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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2>Works of Karl Marx, 1855
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<H1><FONT size=4>Anti-Church Movement....<EM>Demonstration in Hyde
Park</EM></FONT></H1>
<P class=information><SPAN class=info>Written</SPAN>: June 25, 1855,
London...<SPAN class=info>Published</SPAN>: <EM>Neue Oder-Zeitung</EM> June 28
1855</P>
<P> <FONT
color=#000080> It is an old and historically established maxim that obsolete
social forces, nominally still in possession of all the attributes of power
and continuing to vegetate long after the basis of their existence has rotted
away, inasmuch as the heirs are quarrelling among themselves over the
inheritance even before the obituary notice has been printed and the testament
read -- that these forces once more summon all their strength before their
agony of death, pass from the defensive to the offensive, challenge instead of
giving way, and seek to draw the most extreme conclusions from premises which
have not only been put in question but already condemned.</FONT> </P>
<P><FONT color=#800000><STRONG>Such is today the English oligarchy.
</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=#800000><STRONG>Such is the <EM>Church</EM>, its twin
sister.</STRONG></FONT> </P></DIV>
<DIV> Countless attempts at
reorganization have been made within the Established Church, both the High and
the Low, attempts to come to an understanding with the Dissenters and thus to
set up a compact force to oppose the profane mass of the nation. </DIV>
<DIV>There has been a rapid succession of <STRONG>measures of religious
coercion.</STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>The pious Earl of Shaftesbury, formerly known as Lord Ashley, bewailed
the fact in the House of Lords that <STRONG>in England alone five
millions</STRONG> had become wholly alienated <STRONG>not only from the Church
but from Christianity altogether</STRONG>. “<EM>Compelle intrare,</EM>”
replies the Established Church. It leaves it to Lord Ashley and similar
dissenting, sectarian and hysterical pietists to pull the chestnuts out of the
fire for it. </DIV>
<DIV align=center> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT color=#008080>[Britain at present has around 60
million people, larger population than in 1855, around half of the
population is not in favour of religion, of the rest the majority have little
or nothing to do with organised 'religion', they continue with a personal
''belief' and as such can no longer be said to be 'religious'' either,
spiritual maybe..]</FONT></DIV>
<P><STRONG> The first measure of
Religious coercion</STRONG> was the Beer Bill, which shut down all places of
public entertainment on Sundays, except between 6 and 10 p. m. This bill was
smuggled through the House at the end of a sparsely attended sitting, after
the pietists had bought the support of the big public-house owners of London
by guaranteeing them that the license system would continue, that is, that big
capital would retain its monopoly. Then came the Sunday Trading Bill, which
has now passed its third reading in the Commons and separate clauses of which
have just been discussed by commissions in both Houses. </P>
<DIV>This new coercive measure top was ensured the vote of big capital,
because only small shopkeepers keep open on Sunday and the proprietors of the
big shops are quite willing to do away with the Sunday competition of the
small fry by parliamentary means. In both cases there is a conspiracy of the
Church with monopoly capital, but in both cases there are religious penal laws
against the lower classes to set the consciences of the privileged classes at
rest. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The <EM>Beer Bill</EM> was as far from hitting the aristocratic clubs as
the <EM>Sunday Trading Bill</EM> is from hitting the Sunday occupations of
genteel society. The workers get their wages late on Saturday; they are the
only ones for whom shops open on Sundays. They are the only ones compelled to
make their purchases, small as they are, on Sundays. The new bill is therefore
directed against them alone. </DIV>
<DIV>In the eighteenth century the French aristocracy said: For us, Voltaire;
for the people, the mass and the tithes. In the nineteenth century the English
aristocracy says: For us, pious phrases; for the people, Christian practice.
