JOHN BURNS AND THE MAN FARTHEST DOWN IN LONDON
I had heard a good deal, from time to time, about John Burns before I
went to Europe, and when I reached London I took advantage of the first
opportunity that offered to make my acquaintance with him a personal
one. This meeting was a special good fortune to me at the time because,
as I already knew, there is, in all probability, no one in England
who better understands the hopes, ambitions, and the prospects of the
labouring classes than the Rt. Hon. John Burns, President of the Local
Government Board, himself the first labouring man to become a member of
the British Cabinet.
John Burns was born in poverty and went to work at the age of ten.
He had known what it is to wander the streets of London for weeks
and months looking for work. He had an experience of that kind once
after he had lost his job because he made a Socialistic speech.
Having learned by experience the life of that industrial outcast,
the casual labourer, he organized in 1889 the great dock labourers'
strike, which brought together into the labour unions 100,000 starving
and disorganized labourers who had previously been shut out from the
protection of organized labour. Besides that, he has been an agitator;
was for years a marked man, and at one time gained for himself the name
of the "man with the red flag." He has been several times arrested for
making speeches, and has once been imprisoned for three months on the
charge of rioting.
Meanwhile he had become the idol of the working masses and even won
the admiration and respect of the leaders of public opinion. He was
elected in 1889 to the first London County Council, where he worked
side by side with such distinguished men as Frederic Harrison and
Lord Rosebery. He was chosen a member of parliament in 1890, where he
became distinguished for the store of practical information which he
accumulated during his eighteen years of practical experience in the
London County Council.
When he was twenty-one years of age Mr. Burns went as an engineer to
Africa, where he spent a year among the swamps of the Lower Niger,
occasionally fighting alligators and devoting his leisure to the study
of political economy. When he returned he spent the money he had saved
in Africa in six months of travel and study in Europe.
Speaking of what he learned in Africa, Mr. Burns once said: "You talk
of savagery and misery in heathen lands, but from my own experience I
can tell you that there is more of all these, and more degradation of
women, in the slums of London than you will see on the West Coast of
Africa."
He has had a wider experience than most men with mobs, for he has not
only led them, but in 1900 he defended himself with a cricket bat for
two days in his home on Lavender Hill, Battersea, against a mob said
to number 10,000 which hurled stones through the windows and tried to
batter down the door of his house because he had denounced the Boer War
in parliament.
In 1906, after he had been successful in writing something like one
hundred labour laws into the acts of parliament, he accepted the
position of President of Local Government and then became, as I have
said, the first labouring man to accept a place in the British Cabinet.
In reply to the criticisms which were offered when he accepted this
high and responsible position in the government, Mr. Burns said: "I had
to choose whether, for the next ten years, I should indulge, perhaps,
in the futility of faction, possibly in the impotence of intrigue, or
whether I should accept an office which in our day and generation I can
make useful of good works." I have noted this statement because this
is a choice which most reformers and agitators have to make sooner or
later.
He recognized, as he said, that "the day of the agitator was declining
and that of the administrator had begun," and he did not shrink from
accepting a position where he became responsible for administering laws
he had helped to make. In his present position as the head of the Local
Government Board Mr. Burns is probably doing more than any other man to
improve the situation of the poor man in London and in the other large
cities of England.
It is a rare thing for a man who began life in poverty to find himself
in middle life in a position of such power and usefulness as the head
of one great branch of the British Government occupies. It is still
more remarkable, however, that a man who began life as an agitator, the
representative of the unemployed, the most helpless and unfortunate
class in the community, should find himself, a comparatively few years
later, charged with the task of carrying into effect the reforms which
he had preached from the prisoner's dock in a police court. It is all
the more fortunate for England that the Government has found a man
with these qualifications, who has at the same time the training and
qualities of a statesman, to carry the reforms into effect. As Mr.
Burns himself once said: "Depend upon it, there are no such places
for making a public man as Pentonville Prison and the London County
Council."
To me, however, the most surprising thing about it all is that a man
with his history and qualifications should have found his way, by the
ordinary methods of politics, into a position he is so well fitted to
fill. It suggests to me that, in spite of all the misery that one still
may see in London, in England, at least, there is hope for the man
farthest down.
