Poplarville, Mississippi
Poplarville is a city in Pearl River County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,894. It is the county seat of Pearl River County. It hosts an annual Blueberry Jubilee, which includes rides, craft vendors and rodeos.
History.
Poplarville was named for Poplar Jim Smith, the original owner of the town site.
Four lynchings have been committed in Poplarville since the Civil War. The most recent occurred in 1959 when Mack Charles Parker, an African-American accused of rape, was abducted from the Pearl River County jail in Poplarville by a mob and shot to death. No charges were filed against anyone.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina inflicted damage on Poplarville, with storm's most powerful, unofficially recorded gust of wind reported at Pearl River Community College, at . On September 2, 2005, Ohio Army National Guard arrived in Poplarville to assist with recovery. Initial efforts were the security of banks, pharmacies and gas stations as well as initial responses to rural emergencies. The unit stayed for three weeks ultimately checking on every family and structure in the county. On September 5, 2005, George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Governor Haley Barbour visited Pearl River Community College in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
On March 25, 2014 citizens voted to allow for beer and wine sales. The final vote count was 361 votes for the measure and 149 against.
Geography.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it (0.52%) is water.
Demographics.
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2020 census.
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 2,833 people, 733 households, and 499 families residing in the city.
2000 census.
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,601 people, 852 households, and 558 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 936 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 74.32% White, 23.95% African American, 0.50% Asian, 0.15% Native American, 0.12% Pacific Islander, 0.15% from other races, and 0.81% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.65% of the population.
There were 852 households, out of which 32.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.6% were married couples living together, 19.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.4% were non-families. 30.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.99.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.6% under the age of 18, 20.8% from 18 to 24, 22.3% from 25 to 44, 18.2% from 45 to 64, and 17.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 84.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.0 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $26,417, and the median income for a family was $32,339. Males had a median income of $35,250 versus $21,667 for females. The per capita income for the city was $12,833. About 20.8% of families and 25.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 38.8% of those under age 18 and 17.5% of those age 65 or over.
Education.
The City of Poplarville is served by the Poplarville School District and is home to Pearl River Community College.

Larkin I. Smith
American politician
Larkin Irvin Smith (June 26, 1944 – August 13, 1989) was an American Congressman from Mississippi serving for seven months until he was killed in a plane crash in Perry County, Mississippi in 1989.
Smith was born in Poplarville, Mississippi to Nona Orene Bounds and her husband Hezekiah K. Smith Sr. Smith was named after his maternal grandfather Larkin Bounds and his maternal uncle Irvin E. Bounds. He received his bachelor's degree from William Carey University and then served at various positions in the police forces in both Pearl River and then Harrison counties. He became the police chief in Gulfport and thereafter the Harrison County sheriff.
In 1988, Smith ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Mississippi's 5th congressional district in the southern portion of the state after eight-term incumbent Trent Lott gave up the seat to make a successful run for the Senate.
He defeated Democratic State Senator Gene Taylor and took office on January 3, 1989. However, Smith died on the night of August 13 in a plane crash in rural Perry County near Gulfport after returning from opening the Little League baseball "Dixie Youth World Series" in Hattiesburg. The bodies of Smith and pilot Chuck Vierling were not recovered until the next morning after a search in which rescuers had to bulldoze their way through the forest. Smith's death came only six days after fellow Representative Mickey Leland of Texas died in a plane crash in Ethiopia on August 7, 1989.
Taylor would succeed Smith in a special election held some two months after the crash, beating Republican candidate Tom Anderson. Taylor was reelected every two years until 2010, when he was defeated by Republican State Representative Steven Palazzo.
References.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections

Larkin Smith (Virginia politician)
American politician
Larkin Smith (10 Jul 1745 — 28 Sep 1813) was a Virginia officer, planter and politician who represented King and Queen County in the Virginia House of Delegates, and served as that body's Speaker from 1799 until 1802.
Early and family life.
Born at Richahock plantation in King and Queen County to Mary Chew and her planter husband, John Smith. A member of the First Families of Virginia, he could trace his ancestors in the colony several generations back to immigrants from England.
Military service.
Smith enlisted in November 1775 as a private in a company of minutemen. He was promoted to cadet in the 6th Virginia Regiment on February 10, 1776, then cornet of the 4th Regiment Continental Light Dragoons on August 1, 1777. His first officer's commission was issued on September 4, 1778, when he became a lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on April 1, 1780, and received land in southern Virginia as partial compensation for his patriotic service. Following the conflict, Smith became a member of the Society of the Cincinnati and continued in the Virginia militia, retiring as Colonel of the Regiment of Dragoons in 1807.
Career.
Following the war, on September 30, 1784, Smith became one of the Justices of the Peace which collectively ruled his native King and Queen County.
King and Queen County voters elected Smith as their (part-time) representative in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1784-1785 and both re-elected him and failed to re-elect him many times. In the period June 7, 1794 until 1797 he was ineligible for legislative service because fellow legislators elected him as a member of the Governor's Privy Council which governed the Commonwealth's small executive branch. During their joint Privy Council service, he and Edmund Harrison (who would succeed him as speaker) on October 7, 1794, issued a report to the Governor on the condition of the State Treasury. Smith again won election to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1797, and was re-elected several times. Fellow delegates elected and re-elected him as their Speaker beginning in 1799, and he served until 1802.
Smith moved to Norfolk, Virginia and accepted the office of tax Collector for the Port of Norfolk, serving from October 12, 1807, until his death on September 28, 1813.
Personal life.
Smith married twice. On April 21, 1781, he married Mary Eleanor Hill. Following her death, on May 25, 1804, Smith married Sophia Ann Tazewell Taliaferro (widow of Benjamin Taliaferro) at the home of her brother, Littleton Waller Tazewell, who would become Governor of Virginia in 1834–36. Her father was Judge Henry Tazewell of Williamsburg.
Death and legacy.
Smith died in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1813. He is buried in Dinwiddie County with a nice toumb stone in the rock wall cemetery at Village View or Diamon Springs or Smith Farm. Same place different names.
References.
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, in the old House chamber in the Virginia State Capitol

Richard Larkin
American politician
Richard L. Larkin (born February 28, 1952) is an American politician in the state of Iowa.
Larkin was born in Ottumwa, Iowa and worked as a correctional counselor. A Democrat, he served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 (99th district).
References.
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Ira P. Smith
American businessman and politician
Ira P. Smith (April 6, 1832 – July 27, 1904) was an American businessman and politician.
Biography.
