From the August 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Chairman (name not given) of the recent Annual Conference at Colwyn Bay of the United Postal Workers’ Union, is, we are pleased to observe, not too old to learn. Like ourselves he had noticed the patent emptiness of Mr. Baldwin’s appeal for a truce in industry. Well, one need not he an intellectual giant to see that. How many times is it necessary to repeat, “all great minds think alike.” The Chairman goes one better than that. He is a living exponent of the new truth, “all great men talk alike,” for, by what can only be a coincidence his remarks read like a condensation of our April Article on “Mr. Baldwin’s Utopia.” Whole phrases read exactly the same, and in others, words almost appear to have been transposed or altered. It is remarkable. What a case for the Psychical Research Society. Here is an authentic case of thought-transference extending even to continuous strings of the same words. We are amazed. Of course had the Chairman been actually quoting from the Socialist Standard, he would have had the elementary decency to have said so : that goes without saying. We would not deny elementary decency to any member of the Labour Party. Too often it is their only possession. We would not rob them of their all. No ! It is a clear case of psychic transference. We commend it to Lodge, Doyle, Bradley and Co.
AMEN RA.
1 comment:
Hat tip to ALB for originally scanning this in.
'AMEN RA' was obviously a one off pen-name but it's interesting that it was at a postal workers' conference. I'm not sure if Edgar Hardcastle was working for the UPW at this point, 'cos he would have been the obvious person to spot the cheeky political plagiarism.
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