"If _Vanity Fair_ will train the rich, the Labour men will guide the poor," he wrote. Further: "Old England is as dear to the Labour man with poverty for his birthright as to the hereditary legislator with a county for a heritage. But wealth, and the carelessness that wealth often induces, are blind to the causes which heap misery and discontent upon the people from generation to generation. To the wealthy the whole business is a social phenomenon, but to us it is a permanent terror. "And so, whatever our differences may appear to be, our Labour hopes are concentrating upon sound practical methods by which the conditions and opportunities of the people shall be improved. "You who read this are invited to remember that organised work is the first step which will separate the workman from demoralising charity, his wife from the pawnshop, and his children from the streets. Sentiment and sympathy need no longer be the prey of the fawning cadger, or the victim of hypocritical distress. "To keep England in the forefront of the nations of the earth we must begin in the homes of our people, there to raise a truly Imperial and patriotic race of good, healthy, honest men and women. The task is admittedly a difficult one, for social reconstruction is as much moral as economic, but helping hands stretch out in every direction. The one great need is to change a national apathy into keen, sympathetic, well-balanced criticism." His agitation for the unemployed in the House of Commons, which formed the main part of his parliamentary life for a couple of years, began with the opening of the Session of 1904. He seconded Mr. Keir Hardie's amendment to the Address, regretting, "in view of distress arising from lack of employment," that no proposal was made for helping out-of-work men. Crooks began his speech by declaring that mere relief schemes encouraged the loafer. He knew well both the loafer and the man who was born tired. The wife of one such got up early and wakened her husband in time for work. "Is it raining?" the man asked from the folds of the bedclothes. "No." "Does it look like raining?" "No." "Oh, I wish it was Sunday."