Chapter 3

If Sinn Fein succeeded in getting separation, would it establish a bolshevistic government? DeValera returned that he was not sure what bolshevism is. As far as he understood bolshevism, Sinn Fein was not bolshevistic. But perhaps, by the way, bolshevism had been as misrepresented in the American press as Sinn Fein. Right there, I took exception and said that from his own point of view I did not see what good slurring the American press would do his cause. Immediately he answered as if only the principal phase of the matter had occurred to him: "But it's true." Then he continued: The worker is unfairly treated. Whether it is bolshevistic or not, Sinn Fein hopes to bring about a government in which there will be juster conditions for the laboring classes.

CAUSE AND REMEDY OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS.

The empire does not consider the cause of revolt.[1] But the republic is interested not only in the cause but also in the remedy.

Relief, the republic has said, must come through Sinn Fein--ourselves. Neither the Sinn Fein leaders nor the people believe in the power of the Irish vote in the British House of Commons. At the last general elections the Sinn Fein party pledged that if its members were elected they would not go to the British parliament, but would remain at home to form the Irish parliament, the governing body of the Irish republic. Dodgers explaining why Sinn Fein had decided to forego the House of Commons were widely distributed. These read: "What good has parliamentarianism been? For thirty-three years England has been considering Home Rule while Irish members pleaded for it. But in three weeks the English parliament passed a conscriptive act for Ireland, though the Irish party was solid against it." On this platform, Sinn Fein won seventy-three out of 105 seats.

If Sinn Fein is to relieve the social conditions in Ireland, it must, say Sinn Feiners, find out the cause. So they have pondered on this question: What is the cause of the unemployment in Ireland today? The answer to that question was the one point that the sharp-mustached, sardonic little Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, wanted the American delegates from the Philadelphia Race Convention to carry back to America.

It was revealed at a meeting of the Irish parliament specially called for the delegates. Cards were difficult to get for that meeting, and as each one passed through the long dreary ante-room of the circular assembly hall of the Mansion House, he was subjected to close scrutiny by the two dozen Irish volunteers on guard. In the civilian audience there was a sprinkling of American and Australian officers. Up on the platform was the throne of the Lord Mayor, in front of which sat the delegates--Frank Walsh, Edward F. Dunne, and Michael Ryan. In a roped-off semi-circle below the platform were deep upholstered chairs wherein rested the members of the Irish parliament. Countess Markewicz was, of course, the only woman there. White-haired, trembling-handed Laurence Ginnel, who is given long jail terms because he refuses to take his hat off in a British court, sat forward on his chair. The rich young Protestant named Robert Barton regarded the crowd through his shining eyeglasses. Keen, boyish Michael Collins, minister of finance, fingered the paper he was going to read. The last two men had recently escaped from prison and were wanted by the police--both, as they say in Ireland, were "on the run."

"England kills Irish industry," said the succinct Arthur Griffith as he rose from the right hand of DeValera to address the delegates. "Early in the nineteenth century, England wanted a cheap meat supply center. She therefore made it more profitable for the landowners in Ireland to grow cattle instead of crops. Only a few herders are required in cattle care. So literally millions of Irish, tillers of the soil and millers of grain, were thrown out of employment, and from 1841 to 1911 the population fell from 8,000,000 to 4,400,000. Today, Ireland, capable of supporting 16,000,000, cannot maintain 4,000,000."[2]

What is the Sinn Fein remedy for unemployment? Industry. Plans were then under way for DeValera to make his escape to America to obtain American capital to back Irish industry. But money was not to be his sole business. He was to work for the recognition of Irish consuls and Irish mercantile marine. And inside Ireland the movement to establish industry on a sound basis was going on. Irish banks, Irish courts, Irish schools are to sustain the movement. At present the English-controlled Irish banks handicap Irish entrepreneurs by charging them one per cent more interest than English banks charge English borrowers; therefore, a national bank is regarded as an imperative need. Decisions of British judges in Irish courts may hamper Irish industry; so in parts of the country perfectly legal courts of arbitration manned by Irishmen have been established. School children under the present system of education are trained neither to commerce nor to love of the development of their native land; accordingly a Sinn Fein school fund is now being collected so that the Irish parliament may soon be able to take over national education.

