A Paddington Placard (1913)

Party News from the May 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

We desire to announce to the workers of Kilburn and North Kensington that Paddington Branch is holding meetings at Victoria Rd., High Rd., Kilburn, on Wednesdays at 8.30 p.m., and at Lancaster Rd., Portobello Rd., North Kensington on Fridays at 8.30 p.m.

This announcement will also constitute an effective salute to “our nearest friends,” the sympathetic scribes of the local sheets, who want Socialism in rag-time, please.

They are somewhat perturbed at the approach of summer, and with it the Socialist Party’s street-corner propagandists. This should allay their fears.

And then there is that Paddington pest, who revels in mouthing that miserable lie about the Socialists of Great Britain who hibernate during the winter to blossom forth with the flowers in May. There will be no plausible excuse after this— he will know where to find us in future, when he can present a case against us without resorting to dirty innuendoes and lying misrepresentation.

We are enjoying large audiences at Kilburn, and the prospects of forming a branch are promising. The wiseacres of Anti Socialists are in attendance twice a week when sober, and they regale their dupes with the ancient wheezes about us, which occasionally make them grin, but never prompt an intelligent question.

To get the workers to think and act is our business, not theirs, and in making this raid upon the preserves of these agents of reaction and confusion we shall ruthlessly expose and condemn them.

The local B.S.P. members boom the “Daily Herald,” advocate Syndicalism, and consciously do everything to frustrate the workers in realising what Socialism is and what it implies. For the workers to support such frauds as those is tantamount to committing suicide. We counsel them to ignore with contempt such a treacherous party. Have nothing to do with them! Attend our meetings, give an attentive hearing to our speakers and question them if need be.

We don't ask you to take for granted what we say just because we say it. We implore you to stop and think — stop and consider what your position in modern society represents. Reflect upon the value life has for you under the present hellish conditions! Listen to the Socialist Party’s propaganda and ponder over it. Procure our literature, the finest obtainable, and read it up, because men and women must be educated in order that they may be free.

Then, having achieved education, organise on class lines for the conquest of political power, making for the overthrow of slavery and bringing about the birth of the Society of the future.

Ben Carthurs.