Keir Hardie

“ It was exciting work, as the whole village attended and expressed itself vigorously. English villages have no use for regular party agents. They require local residents to address them. I always found that a party agent was a nuisance. Rotten eggs and oranges were effective party weapons, and I have often been covered by them. But they were indications of vigour, rather than of bad feeling. Our worst experience was at a meeting in the Guildhall at Cambridge, addressed by Keir Hardie who was then the leading member of the new Labour Party. ”

“ Who can say better than a mother what age a child should have attained before it is compelled to attend school? Who can read the child mind like a mother? And who can say better at what age a child is fit to enter a factory, and when a factory is fit to receive a child? ”

“ But is not, it may be asked, Socialism a revolutionary movement? Yes, no such revolutionary change has been conceived since the days 2,000 years ago, when John the Baptist called upon men to repent for the Kingdom of God was at hand! Socialism is revolutionary; it is not only revolutionises the thoughts and actions of its adherents, but also of the whole of society and the fabric of the State. Socialism is, without exception, the greatest revolutionary ideal which has ever fired the imagination, or enthused the heart of mankind. ”

“ When the property-less working class has made all capitalistic property public property, then classes will have disappeared, since that which now divides a community into classes, the private ownership of property, will have disappeared. ”

“ Spargo proceeds with his task he brings before us men and their ideas and actions in such a vivid way that we seem to be living through it all, and to be able to visualise the men who have hitherto been shadows or names only. ”

“ This is how Marx answers the question:—
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. In the succeeding paragraphs he goes on to show that what distinguishes, them from others is that understanding, as they do, the true inwardness of the working-class movement, they are able to give it guidance and direction. ”

“ At length the English-speaking world is in possession of a life of Karl Marx worthy of the man. Mr. John Spargo has placed not only the Socialist movement, but also the world of letters, under a debt of gratitude to him by his masterly and scholarly work. [1] The many-sidedness of Marx’s character, the almost world-wide range of his activities, and the efforts of his opponents to belittle, obscure, and misrepresent the man and his work, all combined to make the writing of his life a task of no ordinary magnitude. ”

“ The working classes for a quarter of a century after their enfranchisement used their new-found power to return their masters to Parliament. In like manner it is probable that women would, for a time at least, vote pretty much after the fashion of their men folk. ”

“ As a consequence, Woman's Suffrage is again a leading question in practical politics. On this occasion it is not complicated by any demand for an extension of the franchise to men, but is raised as a clear and distinct issue which will have to be dealt with on its own merits. ”

“ He made it clear that Socialism had not been "discovered" or "invented" as a patent cure for all the ills of humanity. Marx explained Socialism as being the working of a natural law, just as a scientist might have done in any sphere of science. ”

“ Here, at home, the Middle class also had its political movement, but, owing to the more developed state of the capitalist system, there was also, and concurrently, a very definite movement of the working class. The workmen realised that they were being ground to dust by the unregulated operation of a competitive system over which they had no control, and so Trade Unionism had, early in the 19th Century, already taken a firm hold. ”

“ The Socialist state is the end, and what concerns us most at present is the means by which we are to get there. Marx only knew of one way; the organisation of a working-class movement, which would in process of time evolve the Socialist state. Socialism will abolish the landlord class, the capitalist class, and the working class. That is revolution; that the working class by its action will one day abolish class distinctions. ”

“ That Marx supplied the same explanation of human progress in civilisation and towards freedom, which Darwin subsequently did of the evolution of animal and plant life towards the stage of perfection now attained. The existence of a ruling class is only a proof of a successful revolutionary struggle waged by that class some former period of its history. ”

“ THE DAYS OF UTOPIANISM.THE DAYS OF UTOPIANISM. The Socialism of these days—and it surprises one to note how much there was of it—was mainly of the dreamy Utopian order. Men had certain "natural rights" which were only possible under a system wherein all would be free and equal. ”

“ There were now three children in the Marx family. They had entered Cologne practically penniless, they left it absolutely so. Marx fled to Paris in May, but an abortive rising on June 13 following restored the reactionaries to power, and Marx had again to flee for safety. He made for London, which, but for an occasional holiday, was now to be his home for the rest of his life. The years which followed were years of toil, suffering, hunger, and privation. The record of those weary years is one of almost unrelieved tragedy. ”

“ Marx had, by this time, broken with the past in regard to both religion and politics, and had already entered upon that career which was destined to so mightily influence the course of history, and which will continue to be felt so long as the race endures. After their marriage the young couple lived for a time in Paris, where he was on terms of familiar intercourse with most of the brilliant group of Humanists and Utopian dreamers whose names subsequently became famous in the Valhalla of revolutionary fame. ”

“ Marx in "Das Kapital" did for the working class exactly what Adam Smith did for Free Trade and for the commercial and capitalist class in the "Wealth of Nations," viz., make clear the working theory by which their business should be conducted. Mr. Spargo says elsewhere that with the publication of the Communist Manifesto Socialism became "a theory of Social evolution, not a scheme of world building; a spirit, not a thing.... Socialism had become a science not a dream." This is finely put and contains a truth which critics of the Labour Party have yet to learn. ”

“ No one, in any way, disputes the advantage which these Acts have been to the women workers of the great textile industries, but women have all along resented the idea of being classed with children for this purpose. ”

“ THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE.THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE. Marx's real title to greatness, and certainly his greatest claim upon the gratitude of the working class, rests upon his discovery, for such it practically was, of the truth that history is but the record of class struggles, and that these are always the inevitable outcome of the economic system of the time resisting a change which its own workings has made inevitable. ”

“ The satisfying of the men's demands in 1884 left the women's claims unrecognised, and many of them foolishly deserted their own movement and became mere party politicians. The Primrose League on the one other, absorbed many of the active women politicians and, as a consequence, their claim for enfranchisement disappeared almost entirely from the political arena. ”

“ But his abiding thought was that freedom could only come by the gradual evolution. of a properly-equipped working-class party, taught class consciousness by actual experience gained in the struggle with Capitalism, and by changes in the ownership of capitalist property forced on society by the workings of the capitalist system itself. ”

“ Recently the Trade Union movement has spread amongst the women workers with a rapidity for which I know of no recent parallel amongst men, and with the growth of trade unionism there is bound to be a growing demand for fresh protective legislation. So far as the industrial woman is concerned it is a fact that in those spheres of women's industry where legislation has had the most influence the wages and conditions generally are the best, and trade unionism the strongest. ”

“ In fact, one is driven to one of two conclusions concerning these critics: either they have never read any standard work on Socialism, or having read it they have not understood. Judging by their sayings and doings no other conclusion seems possible. === IS SOCIALISM A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT? ”

“ Recently, however, a number of women who had received their political training in the Independent Labour Party adopted the militant tactics of that body and applied them to their own particular object. ”

“ But the woman's claim to enfranchisement rests on no one particular qualification. She is a human being, subject to the laws of the State, and as such has a claim upon the State to be put upon terms of political equality with the male. In those countries where rights of citizenship have been conferred on women, there has been no great and sweeping change either in policy or legislation. Women, like men, only feel responsibility when it comes home to them, and hitherto that of citizenship has not done so. ”

“ The increasing number of women who are entering the industrial as distinguished from the domestic spheres of employment, and the disabilities under which they labour, make it certain that legislation affecting women's employment will become more general. ”

“ Thousands of hunger-maddened unemployed operatives marched through the streets of Glasgow, sacking shops, and singing Chartist songs, and shouting "Bread or Revolution!" The troops were called out, and several persons shot down in the streets. ”

“ Otherwise they will suffer from sex legislation quite as much as men have hitherto suffered from class legislation.
And if the industrial woman should have this chief right conferred upon her, so also should the wife and mother. The single woman engaged in outside employment for wages has a measure of economic freedom—she is as economically free as man under the present system—but when she gets married and becomes a housewife she is equally industrious in the work of the country and gets no wages, the result being that she loses what little independence she formerly possessed. ”

“ But in the end their influence would begin to assert itself in an ever-increasing degree, and that influence would be, I believe, wholly on the side of good. We witness on every hand the effect of unchallenged male dominance, arrogant armaments, harsh and unfeeling administration of law, industrial conditions which are proving fatal to the race. ”

“ As I have frequently pointed out, the women's movement may eventuate in a demand for Adult Suffrage which would be the logical settlement of the question, but for the moment almost every woman who is active in the sphere of politics limits wisely her demand to the one question of the enfranchisement of her sex on the same terms as men.
In politics it is the strong who receive attention. To be out of sight, is to be out of mind. There are always a few politicians who are moved by a sense of justice or a feeling of pity, and with these the claims of the weak are not overlooked. ”

“ Hitherto, measures affecting industrial women which have passed Parliament have classed them with children as being too helpless to look after their own interests and therefore requiring special legislation. ”

“ As a rule, however, such men are practically helpless in the terrific struggle which continually goes on in Parliament to obtain priority for this, that, or the other reform, or to prevent reforms being made. ”

“ With the incoming of the mother element into politics this would be gradually changed. Those who confuse women's character with effeminacy are strangely blind to facts. Strength and courage are by no means synonymous terms, and no one who knows anything of woman's qualities will dispute her possession of the very highest powers of courage and endurance. Whilst her influence in politics will be humanising it will also be strengthening, and much of the chicanery and knavery of political life will go down before her direct march upon the actual. ”

“ This goes to show that legislation which limits the working hours, fixes a standard of sanitation, &c, increases the self-reliance of the women affected and does not, as some affirm, sap their independence. ”

“ Marx had gone from the bedroom to the study, they said, where, seated in his armchair, he seemed half asleep. Engels went to the study at once and found his old friend, not half asleep, but fully and for ever, with a smile upon his lips. Karl Marx was dead." === THE MAN AND HIS METHODS. ===
The last quarter of the Eighteenth, and the first half of the Nineteenth Century were stirring times. Revolution, grim and bloody, stalked abroad all over Europe. Feudalism was in its death-throes. ”

“ On that day it had been arranged that a monster petition, signed by 5,700,000 persons, should be presented to the House of Commons, and that it should be accompanied by 100,000 armed men to see that it was received. ”

“ Hardie, with his back turned, putting the notes and bills softly into the safe again out of sight. He saw, comprehended, and took his own course with equal rapidity.
“Come, run!” cried Mr. Hardie; “I'll take care of him; every moment is precious.”
(“Wants to get rid of me!” thought Skinner.) “No, sir,” said he, “be ruled by me: let us take him to his friends: he won't live; and we shall get all the blame if we doctor him.”
Already egotism had whispered Hardie, “How lucky if he should die!” ”