<STRONG>The classical saint of Christianity mortified his body for the
salvation of the souls of the masses; the modern, educated saint mortifies
<EM>the bodies of the masses</EM> for the salvation of his own soul.</STRONG>
</DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV> This alliance of a dissipated,
degenerating and pleasure-seeking aristocracy with a church propped up by the
filthy profits calculated upon by the big brewers and monopolizing wholesalers
was the occasion yesterday of a <EM>mass demonstration</EM> in Hyde Park, the
like of which London has not seen since the death of George IV, “the first
gentleman of Europe.” </DIV>
<DIV>We were spectators from beginning to end and <STRONG>do not think we are
exaggerating in saying that <EM>the English Revolution began yesterday in Hyde
Park.</EM></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>The latest news from the Crimea acted as an effective ferment upon this
“<EM>unparliamentary,</EM>” <EM>“extra-parliamentary</EM>” and
“<EM>anti-parliamentary</EM>” demonstration. </DIV>
<P>Lord<EM> Robert Grosvenor</EM>, who fathered the Sunday Trading Bill, when
reproached on the score of this measure being directed solely against the poor
and not against the rich classes, retorted that “the aristocracy was largely
refraining from employing its servants and horses on Sundays.” The last few
days of the past week the following poster, put out <EM>by the Chartists</EM>
and affixed to all the walls of London, announced in huge letters: </P>
<P class=quoteb>“<EM>New Sunday Bill</EM> prohibiting newspapers, shaving,
smoking, eating and drinking and all kinds of recreation and nourishment, both
corporal and spiritual, which the <EM>poor people</EM> still enjoy at the
present time. <EM>An open-air meeting</EM> of artisans, <STRONG>workers and
‘<EM>the lower orders’ </EM>generally of the capital will take place in Hyde
Park on Sunday afternoon to see how religiously the aristocracy is observing
the Sabbath</STRONG> <STRONG>and how anxious it is not to employ its servants
and horses on that day</STRONG>, as Lord Robert Grosvenor said in his speech.
The meeting is called for three o'clock on the right bank of the Serpentine”
(a small river in Hyde Park), “on the side towards Kensington Gardens. Come
and bring your wives and children in order that they may profit by the example
their ‘<EM>betters’ </EM>set them!” </P>
<P>It should be borne in mind, of course, that what <EM>Longchamps</EM>
[<EM>Ed</EM>. -- A hippodrome in the outskirts of Paris] means to the
Parisians, the road along the Serpentine in Hyde Park means to English high
society -- the place where of an afternoon, particularly on Sunday, they
parade their magnificent horses and carriages with all their trappings,
followed by swarms of lackeys. It will be realized from the above placard that
<STRONG>the struggle against clericalism assumes the same character in England
as every other serious struggle there</STRONG> -- the character of a
<STRONG><EM>class struggle</EM> waged by the poor against the rich, the people
against the aristocracy, the “lower orders” against their “betters.”
</STRONG></P>
<P>At three o'clock approximately 50,000 people had gathered at the spot
announced on the right bank of the Serpentine in Hyde Park’s immense meadows.
Gradually the assembled multitude swelled to a total of at least 200,000 due
to additions from the other bank. Milling groups of people could be seen
shoved about from place to place. The police, who were present in force, were
obviously endeavouring to deprive the organizers of the meeting of what
Archimedes had asked for to move the earth, namely, a place to stand upon.
Finally a rather large crowd made a firm stand and <EM>Bligh</EM> the Chartist
constituted himself chairman on a small eminence in the midst of the throng.
No sooner had he begun his harangue than Police Inspector Banks at the head of
40 truncheon-swinging constables explained to him that the Park was the
private property of the <EM>Crown</EM> and that no meeting might be held in
it. After some <EM>pourparlers</EM> in which Bligh sought to demonstrate to
him that parks were public property and in which Banks rejoined he had strict
orders to arrest him if he should insist on carrying out his intention, Bligh
shouted amidst the bellowing of the masses surrounding him: </P>
<P class=quoteb>“Her Majesty’s police declare that Hyde Park is private
property of the Crown and that Her Majesty is unwilling to let her land be
used by the people for their meetings. So let’s move to Oxford Market.” </P>
<P>With the ironical cry: “God save the Queen!” the throng broke up to journey
to Oxford Market. But meanwhile, Finlen, a member of the Chartist executive,
rushed to a tree some distance away followed by a crowd who in a twinkle
formed so close and compact a circle around him that the police abandoned
their attempt to get at him. </P>
<P class=quoteb>“Six days a week,” he said, “we are treated like slaves and
now Parliament wants to rob us of the bit of freedom we still have on the
seventh. <STRONG>These oligarchs and capitalists allied with sanctimonious
parsons </STRONG>wish to do <EM>penance</EM> by mortifying us instead of
themselves for the unconscionable murder in the Crimea of the sons of the
people.” </P>
<P>We left this group to approach another where a speaker stretched out on the
ground addressed his audience from this horizontal position. Suddenly shouts
could be heard on all sides: “Let’s go to the road, to the carriages!” The
heaping of insults upon horse riders and occupants of carriages had meanwhile
already begun. The constables, who constantly received reinforcements from the
