(1) James Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism (1907)

This generation has grown up ignorant of the fact that socialism is as old as the human race. When civilization dawned upon the world, primitive man was living his rude Communistic life, sharing all things in common with every member of the tribe. Later when the race lived in villages, man, the communist, moved about among the communal flocks and herds on communal land. The peoples who have carved their names most deeply on the tables of human story all set out on their conquering career as communists, and their downward path begins with the day when they finally turned away from it and began to gather personal possessions. When the old civilizations were putrefying, the still small voice of Jesus the Communist stole over the earth like a soft refreshing breeze carrying healing wherever it went.

 

(2) Philip Snowden, An Autobiography (1934)

Keir Hardie had no schooling as a boy. He told me once what drove him to learn to write. When a youth, he went to join the Good Templers. He was unable to sign his name on the membership pledge, and he was so ashamed that he set to work to learn to write.

The moving impulse of Keir Hardie's work was a profound belief in the common people. He believed in their capacity, and he burned with indignation at their unmerited sufferings. He never argued on the platform the economic theories of socialism. His socialism was a great human conception of the equal right of all men and women to the wealth of the world and to the enjoyment of the fullness of life.

He had a touching sympathy for the helpless. I have seen his eyes fill with tears at the news of the death of a devoted dog. He carried to his end an old silver watch he had worn in the mine, which bore the marks of the teeth of a favourite pit pony, made by the futile attempt on its part to eat it.

 

(3) James Mavor, My Windows on the Street of the World (1923)

The young Hardie had reddish hair, ruddy complexion, honest but ecstatic eyes, average stature, very fastidious about his dress. Hardie looked like an artist, and indeed in general his point of view was that of an artist. Although his early education had been somewhat neglected. He was the only really cultivated man in the ranks of any of the Labour parties.

 

(4) Robert Cunninghame Graham, West Bromwich Labour Tribune (May 1887)

A working man in Parliament should go to the House of Commons in his workaday clothes. He should address the Speaker on labour questions and give utterance to the same sentiments in the same language and in the same manner that he is accustomed to utter his sentiments to the local Radical Club. Above all, he should remember that all the Conservatives and the greater portion of Liberals are joined together in the interest of Capital versus Labour.

 

(5) James Keir Hardie, election address (10th January 1906)

Religion should be voluntary. Let every denomination have whatever facilities can be given outside of school hours for imparting religious instruction, place all denominations on an equality and lift our whole system of education beyond the reach of sectarian disputes.

 

(6) J. R. Clynes, Memoirs (1937)

One day in June, 1894, in the Commons, an address of congratulations was moved on the birth of a son to the then Duchess of York. This child later became King Edward VIII. Hardie moved an amendment to this address, crying out that over two hundred and fifty men and boys had been killed on the same day in a mining disaster, and claiming that this great tragedy needed the attention of the House of Commons far more than the birth of any baby. He had been a miner himself; he knew. The House rose at him like a pack of wild dogs. His voice was drowned in a din of insults and the drumming of feet on the floor. But he stood there, white-faced, blazing-eyed, his lips moving, though the words were swept away. Later he wrote: "The life of one Welsh miners of greater commercial and moral value to the British nation than the whole Royal crowd put together."

 

(7) Fenner Brockway, Bermondsey Story: The Life of Alfred Salter (1949)

Whilst still at the Settlement, Salter had been inspired by Keir Hardie's courageous opposition to the Boer War and all that he had heard since of the I.L.P. leader had increased his admiration. Hardie was a Christian and approached Socialism from human, moral and ethical motives. He was also a temperance man and the doctor had been stirred by the decision of the members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, under their leader's influence, to abstain from alcoholic drinks when on duty at the House of Commons. Above all, Salter was impressed by the Socialist fight which the newly emerged Labour Party, and especially its influential ILP, personalities, were making in Parliament. They had initiated the demand for the school-feeding of hungry children, for old-age pensions, for the maintenance of the unemployed. They were the dynamic behind the growing pressure on the Liberal Government to introduce bold social legislation.

 

(8) Beatrice Webb, diary entry (23rd January, 1895)

Last night we had an informal conference with the ILP leaders. Ramsay MacDonald and Frank Smith (who are members both of the Fabians and the ILP) have been for some time harping on the desirability of an understanding between the two societies. To satisfy them Sidney (Webb) arranged a little dinner of Keir Hardie, Tom Mann, Edward Pease and George Bernard Shaw and the two intermediaries. I think the principals on either side felt it would come to nothing. Nevertheless, it was interesting.

Tom Mann said the Progressives on the LCC were not convinced Socialists. No one should get the votes of the ILP who did not pledge himself to the 'Nationalisation of the Means of Production'. Keir Hardie, who impressed me very unfavourably, deliberately chooses this policy as the only one which he can boss. His only chance of leadership lies in the creation of an organisation "against the government"; he knows little and cares less for any constructive thought or action. But with Tom Mann it is different. he is possessed with the idea of a 'church' - of a body of men all professing exactly the same creed and all working in exact uniformity to exactly the same end. No idea which is not 'absolute', which admits of any compromise or qualification, no adhesion which is tempered with doubt, has the slightest attraction to him. And, as Shaw remarked, he is deteriorating. This stumping the country, talking abstractions and raving emotions, is not good for a man's judgment, and the perpetual excitement leads, among other things, to too much whisky.

