JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

DOCUMENT STUDY 125proletariat of the Russian Empire. The organisation known as 'The Union ofJewish Workmen of Russiaand Poland' actually issues eight journals from its secret printing press - more than any [other socialist]organisation in the Empire' .26But how was ConnoUy to relate to those Russian Jewish immigrants who were now among theelectors of Wood Quay Ward and how could he draw on the sympathy which they had for the Bundistand other socialist currents which were rapidly developing among their Machatonnim un Landsleit inder Heim (relatives and fellow-countrymen in their native provinces of Tsarist Russia)? Language wasa major difficulty. At the 1923 Annual Meeting of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress,aJewish tailor representing the Tailors' and Pressers' Union, Isaac Baker, had made a briefbuteloquentspeech against 'any discrimination between Jew and Gentile, so long as either does his work right' PButwhile the 1911 census form had shown that lsaac Baker could now 'read and write', the earlier 1901census had recorded that at the time of Connolly's election campaign this Russian-born immigrantworker 'cannot read'.211 The extent to which this would be a major problem for newly arrived immigrantworkers in Dublin was most clearly demonstrated when a new set of rules for the International Tailors',Machinists' and Pressers' Trade Union was registered in 1915. Only the Secretary, Waiter Carpenter,and the one non-Jewish executive member were able to sign their own names in English. An 'X' hadto be entered by each of the fi ve Jewish executive mem bers, with Carpenter certifying on behalf of eachthat it was 'his mark'. ~ It would be a grave mistake to assume that these Jewish workers were illiterate.The census authorities were only interested in whether one could read or write English or speak Irish.For example when the Shamas (beadle) of Dublin's Lennox Street synagogue asked the censusenumerator in 1911 to put down that he himself could 'write and read Hebrew' (and obviously Yiddishas well) and that his wife and daughter could both 'write and read Yiddish', the enumerator's superiorcrossed out these entries and substituted 'cannot read' in each case. 30A Jewish immigrant worker like Isaac Baker, then, while initially illiterate in his neWly-acquiredlanguage of English, would have been highly literate in his native language of Yiddish at the time ofConnolly's 1902 election campaign. It is precisely for this reason that Boris Kahan drafted a Yiddish­. language appeal to the Jewish workers of Dublin asking them to vote for Connoll y at their local pollingstation in New Street School. The purpose of the leaflet was to convey to Kahan' sBrider Yiden (Jewishbrothers) in Dublin the clear political message that the Home Rule candidates only represented theinterests of the Balabattim (bosses), that indeed the principal candidate was a Balaboss himself, andthat only the Irish Socialist candidate James Connolly was a true Arbeter Fraint (workers' friend).But Connoll y had more serious obstacles to face than the production of Yiddish-language literature.His principal opponent in the election was the Nationalist publican and patriotic song-writer P J.McCall, who was the author of such famous songs as 'Boolavogue', 'Kelly the Boy from Killane', and'Follow Me Up to Carlow'. McCall ostentatiously paraded the local Catholic priests on his platformto state that 'no Catholic could·vote for a Socialist, nor be a Socialist', while the ISRP itselffurtherclaimed: .'On election night Mr. McCall's public house was crowded till a late hour ... Every public house in theward was a committee room for Mr. McCall and all who were degraded enough to sell their votes couldsoak themselves in liquor, free of expense. Father Staples, Father O'Brien, and Father McGough, of S1.Nicholas of Myra's Chapel inFrancis Street, lent their sanction to all this debauching of the people byjoining the committee responsible for it,and invoking all the terrors of religion against all those who '"voted for Mr. Connolly.'31In such an environment it is not surprising that PJ. McCall of the United Irish League won the seatwith 1,434 votes. A rival Home Ruler, W.H. Beardwood, received only 191 votes. A year laterConnolly was.to recall,'Let us remember how the paid canvassers of the capitalist candidate - hired slanderers - gave a.different