Born in Rochester, New York, Smith moved to Two Rivers, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin Territory, in 1844 and went to the public schools. He then moved to the town of Mishicot and was in the lumber business. He served as chairman of the Mishicot Town Board. Smith served as sheriff of Manitowoc County from 1862 to 1864 and was a Democrat. In 1881, he served in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Smith died of heart failure, at a hospital. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin while visiting a son.
Notes.
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Charles H. Larkin
19th century American politician
Charles Henry Larkin Sr., (May 12, 1810 – August 16, 1894) was an American merchant, real estate developer, and Wisconsin pioneer. He was a member of the Wisconsin State Senate (1866–1870) and State Assembly (1872, 1874, 1875), representing southern Milwaukee County, and was sheriff of Milwaukee County in 1861 and 1862.
Background.
Larkin was born in Stonington, Connecticut, on May 2, 1810. He attended private schools (no public schools being available) until the age of sixteen, at which time he took a job as a retail clerk in the town of Alden, New York (to which his family had moved in 1825), and worked there for three years, before moving on to similar positions in Buffalo and elsewhere. In 1836 he arrived in the Milwaukee area, after having visited Michigan and other western territories, and settled there. He laid claim to a quarter-section of land in Greenfield township, and lived there for two years to perfect his title to the land. While doing so, he bought and sold horses and engaged in various businesses. In 1848 he opened a store at the foot of East Water Street in the City of Milwaukee and dealt extensively in produce, livestock, and so forth. He also invested in real estate, and after a few years retired from other business and gave his attention chiefly to his real-estate interests.
Politics.
He started his political life as an ardent admirer of Henry Clay and a Whig. During his residence in Greenfield he served as a member of the Milwaukee County board of supervisors. He served as a Sergeant-at-Arms for the Wisconsin Territorial Council's 1845 session; he was a delegate from Milwaukee County to the second Wisconsin constitutional convention. He was appointed Milwaukee County treasurer; was appointed a pension agent by President James Buchanan, and served four years; served on the Milwaukee Board of School Directors (school board) for four years, and was elected sheriff of Milwaukee County in 1860 and served two years.
In 1862, Larkin was commissioned a colonel by the governor to raise a regiment of troops. Feeling too old to engage in warfare, instead he assisted his son, Courtland P. Larkin, to enlist a company of the 38th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Beginning in 1866, he was a Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Senate from the Sixth District (the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th Wards of the City of Milwaukee, and the Towns of Milwaukee, Greenfield, Lake, and Oak Creek), succeeding fellow Democrat Hugh Reynolds; he was assigned to the standing committee on banks and banking, but switched to that on railroads for the 1868 and 1869 sessions. In the 1870 election he ran as an Independent and was defeated by Democratic candidate Peter V. Deuster, by 2178 to 1704.
In 1871, identified as a War Democrat, he was elected as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from the Fifth Milwaukee County Assembly district (the 5th and 12th Wards of Milwaukee), with 508 votes to 325 for Republican John Lund. He lost his seat in the 1872 election to Republican John A. Becher by 703 votes to Becher's 773, but reclaimed it from him the next year, by 822 to 714, and defeated Republican David Vance in 1874. He was not a candidate in 1875, and Vance won the election to succeed him.
Personal life and later years.
He built a block of stores on Reed Street, and as late as 1893 was engaged in the construction of a block of buildings downtown. His religious affiliation was with the Episcopal church. He was deeply interested in the Milwaukee County Pioneer Society. He died at his home in Milwaukee on August 16, 1894.

Frank L. Smith (New York politician)
American farmer and politician
Frank L. Smith (June 26, 1851 – October 13, 1926) was an American farmer and politician from New York.
Life.
Smith was born on June 26, 1851, in Charlton, New York. He attended the Charlton Academy.
Smith worked as a farmer in Charlton. He was a member of the Harmony Association, Patrons of Industry, and the Grange. He was as a manager of the Saratoga County Agricultural Society. He served as justice of the peace for eight years, and school commissioner for three terms. In the last fifteen years of his life, he was manager of the Galway Telephone Company.
Smith served as town supervisor of Galway in 1888 and 1889. In 1891, Smith was elected to the New York State Assembly as a Republican, representing the Saratoga County 1st District. He served in the Assembly in 1892.
In 1875, Smith married Mary E. Feeney. She died in 1914. In 1921, he married Achsah Holbrook. He had two daughters, Mrs. William Crawford and Mrs. Clinton Palmatier. He was a member of the Charlton Presbyterian church, and was superintendent of the Sunday school for thirty years.
Smith died on October 13, 1926. He was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery.
References.
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Lindsley Smith
American politician
Lindsley Farrar Armstrong Smith (born September 8, 1963) is an American educator and former state legislator who recorded interviews with some of her female colleagues in the legislature. She served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2005 to 2010.
She was born in Birmingham, Alabama. She received an associate degree from Jefferson State Community College her BA and MA from University of West Florida. She taught. She married communications professor Stephen Smith in 1994. She earned a J.D. from the University of Arkansas. She served in the Arkansas House from 2005 to 2010. She represented District 92 and Fayetteville.
References.
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Owen L. W. Smith
American diplomat
Owen Lun West Smith (May 18, 1851 – January 5, 1926) was an African American minister and diplomat of the United States.
Biography.
Smith was born into slavery in Giddensville, Sampson County, North Carolina, on May 18, 1851. At the start of the Civil War, he would follow the Confederate army while serving as a personal servant. Later on, however, he would enlist in the Union Army and go on to fight in the Battle of Bentonville.
After becoming a freedman, Smith worked as a teacher before getting a scholarship to attend the University of South Carolina from 1874 to 1876.
In 1880 Smith would convert to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, while attending a camp in Whiteville, North Carolina; later on, by 1881, he would attain a preacher's license and was ordained as a local deacon. Following his conversion, he would go on to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Livingstone College in 1883.
After having been appointed on February 11, 1898, Smith would go on to serve as the Minister Resident of the United States to Liberia between May 11, 1898, and May 13, 1902.
Smith died on January 5, 1926, in Wilson, North Carolina, where he was later buried.

Larry G. Smith (politician)
American politician
Larry G. Smith (November 11, 1914 – March 22, 1992) was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives.
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Lindsey J. Smith
19th-century American politician
Lindsey J. Smith was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly.
Biography.
Smith was born on January 8, 1840, in what is now Lafayette, Walworth County, Wisconsin. During the American Civil War, he enlisted with the Union Army. He achieved the rank of captain with the 28th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Conflicts Smith participated in include the Battle of Helena and the Battle of Spanish Fort.
Assembly career.
Smith was a member of the Assembly in 1881. He was an Independent Republican.
References.
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Larkin, Alabama
Larkin is an unincorporated community in northern Jackson County, Alabama, United States. It is located on Alabama State Route 65, northwest of Skyline.
