The post offered him carried with it a salary of £500. He had six children to bring up. There was the uncertainty as to the Labour League being able to keep up the Wages Fund. He pondered over the matter carefully. His decision changed the current of his life. A manager, no matter how sympathetic, could not have remained long in the Labour Movement. Besides, in this case there were hints of a future partnership. Then it was that he decided calmly and deliberately to give his life not to money-making, but to the service of the people. He deliberately chose to remain a poor man in the service of poor men. Having been made to bear so much of the care of this world, he determined that he would know nothing of the deceitfulness of riches. Nothing has ever shaken him from that decision. From various quarters since then other good offers have come his way. One of them, a Government post, must be regarded as a singular tribute to his worth, since the offer came from a Conservative Cabinet Minister. The manager of a large firm engaged in carrying out public works to the value of over a million sterling, gave me at the time a frank opinion of Crooks from the employers' standpoint. "I can't help liking that chap Crooks. But it's a pity he's on what I call the wrong side. He's been negotiating with our firm until he has compelled us to pay our men several thousand pounds a year extra in wages. And a lot of thanks they give him for it! I overhear them sometimes talking at work. They say he wouldn't have got them more money if he hadn't been getting something out of it himself. Now if Crooks would only place his ability on the employers' side he could earn a thousand a year easily." For ten years after he entered public life Crooks was content with the same five-roomed house in Northumberland Street where the deputation of working men found him when they came to invite him to stand for the County Council. When he did move it was into a neighbouring street, Gough Street, where the upgrown family had the advantage of an additional room. That remains his home to this day. One of his ardent admirers in Poplar, a well-to-do man, on learning he was moving from Northumberland Street, offered him a house of his own rent free. It was a large and pleasant house in East India Dock Road, boasting a garden front and back. The owner implored him to take it for the rest of his life, "as a small tribute from one who appreciates the splendid public services you have rendered to Poplar." "It would never do for me to live in such a house," was Crooks's reply in thanking the well-wisher. "My friends among the working people would fear I was deserting their class, and would not come to me as freely as they come now. My enemies would say, 'Look at that fellow Crooks; he's making his pile out of us.' A Labour man like me must leave no opening for his enemies."