The Choice of Fights

" 'Tis a turrible fight," said the Irishman sadly as he rushed into battle, "but 'tis better than no fight at all."

Last week in a St. Patrick's Day radio speech to the U.S., Irishman Eamon de Valera explained why he had preferred no fight at all. "There were those," he said, "who . . . would have us believe that by our neutrality, we had lost American good will. . ." Eire's Prime Minister never believed it.

"If a small state is on the losing side," said the spiritual descendant of the great warriors Cuchulainn and Brian Boru, "it can be utterly annihilated. If [it] is on the winning side, it has no means of [enforcing] the principles for which it fought."

At the end of these pacific remarks, Mr. de Valera invited Americans to take his side in the fight for a united Ireland. "Abraham Lincoln fought a bitter civil war.... There are," suggested Dev, "few Americans who today would say that the ideals for which he fought were wrong."

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