THE GREAT ELECTION OF 1891
I arrived home on the 15th June, and found that in my absence I had been vehemently abused both in a section of the Press and in the City Council, partly because I was not present to defend myself, and partly on account of the active manner in which I had been opposing the disloyal clique.
Our Committee was still working earnestly in stirring up the feeling of loyalty, and from that time until the great election of March, 1891, the struggle was energetically maintained. Arrangements were made for demonstrations in the public schools on the 13th October, 1890, the anniversary of the victory of Queenston Heights, and on that day a number of prominent men visited the schools of Toronto and made patriotic addresses to the boys. I addressed the John Street Public School, and afterwards the boys of Upper Canada College.
The Globe attacked me on account of these celebrations in their issue on 13th October, and followed it up with another article on the 14th October. I answered both articles in a letter which appeared in the Globe of the 16th October, and concluded as follows:
As to your remarks that I should abstain from interfering “in the discussion of questions that have become party property,” I may say that before I was appointed Police Magistrate I was a follower of Mr. Brown, Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Blake, and Mr. Mowat. Since then I have never voted or taken part in any political meeting. Not that the law prevents it, but from my sense of what I thought right. I may say, however, on behalf of the friends with whom I used to work, that I utterly repudiate the suggestion that loyalty to Canada and her history is not equally the characteristic of both parties. There are a few, I know, who are intriguing to betray this country into annexation, but they are not the men I followed, and when the scheme is fully developed I have every confidence that Canadians of all political parties will be united on the side of Canada and the Empire. No politicians can rule Canada unless they are loyal.
On any question affecting our national life I will speak out openly and fearlessly at all hazards.
About the same time the Empire newspaper, to help on the movement and to advertise it, offered a flag (12 feet by 6 feet in size), the Canadian red ensign with the arms of Canada in the fly, to that school in each county which could produce the finest essay on the patriotic influence of raising the flag over the school houses. Each school was to compete within itself, and the best essay was to be chosen by the headmaster and sent to the Empire office. These essays from each county were carefully compared, and the finest essay secured the flag for the school from which it came. I read the essays and awarded the prizes for about thirty counties, and it was a pleasing and inspiring task. I was astonished at the depth of patriotic feeling shown, and was much impressed with the great influence the contest must have had in stirring up the latent patriotism of the people, spreading as it did into so many houses through the children.
I was so much interested in what I read, and often found so much difficulty in deciding which was the best essay, that I felt that they all deserved prizes. I therefore decided to prepare a little volume of patriotic songs and poems, and to publish a large number and send a copy to the child in each school who had written the best essay, and a copy was also sent to the master of every school that had sent in an essay. I wrote to my friend Mr. E. G. Nelson, Secretary of the Branch of our League at St. John, New Brunswick, and told him what I was doing. I soon received from him a copy of a song, which he said my letter had inspired him to write. It was called “Raise the Flag.” I give the first verse:
| Raise the flag, our glorious banner, O’er this fair Canadian land, From the stern Atlantic ocean To the far Pacific strand. |
Chorus.
| Raise the flag with shouts of gladness, ’Tis the banner of the free! Brightly beaming, proudly streaming, ’Tis the flag of liberty. |
I decided to use this as the first song and I called the little book:
” Raise the Flag,
And other Patriotic Canadian Songs and Poems.”
On the front of the stiff cardboard cover a well-executed, brightly-coloured lithograph of a school-house with a fine maple tree beside it was seen, with a large number of children, boys and girls, waving their hats and handkerchiefs and acclaiming the flag which was being run up to the top of the flag-pole, the master apparently giving the signal for cheering. On the back of the cover was a pretty view of Queenston Heights, with Brock’s monument the prominent object, and over this scene a trophy of crossed flags with a medallion containing Queen Victoria’s portrait imposed on one, and a shield with the arms of Canada on the other. Over both was the motto “For Queen and Country.”
