Considering how extraordinary a
man Butler is now seen to have been, there is something tragic in the
fact that the greatest genius among the long list of respectable
dullards who have addressed us, never got beyond this absurd little
group.
[27] Tract 41. "The Fabian Society," p. 18.
[28] Bernard Shaw has sent me the following note on this point:--
The exact facts of the launching of the Newcastle Program are these.
Webb gave me the Program in his own handwriting as a string of
resolutions. I, being then a permeative Fabian on the executive of the
South St. Pancras Liberal and Radical Association (I had coolly walked
in and demanded to be elected to the Association and Executive, which
was done on the spot by the astonished Association--ten strong or
thereabouts) took them down to a meeting in Percy Hall, Percy Street,
Tottenham Court Road, where the late Mr. Beale, then Liberal candidate
and subscription milch cow of the constituency (without the ghost of a
chance), was to address as many of the ten as might turn up under the
impression that he was addressing a public meeting. There were certainly
not 20 present, perhaps not 10. I asked him to move the resolutions. He
said they looked complicated, and that if I would move them he would
second them. I moved them, turning over Webb's pages by batches and not
reading most of them. Mr.
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