been ailing for some time and although he knew of the seriousness of his illness, was in

office when most men would be in bed. This is merely one example which justifies to the

courage of the man On more than one occasion staff comments were made that the

survival of Public Opinion and City Printery Limited seemed to be of more importance to

him than the state of his health.

affectionately called "Fair C"or "O.T" was born in Bethel Town Westmoreland, the son

of a Baptist Deacon and his wife, on October 28, 1904. In "Who's Who Jamaica"his

entry is one of the briefest. All his life he attempted to keep himself out of the limelight.

He went to Costa Rica before he was twenty and then to Haiti, which was unusual for a

Jamaican those days because Jamaicans were leaving either for the United States or

Cuba in search of what they could not find here.

Eight years later he was back fired with the vision of Jamaicans ruling themselves. He

considered that with all the poverty in Haiti at the time, with the facts of American

occupation of that country during some of the time he was there, that a people who were

so close in everything except language to Jamaicans had an essential dignity that

Jamaicans lacked. It was not that the ordinary Jamaican was at that time or any other

an inferior person, just that with nearly a hundred years (then) of hard-won

independence behind them, the Haitians exuded a greater sense of themselves as a

people, that there was in them an essential quality of confidence lacking in Jamaicans.

The Haitian uprising which began the revolution was started by a Jamaican slave who

had run away to Haiti, a man named Boukman. In an odd sort of non-violent way

Fairclough brought Boukman's revolution to Jamaica.

When he returned to the island in 1932, he returned to time past. Here was people still

largely without the desire to rule themselves. Men like JAG Smith were somewhat

outspoken on certain issues but, in fact, they had no quarrel with the British. All Smith,

for instance, hated was the fact that Britain sent what he called "fifth class"colonial civil

servants to govern us.

In 1935 when Fairclough began to try to convince people that Jamaicans should begin to

agitate powerfully for self-government. He was not the only one. There were people like

Adolphe Roberts, W.A. McFarlane , Ken Hill, but it was Fairclough who with N.W.

Manley spearheaded the political organization which was to win self-government and

independence from the British.

According to the Editorial, Fairclough was not a radical in the political sense. He did

not feel that the society should be completely overturned. He felt, however, that many of

the good things in the society were suppressed by the actions of politicians and other

people whose advantages and privileges oblige them to return benefit to the society, but

who refuse their responsibility.

His record as a founder and long-time pillar of the PNP (Secretary and then Treasurer)

is well known. Also well known is Mr Manley's comment a few months before his death,

that "O. T. Fairclough was one of the few men who most influenced my political

life."while over the past few years he was not at the action centre of the PNP, he never

lost interest in its welfare in his capacity as a life member of the Party's Executive.

Following that launching, sixteen groups were started in eight parishes and seven

associations became affiliated with the new party. The People's National Party (P.N.P.)

was on its way, and one of Fairclough's dreams began to take shape.

O.T. Fairclough became Secretary of the new party in its first year and later was its

Treasurer from time to time. His influence was strong; although he stayed in the

background, content to allow Norman Manley to attract attention.

In this connection one must touch briefly on a subject that will be better handled

elsewhere by those in possession of the facts - the passing of this newspaper's founder

and managing director, Mr. O.T. Fairclough. Regarded by many who were in a position

to know as the real founder of the People's National Party, he deserves an honoured

place in Jamaica's history, which would have been due to him if he had done nothing

else.

It is important that the history of our times be written now, while many of those that made

it are still alive even if not public in active life. To many of today's rebels and radicals it

is not known that there are people here in Jamaica who helped to win the Black Power

battle for Jamaica before the Americans coined the phrase. In granting a sort of asylum

to the Jews, Jamaica was about 25 years ahead of the United States. As part of the

Commonwealth it was about the same length of time ahead of the U.S. with the abolition

of slavery.

Curiously, it was hardly more than 25 years ago that some very angry young men of

Jamaica, including Evon Blake, broke down the colour bar which operated at many of

Kingston's major hotels and nightclubs. There again, long before any American

university student had thought of the expression, they invented the "sit-in". For that

matter, at Edelweiss Park and elsewhere, like Dr. Eric Williams decades later in

Woodford Square, Manley, Nethersole and otherwise conducted many a "teach-in" on

political institutions and independence. And among the contributors to modern Jamaican

life, add a man who later had a undistinguished tenure of the Speaker's Chair in the

House of Representatives - Tacius Nathaniel Golding. It was he, the records show, who

brought to Jamaica the 4-H club movement.

