THE HEADLINES
GLASGOW AN ARMED CAMP
The military possess city
“There was no further rioting in Glasgow yesterday,” was the first paragraph of the first story on the first page of The Post on Sunday, February 2, 1919. “The city is in possession of the military,” it went on,“being practically an armed camp. Soldiers are on duty night and day at the Municipal Buildings, gas and electricity works, railway stations, branch post offices and telephone exchanges.”
Catspaws of Bolsheviks
We reported how: “In an authoritative resume of the situation from the employers’ point of view, it is emphasised that the question at issue is not one between employer and workman but between a revolutionary section of trade unionists and their fellows. The case of the demobilised soldier and the possibility of lack of employment has been imported to excite public sympathy and cloak a failing cause.”
ight to the bitter end
Amid the global confusion following World War One, the working class was asserting itself across Europe as three great empires, the Russian, Turkish and Austrian, broke up. At the same time as Glasgow was on a knife-edge, Belfast was going through the longest industrial dispute in the city’s history. For nearly a month, workers were on strike for shorter hours, leaving the city without light, heat, or trams. We reported how organisers were trying to widen the strike to other towns and cities.
Get the prison doors opened
A report of a meeting of the Labour Party in Coatbridge Town Hall when “The chairman apologised for the absence of Comrade Willie Gallacher who was in prison in Glasgow. (Applause) He referred to the rioting and said the action of the police in bludgeoning the people was an exhibition of the Hunnish practices that could be seen at home as well as across the North Sea.” Mrs Crawford, of the Women’s International League, said the prison doors should be opened to let the Glasgow comrades out.