Transcribing the Past

  The day Hull rose up against Mosley’s Blackshirts Listen to the program here.    Transcript: Sally Fairfax: At the back of St. Stephens shopping centre in Hull, is a field that’s now been allowed to grow with wild grasses and flowers. But decades ago this was Corporation field, a patch of land that was used by the local authority for fairs and public events. And in July 1936 it saw what came to be known as the Battle of Corporation field, when up to 10,000 Hull people opposed Oswald Mosley, who had come to the city to drum up support for his British Union of Fascists. Paul Power: There was a crowd of ten thousand that gathered, mostly opposed to him, local Trade Unionists, socialists communist party members. Paul Power co-convening of Hull and East Yorkshire stand up to racism. Oswald Mosley in the couple of years before this had been holding marches and rallies all round the country. And on July 12 th 1936 he planned a rally here, he was turned down by the Counc...

    Daily Herald, Saturday, 6 August, 1938.  TWELVE boys, some of them less than 10 years old, went to Weymouth beach and barracked Mr. Robert Saunders, a Fascist speaker. He ignored them, so they went away and returned with toffee tins half filled with stones. Using the tins as rattles, they made so much noise that Mr. Arthur England, a 63-year-old Weymouth magistrate and superintendent of the beach, approached to stop them.  A crowd of holiday-makers, sympathising with the children, booed Mr. England, and a sock filled with sand caught him behind the ear. In the sand battle that followed the Fascists were pelted off the beach.  About 5,000 people followed them to their car, overturned the trailer attached to it, and filled the loud speaker equipment with sand.  

  The letter below, sent to the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, was signed by Albert Einstein but was largely written by the Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd. No attempt at original formatting has been made. Albert Einstein Old Grove Rd. Nassau Point Peconic, Long Island August 2nd, 1939 F.D. Roosevelt President of the United States, White House Washington, D.C. Sir: Some recent work by E.Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations: In the course of the last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard...

       From the Montreal Star, February 4, 1939:  𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝗲𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗔𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝘆 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗶-𝗡𝗮𝘇𝗶 𝗪𝗶𝘁  Comedians Banned For Humorous Remarks on Leaders  BERLIN, Feb. 4 (U.P.) When Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels yesterday blasted Germany's cafe society, he called it "society rabble and intellectual snobs," for laughing at comedians who make Nazi leaders the butts of their jokes.  Goebbels turned his anger upon the "society rabble" after announcing that five German actors had been banned from the stage for publicly ridiculing Nazi party and state functionaries.  He denied that there was any lack of humor in Nazi Germany, but said that it must be kept "good-natured, decent and clean."  "There is plenty of humor in Germany, more than enough," he said in a three and one-half column editorial in the Nazi party's newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter . "But we do not permit ourselves to be ridiculed."  Th...

  Mil gracias! Christmas greetings and thanks from the Basque children     We thank all the people of England, Wales and Scotland who have helped us - The Basque children in England. Six months ago you saved nearly four thousand of us from bombs and machine-gun fire and hunger. To-day in homes all over your island we are being looked after, fed, warmed, and well-treated. Some of us have been able to go home to our fathers and mothers in Bilbao now that there are no longer air-raids. Those who have been looking after us took great care to see that only those claimed by parents should go home. Many of us cannot yet have that happiness. Some of us have lost all trace of our mothers after the fall of Santander and Gijon. Others know now that our mothers and our brothers and sisters are in Catalonia, suffering from hunger and cold and illness. They cannot take us back yet.      There have been some people who have made a lot of propaganda about our being here. T...

  Available on Kindle   Please support via ko-fi   The Libertarian Society by Georges Bastien Some Words on Georges Bastien This pamphlet was written in 1926 by Georges Bastien. Bastien (1885-1940) was a French Anarcho-syndicalist, that is he combined his Anarchist beliefs with Syndicalism. Syndicalism is the name of a school of socialism that views the building of revolutionary unions amongst the working class as the key to creating a revolutionary movement strong enough to supplant capitalism and begin the construction of a better world. Syndicalism, which literally translates into English as Trade Unionism, -from the Romance languages shared name for Labour Unions which is a Syndicate- traces its origins to the 19 th century socialist movement. Its early strongholds being the nations of France, Spain and Italy. In France, Syndicalism first rose to prominence with the creation of the Confederation Generale du Travail the General Confederation of Work (CGT)...