The death of this large spirit has come at a time of transition. One of the intellectual

fathers of the People's National Party, he now belongs to the ages, and can meet that

other great mind which his own decency and perspicacity had managed to attract into

leading what then looked like a forlorn hope - into a dubious future.

Fair C's foreign experience had widened his horizons of knowledge and tolerance; he

never had ideas which were shoddy or shabby; and his natural urbanity; reinforced by a

quite and deep philosophy constantly learning from his experience of men, remained with

him to the end. He sometimes disagreed strongly with the policies or decided actions, of

the Party he helped establish, and for this he suffered, tolerating sometimes petulance,

and at his end, neglect. This bitter pill he bore with his character smile, and those who

knew the man, wondered at his strength.

There was a time, in the "thirties and forties', when Public Opinion was located at

Edelwiss Park, Garvey's old Headquarters on Slipe Road. In those days the paper was a

daily, and it was a real adventure to have got it out each day, after tying up the machines

with various bits of cords, string or cloth. But Fair C's spirit animated us all - W.A.

Domingo a tough crusading columnist who wrote what he saw and said what he thought

"Now we Know". Fame". Sindbad's daily column "I walk down King Street" - in which

he really made a monkey out of every object he saw; and several others, your humble

servant among them. That's how I met Michael Manley, young and bright, vigorous,

sharp and above all, pro-observant sharp and above all, promising. He was socially

curious, had no side at all, was natural and friendly with everybody, and not afraid of

work. Let him go on.

Osmond Fairclough was a modest, self-effacing man who walked serenely along the

corridors of power without caring to venture onto its public balcony. He lived by the

inflexible principle that all political activity should be guided by clearly articulated ideas

that can be discussed passionlessly by reasonable men.

Fair C was the architect of our national movement. As far back as 1936 I listened to him

developing his concepts. First, we were to have a newspaper laying the broad base of

political education. Then we were to have a political party, popularly based. These were

the leader of the party that would inevitably follow. More than any man, he helped to

prepare Norman Manley for his moment of decision that finest model of what a

democratic, mass party should be in the Caribbean.

They were to come up later from the Eastern Caribbean to make close-up studies of Fair

C's brain-child. And they came as fast as their need arose: Grantley Adams from

Barbados, Vere Bird from Antigua, Robert Bradshaw from St. Kitts, Cheddi Jagan and

Forbes Burnham from British Guiana, Eric Williams from Trinidad. And when they went

back home, they organized similar structures.

If I ever had a political mentor, it may have been Fair C: a mentor who walked with me

through the fertile fields of political thought planted and manured by Bernard Shaw and

the Webbs and John Strachey, by Lenin and Trotsky, by Thomas Jefferson and Rosseau

and Karl Marx. And it happened, the pupil grew out of the grasp of the mentor, it was

neither his fault nor mine.

Naturally, we had severe political disagreements some of them fundamental. But in 34

years of the most recent friendship I have known, our political differences had no effect

whatever on our personal relations. So that today, I can say with deep sincerity that, if at

any time during the past 30-odd years, I had the choice of a single companion for a

dangerous mission through an unknown jungle, my first choice would have been Osmond

Fairclough.

His life has been closely woven into the History of our modern times. He carved no

dramatic niche for himself. He reared no outstanding monument save the enduring

institution that his weekly newspaper, Public Opinion, has with it within its potential to

become. In an era, dominated these past ten years by a frenzied, disorderly search for a

national identity, Fair C held aloof because he knew who he was.

measures which will serve the masses of the country. I have already indicated a line of

cleavage. It is perfectly true that the interests of all classes of people are bound together.

But it is equally true that there is a common mass in this country whose interest must

predominate above and beyond all other classes, because no man is democratic, no man

is a sincere and honest democrat who does not accept the elementary principle that the

object of civilization is to raise the standard of living and security of the masses of the

people. If you do not agree with that principle then you are playing with the words when

you talk about democratic politics.".