On the title page a verse of Lesperance’s beautiful poem was printed just below the title. It contained in a few words all that we were fighting for, the object we were aiming at, and the spirit we wished to inspire in the children of our country:
| Shall we break the plight of youth And pledge us to an alien love? No! we hold our faith and truth, Trusting to the God above. Stand Canadians, firmly stand Round the flag of Fatherland. |
I asked a number of friends to assist me in the expense of getting out this book, and I feel bound to record their names here as loyal men who gave me cheerful assistance and joined me in supplying all the necessary funds at a time when we had many vigorous opponents and had to struggle against indifference and apathy:—George Gooderham, John T. Small, John Hoskin, J. K. Macdonald, J. Herbert Mason, Edward Gurney, Wm. K. McNaught, W. R. Brock, Allan McLean Howard, A. M. Cosby, Walter S. Lee, Hugh Scott, Thomas Walmsley, W. H. Beatty, A. B. Lee, John Leys, Jr., E. B. Osler, John I. Davidson, J. Ross Robertson, Hugh Blain, Hon. G. W. Allan, Henry Cawthra, Fred C. Denison, Oliver Macklem, G. R. R. Cockburn, James Henderson, R. N. Bethune, Sir Casimir Gzowski, C. J. Campbell and W. B. Hamilton.
We published a good many thousand volumes and scattered them freely through the country before the election of 1891.
I gave Lord Derby, then Governor-General of Canada, about a dozen copies, and he sent one to the Queen, and some months after he received a letter from Sir Henry Ponsonby asking him at the request of the Queen to thank me for the book.
When the schools throughout the country received the flags which they had won, in many instances demonstrations were organised to raise the flag for the first time with due ceremony. I was invited to go to Chippawa to speak when their flag was first raised. There was a very large gathering of people from all over the county, and as an illustration of how the opportunity was used to stir up the patriotism of the people, I quote part of my address from the Empire of the 30th December, 1890.
I am pleased to come here to celebrate the raising of the flag, because Chippawa is in the very heart of the historic ground of Canada. Here was fought out in the past the freedom of Canada from foreign aggression. Here was decided the question as to whether we should be a conquered people, or free as we are to-day, with the old flag of our fathers floating over us as a portion of the greatest empire in the world. (Applause.) In sight of this spot was fought the bloody battle which is named after this village, within three miles in the other direction lies the field of Lundy’s Lane, and a few miles beyond the Heights of Queenston. From Fort George to Fort Erie the whole country has been fought over. Under the windows of this room Sir Francis Bond Head in 1837 reviewed about three thousand loyal militia who rallied to drive the enemy from Navy Island. It is no wonder that here in old Chippawa the demonstration of raising the flag should be such a magnificent outburst of loyal feeling. . . . There is nothing more gratifying than the extraordinary development of this feeling in the last year or two. All through the land is shown this love for Queen, flag, and country. From the complaining of some few disgruntled politicians, who have been going about the country whining like a lot of sick cats about the McKinley Bill, some have thought our people were not united; but everywhere, encompassing these men, stands the silent element that doth not change, and if the necessity arise for greater effort, and the display of greater patriotism, and the making of greater sacrifices, the people of this country will rise to the occasion. (Loud applause.) The cause of this outgrowth of patriotic feeling has been the belief that a conspiracy has been on foot to betray this country into annexation. The McKinley Bill was part of the scheme. But are you, the men of Welland, the men whose fathers abandoned everything—their homes, and lands and the graves of their dead—to come here penniless, to live under the flag of their ancestors, are you likely to sell your allegiance, your flag and your country, for a few cents a bushel on grain, or a cent or two a dozen on eggs? (Loud applause.) No! the men of this country are loyal. No leader of either party can lead any important fraction of his party into disloyalty. We may have a still greater strain put upon us. If the conspirators believe that stoppage of the bonding privileges will coerce us, the bonding privileges will be stopped. If so, we must set our teeth and stiffen our sinews to face it (applause), and the more loyal we are, the more prosperous and successful we will be. Our contemptuous treatment of the McKinley Bill had, I believe, a great influence in the defeat of the Republicans, and may cause the repeal of the Bill, and then when we get freer trade we will keep it, because our neighbours will know that we cannot be coerced into being untrue to our traditions. In whatever you do put the interest of Canada first, first before politics and everything. (Loud applause.)
I addressed a number of meetings during the fall of the year and winter, all on patriotic subjects, endeavouring to arouse the people against Reciprocity or Annexation, and urging Imperial Unity as the goal for Canadians to aim at. I spoke on the 11th September, 9th October, 5th December, 29th December, 9th January, 1891, 19th January, 27th February, and the 17th March.