city, drove the promenading pedestrians off the carriage road. They thus
helped to bring it about that either side of it was tined deep with people,
from Apsley House up Rotten-Row along the Serpentine as far as Kensington
Gardens -- a distance of more than a quarter of an hour. </P>
<P>The spectators consisted of about two-thirds workers and one-third members
of the middle class, all with women and children. The procession of elegant
ladies and gentlemen; “commoners and Lords,” in their high coaches-and-four
with liveried lackeys in front and behind, joined, to be sure, by a few
mounted venerables slightly under the weather from the effects of wine, did
not this time pass by in review but played the role of involuntary actors who
were made to run the gauntlet. A babel of jeering, taunting, discordant
ejaculations,<STRONG> in which no language is as rich as English,</STRONG>
soon bore down upon them from both sides. As it was an improvised concert,
instruments were lacking. The chorus therefore had only its own organs at its
disposal and was compelled to confine itself to vocal music. And what a
devil’s concert it was: a cacophony of grunting, hissing, whistling,
squeaking, snarling, growling, croaking, shrieking, groaning, rattling,
howling, gnashing sounds! </P>
<P>A music that could drive one mad and move a stone. </P>
<P>To this must be added outbursts of <STRONG>genuine old-English humour
peculiarly mixed with long-contained seething wrath. “Go to church!”</STRONG>
were the only articulate sounds that could be distinguished. </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT size=3>One lady soothingly offered a prayer-book in Orthodox
binding from her carriage in her outstretched hand. “Give it to your horses to
read!” came the thundering reply, echoing a thousand voices.</FONT></STRONG>
</P>
<P>When the horses started to shy, rear, buck and finally run away,
jeopardizing the lives of their genteel burdens, the contemptuous din grew
louder, more menacing, more ruthless. Noble lords and ladies, among them Lady
Granville, the wife of a minister and President of the Privy Council, were
forced to alight and use their own legs. When elderly gentlemen rode past
wearing broad-brimmed hats and otherwise so apparelled as to betray their
special claim to perfectitude in matters of belief, the strident outbursts of
fury were extinguished, as if in obedience, to a command, by inextinguishable
laughter. One of these gentlemen lost his patience. Like Mephistopheles he
made an impolite gesture, sticking out his tongue at the enemy. “He is a
windbag, a parliamentary man! He fights with his own weapons!” someone shouted
on one side of the road. “He is a psalm-singing saint!” was the antistrophe
from the opposite side. </P>
<P>Meanwhile the metropolitan electric telegraph had informed all police
stations that a riot was about to break out in Hyde Park and the police were
ordered to the theatre of military operations. Soon one detachment of them
after another marched at short intervals through the double file of people,
from Apsley House to Kensington Gardens, each received with the popular ditty:
</P>
<P class=quoteb>Where are the geese? <BR>Ask the police!</P>
<P>This was a hint at a notorious theft of geese recently committed by a
constable in Clerkenwell. </P>
<P><STRONG>The spectacle lasted three hours. Only English lungs could perform
such a feat.</STRONG> During the performance opinions such as, “This is only
the beginning!” “That is the first step!” “We hate them!” and the like were
voiced by the various groups. While rage was inscribed on the faces of the
workers, such smiles of blissful self-satisfaction covered the physiognomies
of the middle classes as we had never seen there before. Shortly before the
end the demonstration increased in violence. Canes were raised in menace of
the carriages and through the welter of discordant noises could be heard the
cry of “you rascals!” During the three hours zealous Chartists, men and women,
ploughed their way through the throng distributing leaflets which stated in
big type: </P></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT color=#800000 size=5>“Reorganization of
Chartism!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT color=#008080>[ Note date of article at
top.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT color=#008080>It's still here. Not finished
yet. ]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=quoteb>“A big public meeting will take place next Tuesday, June 26th,
in the Literary and Scientific Institute in Friar Street, Doctors’ Commons, to
elect delegates to a conference for the reorganization of Chartism in the
capital. Admission free.” </P>
<P>Most of the London papers carry today only a brief account of the events in
Hyde Park. No leading articles as yet, except in Lord Palmerston’s <EM>Morning
Post.</EM> </P>
<P>It claims that “a spectacle both disgraceful and dangerous in the extreme
has taken place in Hyde Park, an open violation of law and decency -- an
illegal interference by physical force in the free action of the Legislature.”
It urges that “this scene must not be allowed to be repeated the following
Sunday, as was threatened.” </P>
<P>At the same time, however, it declares that the “fanatical” Lord Grosvenor
is solely “responsible” for this mischief, being the man who provoked the
“just indignation of the people.” As if Parliament had not adopted Lord
Grosvenor’s bill in three readings! Or perhaps he too brought his influence to
bear “by physical force on the free action of the Legislature"? </P>
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