Page:A forgotten small nationality.djvu/38

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pendent, yet all are part of a great federation. We want Ireland to belong to this united Europe, and not to be a vassal of Great Britain, a province of the British Empire, governed without consent. Unless the United States is as whole-heartedly in favor of the freedom of Ireland as she is for the emancipation of Belgium, she cannot be true to her own principles. Her honor is involved and we look particularly to the Irish in America to remember the claims of the land of their fathers, when the day of reckoning comes.

I shall conclude by quoting from William Rooney's poem, "Dear Dark Head," which embodies in poetic form Ireland's lifelong dream for freedom. Speaking of the men who died for Ireland, he says:

"And though their fathers' fate be theirs, shall others
 With hearts as faithful still that pathway tread
Till we have set, Oh Mother Dear of Mothers,
 A nation's crown upon thy Dear, Dark Head?"

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