History.
A post office operated under the name Larkin from 1894 to 1914.
References.
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Unincorporated community in Alabama, United States

Clark Allen Smith
American judge (1846–1921)
Clark Allen Smith (July 29, 1846 – March 6, 1921) was a justice of the Kansas Supreme Court from December 1, 1904, to January 11, 1915.
Life and education.
Smith was born July 29, 1846, in Rock County, Wisconsin, where he grew up on a farm.
After his initial education he taught school in between his further studies.
Attending the University of Wisconsin he graduated in 1870 in the classics and then in 1871 in law for his degree in "the arts and law courses".
Directly after obtaining his degree he moved to Cawker City in Kansas, where he was one of the first settlers of Mitchell County and arrived in 1871 where he became the first public school teacher.
He obtained another degree from Washburn college in Topeka, Kansas, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
In 1873 he married Miss Sarah Bowers with whom he had two sons, Matthew A. Smith and Omar D. Smith who also became a lawyer.
He was a mason and a charter member of the lodge in Cawker, and was the organiser of the Cawker City Hesperian Library club.
The club owned its own building and the Old Cawker City Library was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
In 1890 he was involved in advocating for the railroad to join northern Kansas to the markets of Omaha and Lincoln in Nebraska and then on to Chicago, and he was one of the incorporators of the "Omaha, Superior & Southern railway company".
Legal career.
After teaching he then went on to start practising law and created a law partnership with F. J. Knight.
His interests were not just in law but also politics and was elected to serve as county attorney in 1873, serving one term.
In 1880 he was elected to be judge of the 15th district, the result was contested and the state supreme court decided that the incumbents terms had not yet expired.
He tried again in 1881 winning again as an independent candidate, and he was then a judge for the 15th judicial district from 1881 to 1889, but lost the position as he was beaten by the Populists by 100 votes in 1890.
He was a republican and stood against Judge William D. Atkinson for the republican nomination for the supreme court. Atkinson had been serving on the court after being appointed to fill the seat left free when John Calvin Pollock moved to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas.
He then won the election in November 1904 and took up the position on the court to complete the remaining unexpired term of Justice Pollock.
In 1908 he stood again with his being one of three positions expiring, and he was successfully re-elected for another term.
He taught at Washburn law school along with two other supreme court members Alfred Washburn Benson and Henry Freeman Mason, with Smith lecturing in 1912 on "Extra Ordinary Legal Remedies".
He retired from the supreme court when he stood in 1914, along with two other Smiths, to keep the position but lost with John Shaw Dawson and John Marshall winning the seats.
He continued to practice law including being involved in cases presented to the supreme court such as "Good v. Higgins, 99 Kan. 315 (1916)" and "State v. William, 106 Kan. 778 (1920)".
Death.
He died March 6, 1921, at his home in Cawker City after several months of ill health, and was survived by his wife and two sons.
He was buried at the Cawker City cemetery.
The Mitchell County Bar Association honored him for his work and his character.
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Smithville, Arkansas
Smithville is a town in Lawrence County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 78 at the 2010 census.
History.
Euro-American settlers first came to the area of Smithville in 1808.
Smithville became the county seat of modern-day Lawrence County in 1837. The county seat was later moved to Powhatan in 1869, after the Civil War. This was done in part to take advantage of riverboat commerce along the Black River.
Smithville was the nearest town to the final shoot-out between law enforcement and the infamous tax fugitive Gordon Kahl on June 2, 1983, in which Lawrence County Sheriff Harold Gene Matthews was also killed. Smithville lies a few miles south of the actual shootout location.
Geography.
Smithville is located in western Lawrence County at (36.080031, -91.303781). Arkansas Highway 117 runs east to Black Rock and south to Strawberry. Highway 115 runs northeast to Imboden (and thus connects to US 412) and southwest toward Cave City in Sharp County, away.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town of Smithville has a total area of , all land.
Smithville is nestled in the Ozark Foothills on the Salem Plateau, which is a part of the larger Ozark Plateau. The eastern third of Smithville is a low-lying area, prone to flooding from Machine Creek. The center of Smithville is atop a small hill. As one travels west or north of Smithville, rolling hills can be found in either direction. West of Smithville lies Peebles Bluff.
Regionally, Smithville lies approximately in the center of the Cooper Creek Watershed Improvement District. This district consists of a series of reservoirs designed to mitigate flooding. Local names have been applied to these reservoirs:
Site 1: West Cooper Creek Lake
Site 2: East Cooper Creek Lake
Site 3: Dogwood Lake
Site 4: Machine Lake
Site 5: Goff Lake
Site 6: Ed's Lake
Demographics.
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As of the census of 2000, there were 73 people, 33 households, and 22 families residing in the town. The population density was 47.0/km2 (121.5/mi2). There were 41 housing units at an average density of 26.4/km2 (68.2/mi2). The racial makeup of the town was 97.26% White, 1.37% Black or African American and 1.37% Native American.
There were 33 households, out of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.5% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.3% were non-families. 27.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 21.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.21 and the average family size was 2.64.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 21.9% under the age of 18, 2.7% from 18 to 24, 28.8% from 25 to 44, 16.4% from 45 to 64, and 30.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.6 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $36,250, and the median income for a family was $45,250. Males had a median income of $30,625 versus $19,375 for females. The per capita income for the town was $11,687. There were 11.1% of families and 26.5% of the population living below the poverty line, including 32.0% of under eighteens and 53.3% of those over 64.
Law and government.
The current mayor of Smithville is Chris Penn.
Education.
Smithville is in the Hillcrest School District.
It was formerly in the Lynn School District. On July 1, 2004, it merged into the Hillcrest district.

Larry R. Smith
Larry R. Smith is a poet, fiction writer, literary biographer, translator, essayist and reviewer.
Background.
Smith was born in Mingo Junction, Ohio in 1943 and graduated from Mingo High School in 1961, Muskingum College in 1965, then on to Kent State University in Ohio for a masters and doctorate in American and Contemporary World Literature. His thesis work was on Sherwood Anderson and dissertation on Kenneth Patchen, fellow Ohio writers. He has taught at Bowling Green State University's Firelands College since 1970. The author has received an Ohio Arts Council Writing Fellowship and an Ohioana Citation for his contribution to poetry in Ohio. He also has received a National Endowment for the Humanities summer grant and a Fulbright Teaching Lectureship to Italy.
Smith is married to Ann Smith also of Mingo Junction, a professor of nursing at the Medical College of Ohio. Together with her and others they founded Converging Paths Meditation Center in Sandusky, Ohio. Smith is the director of The Firelands Writing Center and of Bottom Dog Press.
