From The Gaelic American, November 17, 1917.
New York, November 13, 1917.
Editor of THE GAELIC AMERICAN:
Sir. – The statement published by the New York press on November 11 and 12 as coming from Chief Lynn, to the effect that two documents were found on me or among my papers, one addressed to “My dear Mr. D,” the other purporting to be a statement in my handwriting regarding Sir Roger Casement’s connection with the Irish Revolution of 1916, and the orders and countermanding orders issued by President Pearse and Eoin MacNeill, is false in every particular.
I never had these documents in my possession and I never saw the letter addressed to “My dear Mr. D.” The document regarding the Easter Week Rebellion I had seen, as copies of it have been circulated in this country for more than a year. Instead of being, as Chief Flynn claims, “the official Sinn Féin version of the Uprising,” it is the defence of a recalcitrant Volunteer officer of his attempt to prevent the Rebellion, and who, since Easter Week, 1916, has had nothing whatever to do with either Sinn Féin or the Irish Volunteers.
The suggestion attributed to Chief Flynn that I was in Germany in 1916 is also false. I was never in Germany in my life.
If it is the custom in America to try and condemn a man in the newspapers before he is haled to court, it speaks badly for all that we, in Ireland, have looked up to as “Americanism” and “American institutions.”
To have taken part in a fight for the freedom of Ireland, is a crime, according to the New York press, notwithstanding all that has been uttered by President Wilson regarding the “freedom of small nations and the rights of democracy.”
To fight for conquered Belgium is a virtue; to fight for unconquered Ireland is a sin. I leave the matter there.
LIAM MELLOWS.