Accident of Birth

Accident of Birth

A short story inspired by an idea


Washington 1940. (Somewhere past the horizon)
He would let the man speak. Anything else would be wrong. It would be petty.
It would detract from the solemnity of the moment. Even at Weddings the Priest allowed for dissent
How did the Vice president say it? ``The Buck stopped here'!''
For a moment The President felt a smithereens of sympathy for his guest.
The Viscount Halifax. A tall spry Man. Born into a Big House. With a crippled hand.
In another walk of life. That would have made Halifax a pauper.
Yet an accident of Halifax birth. His name written on a baptismal certificate in some English country Parish. Made him a man of means
The president found his memory leading him down the lanes again.
Halifax and him, were alike. It was an accident of birth that had been his salvation too
He had been spared, when all else where killed. He had survived. He remembered the city of his birth, full of ragged people off the ships from the old country, hungry and desperate
He realized now he had been the first of them. The first into exile. He would never see his Grandmothers cottage again It had almost been too much.
Left alone with his Nerves, had been to know purgatory in this life. Yet purgatory is not Hell. In its cleansing fires. One feels the presence of the Almighty
one night, he had heard a voice Perhaps it was God. Or one of the Saints.
Lord knows he had never mentioned it to a Priest.
It had been hard enough trawling for votes in Alabama, as it was without mentioning that
The voice had told him that he had been spared for a reason. That God had a plan
for him. He had been a soldier. He was a Soldier A soldier with destiny
So he had spoken out. Against the War. Against all wars. He had spoken for the Small farmer. He had spoken for the Church. He had opposed the Industrialists, the Bankers and the Bluebloods. The economic Royalists
He stood shoulder to shoulder, with Protestants, Jews Negros and even Chinamen.
For God, and the Republic. He had remade himself.
The American people had heard him. The American people had done more. They had
elected him.
The Englishman had finished speaking.

``Well Mr President? ‘’The Viscount began....

`` We will not open our ports''
Those were the final words on the matter of Eamon DeValera.
New Yorker, and sometime Irish rebel. President of the
United States of America......

The day of the demagogue

The Triumph of the Demagogue

The president called for quiet. His voice sharp with anger. The telegram boy looked about the room, the lad was visibly shaking. A Navy Yeoman knocked on the door, and saluted and handed the President another telegram.

In an ash tray cigarette burned away to nothing.

In an Ante chamber the Ambassador was praying quietly.  He was not supposed to do so in public.  That upset people. The regime was sensitive about how other saw it.

An aide approached the Ambassador and Demanded he follow him

This was it then, the horse had left its stall. The  farm, the country had been gambled. It was more than a case of losing their shirts. If something went wrong they would hang.

The man he served had escaped a firing squad at least twice. This time there would be no intercession, no truce, no amnesty.

The Americans made him wait

He could  hear their President curse.  He saw Marine, and Navy officers enter the office. They glared at him, but said  nothing

Through the thick carpets and  heavy oak doors. The diplomat heard their President express himself.

``They should know their place…Their  leader was a demagogue.  A man who should have been hanged.  A bandit that had taken  power with a revolver in his pocket. A religious bigot. A fool who ranted and raged about lost territories. He had even given himself a stupid title..Warleader or something’’

Quite frankly the time was to kick him square in the pants. The President was reading the reports, from the British.  The British were screaming about false uniforms , cover of darkness. A betrayal

The Ambassador looked at his watch. Now was the moment  

``Turn the son of a bitch on’’

 In accented English, the minister for information spoke.  His parents had sacrificed much for his  Jesuit education, now it  must not fail him. The British were by no means vanquished.

Now waited for the photo finish, which would decide their fates. The rent was in the bookies hands

The minister spoke to the American people. He asked them for understanding he begged them for patience.

They had not wanted war. They had only acted, to protect themselves. They wanted the Americans to intervene to help them. To help them defend the common Christian civilisation, of Europe,  of the British commonwealth of America. They had acted to save lives. Surely the Americans did not want war between two great nations. Not when the real enemy the godless monster lay unchecked to the East

``Turn  that off.. the President barked

Send him in’’

The Naval officers spoke first, crowding him. Shouting threatening, pounding fists. Talking of ships and guns.  An Army officer from the Air corps  made horrible allusions about bombs and gas

The American president  spoke.. he spoke of his anger, and  his contempt..how he wished the British had finished them off in the last war

``If you ever pull something like this again…another stupid operation like this one and I swear…’’

The Ambassador from Eire breathed in…the  gamble had worked. They would be allowed to keep their gains,  in return for entering the war

Today in History

Irish forces reclaim Bere Island, Lough Swilly in Donegal
Treaty ports under nominal British control since  the signing of the treaty. They had been neglected

 Strictly speaking Belfast was a treaty point. A feint by David Lloyd George or a safeguard for the Admiralty if Irish unity ever emerged

Churchill never forgave Chamberlain signing over the Treaty ports

Removal of laws against Whiteboys

http://www.thejournal.ie/obsolete-laws-ireland-1100130-Sep2013/

Whiteboys were agarian protest movement-White is the french colour. the white cockade the Jacobites. The Whiteboys can be seen loosely as the fathers of the IRA and the modern Irish state.
While it would be a mistake to view the Whiteboys as a proto-IRA or Fenian Brotherhood. As  a secret society acting against Landlords, and strong farmers and often RC Priests.( The animus against Priest was the fees charged for Baptisms and such-Its not until the devotional revolution that modern Irish Catholicism emerges ) The idea of our law, versus their law maintained