Sinn Fein could develop industry more easily if Ireland were free.[3] There is hope. It lies in Ireland's very lack of jobs. British labor does not like the competition of the cheap labor market next door. It rather welcomes the party that would push Irish industry. For with Irish industry developed Irish labor would become scarce and high. Already the British labor party has declared in favor of the self-determination of Ireland, and it is expected that with its accession to power there may be a final granting of self-determination to Ireland.

As we were leaving the Mansion House--to which some of us were invited to return to a reception for the delegates that evening--I found intense reaction to the speakers of the day. I asked a young American non-commissioned officer how he liked DeValera. He seemed to be as stirred by the name as the young members of DeValera's regiment who besiege Mrs. DeValera for some little valueless possession of the "chief's." The boy drew in his breath, and I expected him to let it out again in a flow of praise, but emotion seemed to get the better of him, and all he could manage was a fervent: "Oh, gee!" Then I came across young Sylvia Pankhurst, disowned by her family for her communist sympathies, and in Dublin for the purpose of persuading the Irish parliament to become soviet. The Irish speakers, she told me, were much to be preferred to the Americans. They used more figures and less figures of speech. And when I repeated her remark to Desmond Fitzgerald, a pink and fastidious member of parliament, he smilingly commented: "Well, we Irish are more sophisticated, aren't we?"

THE MAILED FIST

In the afternoon the curtain went up on a matinee performance of The Mailed Fist.

The first act was in the home of Madame Gonne-McBride. It was, properly, an exposition of the power of the enemy.

With Madame Gonne-McBride, once called the most beautiful woman in Europe, Sylvia Pankhurst, and the sister, of Robert Barton, I entered the big house on Stephen's Green. Modern splashily vivid wall coloring. Japanese screens. Ancient carved madonnas. Two big Airedales thudded up and down in greeting to their mistress. I spoke of their unusual size.

Madame Gonne-McBride, taking the head of one of them between her hands: "They won't let any one arrest me again, will they?"

She is tall and slim in her deep mourning--her husband was killed in the rebellion of 1916. Her widow's bonnet is a soft silky guipure lace placed on her head like a Red Cross worker's coif. On the breast of her black gown there hangs a large dull silver cross. Beggars and flower-sellers greet her by name. It is said that a large part of her popularity is due to her work in obtaining free school lunches. Anyway, there was great grief among the people when she was thrown into jail for supposed complicity in the unproved German plot. The arrest, she said, came one Sunday night. She was walking unconcernedly from one of George Russell's weekly gatherings, when five husky constables blocked the bridge road and hurried her off to jail. At last, on account of her ill health, she was released from prison--very weak and very pale.

Enter seventeen-year-old Sean McBride. Places back against the door. Blue eyes wide. Breathlessly: "They're after Bob Barton and Michael Collins. They've surrounded the Mansion House."

Hatless we raced across Stephen's Green--that little handkerchief of a park that never seemed so embroidered with turns and bridges and bandstands and duck ponds before. Through the crowd that had already gathered we edged our way till we came to the double line of bayonets and batons that guarded the entrance to Dawson street. Over the broad, blue shoulder of the policeman directly in front of me, I glimpsed a wicked-looking little whippet tank with two very conscious British officers just head and shoulders out. Still further down were three covered motor lorries that had been used to convey the soldiers.

Sean, for the especial benefit of constable just ahead: "Wars for democracy and small nations! And that's the only way they can keep us in the British empire. Brute force. Nice exhibition for the American journalists in town."

Constable stalked Sean back to edge of crowd. Sean looked at him steadily with slight twinkle in his eye. Miss Barton, Miss Pankhurst, and I climbed up a low stone wall that commanded the guarded street, and clung to the iron paling on top. Sean came and stood beneath.