Films.
Two docu-drama video programs, written, co-directed and co-produced with Tom Koba; funded through Ohio Humanities Council and Ohio Arts Council:

Lindol Smith
Idaho politician
Lindol Smith (born June 6, 1832) was a mayor and state legislator in Idaho. He served two terms as mayor of Moscow, Idaho.
Smith was born in New Philadelphia, Ohio in Tuscarawas County. He became a carpenter and served in the American Civil War. His wife and several other family members were killed by scarlet fever. The financial panic of 1873 cost him financially. He built a planing mill in Moscow around 1882. He was a Department Commander for the Grand Army of the Republic in 1897. He served as a councilman, mayor, and was elected to the state legislature in 1898. He represented Latah County in the Idaho House of Representatives.
Captain Edward Smith was one of his sons.
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William Smith (South Carolina politician, born 1762)
American politician (c. 1762–1840)
William Smith (c. 1762 – June 26, 1840), name often rendered Judge Wm. Smith in written records of his era, was an American lawyer, plantation owner, and politician. He served two discontinuous terms in the United States Senate, from 1816 to 1823, and from 1826 to 1831, representing the state of South Carolina. Smith was one of the major figures of South Carolina politics during the first third of the 19th century. He formed an intense rivalry with John C. Calhoun, arguing against Calhoun's nationalist views, and advocating for states' rights. He was also a leading voice in the Senate against the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, and spent his legislative career on both the state and federal level advocating for the extension of the slave trade and the expansion of legal slavery across the continent. He received a large number of votes for U.S. vice president in two separate elections.
Smith left both the Senate and South Carolina in the 1830s, and moved west. He developed massive plantations along the Alabama River and along the Red River of the South in Louisiana, as well as acquiring hundreds of slaves to plant those lands with the profitable cash crop cotton. After relocating to Huntsville, he served in the Alabama state legislature until his death. When he died in 1840 he was said to be "almost a millionaire in wealth," which would be equivalent to a net worth of approximately $30 million in 2023.
Early life and career.
Smith was born c. 1762 in either North Carolina or York County, South Carolina. A memoirist called "Septugenarian," writing in 1870, referred to the historic Tryon County, North Carolina, which included parts of present-day South Carolina, and stated "I always thought he was from Lincoln," meaning the vicinity of Lincolnton, in what is now Lincoln County, North Carolina. Lincolnton was connected to Yorkville (present-day York, South Carolina) by what was called the King's Mountain Road. Smith's granddaughter and heir, Mary Taylor Calhoun, volunteered to a researcher that "vague impression that, by a re-adjustment of the boundary lines between North and South Carolina, his birth-place, formerly in the jurisdiction of South Carolina, was thrown into North Carolina. Not much is known about Smith's early life outside of his education. According to his granddaughter, "Judge Smith's father was, at one time, a man of considerable property, but his fortune was greatly impaired by the depreciation of the continental money. He, however, was able to give his sons as good classical educations as the academies of those days afforded. Judge Smith was a good Latin and Greek scholar...His father started him in the world with only one negro, Priam, well known here as a foreman, and now living on the farm, adjacent to the town of Huntsville, which Judge Smith left to Mrs. Calhoun." He first attended a school in the neighborhood of Bullock's Creek, where he befriended classmates and fellow future national politicians Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford. The school at Bullock's Creek was located in the "District between Broad and Catawba Rivers," and taught by Rev. Mr. Joseph Alexander, who also had a school in the Waxhaws. Over a century later, another Carolinian described Smith as "a strong personal friend of President Jackson." The memoirs of Alabama "belle" Virginia Clay-Clopton, published 1904, described Smith as "the warm friend of Andrew Jackson." Smith reportedly had at least one brother "who was a lawyer also, and, unfortunately, intemperate." This may be Bennett Smith (or there may be other brothers). Another report attesting to Bennett Smith's alcoholism is in the 1845 journal of Murfreesboro resident Samuel Harvey Laughlin, who wrote that, "Maj. Bennett Smith, a remarkable man, is still living, had removed to town to enjoy his fortune about the time I went to the place to live. He pretended, however, now and then, especially when drunk, to engage in the practice of law."
Smith then attended Mt. Zion College in Winnsboro, South Carolina, which was the first preparatory school in the region. He once stated to a friend stated that his life could be described as "wild, reckless, intemperate, rude and boisterous, yet resolute and determined." To that same friend he also credited all of his success to a promise he once made to his wife, Margaret Duff, to forego alcohol.
Smith's law career began on January 6, 1784 when he was admitted to the bar. In one notable case, his client who had been charged for killing a horse failed to appear before the court. Smith did not see the man for a number of years until he ran into him in the Hall of the House of Representatives. The man, known to Smith by the surname "Elchinor", now went by the name John Alexander and was a Representative for the state of Ohio. Smith ensured that Representative Alexander paid him for his previous services.
He may have been resident in the York District during his South Carolina days, but also dwelled for a time in Pinckneyville in the Union District. The South Carolina local historian "Septugenarian" described Smith as an angry, violent man, widely feared as a controlling power within the community:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />His resentments were strong, and sometimes he allowed his irascible temper to get the better of him, and he would use his cane as well as the biting sarcasm for which he was famous. Fisticuffs, too, were rather more dignified then than now; but though I have seen the Judge several times attempt to take things high-handed in a dispute, some one always interfered, after one or two blows, and stopped the combatants...From his early residence, high position and dogmatical character, Judge Smith was long the autocrat of York. True, he was tyrannical to some extent; but for many years he was the pride of our district. Early in life she bestowed on him her honors; later he showed the wisdom of her trust, winning high places for himself and from them reflecting hack on her his fame. So if not loved, he was universally looked up to and respected.
Political career.
It is not entirely clear when Smith first joined the South Carolina legislature but in 1803 he was "the chief sponsor of the bill to reopen the slave trade in the state... fought to keep it open until 1808" when the federal ban on imports went into effect. According to the "Bench and Bar of South Carolina", "Judge Smith was a member of the Legislature of South Carolina for many years. In 1805, he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the South Carolina College." He was elected to the South Carolina Senate from York District in 1804. In 1806 he was elected president of the South Carolina State Senate. In 1808 he became a judge. As a jurist his temperament was considered "tyranical but fair."
According to a South Carolina newspaper, in about 1815 he built a grand house in Yorkville: "The lot on which it stood comprises a beautiful pack of twelve acres...In the construction of the house, only the best heart lumber was used, and at that period carving and ornamental work being the rage on all houses of pretension, no expense was spared by the builder in this style of ornamentation. We have heard it stated that the cost of the house was US$, and after it was finished was regarded as the finest residence then in the upper part of the State, and persons were known to travel & distance of sixty miles or more for no other purpose but to see the wonderful piece of architecture."
