Lessons from election campaigns past
By Clyde Hoyte
Contributor

The first General Election campaign that I witnessed turned out to be the longest that has ever occurred in the history of Jamaica, even up to the present time. It lasted over five years - from the middle of the year 1939 to
December 1944.

This happened because elections were due to be held in 1940, but World War II was declared in September 1939, and elections were put on hold. But no one had dreamed that Jamaica would soon be caught up in a worldwide conflict; up to the early months of 1939, that prospect had not loomed. So the ordinary flow of local events proceeded, and these included preparations for the General Elections due in 1940.

Up to then, too, each parish was represented by only one elected member in the Legislative Council, and the British Governor then appointed a balancing number of Nominated Members who of course could help the Colonial Office in Britain to put through in Jamaica whatever measures it dictated.

The islandwide preparations for General Elections had one important difference from any campaigns that had gone before - for the first time an islandwide political movement - the People's National Party - would be taking
part in the campaign, while many other hopefuls would be facing the electorate as 'Independents'.

The prospective PNP candidates for Kingston and St. Andrew held their mass meetings at Edelweiss Park (former meeting place and entertainment centre operated by Marcus Garvey on Slipe Road below Cross Roads) which O.T. Fairclough had acquired through a lease-and-sale agreement, and where he printed and published his weekly newspaper - Public Opinion. Fairclough also made space available on the upper floor of the building for the PNP to establish its first offices, while the large open-air space in front of the building served as the locus for the largely-attended meetings held not only for campaigning purposes; they were intended to keep party members
enthusiastic, as well as to deepen their understanding of the self-government aims of the party.

At these evening meetings, there would be entertainment items, and these would always be of an excellent quality, with performers like the noted tenor, Granville Campbell, and others, and just as notable would be the quality of the speeches by such party stalwarts as educators Edith Dalton-James and Amy Bailey, economic planner and lawyer Noel N. Nethersole, lawyer Harry Dayes, and prominent businessman and KSAC Alderman, William
Seivright and Party leader Norman Manley.

It is something from a speech by Seivright that I wish to highlight in this article as being representative of the 'quality' to which I've been referring. He was explaining to his audience that what he and his comrades were trying to accomplish was not only for the present, but also for the generations to come. And to illustrate this he recited the following poem:-

An old man going on a long highway
Came at evening, cold and gray,
to a chasm dark, and deep, and wide,
and swept right through by a sullen tide;
the old man crossed in the twilight dim,
the sullen stream had no fears for him,
but he paused when safe on the other side,
and built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man", said a fellow pilgrim near.

"You are wasting your strength when building here,
your journey will end with the ending day,
you never again will pass this way;
you have crossed the chasm deep and wide,
why build you this bridge at eventide?"
The builder lifted his old grey head,
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said
"there followeth after me today,
a youth whose feet must pass this way".

This chasm that has been as naught to me
to that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be -
he too must cross in the twilight dim -
good friend, I have built this bridge - for him.

So impressed I was led by this poem, that a few days later I asked Seivright to let me have a copy, and to tell me who was the author. He sent me a copy, and explained that he had found it on the inside cover of a philosophical (Masonic) book in his possession, and that no author was mentioned.

Long years have passed since I lost the copy which Seivright had sent me, but so deeply engraved on my mind was this beautiful poem, that today (63 years later) from memory, I'm happy to share it with the present readers of The Gleaner, as one of the worthy lessons from election campaigns past.

Part 2