Calder lived in Regina when politics was born. He shares with Frank Oliver the memory of the day when Nicholas Flood Davin was the wonder orator of the West, and when freight-carters from Winnipeg to Edmonton via Saskatoon, which was then a temperance colony, carried demijohns of whisky on traders' permits to make everybody at home ingloriously drunk, including the mounted police. He recalls the day when the first lieutenant-governor was inaugurated in Regina and what Frank Oliver said about it. Four years he was Deputy Commissioner of Education for the Territories up till the inauguration of two new Provinces when, travelling on a thousand miles of new railway and over the old main line of the C.P.R., Laurier paid his first visit to the Great West and discovered as one of its greatest potentialities J. A. Calder, who under Premier Scott became Provincial Treasurer and Commissioner of Education.
To people outside Saskatchewan—even in Alberta, he was very little known—Calder has always been a somewhat nebulous figure; to some critics, a rather suspicious character; but always—clever. Being a Sphinx he never courted popularity and seldom got it. Scott was brilliant, popular and impulsive. His chief executive in Education, Railways and Telephones and Premier de facto during more than half of Scott's term, was cold and calculating. The West prefers warm-blooded politicians. Calder succeeded in spite of his manner, or his mask, or whatever it may have been; and he did it by a penetrating knowledge of the country, a superb capacity as administrator and a talent for keeping out of trouble. He was no man for prima donna scenes. Even the Education Department, a witch's cauldron of troubles over the Separate School question in the new provinces, never entangled him in theatricals. He was unpopular with the Opposition as soon as the new Government began, because he was regarded as a Civil Service interloper. What business had a school inspector in politics, and in a Cabinet?
Calder demonstrated that best when he handed over the educational cauldron to Scott and became Minister of Railways and Telephones. Here was a department of utility administration in which he shone. He had great political executive ability. When Scott was absent more than half his time through illness, Calder was Premier. There was no other man to choose. The liquor problem was more his to handle than the Premier's. Calder did not share the popular enthusiasm for Government-dispensed liquor. He knew the weaknesses of officials and the historic thirst of the prairie. The Opposition constantly accused him of being in league with the liquor men. Calder made no denial or affirmation. He was Mephisto enough to let people wonder whether he was one thing or the opposite.
A man who knew Calder twenty-two years ago gave, not long ago, some impressions of the Minister in connections with the liquor administration.
"About two weeks after Saskatchewan went dry," he said, "I was spending a night in one of the larger towns in the Province. Among the other guests at the hotel was a member of the Government. In the lobby an interesting argument waged throughout the evening, the Minister of course, defending the action of the Government in closing the bars. Among other things he told us about the relief work carried on by the Dominion and Provincial Governments in certain districts where there had been crop failures, in order that the destitute settlers might earn or borrow enough to keep themselves and their families through the winter. He emphasized one mistake the Government had made in not first closing every bar in the districts affected, because there were many instances where every dollar that had been earned or borrowed had been spent in the bars on the very day that it was received, by the men whose families it was intended to save from freezing and starvation.
"I was telling this afterwards to one of the leading social reformers of Saskatchewan, and a smile played over his face as I was speaking. When I had finished he said:
"'He didn't tell you the whole story. We recognized the necessity of closing those bars before that relief work was started, and urged it so strongly on the Government that they agreed to do it. The Orders-in-Council were drawn up and ready to be signed when Calder, who had been absent from the Province on business, returned and immediately it was all off.'"
Calder has a sister who is one of the leading social workers in Regina.
She has a profound regard for her talented brother Jim.
The liquor did more than even Separate Schools to disrupt Government forces in Saskatchewan. Calder was no hypocrite to weep over the moral issues in prohibition. He was not a profound governmentarian or a champion of enforced morality. A Government might own and operate telephones, but not so well consciences. The liquor administration turned out to be a mess in Saskatchewan, largely because the administration did not unanimously believe in the thing that the majority seemed to want. Calder was no more to blame than anybody else, except that he was highest in the Government when the Premier was away.
The reformers said that Calder was pro-liquor in the administration. He seemed to have no opinions about that—at least for publication. Ideals often run away with communities. If he had only spouted a little now and then he would have given people a chance to bring something home to him, and himself a chance to get near the people. Two or three scandals came up in departments over which he had control. Commissions were appointed to investigate; they always exonerated Calder. Even in the search-light on liquor—as many as four, one after another—no technical blame attached to the silent Minister. Calder may have had a contempt for either commissions or public opinion. A Sphinx is as a rule not much of a burning avenger of wrongs to the community. Besides Scott was continually running into emotional trouble. The Premier de facto had the balance to keep. He must work while other people talked.