Will Crooks

“ From the day in the early 'nineties when he was called upon to decide between a prospective partnership in a prosperous business and the hard, joyless life of a Labour representative, with poverty for his lot and slander for his reward, he has adhered to the principle he then laid down, consistently refusing ever since the many invitations received from various quarters to come up higher. There have been endless biographies of men who have risen from the ranks of Labour and then deserted those ranks for wealthy circles. Will Crooks, in his own words, has not risen from the ranks ”

“ Crooks is one of the pleasantest and most interesting men to visit. If you take him at the right time—half-past nine o'clock—it means an early journey from the West!—he will sit you down to a plate of porridge and give you more information about the life of the working-classes in the course of an hour than the most laborious reading of Blue-books will do in a lifetime. ”

“ Joe asked.
“Behind it—how? You don’t think I’m putting up a job to freeze you out, do you?”
“No, not that. But are you making this proposition for Jack’s sake? I mean, do you think I’d make a mess of my business if I ran it alone? Because if that’s really the reason I’d like to show you.”
“If I thought you couldn’t run your own business I wouldn’t want your help to run mine,” Crooks replied. “Mind you, I consider myself able to give you a few pointers. You’ve a lot to learn, but you’re one of the young fellows who will learn. Some can’t; others won’t. ”

“ The writer commenced by saying that although he was a political opponent, and would continue to be so, he had the greatest respect for Crooks personally, and wished to assure him that he did not agree with the attacks that had been made on his Poor Law policy.
"Cheer up," came a message from the Rev. A. Tildsley, pastor of the Poplar and Bromley Tabernacle. "Don't get off your high pedestal to go down to your opponents' level. Leave the mud alone. The sun shines daily, and will soon dry it. Then it will drop off itself. All good men have to pay the price. ”

“ Still, there’s the business. It’s mine, I made it and I like it—but it’s beginning to drive me too much. I can’t go away for a month or a week without being afraid things will be tied up in hard knots before I get back. If I had a man as good as Wright it might be different, but I haven’t. I have to be on the job myself all the time, and I’m getting too old for that. I want to take it easy a little and get the most out of the years that are left me.”
“I see,” said Joe as Crooks paused.
“You’ll know better how it is yourself thirty years from now,” Crooks continued. “I’ve nobody but Jack. ”

“ Were you thinking of forming a company?”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Crooks. “I don’t like companies—too much shenanigan about stock and directors and meetings. A company can’t do a blamed thing without seeing a lawyer first. I own one business which will be Jack’s and yours some day, and you own another. We just make a little ’greement to run ’em together and divide the profits; and we arrange who’s to do what work—and there you are. Any time things don’t run to suit us we split the blanket. If we tell Locke what we want he’ll put it in shape in half an hour.”
“I’ll do it,” Joe agreed ”

“ Crooks a man who not only carries a banner which typifies a cause, but honours the army for which he works. By his tolerance and sweet-tempered geniality, he has united the Progressive forces of Woolwich as they have never been united before. In securing what is possible to-day, Mr. Crooks never forgets his ideal, but with a brotherly love and Christian charity pursues [Pg 190] the line of least resistance in a way which Labour has not always shown. ”

“ A worthy lady at a church sewing-party in a London suburb became very indignant at the mention of the name of the Labour Mayor of Poplar. One of the members present—to whom I am indebted for the incident—happened to make an incidental reference to Crooks. "It's a shame, I say, to let such people be made important," cried the good lady with much feeling, stopping for a moment her work of making garments for the church bazaar. "Look how they interfere with business. My husband used to get fifteen per cent. from his Poplar property before they made that man Crooks Mayor. ”

“ Crooks replied, preparing to take off his coat.
Then the carman understood.
In his third year at the smithy Will was getting six shillings a week, with something more than a penny an hour for overtime. Small though the wages were, they were very welcome at home; [Pg 36] and it meant a great deal to his mother when she sacrificed more than half this amount in the lad's best interest.
She was as determined that her boys should learn a trade as that they should learn to read and write. ”