I do not think the conference ended in any understanding. We made clear our position. We were a purely educational body, we did not seek to become a 'party'. We should continue our policy of inoculation, of giving to each class, to each person, that came under our influence the exact dose of collectivism that they were prepared to assimilate.

 

(9) Keir Hardie, speech at the Labour Party Conference (1907)

I thought the days of my pioneering were over but of late I have felt, with increasing intensity, the injustice inflicted on women by our present laws. The Party is largely my own child and I cannot part from it lightly, or without pain; but at the same time I cannot sever myself from the principles I hold. If it is necessary for me to separate myself from what has been my life's work, I do so in order to remove the stigma resting upon our wives, mothers and sisters of being accounted unfit for citizenship.

 

(10) In 1910 James Keir Hardie explained the influence that Christianity had on his political beliefs.

I have said, both in writing and from the platform many times, that the impetus which drove me first into the Labour movement, and the inspiration which has carried me on in it, has been derived more from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth than from all other sources combined.

 

(11) Fran Abrams, Freedom's Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes (2003)

The young student, now aged twenty-four, had fallen for the fifty-year-old politician in a manner which went far beyond mere admiration or friendship. As the relationship developed, the complexity of these feelings became clearer. Sylvia saw Hardie as part political hero, part father-figure and part potential lover. Gradually he began to return her feelings. In the summer of 1906, when Sylvia was forced to leave the Royal College of Art because her grant had been withdrawn, Hardie helped her move into cheaper lodgings, soothed her furrowed brow and took her out for a cheering meal. From then on Sylvia often visited him at the House of Commons and the two walked together in St James's Park or spent the evening at Nevill's Court. Quite how they dealt with the fact that he was already married is not entirely clear. Sylvia later described his relationship with Lillie as "tragic", probably reflecting Hardie's own account. Nor was Sylvia the first woman with whom Hardie had had extramarital relations: in 1893 he had a brief but intense flirtation with Annie Hines, the daughter of a party worker in Oxfordshire.

 

(12) Keir Hardie, letter to Votes for Women (1st October, 1909)

That there is difference of opinion concerning the tactics of the militant Suffragettes goes without saying, but surely there call be no two opinions concerning the horrible brutality of these proceedings? Women, worn and weak by hunger, are seized upon, held down by brute force, gagged, a tube inserted down their throats and food poured or pumped into the stomach.

 

(13) Isabella Ford, Labour Leader (30 September, 1915)

His extraordinary sympathy with the women's movement, his complete understanding of what it stands for, were what first made me understand the finest side of his character. In the days when Labour men neglected and slighted the women's cause or ridiculed it, Hardie never once failed us, never once faltered in his work for us. We women can never forget what we owe him.

 

(14) Hiliare Belloc, letter to Wilfred Blunt (18th April, 1911)

What I told you of Keir Hardie is reliable. The man has a larger dose of sincerity than most politicians: he suffers from a very touchy vanity which follows that kind of success, proceeding from such social origins: finally, he is not to be depended upon for active criticism of the Administration, because, in having produced the Labour Party his life's work is done and he is content, and on the side of the contented people in most things. But, as I have said, his love of justice is quite genuine and you will find that he is respected by men who are attached to that attribute.

 

(15) Keir Hardie issued a statement on the outbreak of the First World War.

The long-threatened European war is now upon us. You have never been consulted about this war. The workers of all countries must strain every nerve to prevent their Governments from committing them to war. Hold vast demonstrations against war, in London and in every industrial centre. There is no time to lose. Down with the rule of brute force! Down with war! Up with the peaceful rule of the people!

 

(16) Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement (1931)

I knew that Keir Hardie had been failing in health since the early days of the war. The great slaughter, the rending of the bonds of international fraternity, on which he had built his hopes, had broken him. Quite early he had a stroke in the House of Commons after some conflict with the jingoes. When he left London for the last time he had told me quietly that his active life was ended, and that this was forever farewell, for he would never return. In his careful way he arranged for the disposal of his books and furniture and gave up his rooms, foreseeing his end, and fronting it without flinching or regret.

 

(17) The Women's Dreadnought (2nd October, 1915)

Keir Hardie has been the greatest human being of our time. When the dust raised by opposition to the pioneer has settled down, this will be known by all.

The first Labour Member of Parliament, he was for years absolutely alone. He held to his independence, untouched by the temptations that assault lesser men. One of the outstanding features of his years of absolute isolation as the sole Labour Member was his fight for the unemployed. For his contention that workless men and women have a claim upon society to be provided with work, he was ridiculed and most angrily abused. But by the poor and those who understood him he was greatly loved.

