they reiterated that Carsonism was
to live or die by that vote. The dodgers for Major Moore ran:
East Antrim Election
WHAT
The Enemies of Unionism
WANT
The Return of Hanna
WHY?
Because as _The Freeman's Journal_ of May 10,
1919, states:
"IF HANNA WINS, HIS VICTORY WILL
BE THE DEATH KNELL OF
CARSONISM."
Are YOU going to be the one to bring this
about?
VOTE SOLID FOR MOORE
and show our enemies
EAST ANTRIM STANDS BY CARSON
At the meetings the Carsonists continually stressed the point that this
election meant more than the election or defeat of Moore. It meant the
election or defeat of Carson and his ally, God.
"God in His goodness," declared a woman advocate at a meeting held for
Moore at Carrickfergus, "has spared Sir Edward Carson to us, but the day
may come when we will see ourselves without him, and I want to be sure that
no one in Ulster will have caused him one pain or sorrow."[4]
"It is owing to Sir Edward Carson under Almighty God," stated D.M. Wilson,
K.C., M.P., at a meeting at Whitehead, "that we have been saved from Home
Rule, and the man that knows these things would rather that his right arm
were paralyzed than be guilty of any act that would tend to weaken the work
of Sir Edward Carson."[5]
"I am fully persuaded," added William Coote, M.P., at the same meeting,
"that the great country of the gun running will never be false to its great
leader."[6]
One evening near a stuccoed golf club at a cross roads in Upper Green Isle,
with the v of the Belfast Lough shining in the distance, I waited to hear
Major Moore address a crowd of workers. As the buzzing little audience
gathered, boys climbed up telegraph poles with the stickers "We Want
Hanna," and a small, pale-faced man with a protruding jaw was the center of
a political argument for Hanna. At last the brake arrived. The major, a
tall, personable man, stood up in the cart. But all the good old Ulster
rallying cries he used, seemed to miss fire.
"Sir Edward Carson's for me--"
"Stand on your own feet, Major Muir," interrupted a worker.
"Heart and soul, I'll fight Home Rule--"
"What aboot Canada, Major Muir?" The major did not reply as he had at a
previous meeting at Carrickfergus that he hoped that the time would come
when
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