Macdonald Paper Describes the Fascists

A description of the type of person comprising Sir Oswald Mosley’s Black-shirts is contained in an article in a recent issue of “News-Letter,” Premier MacDonald’s National Labor organ. The article follows:

“As the Blackshirt columns moved towards Hyde Park it was interesting to study them and to try and make out what manner of men and women it is that this movement attracts. Any such analysis is of course very difficult when people are turned out in a sober uniform to look as nearly as possible alike. The men, however, while here and there was a well set-up ex-serviceman wearing his ribbons, were mostly young, and their drill was poor. The columns straggled badly and (except by the women) little attempt was made to march in step. A fair proportion were certainly of the working-class, but there was a good few, particularly among those who were apparently officers of some sort, of that type of peculiarly arrogant-looking young man which can, or could, be seen about in our two ancient university towns.

“The women had the appearance of being drawn very largely from the typist or shop-girl class, and were mostly young. They were better set up and their drill was distinctly superior to that of the men. They were also even more closely guarded by the police. But among them there was a sprinkling of that type of woman, the peculiar product of this country and the invariable astonishment of foreigners, which is always in the forefront of any -ism, the spinster with greying hair, thinnish frame, grimly set lips, and terrifying eyes.