Miss Pankhurst, regarding crowd in puzzled manner: "Why do you all smile? When the suffragists were arrested we used to become furious."

Sean looking up at her in kindly manner in which old rebel might glance at impatient young rebel: "You forget. We're very used to this."

Miss Pankhurst made an unexpected jump from her place. She wedged her way to the line of soldiers. As she talked to two young Tommies they blushed and fiddled with their bayonets like girls with their first bouquets of flowers. Twice a British major admonished them.

Miss Pankhurst, returning: "Welsh boys. Just babies. I asked them why they came out armed to kill fellow workers. They said they had enlisted for the war. If they had known they were to be sent to Ireland they would have refused to go. I told them it was not too late to act. They could take off their uniforms. But they? They're weak--weak."

As dusk fell, party capes and tulle mists of head dresses began to appear between the drab or tattered suits of the bystanders. Among the coming reception guests was Susan Mitchell, co-editor with George Russell on _The Irish Homestead_.

Susan Mitchell, of constable: "Can't I go through? No? But there's to be a party, and the tea will get all cold."

In the courage of the crowd, the people began to sing The Soldiers' Song. It took courage. It was shortly after John O'Sheehan had been sentenced for two years for caroling another seditious lyric. A surge of sound brought out the words: "The west's awake!" Dying yokes. And a sudden right-about-face movement of the throng.

Crowd shouting: "Up the Americans!"

With Sinn Fein and American flags flying, the delegates' car rolled up to the outskirts of the crowd. A sharp order. The crowd-fearing bayonets lunged forward. Frank Walsh, looking through his tortoise-rim glasses at the steel fence, got out of his car. He walked up to the pointing bayonets, and asked for the man in charge.

Frank Walsh: "What's the row?"

The casualness of the question must have disarmed Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone of the Dublin Military Police. He laughed. Then conferred. While the confab was on, the Countess Markewicz slipped from Mr. Walsh's car to our paling. She was, as usual, dressed in a "prepared" style. She had on her green tweed suit with biscuits in the pockets, "so if anything happened."

Countess Markewicz, rubbing her hands: "Excellent propaganda! Excellent propaganda!"

The motor lorries chugged. Soldiers broke line, and climbed in. The people screamed, jumped, waved their hands, and hurrahed for Walsh. Mr. Walsh returned to his car. And in the path made by the heartily boohed motor lorries, the American's machine commenced its victorious passage to the Mansion House. In order to get through the crowd to the reception we sprang to the rear of the motor. Clinging to the dusty mudguard, I remarked to Miss Pankhurst that we would not look very partified. And she, pushed about by the tattered people, said she did not mind. Long ago she had decided she would never wear evening dresses because poor people never have them.

Last act. Turkish-rugged and velvet-portièred reception room of the Mansion House. Assorted people shaking hands with the delegates. Delegates filled with boyish glee at the stagey turn of events.

Frank Walsh: "Look! There's Bob Barton talking to his sister. Out there by the portrait of Queen Victoria--see that man in a green uniform. That's Michael Collins of the Irish Volunteers and minister of finance of the Irish Republic. The very men they're after.

"Is this a play? Or a dream?"

[Footnote 1. British propaganda, on the contrary, states that the Irish are not in the physical agony of extreme poverty. They are prosperous. They made money on munitions, and their exports increased enormously during the war.

"You could eat shell as easily as make it," was one of the first parliamentary rebuffs received by Irishmen asking the establishment of national munition factories at the beginning of the war, according to Edward J. Riordan. Mr. Riordan is secretary of the National Industrial Development Association. This is a non-political organization of which the Countess of Desart, the Earl of Carrick, and Colonel Sir Nugent Everard are some of the executive members. It was not until 1916 that Ireland secured consideration of her rights to a share in the war expenditure. In that year, an all-Ireland committee called on Lloyd George. He said: "It is fair that Ireland, contributing as she does not only in money but in flesh and blood, should have her fair share of expenditure.... I should be prepared to utilize whatever opportunities we can to utilize the opportunity this gives you to develop Ireland industrially." After persistent effort, however, all that the all-Ireland committee was able to get was five small munition factories. _The insignificance of these plants may be realized from the fact that at the time the armistice was declared there were only 2,250 workers in them._

As to trade increase:--when I was in Ireland in 1919, the last export statistics given out by the government were for 1916. In 1914 exports were valued at $386,000,000; in 1916, at $535,000,000. But, according to the Board of Trade, prices had doubled in that time, so that _if exports had remained stationary, their value should have doubled to_ $772,000,000.]

