The H.C. of L. has done an extraordinary thing. It is the high cost of
living that has caused the sickness and death of Carsonism. Carsonism is a
synonym for the division of the Ulsterites by political and religious
cries--there are 690,000 Catholics and 888,000 non-Catholics.[1]
The good work began during the war. Driven by the war cost of living,
Unionist and Protestant organized with Sinn Fein and Catholic workers, and
together they obtained increased pay. Now they no longer want division. For
they believe what the labor leaders have long preached: "Carsonism with its
continuance of the ancient cries of 'No Popery!' and 'No Home Rule!'
operates for the good of the rich mill owners and against the good of the
workers. If the workers allow themselves to be divided on these scores,
they can neither keep a union to get better wages nor elect men intent on
securing industrial legislation. If the workers are really wise they will
lay the Carson ghost by working with the south of Ireland towards a
settlement of the political question. Why not? The workers of the north and
south are bound by the tie of a common poverty."
"All my life," said Dawson Gordon, the Protestant president of the Irish
Textile Federation, as we talked in the dark little union headquarters
where shawled spinners and weavers were coming in with their big copper
dues, "I have heard stories that were so much fuel on the prejudice pile.
When I was small, I believed anything I was told about the Catholics. I
remember this tale that my mother repeated to me as she said her
grandmother had told it to her: 'A neighbor of grandmother's was alone in
her cabin one night. There was a knock at the door. A Catholic woman begged
for shelter. The neighbor could not bear to turn her back into the night.
Then as there was only one bed, the two women shared it. Next morning
grandmother heard a moaning in the cabin. On entering, she saw the neighbor
lying alone on the bed, stabbed in the back. The neighbor's last words
were: "Never trust a Catholic!"' As I grew a little older I found two other
Protestant friends whose grandmothers had had the same experience. And
since I have been a labor organizer, I have run across Catholics who told
the same story turned about. So I began to think that there was a hell of a
lot of great-grandmothers with stabbed friends--almost too many for belief.
"But hysterical as they were, such stories served their purpose of
division."
From a schoolish-looking cupboard in the back of the room, Mr. Gordon
extracted a much-thumbed pamphlet on the linen and jute industry, published
after extended investigation by the United States in 1913. Mr. Gordon
turned to a certain page, and pointed a finger at a significant line which
ran:
"The wages of the linen workers in Ireland are the lowest received in any
mills in the United Kingdom."
Then Mr. Gordon added:
"Another pre-war report by Dr. H. W. Bailie, chief medical officer of
Belfast, commented on the low wage of the sweated home worker--the report
has since been suppressed. I remember one woman he told about. She
embroidered 300 dots for a penny. By working continuously all week she
could just make $1.50.[2]
"Pay's not the only thing," continued Mr. Gordon. "Working condition's
another. Go to the mills and see the wet spinners. The air of the room they
work in is heavy with humidity. There are the women, waists open at the
throat, sleeves rolled up, hair pulled back to prevent the irritation of
loose ends on damp skins, bare feet on the cement floor. At noon they
snatch up their shawls and rush home for a hurried lunch. It's not
surprising that Dr. Bailie reported that poor working conditions were
responsible for many premature births and many delicate children. Nor that
the low pay of the workers made them easy prey to tuberculosis. He wrote
that, as in previous years, consumption was most prevalent among the
poor.[3]
"Why such pay and such working conditions?" asked Mr. Gordon. "Because
before the war there were only 400 of us organized. Labor organizer after
labor organizer fought for the unity of the working people. But no sooner
would such a speaker rise oft a platform than there would be calls from all
parts of the house: 'Are ye a Sinn Feiner?', 'What's yer religion?' or 'Do
ye vote unionist?' There was no way out. He had to declare himself. Then
one or the other half of his audience would rise and leave. With low wages,
of course, the workers could not get a perspective on their battle. They
were prisoners in Belfast. They never had money enough even for the
two-hour trip to Dublin. Rail rates are high. Excursions almost unknown.
Then came the war. At that time wages were:
"Spinners and preparers, $3.00 a week.
"Weavers and winders, $3.08 a week.
"General laborers, $4.00 a week.
"But how much did it cost to feed a family of five? Seven dollars a week.
The workers had to get the difference. They couldn't without organization.
