Historic files from Irish Free State on James Larkin’s deportation from US released

Thanks, eiriamach.

"There is one grand, glorious page in Irish history that has never yet been turned down or besmirched, and that is the page that records in undying words the fact that the Irish working class never deserted her.... Give us money or give us guns, and by the Living God who gave us life we'll not fail you and we'll not fail the mother of our race, I plead with you. You do not know the times you are living in. For seven hundred long and weary years, we have waited for this hour. The flowing tide is with us and we deserve to be relegated to oblivion if we are not ready for the 'Rising of the Moon'."-- James Larkin, Nov. 14, 1914.

In my grandfather's time (a son of Famine immigrants to the USA), the mention of Jim Larkin's name in an Irish bar would cause a fistfight to break out between staunch conservatives and supporters of the labour movement. Larkin himself, however, said in Oct 1913, "I never stood in a public house bar, and alcoholic drink never touched my lips. I am careful about my conduct because I know this cause requires clean men." The unions in America owe much of their early 20th century success to the inspiration of working-class activists like Jim Larkin. Constance Markiewicz said of Larkin in 1913, "It seemed as if his personality caught up, assimilated, and threw back to the vast crowd that surrounded him every emotion that swayed them, every pain and joy that they had ever felt made articulate and sanctified. Only the great elemental force that is in all crowds had passed into his nature for ever."

Typo below: should be 3rd May, 1920, during the "Red Scare" in the USA.

Why did Al Smith free Larkin? At his trial in May 1930, Larkin said, "What does all this mean for the freedom of thought and inquiry? Why, Einstein and men like him would not be allowed to function, would not be allowed to think. You would have no field of activity either in religion, in art or in science. State functionaries are going to put a steel cap on the minds of the people of this country and they are going to screw it down until they make you all one type. I have been a man who has always abhorred violence, because I have been brutally abused by this organized force. Who used force and violence? 'Is it the strong that use force? Is it the strong that use violence?' It is always the weak, the cowardly, those who can only live by conservatism and force and violence. It has always been down the ages the weak, the bigoted, those who lack knowledge, that have always used force and violence against the advancement of knowledge."

The time is ripe to comission a film on Jim Larkin. Guess its over to you folks on Stateside. (Psst! get on the wire to Gabriel Byrne, or someone connected in films).

In the early days of the labor movement 'agitators' and organizers were often jailed. If a riot broke out during a rally or someone was injured the charges were beefed up. I do not know if this was the case with Larkin.

seanomelb - "Big Jim was a true patriot anda champion of the working man." Thus his demonisation by the anglo-sphere.

If Cardinal Dolan, who recently hosted the Al Smith dinner in NYC, had been around in the 1920s, he would have excommunicated Al Smith for releasing Larkin from prison, and Dolan would have done worse to Larkin if he could have!

larkin was demonised by theBritish,U.S. and Irish establisments',Bg Jim was a true patriot anda champion of the working man.

A little more, from Time magazine, Saturday, Apr. 28, 1923: "'Big Jim' Larkin, Irish labor agitator, who was pardoned from Sing Sing by Governor Al Smith of New York after having served more than two years of a ten year sentence for criminal anarchy, was deported to Ireland. He sailed as a steerage passenger on the White Star liner Majestic, disillusioned but cheerful. At Ellis Island one of the attendants jokingly inquired for his baggage. 'Everything I own is on my back,' said Larkin. 'I'm like the man in Whitman's poem: 'Free and light-hearted I take to the open road!'" The Irish know exactly how to celebrate freedom.

The pardon showed Al Smith at one of his finest moments, in defense of free speech. According to Century Magazine of April 1923, Gov. Smith explained that he was pardoning Larkin "not because of agreement with his views, but despite my disagreement with then." He cited the absence of evidence "that Larkin ever endeavored to incite any specific act of violence or lawlessness"; he had voiced only "a faith that in the ultimate development of our political institutions there should be the radical change which I have described and condemned.... Political progress results from the clash of conflicting opinions." Larkin's sentence, he believed, prevented "that full and free discussion of political issues which is a fundamental of democracy." It was "a political case where a man has been punished for the statement of his beliefs." The author of the Century article adds, "I believe that progress depends more upon our safeguarding the rights of heresy than upon the protection of orthodoxy. Every forward step in history, in the very nature of the case, had to begin with an attack upon the then existing order."

puppet masters,f.....police state.

It is a half-ass story giving few details regarding Larkin's time in the States, nothing about his actions,trial, conviction, etc. Do a bit more research please!

James Larkin was probably arrested for being a Liverpudlian (Scouser) Even in those days the USA was a paranoid 'nation'. John Lennon was another of the USA's alleged enemies. Can't have Scousers singing songs about peace and love; who did he think he was?Jesus?