I had written in February, 1890, as already mentioned, to Sir John A. Macdonald expressing my opinion that the next election would be fought on the question of loyalty as against disloyalty. All through the year I became more and more convinced of this, and foresaw that if the elections were postponed until 1892 it would give the Commercial Unionists and Annexationists more time to organise, and, what I dreaded most, give more time to our enemies in the United States to prepare the way for an election favourable to their views. I cannot do better to show the trend of affairs than copy from the Empire of the 7th February, 1890.
After referring to the disloyalty of Premier Mercier of Quebec, and quoting a statement of the Toronto Globe that the Canadian people “find the colonial yoke a galling one” and that “the time when Canadian patriotism was synonymous with loyalty to British connection has long since gone by,” the article copies the extract from the New York World in which it states that “Nobody who has studied the peculiar methods by which elections are won in Canada will deny the fact that five or six million dollars judiciously expended in this country would secure the return to Parliament of a majority pledged to the annexation of Canada to the United States,” and then goes on to say:
This dastardly insult to our country is not only the work to order of a member of the staff of the New York World but is adopted and emphasised by it with all the parade of display headings and of the black letter which we reproduce as in the original. So these plotters are contemplating the wholesale purchase of our country by the corruption of the electors on this gigantic scale, to return members ready to surrender Canada to a foreign Power. And for such insults as these we have mainly to thank the dastardly traitors who from our own land have by their secret information and encouragement to the foreign coveters of our country invited the insulting attack. By such baseness our enemies have been taught to believe that we will fall easy victims to their designs.
Again, as so often before, we find the well deserved tribute to our Conservative statesmen that they are the bulwark of Canada against such assaults. Friends and enemies are fully in accord on this one point; that the opposition are not similarly true to their country is clearly indicated in this outspoken report, and it may also be observed that every individual or journal mentioned as favouring annexation is of the most pronounced grit stripe. It is, however, by no means true that the whole Liberal party is tainted with this treasonable virus. By thousands they are withdrawing from the leaders who are paltering with such a conspiracy, and are uniting themselves with the Conservatives to defend their country. Not the boasted six millions of United States dollars will tempt these loyal Canadians to sell their country. It is well, however, that Canada should thus be forewarned.
Watching all we could learn of these movements, I became very anxious that the election should take place before another session. My brother, the member for West Toronto, agreed strongly with me on this point. Sir John Macdonald was gradually coming around to that view, but most of his colleagues differed from him. My brother happened to be in his office one day when several of the Cabinet were present, and Sir John asked him when he thought the election should come on. He replied, “As soon as possible,” and urged that view strongly. Sir John turned to his colleagues and said, “There, you see, is another.” This showed his difficulty.
There had been some rumours of intrigues between some members of the Liberal party and the United States politicians. Sir Richard Cartwright was known to have gone down secretly to Washington to confer with Mr. Blaine, principally, it was believed, through the influence of Erastus Wiman. Honore Mercier was also believed to have been mixed up in the intrigues. In the month of November I had been able to obtain some private information in connection with these negotiations, and I went down to Ottawa on the 8th December, 1890, and had a private conference with Sir John Macdonald and gave him all the information I had gathered. I told him that Blaine and Sir Richard Cartwright had had a conference in Washington, and that Mr. Blaine had thanked Mr. Wiman for bringing Sir Richard to see him.
During the autumn of 1890, Edward Farrer, then editor of the Globe, and one of the conspirators who were working for annexation, prepared a pamphlet of a most treacherous character, pointing out how best the United States could act to encourage and force on annexation. He had the pamphlet printed secretly with great care, only thirteen copies being printed for use among a few of the leading United States politicians. In Hunter, Rose and Co.’s printing office where it was being printed, there was a compositor who happened to know Mr. Farrer’s handwriting, and who set up part of the type. He was struck with the traitorous character of the production, and gave information about it to Sir C. Hibbert Tupper, then in the Government. He reported it to Sir John Macdonald, and the latter sent Col. Sherwood, the chief of the Dominion police force, to Toronto, and told him to consult with me, and that I could administer the oath to the compositor, who swore to affidavits proving the circumstances connected with the printing of the pamphlet. The printer had proof slips of two or three pages when Col. Sherwood brought him to my office, and it was arranged that any more that he could get he was to bring to me, and I would prepare the affidavits and forward them on to Col. Sherwood.
