"But I want you to know," he told me, striking the table with his hand
and watching me carefully, "that I was dead against John Redmond for
saying that Ireland must go to the aid of England. Ireland's call was to
go to the aid of civilization. If Germany had stood for civilization, I
should have been on Germany's side and dead against England.
"I tell you, at the beginning of this business I longed to see England
defeated, humiliated, broken to the dust. But civilization is of such
enormous consequence that I put my natural hatred of England on one
side. The violation of Belgium made me an anti-German. And with the vast
majority of Irishmen in America it was the same thing. The menace of
German militarism forced us into your camp.
"I am perfectly certain that but for the violation of Belgium there
would have been in this country among Irish-Americans an open movement
publicly proclaimed in favor of Germany. That is my fixed opinion. And I
happen to know what I am talking about."
No Hatred of England.
I gathered in the course of his conversation that Irish friendliness
toward England is a final manifestation of a change in the feeling of
all America toward England.
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