Then in 1816, Smith was elected a United States Senator, after defeating James R. Pringle for the seat, 101 to 51. He served his first term as a U.S. Senator was 1817 to 1823, when he was replaced by Robert Y. Hayne. At some point, perhaps in the 1820s, he also built a fine house at Turkey Creek. In 1820, during the debates over the Missouri Compromise, Smith "directly linked the reopening [of the transatlantic slave trade to South Carolina] and the Louisiana Purchase...Supporting the expansion of slavery without restriction, Smith entered volumes of archival documents from the Charleston slave trade into the congressional record to demonstrate that his state's African slave trade from 1803 to 1808 actually fed the western frontier rather than South Carolina."
Shortly after taking office, Smith began a political feud with John C. Calhoun which would last the duration of his political career in South Carolina. The feud between Calhoun and Smith resided in their different political philosophies, when Smith joined the Senate, Calhoun was still a nationalist who believed in internal infrastructure improvements and a "broad construction" of the Constitution, two concepts which Smith found repugnant. In response to Calhoun's growing popularity, Smith formed a coalition of States' Rights allies which included Thomas Cooper, Stephen Decatur Miller, Josiah J. Evans, and David Rogerson Williams. The South Carolina nationalists led by Calhoun "favored a few national roads because of national military necessity", they repudiated small-scale local appropriations. But, to the Smith faction, even roads for purported military use would instead be used to bolster the economy of other states. This concept of South Carolina in competition with the nation for economic prosperity was common at the time in the South Carolina elite.
During the 1820s, Smith began buying up land in both Louisiana and the new state of Alabama. In 1823 he bought a lot at the northwest corner of Eustis and Greene streets that became the first parcel in what became what was called the Calhoun House property, and every year until 1832 bought more lots in town until he owned the entire block as well as "most of the block that fronts on East Side Square." According to Huntsville architectural historian Linda Bayer, "he began assembling acreage immediately northeast of the town, in what is now East Huntsville Addition, with the purchase of 640 acres for $18,000 cash. Additional purchases in 1828 and 1831 increased this holding to almost 1,000 acres, and this land became his Huntsville plantation which he named Spring Grove." This property was later known as Calhoun Grove. Smith may have summered in Huntsville beginning in 1825. Also in 1825 he bought the Huntsville Inn, a three-story brick tavern, soon to be demolished, and hired architect George Steele to construct a spring house, made of brick, for one of his Huntsville properties.
Between 1823 and 1826, Smith returned to the South Carolina House of Representatives. He was sent to the U.S. Senate a second time in December 1826. Thirty years later he was remembered as "one of the earliest and most able opponents of the Northern abolition movement in the Senate of the United States." By 1826 he was a strong Jacksonian, and "their sameness of political creed cemented and strengthened their earlier ties." Defeated for reelection to the U.S. Senate by Stephen D. Miller in 1830, he was then elected back to the South Carolina Senate.
In 1831 he aligned himself with the Union and State Rights Party. In 1832, he moved to Louisiana, having lost his political base in South Carolina. At this time he may have purchased a sugar plantation in the vicinity of Lafourche, Louisiana. In 1833, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama permanently. He had long held property in Alabama, and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives for Madison County from August 1, 1836, holding that seat for the rest of his life. During the 1830s and 1840s, Smith (and later, his granddaughter and grandson-in-law) paid an estimated $20,000 for the construction of Calhoun House, in an era when most houses in the area cost about $5,000 in construction expenses. Another account claims that it was US$ for the construction of a mansion in central Huntsville that came to be known as Calhoun House; the grounds covered the entire city block bounded by Randolph, Eustis, Greene, and Lincoln streets. Calhoun House was estimated to have 10,000 sq ft of floor space, and would have thus been the biggest residence in Huntsville. Construction took over six years and involved large outlays to the architects, to bricklayers for the placement of over one million bricks (some of which were recycled from other structures in town), woodworkers, and plasterers. The same year he bought a massive plantation on the Red River of the South in Louisiana from Edward Gilliard, heir of Joseph Gilliard. By one account the property, split into four sub-plantations, covered 14,000 acres and was worked by 1,000 enslaved men, women and children. He may have owned a plantation near Montgomery, Alabama as well. A member of the planter class, Smith owned several plantations and at least 71 slaves. Smith donated land for a school called Green Academy.
Smith was one of the first Southerners to argue, at the time of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, that American slavery was a "positive good", arguing that the enslaved were "so domesticated, or so kindly treated by their masters, and their situations so improved" that few would express discontent with their condition.
Smith was a contender in the presidential–vice presidential contests during both the 1828 and 1836 electoral cycles. In 1828, seven electors from Georgia chose him for vice president, instead of Calhoun, the Democratic nominee. He was also a splinter candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1836: Virginia refused to accept Richard Mentor Johnson as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Johnson was considered the "western" candidate but his relationship with a mixed-race woman, Julia Chinn, alienated the "southern" contingent, which voted for the ticket of Martin Van Buren and William Smith, putting Johnson one electoral vote short of a majority; the Senate went on to elect Johnson.
Jackson wanted Smith to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court when there was a vacancy in 1829 but Smith declined. On March 3, 1837, outgoing President Andrew Jackson nominated Smith to the Supreme Court. Five days later, the newly seated Senate of the 25th Congress confirmed Smith's nomination by a vote of 23–18. However, Smith declined the appointment and did not serve.
Death and legacy.
Smith died in Huntsville in June 1840 of "congestive fever" in after a month-long illness. He was buried in Madison County, Alabama. Initially buried in a family cemetery on his Spring Grove plantation, Smith was reinterred at Maple Hill Cemetery when the plantation was sold off and subdivided after the American Civil War. His wife survived him by two years. Their granddaughter was bequeathed $100,000 in Smith's 1839 will, and two great-grandchildren were bequeathed $50,000 each, all in cash, and the remainder of the estate fell to Smith's granddaughter when her grandmother died. A partial inventory of Smith's property in just Madison County included 43 enslaved people, livestock, a wine collection valued at $1,000, a book collection valued at $1,000, and $4,000 in silver plate.
In 1842, Smith's grandson-in-law Calhoun listed for sale two cotton plantations, located across from each other at Burand's Bend along the Alabama River, both of which had formerly been owned by Smith. One was 1800 acres in the jurisdiction of Autauga County, Alabama, and the other was 1400 acres lying within Dallas County. The 63 slaves that worked the two properties could be expected to produce 450–500 bales of cotton annually, each bale weighing .
