THE REPUBLIC FIRST

Labor agrees with Sinn Fein not only that Irish industry must be developed
but also that Ireland must have independence. After the national war, the
class war must come. First freedom from exploitation by capitalistic
nations, and then freedom from capitalistic individuals. Many socialists,
it is said, do not understand why Ireland should not plunge at once into
the class war. It was a matter of regret to James Connolly that many of his
fellow socialists the world over would never understand his participation
in the rebellion of 1916. Nora Connolly, the smiling boy-like girl who
smokes and works by a grate in Liberty Hall, says that on the eve of his
execution, when he lay in bed with his leg shattered by a gun wound, her
father said to her: "The socialists will never understand why I am here.
They all forget I am an Irishman."

But James Connolly's fellow socialists in Ireland understand "why he was
there," They back his participation in the national war. And they know
every Irishman will. So they go to the workers and say: "Jim Connolly died
to make Ireland free." Then while the workers cheer, they swiftly show why
Connolly advocated the class war, too: "Jim Connolly lived to make Ireland
free. He believed that the world is for the man who works in it, but in
Ireland he saw seven-eighths of the people in the working class, and he
knew that to these people life means crowded one-room homes, endless
Fridays, no schools or virtually none, and churches where resignation is
preached to them. So his life was a dangerous fight to organize workers
that they might become strong enough to take what is theirs." At Liberty
Hall, one is told that the martyr's name is magnetizing the masses into the
Irish Labor party. And, in order to propagate his ideas, the people are
contributing their coppers towards a fund for the permanent establishment
of the James Connolly Labor College.