Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/137

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CHAPTER II

PLATFORM AND PULPIT

A biassed, enslaved, and poisoned press has been the chief engine for manufacturing Jingoism. It has, however, been accompanied by a corresponding abuse of platform and of pulpit. Free speech has been struck off from the roll of British liberties during this war. In some scores of English and Scotch towns public meetings, summoned to protest against the war, were broken up by rowdyism, winked at or condoned by authority; in a score of other towns the police avowed their inability to protect the conveners of a public meeting in the exercise of their legal rights – a virtual admission of a state of anarchy. In hundreds of towns and villages all over the country men and women who were known or believed to entertain opinions unfavourable to the war were subjected to personal assaults and insults; their property was damaged, and the law gave

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