Smith Street in Huntsville's Old Town Historic District is named for Senator Smith.
Personal life.
William Smith's brother Bennett Smith was married to a daughter of Congressman Joseph Dickson. Bennett Smith's daughter Mary became the wife of John Hutchings, Andrew Jackson's nephew and one of his slave-and-horse-trading business partners. Bennett Smith's son William Hunter Smith lived at the Hermitage for a time, as one of Andrew Jackson's many wards.
Smith and his wife had one child who survived to adulthood. Her name was Mary Margaret Smith, and she married Col. John Taylor, Esq. of Pendleton. Taylor was in the South Carolina House of Representatives, and was a Congressman from South Carolina for one term (1815–1817). Mary Smith died young but her only child, another daughter, was raised and educated by her grandparents. Thus Smith's heir was his granddaughter, Mary Taylor, who married Meredith Calhoun. Judge Smith reportedly kept the bones of his daughter in a box and carried them with him wherever he went; they were buried with him when he died.
References.
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Sources.
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James Larkin
Irish socialist and trade union leader (1874–1947)
James Larkin (28 January 1874 – 30 January 1947), sometimes known as Jim Larkin or Big Jim, was an Irish republican, socialist and trade union leader. He was one of the founders of the Irish Labour Party along with James Connolly and William O'Brien, and later the founder of the Irish Worker League (a communist party which was recognised by the Comintern as the Irish section of the world communist movement), as well as the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and the Workers' Union of Ireland (the two unions later merged to become SIPTU, Ireland's largest trade union). Along with Connolly and Jack White, he was also a founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA; a paramilitary group which was integral to both the Dublin lock-out and the Easter Rising). Larkin was a leading figure in the Syndicalist movement.
Larkin was born to Irish parents in Toxteth, Liverpool, England. Growing up in poverty, he received little formal education and began working in a variety of jobs while still a child. He became a full-time trade union organiser in 1905. Larkin moved to Belfast in 1907, where he was involved in trade unionism and syndicalist strike action including organising the 1907 Belfast Dock strike. Larkin later moved south and organised workers in Dublin, Cork and Waterford, with considerable success. He founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union after his expulsion from the National Union of Dock Labourers for his taking part in strike action in Dublin against union instructions, this new union would quickly replace the NUDL in Ireland. He later moved to Dublin which would become the headquarters of his union and the focus of his union activity, as well as where the Irish Labour Party would be formed.
Larkin is perhaps best known for his role in organising the 1913 strike that led to the Dublin lock-out. The lock-out was an industrial dispute over workers' pay and conditions as well as their right to organise, and received worldwide attention and coverage. It has been described as the "coming of age of the Irish trade union movement". The Irish Citizen Army was formed during the lock-out to protect striking workers from police violence. Not long after the lockout Larkin assumed direct command of the ICA, beginning the process of its reform into a revolutionary paramilitary organisation by arming them with Mauser rifles bought from Germany by the Irish Volunteers and smuggled into Ireland at Howth in July 1914.
In October 1914 Larkin left Ireland and travelled to America to raise funds for the ITGWU and the ICA, leaving Connolly in charge of both organisations. During his time in America, Larkin became involved in the socialist movement there, becoming a member of the Socialist Party of America. Larkin then became involved in the early communist movement in America, and he was later jailed in 1920 in the midst of the Red Scare after being found guilty of "criminal anarchy". He then spent several years in Sing Sing, before he was eventually pardoned by the Governor of New York Al Smith in 1923 and later deported. Larkin then returned to Ireland where he again became involved in Irish socialism and politics, both in the Labour Party and then his newly formed Irish Worker League. Connolly by this time had been executed for his part in the Easter Rising and Larkin mourned the passing of his friend and colleague.
After he lost control of the ITGWU, Larkin formed the Workers' Union of Ireland (WUI). The WUI was affiliated to Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern) soon after its formation. Larkin served as a Teachta Dála (TD) on three occasions, and two of his sons (James Larkin Jnr and Denis Larkin) also served as TDs. Jim Larkin served as Labour Party deputy in Dáil Éireann from 1943 to 1944, leaving Dáil Éireann for the last time in 1944, and dying in Dublin in 1947. Catholic Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid gave his funeral mass, and the ICA in its last public appearance escorted his funeral procession through Dublin to his burial site at Glasnevin Cemetery.
Larkin was respected by commentators both during and after his lifetime, with George Bernard Shaw describing him as the "greatest Irishman since Parnell", his friend and colleague in the labour movement James Connolly describing him as a "man of genius, of splendid vitality, great in his conceptions, magnificent in his courage", and Vladimir Lenin noting him as 'a remarkable speaker and a man of seething energy [who] performed miracles amongst the unskilled workers'. However other commentators have noted that Larkin was "vilified as a wrecker by former comrades", with anthologist Donal Nevin noting that some of Larkin's actions, including his attacks on others in the labour movement, meant Larkin had "alienated practically all the leaders of the movement [and] the mass of trade union members" by the mid-1920s.
"Big Jim" Larkin continues to occupy a position in Dublin's collective memory and streetscape, with a statue of him unveiled on O'Connell Street in 1979.
Early years.
Larkin was said to have been born on 21 January 1876, and this was the date that he himself believed was accurate. However, it is now believed that he was actually born on 28 January 1874. He was the second eldest son of Irish emigrants, James Larkin, from Drumintee and Mary Ann McNulty, from Burren, County Down. The impoverished Larkin family lived in the slums of Liverpool during the early years of his life. From the age of seven, he attended school in the mornings and worked in the afternoons to supplement the family income, a common arrangement in working-class families at the time. At the age of fourteen, after the death of his father, he was apprenticed to the firm his father had worked for but was dismissed after two years. He was unemployed for a time and then worked as a sailor and docker. By 1903, he was a dock foreman, and on 8 September of that year, he married Elizabeth Brown.
From 1893, Larkin developed an interest in socialism and became a member of the Independent Labour Party. In 1905, he was one of the few foremen to take part in a strike on the Liverpool docks. He was elected to the strike committee and, although he lost his foreman's job as a result, his performance so impressed the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) that he was appointed a temporary organiser. He later gained a permanent position with the union, which, in 1906, sent him to Scotland, where he successfully organised workers in Preston and Glasgow. Larkin campaigned against Chinese immigration, presenting it as a threat that would undercut workers, leading processions in 1906 in Liverpool with fifty dockers dressed as 'Chinamen', wearing faux-'pigtails' and wearing powder to provide a 'yellow countenance'.
Organising Irish labour movement (1907–1914).
Belfast Dock Strike.
