My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleycountry in perfect order, and they were far the largest political meetings ever held inBritain. The culmination was the meeting in Earls Court in July 1939. —not at theEmpress Hall but in the neighbouring hall, about three times larger, where the IdealHome Exhibition and similar events are organised —which was claimed to be thelargest indoor meeting ever held in the world. This hall was much larger thanMadison Square Gardens in New York or the Deutschland Halle in Berlin, and noother party ever attempted to hold a meeting there.Blackshirt meeting at Earls Court July 1939.At Earls Court most of the audience had paid for their seats, and the sale of tickets atall my meetings was then one of our main sources of income; we at least owed tothose who had paid that they should hear the speech. Opposition was entirely absent,and the meeting ended in extraordinary scenes of enthusiasm. All over the country wethen had the same experience, because the British people were again able to hear thespeech to which they chose to listen and the organised denial of free speech hadceased to exist.The peak of organised violence had been reached and surmounted some yearspreviously in June 1934 at Olympia, a meeting discussed ever since. There the victoryfor free speech was not won without bitter experience. We were not only up againstthe hooligans described by Mr. Churchill as 'reptiles' —often armed and under alieninstigation—but also the support given to them by more respectable people. Apamphlet our movement issued after the Olympia meeting had a title which drewattention to this phenomenon. Red Violence and Blue Lies. It was always somethingof a mystery to me why a number of Conservatives took the side of the reds against us,and the only credible explanation I ever received was that the Right feared we mightwin, but did not believe the victory of communism in England was possible. Any stickwas good enough to beat us with, even the red bludgeon used against theConservatives themselves, until they retreated behind their Press and ticketedmeetings.246 of 424