LANCINGS SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1914. THE RED HYSTERIA.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 722, 2 May 1914, Page 6

LANCINGS

SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1914. THE RED HYSTERIA.

Here shall the Press tha People's right maintain Unawed by principle and unbribed by gain Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw, Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law

A Noiiiy Meeting That Led Nowhere WERE additional proof needed of the crass futility of the Red Fed. idea, Tuesday's meeting in the Town Hall would have given it. The meeting was held . ostensibly to further the mayoral candidature of a Mr. Glover,, but the' incoherent speeches were mainly a denunciation or all accepted things and the atmosphere was hysterical. There was. abuse of , Mr. Luke the ;Mayor: who is not a genius, but who is as surely not a "worm,"- and there was wild abuse of various other people. Mr. McLaren, for instance, was declared to be dead. We all know that Mr. McLaren is not really dead at all —that, instead of that, he is at length alive to the utter hopelessness and stupidity of the •extremists he has in some measure broken away from. Mr. McLaren is a very decent fellow with very honest convictions, and he has revolted against sedition, violence, and the inflammatory lie. He is as zealous as ever in the cause of Labour, but he is saner (and therefore shrewder) than he used to be. There is' nothing cheaper than abuse,, and nothing less effective. The effect of Tuesday's meeting was merely to strengthen .the opposition to the Red Fed. s senseless propaganda. Men who had felt a certain sympathy for the extreme view of things found that sympathy much weakened before the meeting came to an end, and men antagonistic to the. extremists were driven to deeper antagonism. The public and the. press may profitably learn the lesson of all tliis— which is that if the Red Feds, are let alone and given rope enough, they will inevitably hang themselves. They should be ignored until they break some established and then tney should be punished. ■ It is only by contempt _ and merited punishment that the narasitism. of their leaders can be killed or lopnedoff. . •