There is no more ardent believer than Crooks in Ruskin's dictum that when a people apologises for its pitiful criminalities and endures its false weights and its adulterated food, the end is not far off.
One at least of the pitiful criminalities of our modern civilisation—baby-farming—was dealt a blow during his chairmanship of the Public Control Committee from which it is not likely ever to recover. He represented the L.C.C. before the Committee of the House of Commons which considered the Infant Life Protection Bill promoted by the Council. That was before his own Parliamentary career began. Day after day the Labour man strove with barristers and Members of Parliament in the Commons Committee Room to safeguard infants of misfortune from cruelty and neglect. His advocacy prevailed. The Bill was passed. Baby-farming as then existing in London came to an end.
CHAPTER XII TWO OF HIS MONUMENTS
Testimony from Sir John McDougall and Lord Welby—Declining the Vice-chairmanship of the L.C.C.—How Crooks Lost His Overcoat—Work on the Technical Education Board—The Blackwall Tunnel—Chairman of the Bridges Committee.
From the first, Crooks has shared the representation of Poplar on the London County Council with Sir John McDougall. The retired merchant was at the top of the poll in 1892, while the Labour man found himself elected as the second member with a thousand majority over the two Moderate candidates. At every L.C.C. election since Crooks has headed the poll.
Two such men, of course, differ in their public policy widely. This notwithstanding, Sir John paid his Labour colleague a striking tribute during the parliamentary by-election in Woolwich. Sir John was Chairman of the London County Council at the time. This is what he wrote to the Woolwich electors a few days before the poll:—
Mr. Crooks has been my colleague on the London County Council for the last twelve years, and during the whole of that time he has worked with great zeal and ability for the good of London.... His zeal is great, and his wisdom is as great as his zeal. I doubt whether anyone in London has done so much as he in all the measures which tend to the uplifting and the good of the people.
Lord Welby, another of his colleagues on the County Council, seized the same opportunity to tell the electors what he thought of their Labour candidate. The two opinions, coming from men who had often opposed his policy, and whose walks of life lay so widely apart from his own, form no small tribute to the worth of his municipal work. Said Lord Welby:—