ANTI-SOCIALIST UNION APPEAL.
To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. 1 SIR,—The results of the municipal elections prove beyond words that Socialism is spreading over the country like a deadly miasma.
Three years ago we recognized that the disease had taken root, and that nothing but an organized national movement could save the country from Socialist rule and the wholesale horrors in its train.
This grave menace engendered the Anti-Socialist Union of Great Britain. Our object is to make clear to the working people the chasms that exist between Socialist promises and Socialist government—between social reform and its blessings and Socialism and its terrors. In order to do this we have founded schools of Anti-Socialist thought in London and the provinces. Thousands have passed through these schools; thousands of men and women are now competent to meet the specious arguments of the Socialist orator. We have held this year over four hundred meetings a week. We have circulated and systematically distributed throughout the country many millions of pamphlets and leaflets. We have preached patriotism, true citizenship, and those ideals which make for the manhood of the race.
Judged by the work of other political organizations we have achieved much, but judged by the work—the vast and far-reaching work which our mission involves—we have done but little.
We have taken upon our shoulders a mighty responsibility ; we have declared war upon the master menace of the nation. We are not ungrateful for the support we have received, but compared with the magnitude of our task and the colossal funds at the dis- posal of the Socialists it is totally inadequate. The Socialists hold between three and four thousand meetings a week. At each of these meetings the Monarchy is defamed and property is made a synonym for theft. The sufferings of the poor are ascribed to the wealth of the rich, and a Socialist State, invested with magic power and an inexhaustible exchequer, is held up as a panacea for all evils.
The situation is desperate : a million Socialist voters, a discon- tented proletariat with real grievances, nearly one hundred Socialist candidates pledged to tax property out of existence, and hundreds of thousands of workers flushed with the success of the recent strike ready to rise to a man at the bidding of the first professional mob-monger. In the face of these facts nothing can save the country from Socialist rule but immediate, vigorous, and concerted action. We are in a position to put into the field five hundred speakers to follow up Socialist demagogues and to lay bare their facts and fik,uns We can send an army of missionaries (who have passed through our schools) into the workshops and factories to appeal to the sound common sense of those who have not already been won over to the Socialist ranks.
We have all the component parts of a mighty fighting machine —a machine whose power and efficiency depends upon the support we receive from the public.
We appeal to every man and woman who recognizes the danger before the country to become a member of this Union and to sub- scribe to our funds as an insurance against national ruin.
Cheques and postal orders should be sent to the Secretary, the Anti-Socialist Union of Great Britain, 58 and 60 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W.—We are, Sir, &c.,
CLAUDE Lowraza, Chairman. WILFRID ASHLEY, Vice-Chairman. ADINGER, Hon. Treasurer.
Previous page
