To the Polls! Oh Workers! [30 March 1901]

[Editor: This article is from the “Tray Notes” column, published in The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 30 March 1901.]

To the Polls! Oh Workers!

Every one of the leaders of the White Australia movement in Queensland is out fighting and toiling to achieve this great principle. Every member of the Labour party is in his place striving to win a great and lasting victory for the purity of the Australian race and the future free and glorious destiny of the Australian Nation.

In the electorates the lieutenants of the movement are battling day and night arranging meetings distributing literature and generally attending to and perfecting the details of the campaign. Since the commencement of politics in Australia there has never been such a campaign organised and carried out as the Labour party are at present engaged in Queensland. With the consciousness of right to inspire them, the rank and file are steadily advancing to the goal of victory— the ballot-box. Till it tells its tale victory is uncertain and the results unforcastable.

“Till the ballot-box tells its tale.” In that sentence the whole fight is crystallised. Every man on the Labour side whose voice or pen has any value or weight is fighting to assure a victory for the people. We have convinced many opponents, but have left thousands strongly imbued, with their prejudices, and fanatics who are strong in their prejudices die hard. Everyone of these will rally round their citadel of black labour, and its capture means their political annihilation. To overcome them and plant the flag of White Australia on the summit of their fastness, every white man voter in Queensland must go to the poll. Otherwise all the speeches and writings and printings will be wasted.

Every hope and aspiration we have been treasuring for years may depend upon the votes of a handful of lazy or indifferent or unmindful men. But if every man presents himself at the polling place, makes it his business to induce every relation, friend, or acquaintance to do the same and explains how and for whom to vote then we may hope for the future. If not the old weariness, the old despair, the old lethargy will be our lot once more.

Source:
The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), Saturday 30 March 1901, page 3

[Editor: Corrected “engaged in in” to “engaged in”.]

[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]