race. We are demanding fuller protection protec-tion for the country's homestead, better education for its children, more opportunities for culture, more scientific methods ot industry and CAery encouragement en-couragement that can be giA'en to build up the social so-cial happiness of our people. And if you here in America "will not conquer Ireland for England by continuing to induce the residue of our population to desert their country and to make an unnecessary unneces-sary addition to the 80,000.000 inhabitants of this republic; if you will, on the contrary, aid us to fully protect the homes of Ireland, and thus help the domestic life of our country, Avith all its traditional tradi-tional Ioac of faith, fatherland and virtue, to rebuild re-build again aur dispeopled villages, hamlets and toAAns with a better educated and better equipped Celtic race, no laAA-s. or power, or empire on earrh can long withhold from our land the croAvning iy, right and blessing of Irish freedom. |