It is not my purpose in this chapter to write a biography of John
Burns, but rather to describe what I saw, under his direction, of what
has already been done in London in the work of "reconstruction," to
which I have already referred. It seemed to me, however, that it was
not out of place to say something, by way of introduction, in regard
to the man who is, perhaps, as much if not more than any one else
responsible for the work now going on, and whose life is connected in a
peculiar way with that part of the city I had opportunity to visit and
with the improvements that have been made there.
John Burns was born and still lives in Battersea, a quarter of the city
inhabited, for the most part, by artisans, mechanics, and labourers of
various kinds, with a sprinkling of gypsy pedlers and the very poor.
Battersea is directly across the river from, and in plain sight of,
the Parliament Buildings, and there is a story to the effect that, as
he was coming home one winter night, helping his mother carry home the
washing by which she supported herself and family, they two stopped
within the shadow of those buildings to rest. Turning to his mother the
boy said: "Mother, if ever I have health and strength no mother shall
have to work as you do."
John Burns has health and strength, and is now making a brave effort to
keep that promise to his mother. Aside from Colonel Roosevelt, I do not
think I ever saw a man who seemed his equal in vigour of mind and body;
who seemed able to compress so much into a short space of time; or one
who goes at the task before him with a greater zest. In all England I
do not believe there is a man who works harder, accomplishes more for
the good of his country and the world, or one who is happier in the
work he is doing.
I found him late in August, when every one else connected with the
government had left London on their vacation, buried deep in the
details and concerns of his office, but chock-full of energy and
enthusiasm.
What John Burns is doing, and the spirit in which he is doing it,
will, perhaps, appear in the course of my description of a trip which
I took with him through his own district of Battersea and the region
adjoining it in order to see what the London County Council is doing
there to make the life of the poor man better. I am sorry that I will
not be able to describe in detail all that I saw on that trip, because
we covered in a short time so much ground, and saw so many different
things, that it was not until I had returned to my hotel, and had an
opportunity to study out the route of that journey, that I was able
to get any definite idea of the direction in which we had gone or of
the connection and general plan which underlay the whole scheme of the
improvements we had seen.
I think it was about two o'clock in the afternoon when we left the
offices of the Local Government Board. Mr. Burns insisted that, before
we started, I should see something of the Parliament Buildings, and he
promised to act as my guide. This hasty trip through the Parliament
Buildings served to show me that John Burns, although he had entered
political life as a Socialist, has a profound reverence for all the
historic traditions and a very intimate knowledge of English history.
I shall not soon forget the eloquent and vivid manner in which he
summoned up for me, as we passed through Westminster Hall, on the
way to the House of Commons, some of the great historical scenes and
events which had taken place in that ancient and splendid room. I was
impressed not only by the familiarity which he showed with all the
associations of the place, but I was thrilled by the enthusiasm with
which he spoke of and described them. It struck me as very strange that
the same John Burns once known as "the man with the red flag," who had
been imprisoned for leading a mob of workmen against the police, should
be quoting history with all the enthusiasm of a student and a scholar.
In the course of our journey we passed through a small strip of
Chelsea. I remember that among the other places we passed he pointed
out the home of Thomas Carlyle. I found that he was just as familiar
with names and deeds of all the great literary persons who had lived in
that quarter of London as he was with the political history.
When he afterward told me that he had had very little education in
school, because he had been compelled to go to work when he was ten
years of age, I asked him how he had since found time, in the course
of his busy life, to gain the wide knowledge of history and literature
which he evidently possessed.
"You see," he replied, with a quiet smile, "I earned my living for a
time as a candle maker and I have burned a good many candles at night
ever since."
Mr. Burns had promised to show me, within the space of a few hours,
examples of the sort of work which is now going on in every part of
London. A few years ago, on the site of an ancient prison, the London
County Council erected several blocks of workingmen's tenements. These
were, I believe, the first, or nearly the first, of the tenements
erected by the city in the work of clearing away unsanitary areas and
providing decent homes for the working classes.
It was to these buildings, in which a population of about 4,000 persons
live, that we went first. The buildings are handsome brick structures,
well lighted, with wide, open, brick-paved courts between the rows of
houses, so that each block looked like a gigantic letter H with the
horizontal connecting line left out.