With hunger at their heels, they forgot prejudices. Catholics began to go
to meetings in Orange halls. Protestants attended similar meetings in
Hibernian assembly rooms; at a small town near Belfast there was a recent
labor procession in which one-half of the band was Orange and the other
half Hibernian, and yet there was perfect harmony. Other unions than ours
were at work. For instance, the Irish Transport and General Workers' union
began to gather men under the motto chosen from one of Thomas Davis' songs:
"Then let the orange lily be a badge, my patriot brother,
The orange for you, the green for me, and each for one another.'
"What happened? Take our union for example. From 400 in 1914, the
membership mounted to 40,000 in 1919--that is the number represented today
in the Irish Textile Federation. With the growth in strength the federation
made out its cost-of-living budget, and presented its case to the Linen
Trade Employers. At last the federation succeeded in obtaining this rate:
"Spinners and preparers, $7.50 a week.
"Weavers and winders, $7.50 a week.
"General laborers, $10.00 a week."
But, say the leaders, there will always be chance of disunion until the
political question is settled. Ulster labor decided to assist in that
settlement. So it killed Carsonism. And now it is trying to lay the
Carsonistic ghost.
This is the way labor killed Carsonism. I saw it done. I was in at the
death. There was a parliamentary seat vacant in East Antrim. Carson, whose
choice had hitherto been law, backed a Canadian named Major Moore. But
labor put up a sort of Bull Moose candidate named Hanna. The Carsonists
realized the issue. During the campaign they reiterated that Carsonism was
to live or die by that vote. The dodgers for Major Moore ran:
East Antrim Election
WHAT
The Enemies of Unionism
WANT
The Return of Hanna
WHY?
Because as _The Freeman's Journal_ of May 10,
1919, states:
"IF HANNA WINS, HIS VICTORY WILL
BE THE DEATH KNELL OF
CARSONISM."
Are YOU going to be the one to bring this
about?
VOTE SOLID FOR MOORE
and show our enemies
EAST ANTRIM STANDS BY CARSON
At the meetings the Carsonists continually stressed the point that this
election meant more than the election or defeat of Moore. It meant the
election or defeat of Carson and his ally, God.
"God in His goodness," declared a woman advocate at a meeting held for
Moore at Carrickfergus, "has spared Sir Edward Carson to us, but the day
may come when we will see ourselves without him, and I want to be sure that
no one in Ulster will have caused him one pain or sorrow."[4]
"It is owing to Sir Edward Carson under Almighty God," stated D.M. Wilson,
K.C., M.P., at a meeting at Whitehead, "that we have been saved from Home
Rule, and the man that knows these things would rather that his right arm
were paralyzed than be guilty of any act that would tend to weaken the work
of Sir Edward Carson."[5]
"I am fully persuaded," added William Coote, M.P., at the same meeting,
"that the great country of the gun running will never be false to its great
leader."[6]
One evening near a stuccoed golf club at a cross roads in Upper Green Isle,
with the v of the Belfast Lough shining in the distance, I waited to hear
Major Moore address a crowd of workers. As the buzzing little audience
gathered, boys climbed up telegraph poles with the stickers "We Want
Hanna," and a small, pale-faced man with a protruding jaw was the center of
a political argument for Hanna. At last the brake arrived. The major, a
tall, personable man, stood up in the cart. But all the good old Ulster
rallying cries he used, seemed to miss fire.
"Sir Edward Carson's for me--"
"Stand on your own feet, Major Muir," interrupted a worker.
"Heart and soul, I'll fight Home Rule--"
"What aboot Canada, Major Muir?" The major did not reply as he had at a
previous meeting at Carrickfergus that he hoped that the time would come
when there would be a "truly imperial parliament in London--one that would
represent not only the three kingdoms but the whole empire."[7] Instead he
went on:
"The Unionist party stands for improved social legislation."
"What aboot old age pensions?" and "Why didn't the Unionist party vote for
working-men's compensation, Major Muir?"
As he was preparing to drive away from the booing crowd, one of his
supporters began to distribute dodgers. I had two in my hand when the
small, pale-faced man with the jaw applied a match to them, and cried out
as they flared in my hand:
"That's what we do with trash."
Who won? When the election returns were made public in June, they read:
Major Moore, 7,549; Hanna, 8,714.
Laying the ghost of Carsonism by the permanent settlement of the Irish
political question was attempted last spring. It was then that Ulster labor
backed the rest of the Irish Labor party at Berne when it asked for the
"free and absolute self-determination of each and every people in choosing
the sovereignty under which they shall live."