The proof sheets were watched so closely and taken back so carefully after the corrections were made, that it was impossible to get any of them, but the printer who gave us the information was able at the dinner hour to take a roller, and ink the pages of type after the printing had been finished and before the type had been distributed. The impressions were taken in the most rough and primitive way, and as he had only a few chances of doing the work without detection, he was only able to bring me about two-thirds of the pamphlet.
These portions, however, contained enough to show the drift of the whole work, and gave Sir John Macdonald quite sufficient quotations to use in a public speech at Toronto in the opening of the election to prove the intrigues that were going on. The revelation had a marked influence on the election, not only in Toronto, but from one end of Canada to the other.
It was a mystery to Farrer and the printers how Sir John had obtained a copy, for they assumed he had a complete copy. They were able to trace the thirteen copies, and Mr. Rose was satisfied no more had been printed. He gave me his theory shortly after, and I was amused to see how absolutely wrong he was. He had no idea that I knew anything about it. The secret was well kept. The printer who gave them to us, Col. Sherwood, Sir Hibbert Tupper, David Creighton, Sir John Macdonald, and myself, I have heard, were the only persons in the secret until the day Sir John brought it out at the great meeting in the Princess Theatre.
In January, 1891, Sir John Macdonald came to Toronto. He was anxious to see me without attracting attention, and my brother Fred arranged for him to come to my office at an hour when the officials would be away for lunch, and we had a conference for about three-quarters of an hour. He was very anxious to get a letter to publish the substance of which I had known and which would have thrown much light upon the intrigues between two or three Liberal leaders and some of the United States politicians. I said I would do what I could to get the information, but I did not succeed. Before he left he asked me what I thought of bringing on the elections at once, or of waiting till the following year. I jumped up from my chair at the suggestion that he was in doubt, and said, “What, Sir John; in the face of all you know and all I know, can you hesitate an instant? You must bring the elections on at once. If you wait till your enemies are ready, and the pipes are laid to distribute the money which will in time be given from the States, you will incur great danger, and no one can tell where the trouble will end.” I spoke very earnestly and Sir John listened with a smile, and got up to leave, saying to me, “Keep all your muscles braced up, and your nerves all prepared, so that if the House is suddenly dissolved in about three weeks you will not receive a nervous shock, but keep absolutely silent.” He said this in a very humorous and quizzical way which was characteristic of him, and went off wagging his head from side to side as was his wont.
I knew about Farrer’s pamphlet and about other things which came out in this election, and I had two very warm friends in the Liberal Government of Ontario, Sir Oliver Mowat and the Hon. G. W. Ross. I did not wish them to be mixed up with any political scandal that might come out, nor did I wish them to commit themselves definitely to the party at Ottawa, who were advocating a policy which I was sure could not succeed, and the real meaning of which they could not support. I told them both I thought there would be unpleasant matters divulged, and begged of them to keep as far away from the election as they could. They both seemed to take what I said in good part, and they adjourned the session of the local Legislature till after the general election.
Mr. Mowat arranged that his son Arthur Mowat was to run in West Toronto, and he spoke for him in his constituency, and also for the Honourable Alexander Mackenzie in East York. He made several speeches, all most loyal and patriotic in their tone. Mr. Ross spoke once in his own constituency. I told him after the election when it went against the Liberal party, that I had given him fair warning. He said, “Yes, but I only made one speech in my own constituency.” Sir Oliver Mowat’s assistance in Ontario saved the Liberal party in that Province from a most disastrous defeat, for the people had confidence in him and in his steadfast loyalty.
When the election was going on, my brother said one day to me, “I think I shall defeat Mowat by four or five hundred.” I replied, “Your majority will be nearer two thousand than one thousand.” He said, “That is absurd; there never was such a majority in the city.” I answered, “I know the feeling in Toronto,” and using a cavalry simile said, “She is up on her hind legs, pawing the air, and you will see you will have nearly two thousand.” The figure was one thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine, the largest majority in Ontario, I believe, in that election.
The election supported the Macdonald Government with a large majority in the House and practically finished the attempt to entrap Canada into annexation through the means of tariff entanglements. Although dangerous intrigues went on for several years, they were neutralised by the loyal work of Sir Oliver Mowat and the Hon. G. W. Ross.