Down with Idleness, Tribulation, Sickness, Poverty and Sin!
Up with Law, Order, Sport and the British Constitution!!
VOTE FOR JOE GOWLAN!!!
He was a bulwark of morality; but, of course, intensely human, a man’s man, a regular sport. At his first meeting in New Bethel Street School, after exhorting his listeners to support the Flag, he beamed upon them slyly:
“And put your shirt on Radio at the next Gosforth Park Races.” Radio was his own horse. The tip sent his stock booming.
Often, too, his dignity as a man of substance and position would yield, dissolve, melt down to the bones of god-fearing humility.
“I’m one of yourselves, lads,” he cried. “I wassent born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was brought up hard and proper. I fought my way up. It’s my policy to give every one of you the chance to do the same!”
But his trump card, never thrown down openly, but skilfully displayed up his sleeve, was his power to afford them employment. Though he was human, one of themselves, a man who had been ground through the mill, he was nevertheless the Boss. Behind all his brag and bluster he exhibited himself as their benefactor, who had taken over the derelict Neptune, who now proposed to find honest work for every man jack of them. That would come, naturally, after the Election.
His campaign grew in flamboyance and power. Ramage, who had once kicked the youthful Joe’s backside for stealing a pig’s bladder, was now his most devoted toady. At Ramage’s behest, the Rev. Low preached a fervid sermon from New Bethel Street pulpit, extolling the virtues of law and order and Mr. Joseph Gowlan, and condemning to the everlasting outer darkness those who dared to vote for Fenwick. Connolly, at the gas-works, had declared openly that any employee who did not support Gowlan was a b — Red and would be sacked on the spot. The Tynecastle Press was solid for Joe. Jim Mawson, enigmatically in the background, pulled several strings in the high cause of humanity. Every day two aeroplanes flew over from the Rusford works and gambolled in advertisement above Sleescale. On fine afternoons there was even some accidental sky writing. Money talked in many devious ways. Strange men were seen in Sleescale, mingling with the workers, making groups at the street corners, standing treat in the Salutation. As for promises — Joe promised everything.
David saw the forces marshalled against him, and he fought back with a desperate courage. But how pitiful his weapons were against Joe’s armoury! Everywhere he turned he felt an insidious grip upon him, limiting his activities, crushing him. Unsparingly, he redoubled his efforts, using all his physical resources, all the training and experience of his political career. The more he battled, the more Joe countered. The heckling, which from the outset had interrupted David’s meetings, now became unmerciful. Ordinary interruptions he could deal with and often turn to his own advantage. But this heckling was not legitimate. It came from a gang of Tynecastle rowdies who turned up at every meeting organised under Pete Bannon, ex-middle weight and bartender from the Malmo Wharf, ready and willing for trouble. Free fights regularly took place; it became the rule for all David’s outdoor meetings to be broken up in wild disorder. Wilson, the agent, protested furiously to the police and demanded adequate protection. His protest was apathetically received.
“It’s none of our business,” Roddam told him impudently. “This Bannon has nothing to do with us. You can find your own b — stewards.”
The clean campaign continued, developing along subtler lines. On the morning of the following Tuesday, on the way to his committee rooms, David was met by a notice, roughly splashed in white paint on the wall at the end of Lamb Lane: Ask Fenwick about his wife. His face paled, he took a step forward as if to wipe out the indignity. Useless, quite useless. The notice shrieked all over the town, every prominent wall and house-end, even the railway sidings, bore the brutal and unanswerable words. In a mist of pain and horror, David went along Lamb Street and entered his rooms. Wilson and Harry Ogle were waiting on him. Both had seen the notice. Ogle’s face worked with indignation.
“It’s too bad, David,” he groaned. “It’s too damnable. We’ve got to go to him… lodge a protest.”
“He’ll only deny it,” David answered in a steely voice. “Nothing would please him better than for us to go whining to him.”
“Then by God we’ll get our own back somehow,” Harry answered passionately. “I’ll have something to say about him when I speak for you at the Snook to-night.”
“No, Harry.” David shook his head with sudden determination. “I’ll have no retaliation.”
Lately in the face of this organised persecution he had felt neither anger nor hatred, but an extraordinary intensification of his inward life. He saw this inward life as the real explanation of man’s existence, independent of the forms of religion, inseparably detached from the material plane. Purity of motive was the only standard, the real expression of the soul. Nothing else mattered. And the fullness of this spiritual interpretation of his own purpose left no room for malice or hatred.
But Harry Ogle felt otherwise. Harry was on fire with indignation, his simple soul demanded fair play, or at least the plain justice of measure for measure. At the Snook that night, where, at eight o’clock, he was holding a supporters’ open-air meeting on his own, Harry was carried away and so far forgot himself as to criticise Joe’s tactics. David had been up at Hedley Road End, the new miners’ rows, and he did not reach home until late. It was a darkish, windy night. Several times a sound outside caused him to look up in anticipation, for he expected Harry to look in to let him know how the Snook meeting had gone. At ten o’clock he rose to lock the front door. It was then Harry stumbled in upon him, his face white and bloodied, half-fainting, bleeding profusely from a gash above his eye.
Lying flat on the couch with a cold compress laid on the gaping wound, while David sent Jack Kinch tearing for Dr. Scott, Harry gasped shakily:
“Coming back over the Snook they set about us, Davey — Bannon and his hooligans. I’d happened to say about Gowlan sweatin’ his employees like, an’ about him makin’ fightin’ aeroplanes an’ munitions. I’d have held my own, lad, but one o’ them had a bit o’ lead pipe…” Harry smiled weakly and fainted altogether.
Harry took ten stitches in his forehead, then Harry was carried to his bed. Naturally, Joe flamed with righteous wrath. Could such a thing happen on British soil! From the platform of the Town Hall he denounced the Red Fiends, the Bolshies, who could turn, even, and assault their own leaders. He sent Harry Ogle messages of sympathy. Great prominence was given to Joe’s solicitude; his most magnanimous trumpetings were printed verbatim in the newspapers. Altogether, the incident redounded highly to his credit.
But the loss of Harry’s personal support was a serious blow for David. Harry, a respected figure, carried weight in Sleescale with the cautious element, and now the older men, mystified and slightly intimidated, began to think better of attending David’s meetings. At that moment, too, the wave of hysteria sweeping the country against Labour reached its climax. Terror was driven into the hearts of the people by wild predictions of financial ruin. Frenzied pictures were drawn of the worker, paid in handfuls of worthless paper, desperately seeking to purchase food. And far from attributing the impending cataclysm to the end results of the existing economic system, everything was laid upon the shoulders of Labour. Don’t let them take your money, was the cry. The issue was Money. We must keep our Money, at all costs keep it, preserve it, this sacred thing. Money… Money!