“ He therefore persuaded the Committee, in face of all that the publicans said and threatened, to raise their assessments to the proper scale. The publicans brought the whole strength of their organisation against him, briefing counsel in appeals and subsidising opposition candidates at the local elections. This kind of thing had no fears for Crooks. His policy prevailed.
Sorely though the problem of housing vexed him, he rarely came away from a slum visit without some instance of quaint humour. On one occasion he was called into a tenement when the woman told him to mind the hole in the floor. ”

“ Crooks talk knows that his permanent mood is humorous. He is never without a story, but his face and his mind are humorous before he has even thought of the story. He lives, so to speak, in a state of expectant reminiscence. The man who [Pg xix] said that "brevity was the soul of wit" told a lie; nobody minds how long wit goes on so long as it is wit. Mr. Crooks belongs to that strong old school of English humour in which Dickens was supreme; that school which some moderns have called dull because it could go on for a long time being interesting. ”

“ I would suggest, in view of the importance of the poor children having pure milk, that the money be spent in putting unemployed men to work in cleaning out the ponds in the fields and lanes of Poplar where the cattle drink."
While Crooks is essentially a home-loving man, counting it one of his chief joys to have an evening free or a week-end to call his own, he regards it as a duty to speak at religious and temperance meetings, and on behalf of other movements not necessarily allied with the Labour Party. ”

“ Sometimes the Labour man has nearly a hundred letters a day to deal with. First attention is always given to those from people seeking counsel or help in Poplar and Woolwich.
An old man of ninety-four asks him to visit him for old times' sake. A widow has lost her property—will Mr. Crooks see her righted? A sick woman wants to know how she can get into a convalescent home. An anxious father asks him to speak to a wayward son, because "the lad sets such store by what you say, Mr. ”

“ These men, with many of their mates, had crowded into the Council Chamber on their way home from the engineering yards and railway goods sidings in Millwall and from all the neighbouring docks. Those who could not get inside formed a dense crowd in the streets below. As the news was brought out from time to time, how two ballots had been taken and the votes were still equal, a silence strange and solemn fell upon the massed crowds surging round the Municipal Buildings in the lamp-lighted streets.
Soon the silence gave way to a roar of working-men's voices.
"Crooks has got it!" ”

“ He saw the foreman scan the crowd, looking for him, and then engage the number of men he wanted and go inside. Crooks went off to seek work in other quarters.
One typical day of tramping for work in London he described to me thus:—
"I first went down to the river-side at Shadwell. No work was to be had there. Then I called at another place in Limehouse. No hands wanted. So I looked in at home and got two slices of bread in paper and walked eight miles to a cooper's yard in Tottenham. All in vain. I dragged myself back to Clerkenwell. Still no luck. Then I turned towards home in despair. ”

“ He told one of his Woolwich meetings—according to the report in the Labour Party's weekly newspaper, the Woolwich Pioneer:—
He had had a few letters that were not sympathetic (Laughter, and a voice, "Rub it in for Robb") . Well, he had rubbed it in as well as he could. Mr. Robb [the legal representative of the Alliance at the Inquiry] was not a bad chap at all. A man must earn his money, and Mr. Robb had earned his very well. He (Mr. Crooks) had not a word to say against anybody. ”

“ It was one of their duties to take whisky and champagne into the infirmary for the delectation of some of the Guardians, whom a billiard table often detained into the early hours. Crooks and Lansbury raised such indignation in the district as to make it impossible for this state of things to continue.
In 1894 the Master and Matron resigned. Gradually the old school of workhouse officials who had run the place as they liked were weeded out. A more intelligent, more sympathetic, better disciplined staff grew up in their place. Bumbledom was dethroned. The sick were nursed better. ”

