Ramsay MacDonald on Keir Hardie

“It sometimes filled him with a little bit of melancholy when he thought that to many in the Labour movement Keir Hardie was only a name. The generation that knew the man was steadily being turned out, and before many years would all have gone. Hardie would only be something like a myth in the imagination of the living. He would be arrayed in garments of great dignity, and with almost superhuman purity and power, which always happened when a great man had died and had become a historical figure. But whatever happened to Hardie, he would always remain as the first man in their great Labour movement.”

“He set out not to clear his own course, but to blaze a trail along which he might lead the people towards the city of his dreams, a city well founded on justice and on equality, a city in which all men and women might live together and work together in brotherly service for the common good. It is for us to carry on with the building of that city, encouraged by his example, held together in unity by the common heritage which has come to us from him. We salute his memory. We pass on to complete his work.”