The Blood Vote (anti-conscription leaflet)
A woman in a straw hat drops a slip marked YES into a box labelled 'Conscription Ballot-Box' while blood drips from the frame and a leering man watches from the shadows; the verse has her confess to dreaming she 'doomed a man to death' and bears 'the Brand of Cain'. The sheet borrows the Biblical mark of Cain and a deathbed-confession form and pins them on a Yes vote.
- Date
- 1916
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- National Executive of the Australian anti-conscription campaign (J. Curtin, Secretary); verse signed W. R. Winspear, drawing by Claude Marquet; printed by Fraser & Jenkinson, Melbourne
- Region
- Oceania
- Country
- Australia
- Medium
- Leaflet
- Issuer type
- Movement
- Regime
- Hughes Government
- Leader
- William Morris Hughes
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Elections and party politics, Home front
- Event
- Australian Conscription Referendums
- Techniques
- TransferFear appeal
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (State Library Victoria copy, FL19562870), retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (Australian work published 1916; Commons Australian public-domain tag, and before 1931 in the U.S.)
State Library Victoria, handle 10381/166047, via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
THE BLOOD VOTE "Why is your face so white, Mother? Why do you choke for breath?" "O, I have dreamt in the night, my son, That I doomed a man to death." "Why do you hide your hand, Mother? And crouch above it in dread?" "It beareth a dreadful brand, my son; With the dead man's blood 'tis red. "I hear his widow cry in the night, I hear his children weep; And always within my sight, O God! The dead man's blood doth leap. "They put the dagger into my grasp, It seemed but a pencil then; I did not know it was a fiend a gasp [as printed; word unclear] For the priceless blood of men. "They gave me the ballot paper, The grim death-warrant of doom, And I smugly sentenced the man to death In that dreadful little room. "I put it inside the Box of Blood Nor thought of the man I'd slain, Till at midnight came like a 'whelming flood God's word - and the Brand of Cain." "O little son! O my little son! Pray God for your Mother's soul, That the scarlet stain may be white again In God's great Judgment Roll." [on the ballot slip] YES [on the box] CONSCRIPTION BALLOT-BOX Written by W. R. Winspear, and drawn by Claude Marquet. St Andrew's Place, Sydney. Fraser & Jenkinson, Printers. 343-5 Queen St., Melbourne. For the National Executive, J. CURTIN, Secretary.