“ Bumbledom never had a worse hour.
Of course his first public meeting after the publication of the Local Government Board's report took place at the Dock Gates in Poplar.
"We never had a better meeting," he wrote to me the next day. "The audience backed me to a man and woman—and, by the way, we never had so many women present before. It did me good."
At some of his provincial meetings there were people who well-nigh worshipped him. Old men in particular who had known the Hungry 'Forties would come up to him after the meeting and say:—
"Let me shake you by the hand, Mr. Crooks. ”

“ For every ton of oakum picked in the workhouse the ratepayers were involved in an expenditure of £10. The Guardians were often glad to get rid of the oakum when picked by returning it free to the firm supplying it. At the best they got 2s. 6d. per ton for it.
To a man like Crooks, holding firmly to Ruskin's theory that the employment of persons on a [Pg 222] useless business cannot relieve ultimate distress, all work of that kind was wicked as well as wasteful. ”

“ They seemed to share the same estimate of the candidate as Mr. Keir Hardie, who wrote to the electors describing Crooks as "a first-class fighting man, and the best of good fellows, who would, if returned, bring credit and honour to the constituency."
Mr. John Burns went down to Woolwich to pay his tribute in person. With the Labour candidate he addressed a mass meeting of over five thousand electors in the Drill Hall, while crowds surged outside the doors, delaying the tram traffic in the streets. Mr. Burns fell into glowing periods in his eulogy of his old colleague:—
Woolwich has in Mr. ”

“ The poison may remain on the fur of animals for a considerable period after they have walked or run through poison-ivy plants. Smoke from burning plants will carry the toxin and has been reported to cause severe cases of poisoning. Cases of poisoning of children from eating the fruit have been reported. A local belief that eating a few leaves of these plants will develop immunity in the individual is unfounded. It never should be attempted. No part of the plant should ever be taken internally, as it is a violent irritant and poisonous to man. ”

“ Poisoning by these plants is largely preventable. A knowledge sufficient to identify them in their various forms is easily gained by anyone who will make a study of pictures and general descriptions and train himself by a little diligent practice to observe the plants in his locality. ”

“ Arsenical sprays and chemicals should not be used where there is any possibility that materials sprayed with them will be eaten by animals or man. In some communities special permission must be obtained before arsenical weed killers may be used. ”

“ By studying a large number of the leaves it is usually possible to detect on every Boston ivy plant some leaves that have only one deeply lobed blade or leaflet, while the poison-ivy always has the three leaflets. A number of other plants are easily confused with poison-ivy. No specific rule can be observed that will easily rule out all possibility of confusion. ”

“ Old plants of poison-ivy produce an abundance of seeds, and these are freely disseminated, especially by birds. A poison-ivy seedling 2 months old usually has a root that one mowing will not kill. Seedling plants at the end of the first year have well-established underground runners that only grubbing or chemicals will kill. Seedlings are a constant threat as long as old poison-ivy is in the neighborhood. ”

“ That a plant growing along the edge of a lawn and into the shrubbery may be quite inconspicuous as compared with a vine climbing on a lawn tree is shown in figure 3. The vine readily develops roots when in contact with the ground or with any object that will support it. ”

“ It is important to become poison-oak or poison-ivy conscious. This can be accomplished only by learning to know the plants by repeated experience in observing them in their various forms. Persons who learn both to know and to avoid the plants can save themselves much inconvenience and discomfort. The simple means of learning to recognize them will pay big dividends. It is the first step to the prevention of poisoning and to the eradication of the pests from private grounds and public places. ”

“ Self-treatment also has other dangers, as the symptoms of ivy poisoning may be confused with those of other conditions and harm may be done by improper treatment. In all cases the safest procedure is to consult a physician.
Some tried remedies are effective on certain individuals and ineffective on others. Sometimes a person will find one remedy effective and later, to his surprise, get very little relief from it. A large number of patent medicine remedies of doubtful value are commonly offered for sale. ”