He toiled to awaken the members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and the Labour movement as a whole, to the great need for the enfranchisement of women, and for the comradeship of working women and working men. He scarcely made a speech without dwelling upon this, and when enthusiasts asked him to write a motto, he would choose "Votes for Women and Socialism for All".

 

(18) Bruce Glasier, diary entry on the funeral of James Keir Hardie (September, 1915)

A considerable crowd of people - mostly ILP friends (workmen chiefly, snatching a few moments from their dinner hour). The Chapel was packed. The Rev. Forson read the service. Jowett says a few words, not very impressive. Then Forson gave his eulogy. A ghastly malapropos one. All about Hardie's early connection with the Evangelical Union church - no reference to his political work, internationalism or peace. Hardie might have been a grocer. It made me wild. Then when Forson ended and there was silence, and I saw our old hero was about to be lowered out of sight, I stood forward and laying my hands on the bier said a few confused words about his being the greatest agitator of his day and asking comrades to pledge themselves to work for his beloved ILP, for internationalism and peace, the coffin disappearing as I spoke.

 

(19) J. R. Clynes, Memoirs (1937)

Hardie died of a broken heart. He had always been a pacifist, and had fiercely opposed the South African War, being nearly killed in Glasgow during a riot caused by one of his speeches there against it. Between the end of the South African War and 1914 he burned himself out working to try and prepare a tremendous international general strike, to be declared when the European War, which he could see was coming, broke out. This strike he hoped would paralyze hostilities and bring immediate peace.

When August, 1914, showed him that his hopes were vain, that the workers' leaders he had painfully taught were marching to war and singing their respective patriotic songs, and when British Labour refused to inaugurate a great strike on behalf of peace, Hardie became a broken man. For the next twelve months the old dominant figure we had known was seen no more in the corridors of the House of Commons; he shrank into a travesty of his former self, never spoke in debates and said little to anyone. The great leader of Labour was dying on his feet. We all loved and respected him; it was a great grief to us that our attitude to war was driving the sword into his heart; but between our conscience and our friend there was only one choice.

 

(20) Kenneth O Morgan, Keir Hardie (19th September, 2008)

Keir Hardie is Labour's greatest pioneer and its greatest hero. Without him, the party would never have existed. Without him, Attlee, Bevan and Castle would never have become cabinet ministers. This extraordinary man rose from the pits of Ayrshire to change the world. He became the first Labour MP, the founder of the ILP, first leader of the Labour party, pioneer editor of the Labour Leader, and a giant in the socialist movement worldwide. Miraculously, he created a new party, as "an uprising of the working class".

Hardie was both our greatest strategist and our greatest prophet and evangelist. His vision made the Labour Alliance. He saw that a mass party needed a mass working-class base, the unions from which he himself had sprung. But his ILP also brought in middle-class socialists. Labour should "blend the classes into one human family", but always, independently, "work out its own emancipation".

And he was a unique popular crusader. In Cambridge in 1907 the young Hugh Dalton was deeply moved by Hardie's "total lack of fear or anger"; he became a socialist that night. No one more powerfully exposed the cruelties of late-Victorian capitalists like Lord Overtoun's "white slavery". Yet Hardie insisted that socialism "made war upon a system not a class". Labour should "capture power, not destroy it".

Hardie attached his party to great issues and values still relevant today. He was the greatest-ever male feminist. Through his friendship with Sylvia Pankhurst, he insisted that women's liberation involved women not just as voters, but as mothers, workers, human beings. He crusaded passionately against poverty: his proud description was "member for the unemployed", campaigning for the minimum wage and eliminating child poverty. He pioneered social welfare, advocating a national health service financed from redistributive taxation, not a poll tax. He was a principled democrat. His socialism was not a massive state bureaucracy but the true republican democracy of Milton, including Welsh and Scottish devolution.

His global vision linked Labour with colonial freedom. In Bengal in 1907 he outraged the Raj by demanding that India should actually be governed by Indians. I once saw a walking stick in Hardie's Cumnock home, a present from his great admirer, Mahatma Gandhi. In South Africa, Hardie almost uniquely argued that self-government there was for whites only and that in Natal and Cape Colony black Africans' status would seriously erode. And finally, Hardie anchored Britain in the international socialist movement. He was, like Wordsworth in 1789, a citizen of the world. He crusaded with French comrades for international peace. He stood up courageously during the Boer war, denouncing its "methods of barbarism". In 1914, he was horrified by that imperialist bloodbath, and it killed him. As George Bernard Shaw movingly wrote, Hardie's indomitable truth would still go marching on.

Hardie's greatness is reflected in the simplicity of his lifestyle. You could never imagine him, like Attlee, counting up the number of Etonians in his government nor, like Bevan, quaffing Bollinger with Beaverbrook. Bruce Glasier wrote of Hardie that "the man and his gospel were indivisible". His simple heroism made our party and our world.