Two Pages of S.L.P. History. (1919)

From the July 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the June issue of the 'Socialist" appears an amusing little skit, the must amusing part of which, however, is the sequel which lack of space compelled our contemporary to leave out. Fortunately, however, we have an odd corner in which to complete the tale.

Three "boozy-looking demobilised scroungers" were leaning against the bar bragging of what they had done in the war, when Mr. Dan Dusty, a well-known member of our contemporary's editorial staff, got the pip, and opened his mouth and spake thusly.

  "You're all three heroes, right enough; that's what you want to show, ain't it? You've all been out in France, dressed up by the capitalists . . . to fight for their interests and spoil yer own. Ain't that clever! . . . Equal to the glory of Julius Cæsar, I calls it. Got about as much sense as a blooming coolie what claps his pretty black hands for joy because his master ain't quite flogged him to death . . . You're demobilised with a quid or two or buried in your khaki, just as you was so gloriously shot by the other working man, labeled German, as big a fool as you . . . "

And this is what, but for us would have been lost to the world:

Beeriest-looking Scrounger: "Yus, matey, we're dam fools, and no mistake about it. But its like your dam cheek to say so, seeing that we only joined up because YOUR paper told us we ought to do so—here, don't go."

A. E. Jacomb