In all these, Phillips was held up as
their arch enemy, his proposal explained as a device to lower their
wages, decrease their chances of employment, and rob them of the produce
of their gardens and allotments. No arguments were used. A daily stream
of abuse, misrepresentation and deliberate lies, set forth under flaming
headlines, served their simple purpose. The one weekly paper that had
got itself established among them, that their fathers had always taken,
that dimly they had come to look upon as their one friend, Carleton had
at last succeeded in purchasing. When that, too, pictured Phillips's
plan as a diabolical intent to take from them even the little that they
had, and give it to the loafing socialist and the bloated foreigner, no
room for doubt was left to them.
He had organized volunteer cycle companies of speakers from the towns,
young working-men and women and students, to go out on summer evenings
and hold meetings on the village greens. They were winning their way.
But it was slow work. And Carleton was countering their efforts by a
hired opposition that followed them from place to place, and whose
interruptions were made use of to represent the whole campaign as a
fiasco.
Pages:
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366