CHAPTER XIX
PASSIVE SOCIALISM: FOUNDATION OF THE KELMSCOTT
PRESS
1890-1891
While Morris's attention was becoming absorbed in other fields, the affairs of the Socialist League had been going on from bad to worse. Such part of their doctrines as was of essential truth or immediate practical value had been absorbed by, and was bearing fruit among, the larger body of persons who were interested in social theories, but more concerned about what was immediately possible than in dreams, however high or however bloodthirsty. The real battle-ground had been transferred to the Independent Labour Party, and, in the metropolis, the recently created London County Council. To these bodies a number of the best members of the League now transferred their energies. The remnant became more and more a group of impracticable visionaries whom the movement of things had left behind. In 1889 the control of the executive was captured by a group of professed Anarchists. One of their first acts was to depose Morris from the control of the Commonweal, replacing him by an extremist named Frank Kitz. "The League," says one of its members, "became a romping ground of more than
242
