This acknowledgment was certainly a good one, but we have no knowledge of the promise having been fulfilled. Mr. Brady has been moved from one division to another of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but as this change did not take place until long after this meeting was held, and then only in connection with many others among the officials and employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and as Mr. Brady still holds an honorable position in the Company's employ, we see no reason for supposing that this had any connection with the promise made to the committee.
Some of the temperance people feeling dissatisfied with the results of the Canadian Pacific Railway-Alliance Conference sent communications regarding it to the papers, but the press, from some cause, seemed very loath to publish these protests. However, the following, addressed to the Editor of the Witness, did find its way to the public, and may have expressed the opinions of many besides the writer:
"Sir,—That the temperance people of Canada were moved, as never before, by the dismissal of its Sutton Junction agent, Mr. W. W. Smith, by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, because he had rendered himself obnoxious to the lawbreakers of the County of Brome, who had tried but failed to kill him, there is no doubt, as may be clearly seen from your columns, to say nothing of the thousand hearts, which, like mine, said nothing, but felt no less all the while that by its action the Canadian Pacific Railway had placed a premium upon lawlessness and immorality at the expense of those whom I had been taught to regard as the 'salt of the earth.'
"The immediate consequence of this was that that line of railway was being shunned, and its services neglected by many of its old patrons, and by this loss its magnates were being taught a lesson, and put on the 'repentent stool,' and it seemed almost certain that never more would the Bradys, Taits, and Van Hornes of this Canadian made and pampered corporation forget that temperance people of Canada had both the will and the power to retaliate upon their persecutors. And that if another such dismissal was ever again attempted, they would 'more darkly sin,' and hide the 'cloven foot,' which was so openly shown by Brady and Tait.
"At this juncture of its affairs, and at the moment when a persistence in the agitation would probably have resulted in reparation of the wrong done to Mr. Smith, and an open repudiation of its immoral attitude, Mr. Tait managed to get a hold of some gentlemen, who like the seven Tooley Street tailors, who called themselves 'We, the people of England,' arrogated to themselves the right to speak for the temperance people of Canada, and he played them off on the 'Come into my parlor, said the spider to a fly,' and the upshot of the matter is the most disappointing and sickening, I think, I have ever seen.
"I do not know the names of any one of these men, so I cannot be accused of malice in holding up their conduct to the commiseration not to say contempt of the public. Though an intense prohibitionist I have never been able to appreciate the wisdom and nerve of some of our temperance people; yet, never before have I noticed anything that looked so like treachery to our cause.
"In your issue of the 8th inst. we have a large heading, 'Brady Repudiated,' and in the body of the article we see this temperance committee, if not openly repudiating Mr. Smith, allowing the Canadian Pacific Railway to defame his character, and to their very teeth justify his dismissal, and giving their consent to both.
"How artfully Mr. Tait changed the whole ground of complaint; and how simply the committee were hoodwinked and befooled will be seen, when I say that that which roused the temperance people was the truckling of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the liquor traffic, and its marked contempt for temperance men, its moral tyranny over its employees, and its wrongful dismissal of Mr. Smith, simply because his attitude on a moral question had exasperated the other side. But in the report which you give of the interview between this committee and Mr. Tait, all this is lost sight of, and the whole ground of complaint is made to rest on poor Brady, the 'scapegoat's' phraseology. 'The committee claimed that the ill-advised language used in Assistant Superintendent Brady's correspondence has caused great dissatisfaction on the part of the temperance people of Canada.'
"The committee would seem to have insisted on the punishment of Brady, while concurring with Tait in everything. The report says:
"'The Canadian-Pacific Railway acknowledges that cause for dissatisfaction has existed, claim the responsibility of dealing with, and will deal with the matter in such manner as they consider deserving in the premises.' If this is offered as a salve to the small, cowardly feelings which would like to see a subordinate punished for doing what he was told to do, I trust the Canadian Pacific Railway will disappoint the committee, and let their scapegoat go free. It would be both cruel and unfair that the blow should fall on Brady, the mean tool, and the bigger tyrants go free. This is so evidently seen in the fact that Tait practically insists on the same right to muzzle Canadian Pacific Railway employees that Brady did.