Republican publicity feature titled 'Mr. Kevin O'Higgins' attacks on President De Valera'

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Edmund Herald Re - Mr. KEVIN O'HIGGINS ' ATTACKS ON P ESIDENT DE VALERA Mr. Kevin O'Higgins seems obsessed by a vicious hearted of President De Valera. He seems incepable of opening his mouth without emitting some venomous personal attack. I have wondered a few times lately if he was trying by doliberate vilification of the President, to work up antagonism in the minds of the people as he and his colleagues tried to do in the case of Erakine Childers and for the same purpose. REASONS FOR THE TRUCK: 1. England asked for it - in itself a sign that she knew she could not beat us - that she was losing prestige throughout the world because her denial to Ireland of the Right of free self-determination and, what means as much do her, if not more, she was losing trade. 2. It was practical recognition of our National Status and of our Army as a belligerent power. 3. Our men would benefit by a rest and would be more fit for the Winter's campaign. 4. Winter fighting was better for the I.R.A. as the roads in the country were not then in a condition to facilitate military transport. 5. And perhaps most important, the negotiations, if precipulty conducted would enhance our prestige in the eyes of the world and emphasize England's injustice if she began again OUR "YEAR OF HYSTERIA" The boot is on the other foot. There has been no hysteria on the Republican side; nothing but sorrow and heartbreak, grim determination and equally grim endurance which will continue to the end. We do not need to ask ourselves now "What it is all about". We asked ourselves that in December, 1921; realized what the Treaty would mean, and faced the issue. Believing, as we did then, as we do now in the Republic, we could not act otherwise. The fight is for our Independence from any domination direct or indirect; any claim from an English King to establish himself in our Constitution, to be consulted about our expenditure to sign our documents, even through the medium of the "Old man of the People" obediently scribbling his signature in a merely formal way, as so pathetically described by Mr. O'Higgins. If we had to take less than the 100 per cent of the isolated Republic, we might have compromised on material things which would right themselves in a few years. WHAT IT IS HOT ABOUT I should like to emphasize that the present struggle is not one of personalities but of Principles. If President De Valera had joined the Treaty party, the war would have gone on all the same. The majority vote in the Dell on January 7th 1922, was obtained, small as it was, on the personality of