Mission of Thanks

Pale, sad, oval face.

Sharp nose.

Bushy brows, moustache.

Slender figure.

An Irishman answering to this description is expected to arrive at Manhattan on January 18th, in the premiere suite of the S. S. Homeric. He is William Thomas Cosgrave, President of the Irish Free State. "I cross the Atlantic," he said last week, "on a simple, non-political mission of thanks to the American people.... For many years, during our struggle for Irish independence, we received more than $15,000,000 from America every Christmas . . . . It is due in no small measure to America that our long drawn out struggle ... was brought to a successful issue .-. . . Besides thanking the American people through President Coolidge. I hope to meet as many Americans as possible. ..."

That President Cosgrave may meet as many Irish-Americans as possible during his projected 16 days in the U. S., it was announced that he would make a brief swing around Manhattan, through Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, with only a brief courtesy call at Washington. Irish folk rejoiced that soon two slender, sharp-nosed presidents would shake each other by the hand, cementing bonds of unity. Meanwhile they scanned and praised once more the dynamic, fateful career of William Thomas Cosgrave.

A child, he studiously attended the strict Christian Brothers' schools in Dublin. A boy, he clerked over groceries. A youth, he espoused the passionate and patriotic doctrines of Sinn Fein. A man, he combined steady, profitable attention to business with such tireless subversion against the British that in 1916 he was sentenced to death, and only escaped under the general amnesty of 1917.

Although zealous, Mr. Cosgrave was not immediately conspicuous in a party of zealots. Elected a Deputy of the Dail Eireann, he advanced to cabinet rank in the Provisional Government; but in the spring of 1922 he was still little known to Irishmen. Yet when winter came he was, and is now President of the Irish Free State.

This destiny drew nigh when President Arthur Griffith of the Provisional Government found himself obliged to go to London in the summer of 1922, and appointed as his deputy in Dublin his warm personal friend William Thomas Cosgrave. On Aug. 12 President Griffith died. Ten days later the Government was further smitten by the assassination of its next most prominent leader, Michael Collins. With Griffith and Collins dead, the presidential toga descended upon Mr. Cosgrave, and he was formally elected President on Dec. 6, 1922.

Although the Cosgrave Government is now solidly in power it is menaced by the stubborn faction of famed Eamon de Valera. He collected campaign funds of $150,000 for the last Irish Free State election (TIME, Oct. 24), raising $5,000 in Ireland and $145.000 in the U. S. and Australia. Mr. de Valera is now in the U. S., again soliciting campaign funds; and it is to checkmate him that President Cosgrave comes to the U. S.--however loudly he may protest that his mission is "non-political."