Code telegram from Joseph P. Walshe to Robert Brennan (Washington)
(No. 213) (Personal) (Copy)

Your 305.¹ If you see President and if he says we ought hand over ports, following line will suggest itself to you. Handing over equivalent in immediate and ultimate consequences to entering war. The Irish Government are determined not to expose people of this small nation to horrors and destruction of being made a cockpit between two great Powers. The entire people behind the Government in their determination. If the British seized the ports, there would be widespread bloodshed. Army and menfolk as well as women would resist to the last against the violation of our territory. Does President realise Ireland belongs exclusively to the Irish people. Britain had no more right to our ports than she had to Calais and Boulogne far more vital to her security. If one nation can seize or demand territory of another because of geographical propinquity the whole basis of international order disappears. Would President enter war if he was quite certain that his people and their homes, their national treasures, would be wiped out in a few hours? Democracy and freedom are only benefits if a people sufficiently alive to enjoy them, and, when we are told that we must be sacrificed in order to save these benefits for Britain, we feel very much like what the President would feel when faced with the same issue. Yielding the ports to force or peacefully means certain and immediate destruction for us. We have no certitude that we are going to lose freedom if Britain is beaten and there is not even a probability of our destruction if we keep out of the war. Americans must realise Ireland still suffering from long struggle for freedom for her own people. Her very national existence is precarious and involvement in this war would bring it to an end.