March 24, 1834

William Morris (March 24, 1834 to October 3, 1896) was a prominent Victorian. He was an architect, an artist, a writer, and leader in the crafts movement. Some remember his wallpaper as a lovely blend of modern medievalism in design. Fantasy writers today claim him as a father, for works like The Well at the World's End (1896). And some claim William Morris was the first artist to firmly identify himself as a political thinker.

As a socialist Morris, in the following speech, was concerned to point out how little real change the established political parties could effect. His realistic observations in this regard are still fresh today, though delivered first in a speech 120 years ago. From The Collected Works of William Morris: Signs of change. Lectures on socialism, Volume 23 of The Collected Works of William Morris: With Introductions by His Daughter May Morris (1915). we excerpt:

WHAT is the state of parties in England to-day? ... How shall we enumerate them? The Whigs, ....are considered generally to be the survival of an old historical party once looked on as having democratic tendencies, but now the hope of all who would stand soberly on the ancient ways. Besides these, there are Tories also, the descendants of the stout defenders of Church and State and the divine right of Kings. Now, I don't mean to say but that at the back of this ancient name of Tory there lies a great mass of genuine Conservative feeling, held by people who, if they had their own way, would play some rather fantastic tricks, I fancy; nay, even might in the course of time be somewhat rough with such people as are in this hall at present. But this feeling, after all, is only a sentiment now; all practical hope has died out of it, and these worthy people cannot have their own way.
.... [Y]ou may say, ...[the Tories] have done more than merely hold their sentimental position. Well, I still say.... that the present open tyranny which sends political opponents to prison, both in England and Ireland, and breaks Radical heads in the street for attempting to attend political meetings, is not Tory, but Whig; not the old Tory "divine right of kings," but ...[a] Tory-tinted Whig, "divine right of property..." ....Will you think the example of America [an embodiment of our goals realized]? Anyhow, consider it! A country with universal suffrage, no king, no House of Lords, no privilege as you fondly think; only a little standing army, chiefly used for the murder of red-skins; [is this] a democracy after your model;...[With all the democratic facade in America it is], a society corrupt to the core, and at this moment engaged in suppressing [labor and speaking of].... freedom with just the same reckless brutality and blind ...ignorance as the Czar of all the Russias uses...

[Regardless of these points, if by some means] we could glide into complete State Socialism...I think ... it, ... means advance beyond the complete barrenness of the mere political ...[facade]. Yet I must point out to these semi-Socialist Democrats that in the first place they will be made the cat's-paw of some of the wilier of the Whigs. There are several of these measures which look to some Socialistic, as, for instance, the allotments scheme, and other schemes tending toward peasant proprietorship, co-operation, and the like, but which after all, in spite of their benevolent appearance, are really weapons in the hands of reactionaries, having for their real object: the creation of a new middle-class made out of the working-class and at their expense; the raising, in short, of a new army against the attack of the disinherited...

My handwriting is barely legible but I believe in one of their homes, the Morris family, in the 1870s, had a large cat named Jack .