Of course, these buildings were, as some one said, little more than
barracks compared with the houses that are now being erected for
labouring people in some of the London suburbs, but they are clean and
wholesome and, to any one familiar with the narrow, grimy streets in
the East End of London, it was hard to believe that they stood in the
midst of a region which a few years ago had been a typical London slum.
A little farther on we crossed the river and entered what Mr. Burns
referred to as "my own district," Battersea, where he was born and
where he has lived and worked all his life, except for one year spent
as an engineer in Nigeria, Africa.
The great breathing place for the people of this region is Battersea
Park, and as we sped along the edge of this beautiful green space,
stopping to look for a moment at the refreshment booths on the cricket
grounds, or to speak to a group of well-dressed boys going from school
to the playgrounds, Mr. Burns interspersed his information about
workmen's wages, the price of rents, and the general improvement of
the labouring classes with comment on the historic associations of the
places we passed. Where Battersea Park now stands there was formerly a
foul and unwholesome swamp. Near here the Duke of Wellington had fought
a duel with the Earl of Winchelsea, and a little farther up Julius
Cæsar, nearly two thousand years ago, forded the river with one of his
legions.
It was a happy and novel experience to observe the pleasure which
Mr. Burns took in pointing out the improvement in the people, in the
dwellings, and in the life of the people generally, and to note, in
turn, the familiar and cheerful way with which all sorts of people we
met on the streets greeted him as we passed.
"Hello! Johnny Burns," a group of schoolboys would call as we went
by. Once we passed by a group of some fifteen or twenty workingwomen
sitting in one of the refreshment booths, drinking their afternoon tea
and, apparently, holding a neighbourhood meeting of some kind or other.
As they recognized the man who, as member of the London County Council,
had been responsible for most of the improvements that had been made in
the homes and surroundings in which they lived, they stood up and waved
their handkerchiefs, and even attempted a faint and feminine "hurrah
for Johnny Burns," the member from Battersea.
There are 150,000 people in Battersea, but Mr. Burns seemed to be
acquainted with every one of them, and when he wanted to show me the
inside of some of the new "County Council houses," as they are called,
did not hesitate to knock at the nearest door, where we were gladly
welcomed. The people seamed to be just as proud of their new houses,
and of Mr. Burns, as he was of them.
The houses which we visited were, some of them, no more than three or
four rooms, but each one of them was as neat and wholesome as if it had
been a palace. They were very compactly built, but provided with every
sort of modern convenience, including electric lights and baths.
There were houses of five and six rooms intended for clerks and small
business men, which rented for a pound a week, and there were cheaper
houses, for ordinary labouring people, which rented for two dollars
per week. These houses are built directly under the direction of the
London County Council, and are expected to pay 3 per cent. upon the
investment, after completion.
The London County Council was not the first to make the experiment of
building decent and substantial houses for the labouring classes. Some
thirty years before, on what is known as the Shaftbury Park Estate,
1,200 houses, which provide homes for eleven thousand people, were
erected and the investment had been made to pay.
I looked down the long lanes of little vine-covered buildings which
make up this estate. It seemed as if some great army had settled on
the land and built permanent quarters.
These labour colonies were interesting, not merely for the improvement
they had made in the lives of a large section of the people living in
this part of the city, but as the forerunner of those garden cities
which private enterprise has erected at places like Port Sunlight,
near Liverpool; Bourneville, in the outskirts of Birmingham, and at
Letchworth, thirty-four miles from London.
Not far from Battersea Park, and in a part of the city which was
formerly inhabited almost wholly by the very poor, we visited the
public baths and a public washhouse where, during the course of a
year, 42,000 women come to wash their clothes, paying at the rate of
three cents an hour for the use of the municipal tubs and hot water.
Children pay a penny or two cents for the use of the public baths. The
building is also provided with a gymnasium for the use of the children
in winter, and contains a hall which is rented to workingmen's clubs at
a nominal price.
What pleased me most was to see the orderly way in which the children
had learned to conduct themselves in these places, which, as was
evident, had become not merely places for recreation, but at the same
time schools of good manners.
