"But don't think that Parliament and municipality can do everything. They are not going to make the world perfect. What they can do and what we should insist on their doing is to make it easier to do right and more difficult to do wrong. They can deal with those 'who turn aside the needy from judgment and take away the right of the poor of My people,' but they cannot make good men and good women. That must depend upon ourselves."
That College at the Dock Gates can point to some notable achievements. The Blackwall Tunnel, which has its entrance at the very spot where the meetings take place, was one of the earliest things the College agitated for. Between the dock wall and the tunnel is a large municipal gymnasium and recreation ground, the scheme for which was first unfolded by Crooks at the College, when the ground was a waste and the children were without play-places.
Crooks's College began the campaign for a free library. The well-equipped public library that now stands in the High Street was its first achievement. The College founded the Poplar Labour League, which first introduced Crooks to public life. Crooks's College first created the demand for a technical institute for Poplar. The institute is now an accomplished fact, comprising the best municipal school of marine engineering in the country. Crooks's College started the campaign for the footway tunnel under the Thames between the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich, which now serves the daily convenience of thousands of work-people. Crooks's College began that policy of humane treatment of workhouse inmates which had a great deal to do with improved administration of the Poor Law all over the country. Crooks's College was the originator of the farm colony system in this country. Crooks's College stood out for the welfare of Poor Law children. Crooks's College broke down the corrupt practices on three of the old municipal authorities in Poplar.
And perhaps the greatest occasion in the history of the College at the Dock Gates was that Sunday morning in June, 1906, that followed the opening of the Local Government Board Inquiry into the administration of the guardians. For the week previously the Press and the local Municipal Alliance had done their best to poison the mind of Poplar against its long-trusted Labour man.
How would the College fare now? The attendance at the Dock Gates that morning was one of the largest on record. Thousands of ratepayers were there, and when Crooks walked through their ranks to the little portable rostrum he had one of the great receptions of his life. He urged them not to be discouraged because their cause seemed to be under a cloud, but to strengthen his hands in maintaining the integrity of public life and to possess themselves in quietness, confident that before long the accused would become the accusers.
CHAPTER IX THE COLLEGE AT THE DOCK GATES
The Dock Strike of 1889—"Our Dock Strike Baby"—At the Point of Death—Discouraging a Missioner—Before a House of Lords Committee—Entrance upon Public Life—A Widower with Six Children—Second Marriage.
The great Dock Strike of 1889 nearly brought Crooks to his grave. Much of the brunt and burden of that famous struggle fell upon his shoulders. Months before, he had prepared the way by his Dock Gate meetings. When at last the disorganised bands of dock and river-side labourers startled the industrial world by standing together as one man for better conditions of work and a minimum wage of sixpence an hour, Will Crooks was one of the half-dozen Labour Leaders who directed the campaign to its historic triumph.