[Footnote 2. That England controls this industrial situation was made clear during the war. Then ship tonnage was scarce, and England's regular resources of agricultural supply were cut off. So England called on Ireland to revert to agriculture. Ireland's tillage acreage jumped from 2,300,000 in 1914 to 3,280,000 in 1918. This change in policy brought prosperity to some of the farmers, and Ireland's bank deposits rose from $310,000,000 in 1913 to $455,000,000 in 1917. But England is reestablishing her former agricultural trade connections. According to F.A. Smiddy, professor of economics at University college, Cork, a return to grazing has already commenced in Ireland, and _"prosperity" will last at most only two post-war years._]

[Footnote 3. British taxation saps Irish capital. The 1916 imperial annual tax took $125,000,000 put of Ireland and put back $65,000,000 into Irish administration. Irishmen argue that the excess might better go to the development of Ireland. Figures supplied Department of Agriculture, 1919.]

III

IRISH LABOR AND CLASS REVOLUTION

"A CHANGE OF FLAGS IS NOT ENOUGH."

In the sputtering flare of the arc lamp in front of Liberty hall stood squads of boys. Some of them wore brass-buttoned, green woolen waists, and some, ordinary cotton shirts. Some of them had on uniform knickers, and some, long, unpressed trousers. On the opposite side of the street were blocked similar squads of serious-eyed, high-chinned girls. Some of them were in green tweed suits, and others as they had come from work. They were companies of the Citizens' Army recruited by the Irish Labor party, and assembled in honor of the return of the Countess Markewicz from jail.

"Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the red flag flying here."

Young voices, impatient of the interim of waiting, sang the socialist song. The burden was taken up by the laborers, whose constant movement to keep a good view was attested by the hollow sound of their wooden-soled boots on the stone walks. And the refrain was hummed by the shawled, frayed-skirted creatures who were coming up from Talbot street, Gloucester street, Peterson's lane, and all the family-to-a-room districts in Dublin. On the skeletonish railroad crossing suspended over the Liffey, tin-hatted and bayonet-carrying British soldiers were silhouetted against the moon-whitened sky. Up to them floated the last oath of "The Red Flag":

"With heads uncovered swear we all, To bear it onward till we fall. Come dungeon dark or gallows grim, This song shall be our parting hymn."

Clattered over the bridge the horse-dragged brake. In the light of a search lamp played on it from an automobile behind, a small figure in a slouch hat and a big black coat waved a bouquet of narcissus. There was a surge of the block-long crowds and people who could not see lifted their hands and shouted: "Up the countess!"

As we waited in the light of the dim yellow bulbs threaded from the ceiling of the big bare upper front room of Liberty Hall, Susan Mitchell told me of "the chivalrous woman." The countess is a daughter of the Gore-Booth family which owned its Sligo estate before America was discovered. As a girl the countess used to ride fast horses like mad along the rocky western coast. Then she became a three-feathered débutante bowing at Dublin Castle. Later she painted pictures in Paris and married her handsome Pole. But one day some one put an Irish history in her hands. In a sudden whole-hearted conversion to the cause of the people, the countess turned to aid the Irish labor organizers. She drilled boy scouts for the Citizens' Army. She fed starving strikers during the labor troubles of 1913 with sheep sent daily from her Sligo estate. In the rebellion of 1916 she fought and killed under Michael Mallin of the Citizens' Army. She was hardly out of jail for participation in the rebellion when she was clapped in again for alleged complicity in the never-to-be-proved German plot. While she was in jail, she was elected the first woman member of parliament.

