Please convey my best thanks and the thanks of the Irish Government to the 139 Congressmen who supported the Fogarty Resolution in the House of Representatives. They have earned the gratitude of all who believe in the universal application and practice of the principles of democracy and of respect for the individuality of nations. The relatives of those who died in all lands fighting for those principles will be particularly grateful to them. The strong support for the Fogarty Resolution in a body of men so heavily burdened as the House of Representatives at the present time, without time for the detailed study of any but the most pressing problems, will encourage renewed efforts on the part of all who say with Washington ‘Patriots of Ireland! Champions of liberty in all lands! – be strong in hope. Your cause is identical with mine’, and of all who recognise as Lincoln recognised ‘England is perpetrating a very atrocious injustice against poor Ireland. In principle we must not admit the voracious avidity of one people to the detriment of another. True freedom will never exist if it does not recognise for people their legitimate independence’.