In January 1907, Larkin undertook his first task on behalf of the trade union movement in Ireland, when he arrived in Belfast to organise the city's dock workers for the NUDL. He succeeded in unionising the workforce and, because employers refused to meet the wage demands, he called the dockers out on strike in June. The Belfast Dock strike was soon joined by carters and coalmen, the latter settling their dispute after a month. With active support from the Independent Orange Order and its Grand Master, R. Lindsay Crawford, urging the "unity of all Irishmen", Larkin succeeded in uniting Protestant and Catholic workers and even persuaded the local Royal Irish Constabulary to strike at one point, but the strike ended by November without having achieved significant success. Tensions regarding leadership arose between Larkin and NUDL general secretary James Sexton. The latter's handling of negotiations and agreement to a disastrous settlement for the last of the strikers resulted in a lasting rift between Sexton and Larkin.
Formation of Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and founding of the Irish Labour Party.
In 1908, Larkin moved south and organised workers in Dublin, Cork and Waterford, with considerable success. His involvement, against union instructions, in a dispute in Dublin resulted in his expulsion from the NUDL. The union later prosecuted him for diverting union funds to give strike pay to Cork workers engaged in an unofficial dispute. After trial and conviction for embezzlement in 1910, he was sentenced to prison for a year. This was widely regarded as unjust, and the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, pardoned him after he had served three months in prison. Also in 1908, Arthur Griffith during the Dublin carter's strike described Larkin as an "Englishman importing foreign political disruption into this country and putting native industry at risk".
After his expulsion from the NUDL, Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) at the end of December 1908. The organisation exists today as the Services Industrial Professional & Technical Union (SIPTU). It quickly gained the affiliation of the NUDL branches in Dublin, Cork, Dundalk, Waterford and Sligo. The Derry and Drogheda NUDL branches stayed with the British union, and Belfast split along sectarian lines. Early in the new year, 1909, Larkin moved to Dublin, which became the main base of the ITGWU and the focus of all his future union activity in Ireland.
In June 1911, Larkin established a newspaper, "The Irish Worker and People's Advocate", as a pro-labour alternative to the capitalist-owned press. This organ was characterised by a campaigning approach and the denunciation of unfair employers and of Larkin's political enemies. Its columns also included pieces by intellectuals. The paper was produced until its suppression by the authorities in 1915. Afterwards, the "Worker" metamorphosed into the new "Ireland Echo".
In May 1912, in partnership with James Connolly and William O'Brien Larkin formed the Irish Labour Party as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress. Later that year, he was elected to Dublin Corporation. He did not hold his seat long, as a month later he was removed because he had a criminal record from his conviction in 1910.
Under Larkin's leadership, the union continued to grow, reaching approximately 20,000 members in the time leading up to the Dublin lock-out. In August 1913 during the lock-out, Larkin was described by Vladimir Lenin as a 'talented leader' as well as 'a remarkable speaker and a man of seething energy [who] has performed miracles amongst the unskilled workers'.
Dublin Lockout, 1913.
Build up to the lock-out, and its proceedings.
In early 1913, Larkin achieved some successes in industrial disputes in Dublin and, notably, in the Sligo Dock strike; these involved frequent recourse to sympathetic strikes and blacking (boycotting) of goods. Two major employers, Guinness and the Dublin United Tramway Company, were the main targets of Larkin's organising ambitions. Both had craft unions for skilled workers, but Larkin's main aim was to unionise the unskilled workers as well. He coined the slogan "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay". Larkin advocated Syndicalism, which was a revolutionary brand of socialism. Larkin gained few supporters from within, particularly from the British Trade Union Congress who did not want strike action such as the lock-out to lead to a growth in radicalism.
Guinness staff were relatively well-paid and enjoyed generous benefits from a paternalistic management that refused to join a lockout of unionised staff by virtually all the major Dublin employers. This was far from the case on the tramways.
The chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company, industrialist and newspaper proprietor William Martin Murphy, was determined not to allow the ITGWU to unionise his workforce. On 15 August, he dismissed 40 workers he suspected of ITGWU membership, followed by another 300 over the next week. On 26 August 1913, the tramway workers officially went on strike. Led by Murphy, over 400 of the city's employers retaliated by requiring their workers to sign a pledge not to be a member of the ITGWU and not to engage in sympathetic strikes.
The resulting industrial dispute was the most severe in Ireland's history. Employers in Dublin engaged in a sympathetic lockout of their workers when the latter refused to sign the pledge, employing blackleg labour from Britain and from elsewhere in Ireland. Guinness, the largest employer in Dublin, refused the employers' call to lock out its workers but it sacked 15 workers who struck in sympathy. Dublin's workers, amongst the poorest in the whole of what was then the Great Britain and Ireland, were forced to survive on generous but inadequate donations from the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) and sources in Ireland, distributed by the ITGWU.
For seven months, the lockout affected tens of thousands of Dublin workers and employers, with Larkin portrayed as the villain by Murphy's three main newspapers, the "Irish Independent", the "Sunday Independent" and the "Evening Herald", and by other bourgeois publications in Ireland.
Other leaders in the ITGWU at the time were James Connolly and William O'Brien; influential figures such as Patrick Pearse, Constance Markievicz and W. B. Yeats supported the workers in the generally anti-Larkin Irish press. "The Irish Worker" published the names and addresses of strike-breakers, and the "Irish Independent" published the names and addresses of men and women who attempted to send their children out of the city to be cared for in foster homes in Belfast and Britain. However, Larkin never resorted to violence. He knew it would play into the hands of the anti-union companies, and that he could not build a mass trade union by wrecking the firms where his members worked.
A group including Tom Kettle and Thomas MacDonagh formed the Industrial Peace Committee to attempt to negotiate between employers and workers; the employers refused to meet them.