White from imprisonment, her small round steel-rimmed glasses dropping away from her blue eyes, and her curly brown hair wisping out from under her black felt hat, the countess embraced a few of the women in the room and exchanged handclasps with the men. Below the crowd was clamoring for her appearance at the window.

"Fellow rebels!" she began as she leaned out into the mellow night. Then with the apparent desire to say everything at once that makes her public speech stuttery, she continued: "It's good to come out of jail to this. It is good to come out again to work for a republic. Let us all join hands to make the new republic a workers' republic. A change of flags is not enough!"

Two oil flares with orange flame throwing off red sparks on the crowd, were fastened to the brake below. It was the brake that was to carry "Madame" on her triumphal tour of Dublin. The boys of the Citizens' Army made a human rope about the conveyance. In it I climbed with the countess, the plump little Mrs. James Connolly, the magisterial Countess Plunkett, Commandant O'Neill of the Citizens' Army, Sean Milroy, who escaped from Lincoln jail with DeValera, and two or three others. Rows of constables were backed against the walls at irregular intervals. I asked Sean Milroy if he were not afraid that he would be re-taken, and he responded comfortably that the "peelers" would never attempt to take a political prisoner out of a gathering like that. As we neared the poverty-smelling Coombe district, the countess remarked that this, St. Patrick's, was her constituency. At the shaft of St. James fountain, the brake was halted. Shedding her long coat, and standing straight in her green tweed suit, with the plush seat of the brake for her floor, the countess told the cheering workers that she was going to come down to live in the Coombe. Heated with the energy of talking and throwing her body about so that her voice would carry over the crowd that circled her, the countess sank down on the seat. As the brake drove on, motherly little Mrs. Connolly tried to slip the big coat over the countess. But the countess, in one of those sudden meditative silences during which she seems to retain only a subconsciousness of her surroundings, refused the offer of warmth with a shrug of her shoulders. Then, emerging from her pre-occupation, she demanded of Sean Milroy:

"What have you planned for your constituency? I'm going to have a soviet."

THE WORKERS' REPUBLIC

Like the countess, the Irish Labor party wants a workers' republic. But it wants a republic first.

The Irish Labor party has been accused of accepting Russian roubles, of hiding bags of bolshevik gold in the basement of Liberty Hall. Whether it has taken Russian gold or not, it is frankly desirous of possessing the Russian form of government. James Connolly, who is largely responsible for the present Labor party in Ireland, was, like Lenin and Trotsky, a Marxian socialist, and worked for government by the proletariat. The Irish Labor party celebrated the Russian revolution by calling a "bolshevik" meeting and cheering under a red flag in the assembly room of the Mansion House. And in its last congress, it reaffirmed its "adherence to the principles of freedom, democracy, and peace enunciated in the Russian revolution."

How strong are the revolutionaries? The Irish Labor party is new but it already contains about 300,000 members.[1] It plans to include every worker from the "white collar" to the "muffler" labor. And the laborers alone make up seven-eighths of the population. For while there are just 252,000 members of the professional and commercial classes, there are 4,137,000 who are in agricultural, industrial and indefinite classes[2]--most of the farmers are held to be laborers because outside the great estates, holdings average at thirty acres and are worked by the holders themselves.[3]

There's the revolutionary rub. The Irish farmers make up the largest body of workers in Ireland. The Irish farmer sweated and bled for his land. Would he yield it now for nationalization? I put the question up to William O'Brien, the lame, never-smiling tailor who is secretary of the Irish Labor party. He said that the farm hand should be taken into consideration.

The farm hand would profit by nationalization. At present he is condemned to slavery. At a hiring fair--called a "slave market" by the labor unions--he stands between the mooing cows and snorting pigs and offers his services for sale for as little as $100 a year. He may wish to get more money. But his employer is also very often his landlord. What happens? In the spring of 1919, 35,000 farm hands went on strike. Lord Bellew of Ballyragget and Lord Powerscourt of Enniskerry used the eviction threat to get the men back to work, and in Rhode, evictions actually took place.