We passed on the streets groups of neatly dressed, well-bred looking
boys, with their books slung over their arms, going home from school or
making their way to the park. Mr. Burns was delighted at the sight of
these clean-cut, manly looking fellows.
"Look at those boys, Mr. Washington," he would exclaim, as he pointed
proudly to one or another of these groups. "Isn't that doing pretty
well for the proletariat?"
Then he would leap out of the automobile, before the driver could
stop, put his arm around the boy nearest him and, in a moment, come
back triumphant with the confirmation of his statement that the boy's
father was, as he had said, only a small clerk or a letter carrier, or,
perhaps, the son of a common labourer, a navvy.
When I contrasted the appearance of these well-dressed and well-behaved
boys with some of those I had seen elsewhere, with the children who
attend the so-called "ragged" schools, for example, I understood and
shared his enthusiasm.
From Battersea Park we went to Clapham Common and, as we were speeding
along through what appeared to be a quarter of well-to-do artisans'
homes, Mr. Burns nodded casually in the direction of a little vine-clad
cottage and said:
"That is where I live."
Although Mr. Burns now occupies one of the highest positions in the
British Government, in which he has a salary of $10,000 a year, he has
not yet assumed the high hat and the long-tailed coat which are the
recognized uniform in London of a gentleman. On the contrary, he wears
the same blue reefer coat and soft felt hat, speaks the same language,
lives in the same style, and is apparently in every respect the same
man that he was when he was living on the $25 a week guaranteed him by
the Battersea Labour League when he entered parliament. He is still a
labouring man and proud of the class to which he belongs.
It was at Clapham Common, although Mr. Burns did not mention this fact,
that he was arrested for the first time, away back in 1878, for making
a public speech. It was somewhere in this region also, if I remember
rightly, that Mr. Burns pointed out to us a private estate on which
3,000 houses of the cheaper class had been erected.
"And mind you, there is no public house," said Mr. Burns. Instead he
showed us a brand-new temperance billiard hall which had been erected
to compete with, and take the place of, the bar-rooms which have
disappeared.
At Lower Tooting, an estate of some thirty-eight acres, the London
County Council is building outright a city of something like 5,000
inhabitants, laying out the streets, building the houses, even putting
a tidy little flower garden in each separate front door yard. It was as
if the London County Council had gone to playing dolls, so completely
planned and perfectly carried out in every detail is this little garden
city.
Mr. Burns, who has all his life been an advocate of temperance,
although he had once served as pot-boy in a public house, pointed out
here, as he did elsewhere, that there was no public house.
In the building of this little paradise all the architectural and
engineering problems had indeed been solved. There remained, however,
the problem of human nature, and the question that I asked myself was:
Will these people be able to live up to their surroundings?
It is fortunate, in this connection, that in Mr. Burns the inhabitants
have a leader who dares to speak plainly to them of their faults as
well as their virtues and who is able, at the same time, to inspire
them with an ambition and enthusiasm for the better life which is
opened to them. Engineering and architecture cannot do everything, but
education, leadership of the right sort, may complete what these have
begun.
At Warden Street and Lydden Road, on our way back to the city, we
stopped to look for a moment at what Mr. Burns said was the most
wretched part of the population in that quarter of the city. The houses
were two-story dwellings, with the sills flush with the pavement,
in front of which groups of lounging idle men and women stood or
squatted on the pavement. A portion of the street was given up to gypsy
vans, and the whole population was made up, as I learned, of pedlers
and pushcart venders, a class of people who, in the very centre of
civilization, manage somehow to maintain a nomadic and half-barbarous
existence, wandering from one place to another with the seasons, living
from hand to mouth, working irregularly and not more than half the time.
A little farther on we passed by the Price candle factory, "where I
began work at a dollar a week," said Mr. Burns in passing. A group of
workmen were just coming from the factory as we passed, and the men
recognized Mr. Burns and shouted to him as he passed.
Then we drove on back across the Chelsea Bridge and along the river
to the Parliament Buildings again. "Now," said Mr. Burns at the end
of our journey, "you have seen a sample of what London is doing for
its labouring population. If you went further you would see more, but
little that is new or different."