Larkin and others were arrested for sedition on 28 August, and he was released on bail later that day. Connolly told the authorities "I do not recognise the English government in Ireland at all. I do not even recognise the King except when I am compelled to do so." On 30 August, a warrant for Larkin's arrest was put out, claiming he had again been seditious and had incited people to riot and to pillage shops. When a meeting called by Larkin for Sunday 31 August 1913 was proscribed, Constance Markievicz and her husband Casimir disguised Larkin in Casimir's frock coat and trousers and stage makeup and beard, and Nellie Gifford, who was unknown to the police, led him into William Martin Murphy's Imperial Hotel, pretending to be her stooped, deaf old clergyman uncle (to disguise his instantly recognisable Liverpool accent). Larkin tore off his beard inside the hotel and raced to a balcony, where he shouted his speech to the crowd below. The police – some 300 Royal Irish Constabulary reinforcing Dublin Metropolitan Police – savagely baton-charged the crowd, injuring between 400 and 600 people. MP Handel Booth, who was present, said that the police "behaved like men possessed. They drove the crowd into the side streets to meet other batches of the government's minions, wildly striking with their truncheons at everyone within reach ... The few roughs got away first, most respectable people left their hats and crawled away with bleeding heads. Kicking victims when prostrate was a settled part of the police programme." Larkin went into hiding, charged with incitement to breach the peace. Larkin was later re-arrested, charged with sedition and was handed a 7-month imprisonment. The Attorney General claimed Larkin had said: "People make kings and can unmake them. I never said 'God Save the King', but in derision. I say it now in derision." to a crowd of 8,000 people from the windows of Liberty Hall. The sentence was widely seen as unjust. Larkin was released about a week later. As the lock out continued Larkin continued to speak out about the conditions being faced by workers and their families. On 4 October 1913 Larkin spoke at the lock out Tribunal of Inquiry:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />When the position of the workers in Dublin was taken into consideration, was it any wonder that there was necessity for a Larkin to arise, and if there was one thing more than another in my life of which I will always be proud it was the part I have taken in rescuing the workers of Dublin from the brutalizing and degrading conditions under which they labored. We are out to break down racial and sectarian barriers. My suggestion to the employers is that if they want peace we are prepared to meet them, but if they want war, then war they will have.
Formation of the Irish Citizen Army.
The violence at union rallies during the strike prompted Larkin to call for a workers' militia to be formed to protect themselves against the police, so Larkin, James Connolly, and Jack White created the Irish Citizen Army. The Citizen Army for the duration of the lock-out was armed with hurleys (sticks used in hurling, a traditional Irish sport) and bats to protect workers' demonstrations from the police. Jack White, a former Captain in the British Army, volunteered to train this army and offered £50 towards the cost of shoes to workers so that they could train. In addition to its role as a self-defence organisation, the Army, which was drilled in Croydon Park in Fairview by White, provided a diversion for workers unemployed and idle during the dispute.
End of the lock-out.
The lock-out eventually concluded in early 1914 when calls by Connolly and Larkin for a sympathetic strike in Britain were rejected by the British TUC. Larkin's attacks on the TUC leadership for this stance also led to the cessation of financial aid to the ITGWU, which in any case was not affiliated with the TUC.
Although the efforts of the ITGWU and the smaller UBLU did not succeed in securing significantly better pay and conditions for the workers, they represented a turning point in Irish labor history. The principle of union action and workers' solidarity was firmly established. Perhaps even more importantly, Larkin's rhetoric condemning poverty and injustice and urging the oppressed to stand up for themselves left a lasting impression.
Not long after the lockout Jack White resigned as commander and Larkin assumed direct command of the ICA. Beginning the process of its reform into a revolutionary paramilitary organisation by arming them with Mauser rifles bought from Germany by the Irish Volunteers and smuggled into Ireland at Howth in July 1914. A written constitution was established stating the Army's principles as follows: "the ownership of Ireland, moral and material, is vested of right in the people of Ireland" and to "sink all difference of birth property and creed under the common name of the Irish people".
In the US - Socialist, Irish Republican and Communist activism (1914–1923).
After the lock-out.
Exhausted by the demands of organising union work, Larkin fell into bouts of depression, took a declining interest in the now crippled ITGWU, and became increasingly difficult to work with. Speculation had risen during the lock-out that he was planning to leave for America. A speaking tour of the New World had been suggested to Larkin by Bill Haywood in November 1913 and the following month. The growing speculation prompted the New York Times to publish an editorial simply titled 'Larkin is coming'. This dismayed colleagues in the ITGWU and Larkin felt obliged to deny that he was planning on running away. However, noting the effect of the strain of the lock-out on Larkin, union officials reluctantly concluded that a break would probably be of great benefit to him. Following the advice given by 'Big Bill', 'Big Jim' therefore left for America. His decision to leave dismayed many union activists, including a large number of his colleagues in the ITGWU. In addition to recuperating from the strain of the lockout and undertaking a tour of the United States, Larkin also intended to raise funds for the union and the fledgling ICA, and to rebuild their headquarters Liberty Hall. Many in the union assumed that Larkin's trip would be a short one and that he would soon return. However, it quickly became clear that this would not be the case. Shortly before his departure, he declined a request by the Irish Trades Union Congress to join a two-man mission to raise funds for the Labour Party, replying that if he went he would be 'going alone and freelance'. His intention was to agitate in America rather than organise, but it is unclear whether he intended to return. Larkin set sail for America on 25 October 1914, leaving long-time associate James Connolly in charge of the ITGWU and the ICA, the latter of which he would soon utilise as a revolutionary force.
Arriving in America - activism and links to espionage.
Larkin arrived in New York on 5 November 1914. Following his arrival there were positive initial prospects. The lock-out had been widely reported in America and he was well received by socialists there. He found support from both socialists and Irish-Americans, who were eager to hear his position on the World War which was by now raging throughout Europe. Opposition to the war was intended to be his main position whilst in America. Upon presenting his credentials to the Socialist Party of America and John Devoy, the Irish leader of Clan na Gael (the leading Irish republican supporting organisation in America), his services were quickly taken up by both and he also became involved in the Industrial Workers of the World union (the Wobblies).
Within days of arriving in the country, he addressed a crowd of 15,000 people gathered at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the election of Socialist candidate Meyer London to the United States House of Representatives. Soon after his speech at Maddison Garden, he was invited by Devoy to speak to a combined audience of German Uhlans and Irish Volunteers in Philadelphia, where he enthusiastically called for money and arms for the Republican cause in Ireland to a cheering crowd. During this speech, Larkin showed one of the rifles that had been smuggled into Ireland at Howth, which he noted could be better but still worked. (He added that better weapons could be obtained with more money.) He compared it with a rifle given to the Irish Volunteers by John Redmond, which was an obsolete weapon for which no new ammunition could be procured, using this to vilify Redmond as a traitor to the Irish people and who had had no intention of arming the movement effectively for Irish independence. He also claimed that in the process of receiving and protecting the guns, 100 of his men from the ICA with no ammunition or bayonets had faced and routed 150 of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, whom he disparagingly said had been referred to as 'England's best'. He went on to attack the First World War directly, particularly the efforts of the British to get men from Ireland to join their war effort, going on to say that if Ireland was to fight it would be against the British in an effort to create an Irish republic: 'Why should Ireland fight for Britain in this war? What has Britain ever done for our people? Whatever we got from her we wrested with struggle and sacrifice. No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic. We shall not fight for the preservation of the enemy, which has laid waste