The West End News

Liberty Day Address
by
HON. CYRIL E. KING, Government Secretary
of the Virgin Islands of the U. S.

Liberty Day
Estate Grove Place. St. Croix. V. I.
November 1. 1961

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests. officers and members
of the St. Croix Labor Union, fellow Virgin Islanders,
and friends.

It was the middle of the year 1914 when a campaign of
agitation moved into high gear to force the recall of the
Danish Governor Helweg Larsen as well as the dismissal of
of the Governor's friend and King's Physician. the despicable
Mr. Kalmar. Motivated by the indignities, yes, even the
atrocities. that were being heaped on their fellow natives, a
group of crusading reformers decided to do something about
these grievances. It was a reform movement in keeping
with the most glorious reform movements, that, throughout
the history of Western civilization, have marked the end of
tyraants and the beginning of popular rule.

This group designated one of their own. the illustrious
native son and crusader. D. Hamilton Jackson. and dispatched
him with a petition to King Christian IX. Two of the sup
plications are of special relevance to the cause we are celebrating here today. One asked for a grant to publish a free news
paper; the other was a request for assurances against intimidation and interference by local police and gendarmes when
public meetings were held. as well as the right to conduct
such meetings in public places. These pleas were granted.
our historians tell us. even before Mr. Jackson had returned
to St. Croix from Denmark.

It needs little emphasis that the right to hold public
meetings as well as the right to publish a free newspaper
augured well for the advent of the labor union although it is
doubtful whether the powerful Planters Association, suffering
from the short-sightedness with which all oppressors
seem to be afflicted, had seen the handwriting on the wall.

The sugar crop of 1915 much like that of 1961 was a bumper
crop. But unlike the wages earned by unskilled sugar
workers of 50c an hour today.however deficient today's wages

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