The
soul is stunted in its growth, and spiritual life made subordinate to
material interests. To deny essential freedom to the soul is the
greatest of all crimes, and such denial has in all ages evoked the
deepest anger among men. When freedom has been threatened nations have
risen up maddened and exultant, and the clang of martial arms has been
heard and the stony kings of the past have been encountered in battle.
In Ireland we shall have our greatest fight of all to gain this freedom:
not alone material independence for man, but the freedom of the soul,
its right to choose its own heroes and its own ideals without let or
hindrance by other men.
We have many of the vices of a slave race, and we treat others as we
have been treated. Our national aspirations were overborne by material
power, and we in turn use cudgel and curse on our countrymen when they
differ from us in opinion and policy. Men, when they cannot match their
intellect against another's, suppress him and howl him down, putting
faith in their own brainlessness. I would make the most passionate plea
for freedom in Ireland: freedom for all to say the truth they feel or
know.
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