A book on offer by Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne, brought to life activities of Victorian activist , author, publisher,magician,ventriloquist and inventor, William Joseph Carroll , who under various pseudonyms ,such as Ame Perdue, wrote polemical pieces attacking the establishment and "the mad Mullahs of militarism."
An item in the February 1977 Recorder, newsletter of the Melbourne branch of the study of Labor history , compiled by academic historian Peter Love , included the piece Carroll had written for the Socialist in June 1918 which had been slashed by the Censor . Not published at the time, in toto, It read :
THE NEW IDEAL
Brothers and Sisters in Civilisation, -
Let us formulate an Ideal:
A wonderful, glorious Ideal:
A magnificent Ideal-
Something to lift our eyes and hands to ecstatic worship;
Something to live-and die-for.....
Let us shape and fashion this grand Ideal.
It is the Ideal of Equality:
Not that false Ideal that revolutionary poets have dreamed of, that selfish spirits have sought to bring about by Lawlessness:
Not that false Ideal which for its consummation demands the cruel confiscation of the rich man's surplus wealth and luxuries, that the poor man's health and status may be raised:
Not that false Ideal which for its realisation would necessitate the dwindling away of the adipose tissue of some of our noblest citizens - of some of the walking monuments of our Civilisation:
Not that false Ideal which, realised, would reduce the flaccidly noble and erubescent features of these personages to a comparative attenuity and anaemic pallor:
Not that false Ideal which, materialised, would reduce these personages' consumption of petrol and give the poor man the privilege of not only dodging out of the way when the siren sounds, but of occasionally sounding the siren and making the fat man hop.
Not that false Ideal which, realised, would break down the age-long and God-ordained barrier between the "classy" and the "vulgah" mass, disrupt society, and let all commingle in one common brotherhood of station and education:
Not that false Ideal which would bring Lazarus and Dives to a level approximately half-way between their respective Biblical states:
This, friends, is not the Ideal of Equality that I sing about. No such selfish, cruel, anarchistic, rusty and God-disclaimed conception inspires my soul and agitates my pen.
The Ideal I sing of is a far nobler one: It is the Equality of Sacrifice!! — an Ideal of such unselfishness, heroism, sublimity and freshness before the light of which that other obsolete and crude interpretation of the word but shows like a glow worm to a 1000 - candle power electric arc light.
Equality - of Sacrifice! Never before in history has there been such an opportunity for the establishment of the permanent and undying fame and glory of the British race. And it is this God-given War that makes this opportunity.
Listen! . Brothers and Sisters in Civilisation! The realisation of this wondrous Ideal is within your grasp. It is simple, unique! Listen!
FROM HERE ON DOWN DELETED BY CENSOR
It has been calculated that before the War ends every second home will show crepe on its knocker!
This will be a glorious achievement, truly. But why not EVERY home?... Can you grasp the Ideal?
Can you not perceive the Ideal? Before this war ends let every British home be bereft of a member. Let the cold finger of Death touch every household. By every fireside let the Ghoul of a Lost Life whine incessantly into ears that must take that whining as a substitute for a once pleasing and cherished Voice.
Let the beauty of every sweetheart's face be furrowed with miniature rivers made by tireless tears.
Let everyone be tied in sympathy to everyone else. that they may in general tribulation the heroic qualities of some son, some brother, some husband, some lover, who was impaled on a bayonet, shattered to little bits by lyddite, decapitated by a shell, eaten by rats in the trenches while he slept, or returned a limbless cripple.
Let them recount to one another their returned heroes' idiotic vagaries and insane ravings. Let them know their sacrifice. Let them feel their sacrifice, that all virtue rightly be theirs.
From here on down,only underlined parts cut:
Let the bond of brotherhood and sisterhood, that vague dreamers have sung, be thus created between every body, that all may lament in chorus .
Yes, let there be such universal sacrifice for our nation's good that our Allies and Enemies will look on with admiration and exclaim, "Truly this is the greatest nation? "
Let sorrow link up neighbours and homes and streets and blocks and cities, making an endless mazy chain of Democratic sympathy and solidarity;
Yes Democratic, for this shall be the privilege and honor of the working class, for the people of wealth have already made "noble sacrifices."
And by this means shall the workers gain with one effort to that unity and solidarity and common outlook that have hitherto only reposed in the nebulous dreams of their unpractical theorists.
See you not this glorious Ideal? This wonderful Ideal that will make of England a nation the envy of the enlightened world: that she may . point her finger at her people and say:
"England hath no Shirkers-in men or money-lenders."
"At the blast of war how every home gave forth its human mite, and how every portly and affluent Patriot' hastened to place a flag on his motor car.
"At the blast of war how the old fighting instinct (improperly attributed to the Jungle, but really a highly civilised and proverbially British quality) dominated all other petty considerations, so that all the youth of out nation rose to enrol under our standard!
"This hath not happened before in the history of the nations of the world.
"No other nation could ever boast of such willingful dutiful and sacrificing people.
"Our Empire hath been builded with men's blood and women's tears, which hath cemented us to one harmonious, sympathetic, single-souled and Democratic Whole.
"Yes, in our nation everyone is in agreement with the other:
The working men agree to die and the rich men agree with that agreement; for we are a great Democracy,
"Yes, see how the rich men weep at the sight of the casualty lists, and the fine-frocked women who fondle their pet poodles lament the loss of the poor women's sons."
"Verily 'tis a glorious picture-a wonderful demonstration of the power of Democracy!
" Brothers and Sisters in the Greatest Civilisation of all times:
What think you of my Ideal , what think you of my Ideal?"
Is it not worth striving for-worth living for - worth sending other people to die for? . Is it not?
