These Irish-Americans have hated the ruling classes in England, not only for sins of the past but for the unworthy and most cruel opposition offered by those ruling classes, in the name of religious intolerance, to the ideals of the Irish Nation.

When Unionist politicians sneer at the subscriptions sent by Irish servant girls in America to help the cause of Ireland they should reflect that not only do they fail to make a good joke, not only do they exhibit a horribly bad taste, but they spread hatred of England through the thousands and thousands of people.  For it is the loyalty of the poorest of these Irish-Americans, the sacrifices perpetually made by the humblest of them, which should move us to see, as it has certainly moved the American people to see, that the cause of Irish liberty is noble and undying.

Religious Education.

With all my heart I would beg Unionists in England to reflect conscientiously upon this very significant state of affairs in America: 

A non-Catholic Bible used to be read in the public schools of America down to the year 1888.  A Catholic agitation against this Bible reading was begun in 1885, and in 1888 the custom was finally abolished.  From that date to this there has been no religious instruction of any kind in the public schools of America.

Bigotry and intolerance won that victory.  The Catholic Church, in its folly, destroyed religious teaching in the schools of the country.  Catholics themselves are now looking back on that agitation with religious repentance and political regret.

The result of this abolition is that Catholics and non-Catholics who believe in the importance of religious instruction, and who see the pagan effect of purely secular instruction, do not send their children to the public schools.

“These schools, for which Christians are heavily taxed, are in the possession of the Hebrews.  If nothing is done to alter the existing state of things Americans themselves assure me that in five-and-twenty years America will be a pagan country.  But a fight is to be made to avert this disaster at the Constitutional Convention to be held next month.

“What we have to do,” my Irish friend told me, “Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is to appeal for schools representing Catholic and non-Catholic teaching.  Instead of the various churches fighting against each other they must fight together, helping one another to get the schools they demand.  Only in this way can we save civilization.”

This is how the Irishman, breathing the free air of America, and in America rising to positions of extraordinary power and responsibility, views the foundational question of religion; while England allows herself to be dragged at the heels of the frothing fanatic who has actually dared to raise the unholy battle cry of “Rather the Kaiser than the Pope.”

Let the Unionist Party hesitate before it seeks to revive this hideous, utterly irrational and most unchristianlike spirit at the very heart of the British Empire.  The sower of hate is the reaper of death.