The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-24

| Is tall and dark. with q face which though purposefu1. suggests the 1 dreamer. wonderfully expressive eyes | white, strong teeth. and really s,i-
 perb mustache. Since the death of the | late George Wyndham, Ramsay Mae.
 donald has been pre-eminently tn, l beauty of the House of Commons and there always was crowd in front oi l the fine portrait of him which was ex- | hibited by Solomon J. Solomon, in the Royal academy of 1912
 At the outset of his career, he ranged 1 himself with the liberals, and in their 1 Interest stood as parliamentary candi
 date in Southampton in 1896 and in
 Leicester in 1900, both times unsuccess- fully. year later. however he was elected a member of the London county council. the body that really runs this
 metropolis and then got hisofirst taste of the difficulties of administration.
 incidentally. he practically turned his back on the Fabians, having tired of 1 Shaw's freakishness and Webb's doc Urine of perm cation. The Fabians deprecated independent political action and advocated the permation of 1ibara ism with the socialistfc virus, but Mac donald preferred to identify himself openly with the independent labor party. The cause of his definite break
 with the liberals, however, was the bye election in the Attercliffe division of Sheffield, when the liberals of thai town passed over the claims of Charles Hobson. the liberal labor leader. in favor of those of rich employer of labor Batty Langley. That event per- suaded me-" declared Macdonald to the writer, that labor would require to organize itself independently" So he organized the now famous labor rep resentat1on committee and became it's secretary. and thereafter worked steadfastly for the great triumph. Of la bor which duly came off in 1906. when Macdonald himself, who had again hoisted the flag of socialism ct l.eices- ter was elected to Parliament to sit beside Keir Hardie. John Burns and the rest of the little band of labor pioneers In the council hall of the nation.
 or that election he told me this story: One day" said he, "a woman came into my committee room and asked for some of my literature. When she was questioned as to the reason why she came for it, she repIeid that an agent of the Sporting league had been to her husband, who was d well known patron of the bookmakers, to get him to vote against me. She, on the other hand, determined that he should vote for me. and she left the room saving. If ne won't promise me to vote for Mir. Macdonald I'll give him such a good hiding that he won't be able to vote Tor anybody and she certainly looked as If she could make her words good"
 For sometime previously he had been secretary of the labor party. and mean
 while, too, he had made an eminentlv
 prudent marriage. His wife was a member of the famous Gladstone family and niece of Lord Kelvin: moreover she possessed means which secured her husband against want for the remain der of his life and which enabled him To maintain his position as a member or Parliament whose reputation was in creasing daily. The Macdonalds. if is
 true, as political hosts did not rival the success of the Sidney Webbs, but their married life was almost ideally happy, and when Mrs. Macdonald died. In l9ll' five bonny children, two sons and three daughters survived her. And III me following year 8 charmingly written volume entitled, Margaret Ethel Macdonald, a Memoir" was added to her husbands works
 Never In history" says a writer on Ramsay Macdonald and the labor move
 ment has a politician created a party
 and brought 1t almost into sight of power in so short a time" The fla nous alliance between the T. L. Pv and the English trade unions. an e1 lance which, for the first time. brought socialism into the realm of practical fo'i'iSS III tilS cOuHllA, was ms work and thereafter the helm was in his hands, though it was several years before he became the nominal leader of the labor party. But he was it's chief whip and, as such, an important per- sonage in Parliament, which soon rec oshized him, too, as one O fits clever est and most convincing speakers He won respect. also by avoiding such ec cehtrlcitles in dress as most of the la- DOT men in Parliament have affected even d1sdaining the red tie of social ism
 Never afraid of hard work. he was labors parliamentary secretary in the House for over four years, a post
 that means the presence there of it's
 holder rom Il in the morning until midnight, and work which, as Mac donald has declared, is "purely me
 chanical and sheer drudgery." By means of it, however he built up the party machine. which thereafter ran smoothly. resigning in 1911 in order to
 be able to devote more time to his literary work, which has resulted in
 several volumes on socialism and kin dred subjects as we'll as on India. which country the author -parliamen- tarian visited in 1908 and again in 1912.
 As labor's boss, his autocracy ri- vailed that of the late Thomas c. PIatt. The labor party" one of his biogra- phers has said, represents 1,342,61O in- dlviduals, and the labor party is Mir
 Ramsay Macdonald. NJ. P" And
 though efforts were made to overthrow
 him at various labor conferences mo-
 tably by Arthur Henderson, they one and all resulted in failure. The strong
 man Of the party, it is with aiffi- cuIty, occasionally, that he is able to hide his contempt of the utilities in which many of the would be leaders of
 labor indulge. And sometimes at la DOT conferences the contempt breaks out Then, with flashing eye and strident voice he denounces the lack of
 common sense the ignorance and the general incompetency of the off snder Aggressive and pitliless he rends the
 man who dares to challenge his su- premacy and the very force of his at tack Invariably carries the great bulk
 of the delegates with him.
 He is, as he would be the first to avow, no revolutionary social demo- crat. He is no believer in the class war nor any cataclysmic change, and he has avoided strikes as much as possi- ble Possessed of all the virtues ot is countrymen and with few, if any, of their vices make haste slowly" might we'll be his motto. Opponents have de- scribed him as puritanism personifed, and canniness in excelsis, but in the present crisis. assuredly, he has thrown overheard canniness and every thing ton of right" .,AQ
 Copyright, 1915, by Curtis BrownJ
 
 Not in Such Haste
 From the Green Bag.
 ''You willn said the attorpav d,,r;no