Having concluded my reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh in relation to the events of his life, I shall wind up with a little personal talk of a more general character.
I have already referred to Mr. Bradlaugh's extraordinary knowledge of the law. This was strikingly illustrated after the so-called Trafalgar-square riots. The Tories made a wanton aggression on the right of public meeting in London, and found a ready instrument of tyranny in Sir Charles Warren. No doubt there is much to be said against promiscuous meetings in Trafalgar-square at all hours of the day and night, but it was a high-handed act of brutality to prohibit all meetings directly it was known that the London Radicals were convening a Sunday demonstration on the Irish question. While the Radicals were chafing under this insult they held several stormy meetings to discuss their best policy, and at last a Committee was appointed to find out, if possible, the legal rights, of the people and the Crown. I was a member of that committee, and I am able to state that although we waited on several eminent lawyers, it was only from Mr. Bradlaugh that we obtained any light. The others talked vaguely about the right of public meeting, and the primary and secondary uses of public thoroughfares, but Mr. Bradlaugh gave us the facts of the case. Trafalgar-square was Crown property, its control was vested in the Commissioner of Works, and at any moment it could be absolutely closed to the British public.
This had escaped the other lawyers, who did not find it in the Statutes at Large, from which the Trafalgar-square Act, probably as being a private one, had been excluded. Nor was it known to the Government when Sir Charles Warren issued his first proclamation, As Chief Commissioner of Police he had no authority-over the Square, and until he obtained the order of its proper guardians, which he did a week later, his proclamation was only a piece of waste paper, Mr. Bradlaugh saw this, though he said nothing, when the demonstration committee called upon him a few days before Bloody Sunday. He told them that he had an engagement in the provinces on that day, but if they would postpone the demonstration until the following Sunday he would himself lead it to Trafalgar-square. His offer was not accepted, however; for the committee resented the condition he stipulated, namely, that he should have absolute control of the arrangements. They thought he was taking too much upon himself. They did not reflect that if he who takes power without responsibility is a despot, he who takes responsibility without power is a fool. It was their action, and not his, that lost the battle.
Mr. Bradlaugh made no public parade of his brave offer. It was not his way. But it is due to his memory that it should be put on record, so that posterity may know the extent of his generous courage.
There can be no doubt, I think, that Mr. Bradlaugh was less popular with the working-classes in London after he took peaceable possession of his seat in Parliament. The London masses love a fighter, and while he was battling for his seat he was, in my opinion, the most popular figure in the metropolis. The Radical workmen never tired of his demonstrations. He could bring fifty or a hundred thousand of them together at a few days' notice. And the other speakers were, for the most part, only padding to fill up the time. It was "Bradlaugh" the multitude came for. They waited to hear him speak, they applauded him to the skies, and when he had done they dispersed. And on such occasions he was magnificent. No one can conceive the power of the man who never saw him at one of these demonstrations. He stood like a Pharos, and the light of his face kindled the crests of the living waves around him.
But he was out of sympathy with the Socialist movement, which began to spread just as he took his seat; and being assiduous in Parliament, he was drawn more and more from "the Clubs," where his libellers and detractors wagged their tongues to some purpose. His strong individualism, as well as his practical good sense, made him bitterly hostile to the mildest proposals for putting the people's industrial interests into the hands of Government departments. And being a man of most positive quality, it was natural that he should excite the hatred of the more fanatical Socialists; a sentiment which, I cannot help thinking, he exasperated by his apparent denial of the generosity of their aims. There are men in the Socialist camp (and I say it without being a Socialist) who are neither "poets" nor "fools"—though it is no disgrace to be the former; men who have studied with severity and sincerity, who have made sacrifices for conviction, and who were sometimes hurt by his antipathy. But, on the other hand, he was bitterly goaded by Socialist adversaries, who denied his honesty, and held him up to undeserved scorn as the hireling of "the classes"—a charge which the more sensitive among them must now repent, for his death has revealed his poverty.
Mr. Bradlaugh was naturally irritable, but the irritability was only on the surface. The waves were easily raised, but there was plenty of quiet sea beneath. Though giants are often phlegmatic, his big frame embedded highly-strung nerves. When he was put out he could storm, and he was misunderstood by those who took the mood for the man. Had they seen him in the melting mood they would have learnt that Charles Bradlaugh was a more composite personality than they imagined.
During the last year or two of his life he underwent a wonderful softening. A beautiful Indian-summer light rested upon him. He was like a granite rock, which the sweet grass has overgrown, and from whose crevices peep lovely wild flowers.