Speech #510189889

President. we do not want to cross the Atlantic and take examples from England. certainly in these latter days. as to how we shall govern the proceedings of the Senate of the United States. It is a most significant fact. one pregnant with instruction and pregnant with warnings to the American people. that the first time in the history of the English House of Commons that any attempt was ever made to check or limit the freedom of debate was made in order to suppress home rule in Ireland. Go out and tell the American people. go out and tell our naturalized fellowcitizens from that stricken and unhappy isle. that we are taking a page from the history of the English Parliament. where they were attempting. with all the power of money and aristocracy and prescription. to crush out independence and home rule in that oppressed portion of the world. that it was in order that Irishmen might be gagged in the House of Commons. that their mouths might be closed when they attempted to assert the freedom of speech that belonged to them as representatives of their nation and their people. that this prototype of the rule to throttle free speech in the Senate of the United States was passed. thatit was only because the patrioticrepresentatives from that libertyloving and libertydefending island were driven from the House of Commons that they were enabled to work their will and for the first time to blot the fair page of English parliamentary history with a measure of tyranny like this. I say. go out and tell the American people and the naturalized citizen of this country from that island that that is the example you are following here in order to destroy home xule in this country.