Blue Shirts & Blood

With his chest expanding under a livid blue shirt Commander Oliver Stillingfleet Locker-Lampson, patriotic Conservative M. P., proudly surveyed last week 20,000 seething, applauding Britons whom he had summoned to London's mammoth Albert Hall.

A big blue flag drooped from a staff at the Commander's right. Most of the audience wore at least a bit of blue. Women in azure dresses and hats wore brooches with the motto: Fear God! Fear Naught! Men wore blue enameled cufflinks with the same motto in their blue cuffs. Outside Albert Hall waited several swank blue motor cars with the radiator emblem Fear God! Fear Naught! The blue blood of the British ruling class was up--this was the charter mass-meeting of Commander Locker-Lampson's blue-shirted "Sentinels of Empire," founded "to peacefully fight Bolshevism and clear out the Reds!"

Brass bandsmen blared a stirring tune. To their feet leaped the 10,000 blues and lustily sang thus:

The night of slothful ease is past,

The days of fear are gone at last,

And England's voice is raised in a song

That we shout aloud as we march along!

Chorus:

March on!

March strong!

Honor and Liberty call.

Sons of the free, our duty be

To fight for freedom for all!

Tyrants and foes beware!

Our swords are in the air.

So shoulders together!

Forward for ever!

To triumph we march four square.

Second verse:

Let others scream their Hymns of Hate,

And work to undermine the State.

Our heritage is builded high

On faith and love--they will not die!

Chorus:

March on!

March strong! etc.

This lyric was personally composed by Commander Locker-Lampson, son of English poet Frederick Locker, maternal grandson of the late Sir Curtis Lampson, Bart., a Vermonter, said to have been the first American ever made a British baronet. The music for Commander Locker-Lampson's patriotic song March On! is from the British Gaumont talking film High Treason.

Stirring speeches at the mass meeting were made by Rear-Admiral Murray Eraser Sueter, M. P., and Brigadier-General Sir Henry Page Croft. M. P., as well as by Commander Locker-Lampson, M. P. Cards printed as follows were distributed: "Do you approve of the use of Fear God! Fear Naught! as our motto? . . . the use of March On as our battle song? . . . the use of a distinctive color?"

Medals for weight-putting and other feats of strength were won by Student Locker-Lampson at Eton and Cambridge; in 1898 he won the Prince Consort's Prize for German; in 1900 edited the Cambridge undergraduate Granta. Amateur theatricals were still his passion after he became a barrister and later Lieutenant-Commander.

During the War Patriot Locker-Lampson was in service with armored car divisions in France. Belgium, Austria, Rumania, Russia, Turkey, Persia. In 1918 he was appointed Russian Representative of the Ministry of Information, learned to hate the new Soviet Republic which had been proclaimed Nov. 7, 1917. In 1921 Commander Locker-Lampson attained the pinnacle of his career thus far, was Lord Privy Seal for a short time, has been a vigorous, valuable Conservative henchman for the past decade. In London last week few expected him to become in more than nickname "Britain's Hitler," much less "Britain's Mussolini."

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