1 Chicago, Ill., June 13, 1921. Mr. John N. Milholland
Lafayette Hotel,
Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Milholland: Many Thanks for your kind note. I had the pleasure of meeting
you when we were all here for the Republican Convention last year,
but it is not surprising if you miss remembering an odd one of the
multitude whom you saw. It is quite true that we have gone pretty far since last
November. Let me see if I can give you an idea. We began work on the new organization about December 1, and then
there were some delays occasioned by a state of uncertainty about
President De Valera, who had made some engagements in states where
they naturally waited for him, so that we did not get properly going
until January. Nevertheless, when the National Convention came along
on April 18, there were people here from thirty-three states and they
had paid in to the national treasury for their credentials $78,792,
which , at 25 cents each, (headquarters' share of the membership fee),
represented 320,000 members. Delayed returns brought the membership
total reported to May 1 to nearly 400,000. And there is a determined
effort being made, weather permitting, to reach a million by July 4
on our second wind. We shall certainly much exceed that number when
cool weather comes again. Meantime, and probably to the prejudice, temporarily, of the
membership campaign, our people are busy getting petitions signed
in the congressional districts. The flow to Washington has commenced,
and presently it will be a flood. I need not tell you that Massachusetts and New York are going
strong , but what will you say to 20,000 members in Minnesota, 15, 000
in North Dakota, 15,000 in Iowa, 5000 in Tennessee, 20,000 in Ohio,
20,000 in the Pittsburgh district of Pennsylvania, 60,000 in Chicago? Miss Mary Mac Swiney has just spent eight days in Illinois,
addressing splendid meetings in Rockford, Joliet, Princeton, La Salle,
Galesburg, Quincy, Peoria, Decatur and Danville. Overflows in several
places . In a fortnight she will be in Ohio, which has already given
great meetings to Lord Mayor O' Callaghan, and will speak at Sandueky,
Lima, Canton, Marion, Dayton, Youngstown and other places. Ohio has
heard more about Ireland than about any wholly American subject what -
soever these past few months. We shall have an intensive campaign along the Atlantic beaches
in July and August. Here are two items that will give you an idea of the strength
of the currents : × 2 1. I had Senator Norris' resolution printed as a poster and
sent out samples. We got orders for 20,000 from this office
from little places all over the country, and in the big places
they printed their own, e. g. Cleveland 2500, Philadelphia
will be placarded within this week. 2. About June 1 I sent out a letter calling attention to Senator
La Follette's speech. Already I have had to order 50,000
from the senator; Ohio ordered another 25,000, and we are
sending to Washington every day from 2000 to 5000 names. We
shall reach 100,000 by July 1. These names come to us with a
dollar for every hundred, which shows the keenness of our
people, and go out to people not in the Irish circle. A man
will spend a dollar to reform 100 of his non-Irish neighbors,
and we are nearing the 100,000 in three weeks'. As I dare say you know, both houses in Wisconsin and Illinois have
passed resolutions committing the people of their states to recognition,
and there have been single chamber pronouncements in Pennsylvania,
Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey- with more to come. Many cities are also
passing these resolutions. We got word of a couple of new ones almost
every day. You may believe, and you can confidently affirm, that the work of
making friends for Ireland is going on in nearly every congressional
district of importance. We have a newspaper service, backed up by
local publicity committees, reaching 800 newspapers in the twenty-one
states from which come the members of the Foreign Affairs and Foreign
Relations Committees. Led by Massachusetts, where our members will be at least 250,000
by the end of the year, our friends have decided to give the legal
notice of retirement from their primary affiliations in national and
state policies, holding themselves free to register later on as they
think best. You can see what this outpouring of activity means. We are
creating a state of mind, and this state of mind will be translated
into action, quickly, spontaneously, at a given time. It is not a
thing that can be mnchined or controlled, but will follow to instinct.
A friend was telling me the other day of how, when Mr. Harding was
teased into making a direct statement against the League at an Iowa
meeting, next morning everyone in our town was for Harding. Some-
thing like that is what will happen next November. Do not let anyone mislead you with the story that this work of ours
is aimed at the destruction of Judge Colyalan's organization, and that
we are only a faction, his friends another. Away from the seaboard, even
his name is not known, and our hundreds of thousands, a surprisingly large
percentage of whom are not Irish at all, have never heard his name. When
the Congressmen ask questions of their friends back home, they will learn
the truth. The people are for justice to Ireland and care nothing for
personalities. If they are wise, they will start their inquiries, for 3 this movement is already too strong in forty states to be controlled
or manipulated by any old line political experts. And, believe me,
it will be many times stronger if the military pressure against the
exercise in Ireland of freedom as Americans understand it becomes in-
creasingly more oppreseive and therefore more odious. We are proceeding through the holding of meetings, the distribution
of literature, the circulation of petitionss, the writing of letters and
the enlistment of members. Our friends are clamouring for a lead, and not
always waiting for it, in the matter of conscious preferment for American
as against English articles of commerce. The whole movement is amply
sustained by the individually trifling offerings of those who engage in
it. In short, I venture to say that outside the time America was actually
at war, there has been no other effort of the kind that has had anything
like the success of this one. I am going East tomorrow on a survey of one branch of the work. Our
mutual friend will know where to reach me in case you happen to be in
New York and care to waste a half hour. Hoping for the success of the personal efforts I know you are al-
ways making, and with all best wishes, Faithfully yours, JCW