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FREEDOMWAYS        SECOND QUARTER 1972 

more talks and discussions with Civil Rights leaders and with individuals who had participated in the fateful march in Newry in late January, 1972, where thirteen people were killed by British troops. From talking with persons who witnessed the massacre, I can't help but conclude that the activity of shooting unarmed human beings amounts to murder on the part of the British Government.
We had long talks with the wives of the internees the night before we were to leave Ireland. The wives told of more torture of their husbands who were being detained. Most of the wives were no longer visiting their husbands in confinement because they refused to submit to humiliating searches by the British soldiers. Many of the families of the internees are left without support.
In reflecting on my eight day experience, a number of factors seem clear to me.
The Irish people to a large extent have been the Negro of Europe. It is understandable why the people of Northern Ireland have identified with the U.S. civil rights movement and those involved in that movement rather than with others in our nation with whom they have ancestral ties. The movement in Northern Ireland effectively undermines the concept of white supremacy, because once in Ireland it is easy to see that the treatment of the Irish isn't any different from that of other British "colonials." Furthermore, it is obvious that neither color nor religion are causal factors in the exploitation of workers anywhere in western civilization. Ireland, perhaps more than any other situation, underscores the latter point.
Despite many differences and disappointments of the Kennedy administration and even though President Kennedy was not in any way as far advanced in his social and political understanding and appreciation for democracy as was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it is significant that the first President of the United States to act as though he was President of blacks as well as whites was of Irish descent.
During the 1870's a young Irish rebel was hanged for his efforts to bring about freedom for Ireland. Before Robert Emmet went to the gallows he said something to this effect: "not 'til other men at other times can find cause to do justice for what I do now, 'til then-not until then-let no man write my epitaph."
My feeling is that today the Irish people are writing a fitting epitaph to brother Emmet.

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Inside The System-Business As Usual: 
THE HARLEM FOUR
PHILIP CHARLES COOPER

IT HAS always been an interesting pastime for me to reflect on the symbolic meaning denoted by that image of justice-the classic lady who stands blindfolded, balancing two scales in either hand, equally distributed. I've wondered-why blindfolded? Is it that objec-tivity is dependent on one sensory dimension only; and are we to infer there is something tainted, perhaps immoral about the other? And was the choice of a female conceived from a once universally- accepted notion that woman is the embodiment of virtue and purity? 
Perhaps all this is true-or perhaps that symbol is only as relevant as any logos given a publishing house or business, having less to do with what function an institution might serve than being a decorative embellishment. All of which means, what is justice about anyway?
If it be true, as has been proverbially stated, that power corrupts absolutely, how then may an institution which, by its very function, has been established as a power broker, deciding sentences for accused persons, ruling on motions, dispensing interpretations on laws, constitutional and otherwise, divest itself of this natural development- which tempts the broker to use it according to his own perspective- and assume that lofty pose suggested by the ascribed symbol? Or is it an idealism that has no basis in reality?
When I speak of power brokers I refer to the agents who are entrusted with the operation of this city's system of justice, among them being one individual who, in New York County, has wielded an uncontested power that dates from 1942, District Attorney Frank Hogan. By the powers granted him it is his function to bring felony and misdemeanor prosecutions against persons suspected of committing a specific act. However, his power goes beyond this basic function, taking on a dimension that can most appropriately be compared with that often talked-about broker who headed the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

Philip Cooper is a free-lance writer whose article "A Case For the Harlem Six" appeared in Vol. 11, No. 3 (1971) FREEDOMWAYS.

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