"What is a Board of Guardians to do, with its awful responsibilities and its awful obligations, during such distressful winters as Poplar sometimes witnesses? Remember, we Guardians live among the poor. We are not carriage folk who can return to the West End and talk about the poor over dinners of a dozen courses. What else can we do but try to keep the bodies and souls of these poor people together in times of trade depression and cold weather?" CHAPTER XIX THE FIRST WORKING-MAN MAYOR IN LONDON Elected Mayor of Poplar--"No Better than a Working-man"--Shouted Down at the Mansion House--The Lord Mayor Defends Him--Refusing a Salary--Slums and Fair Rent Courts--Fighting the Public-House Interests--Crying not for the Moon, but for the Sun. In November, 1901, Crooks was chosen to be Mayor of Poplar. In this, as in all his public offices, he was not the seeker, but the sought-after. Of the many public positions he has filled, not one has come of his own seeking. It has always been at the earnest solicitation of others that he has gone into office. Moreover, the request in every instance but one has come from working-men. The proposal to put him forward for Mayor was made to him before he had been a member of the Poplar Borough Council many months. The Labour Party was barely half a dozen strong on the Council, so that even with the support of the Progressives it was extremely doubtful whether he could command a majority of votes. This he pointed out in reply to his party's entreaties. Since his arguments were all unavailing, he agreed at last to be nominated, making one very emphatic condition. That condition was, that were he elected there should be no talk of paying the Mayor a salary. Any of the London Borough Councils can vote a salary to the Mayor, and in some of the boroughs £300 and £500 a year was being paid. Crooks felt he could better retain the confidence of his neighbours, and better meet the criticisms of opponents, by refusing a Mayoral grant entirely. Besides making this the condition of his nomination, he influenced the Borough Council, some few days before the Mayor was to be elected, to pass a resolution declining to pay a salary. On the night the new Mayor was elected there were some curious scenes both inside and outside the Municipal Buildings. To be Mayor in Coronation Year seemed to be the desire of half the public men in the kingdom. There were several aspirants in Poplar, and when the number was reduced to two, Crooks's name was one of them. Twice amid the greatest tension in the crowded Council Chamber the voting on the two names resulted in a tie. Twice the retiring Mayor appealed to the Council to come to a decision without his casting vote. Since nothing would alter the equality of the votes, the Mayor finally hit upon the device of writing both names on separate slips of paper and drawing one at random from a covered bowl.