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27 chapters
THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA
THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA
by " Wherefore are these things hid ? * * * * * We will draw the curtain and show you the picture. " —SHAKESPEARE. Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, Ltd., at St. Martin's House. MCMXXI. Copyright, Canada, 1921. By the MacMillan Company of Canada, Limited....
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THE PLAY-HOUSE CALLED OTTAWA.
THE PLAY-HOUSE CALLED OTTAWA.
Do not imagine that I spend much time at once in Ottawa. I have never liked the kind of play-house that politicians have made on that glorious plateau in a valley of wonderland with a river of dreams rolling past to the sea. Where under heaven is any other Capital so favoured by the great scenic artist? On what promontory do parliamentary towers and gables so colossally arise to enchant the vision? The Thames draws the ships of the world and crawls muddily and lazily out to sea wondering what ha
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THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA
THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA
Once only have I encountered Rt. Hon. Arthur Meighen, Premier of Canada by divine right, not as yet by election. I was the 347th person with whom he shook hands and whom he tried to recognize that afternoon. His weary but peculiarly winning smile had scarcely flickered to rest for a moment in an hour. For the eleven seconds that it was my privilege to be individually sociable with him, he did his best to say what might suit the case. He seemed much like a worn-out precocious boy, of great wisdom
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THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN PREMIER
THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN PREMIER
Here is a modest, honourable man who saw his duty to the nation and the emergency never more clearly than he knew his own defects. Canada never before had a mediocrity of such eminence; a man who without a spark of genius devoted a high talent to a nation's work so well that he just about wins a niche in our Valhalla—if we have one. It was the war that almost finished Borden; and it was the war that made him. Canada has been governed by strategy, imagination, and common sense. We have had Macdon
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A POLITICAL SOLAR SYSTEM
A POLITICAL SOLAR SYSTEM
Fifty years from now some Canadian Drinkwater, charmed by the eloquent perspectives of time, may write an "Abraham Lincoln" string of personal scenes from the lives of Wilfrid Laurier and John A. Macdonald. The narrative will thus begin in the very year that the story of Lincoln ends, and it will carry on down just fifty years in our national history to the time when Wilfrid Laurier, passionate student of the Civil War, reached the end of his climax in the affairs of Canada and the Empire. But t
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THE GRANDSON OF A PATRIOT
THE GRANDSON OF A PATRIOT
In December, 1913, there was a Literary Society dinner in the University of Toronto at which Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the guest of honour and speaker on "Democracy." My own seat at a table was next to a restless, thick-bodied, sparse-haired man who seemed younger than his years and to whom I had not been introduced. During the hour that Laurier spoke this man continued to lean over the table so as to catch a view of his fascinating face. He interested me almost as much as did the speaker. I had n
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NUMBER ONE HARD
NUMBER ONE HARD
Some Frank Norris such as wrote "The Pit" and "The Octopus" should arise in Canada and write a Wheat-Politics novel about T. A. Crerar. This man's photograph was once published squatting Big-Chief-wise in the front row of 300 farmers on a raid to Ottawa—I think early in the war about prices. It was a second to the last delegation which the farmers intend to send to Ottawa. The next one was in 1918, when the farmers went to protest against conscription. If you ask T. A. Crerar to-day, he will pre
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THE PREMIER WHO MOWED FENCE-CORNERS
THE PREMIER WHO MOWED FENCE-CORNERS
A zig-zag old rack with its ivies and moss, Just fifty-odd panels or so; A wheat-field, a scythe and a boy his own boss; He had the fence-corners to mow. He slivered the whetstone clear out to the tip Of his snake-handled, snubnosed old blade; And he swung his straw hat with a sweep and a rip With the sun ninety-four in the shade. He thought of the water-jug cool as a stone Right under a burdock's green palm, By the leg of a fence-corner hickory half-grown, Wh
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EZEKIEL AT A LEDGER
EZEKIEL AT A LEDGER
Sir George Foster is a genius. The world forgives much to geniuses, because it lives by them. Canada has tolerated a great deal in Foster for the very good reason that no man except Laurier has for so long a period without interruption seemed so picturesquely necessary to our public affairs. In his own temperamental way Sir George somewhat compensates Canada for never having produced a Milton or a Bach. One of his best speeches might be made into blank verse or set to a fugue. He illuminates lif
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A HALO OF BILLIONS
A HALO OF BILLIONS
Sir Thomas White was the world's only continuous Finance Minister for the whole period of the war—and after; when nobody else cared to have his job, and Sir Thomas did. He seduced billions of patriotic dollars out of the pockets of this country and smiled as he did it. No man in Canada was so exquisitely fitted to the task of making an average dollar burn a hole in a man's pocket in order to do its bit. It gave him "the pleasure that's almost pain" to feel that no man except Henri Bourassa or an
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CALLED TO THE POLITICAL PULPIT
CALLED TO THE POLITICAL PULPIT
N. W. Rowell has the bearing of a man who long ago felt that he was called to do something for a cause or a country and has never got over it. Meanwhile he has done much for both a cause and a country, and seems to have quit before the country had begun to enjoy more than the least agreeable elements in his character. To have suffered the insistent righteousness of Mr. Rowell so long, and at the close of the first period of his life when he seemed to be getting his own measure as a public man on
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AN AUTOCRAT FOR DIVIDENDS
AN AUTOCRAT FOR DIVIDENDS
Canada has a national habit of veneration for the C.P.R. just as England used to have for Kitchener in Egypt. The travels of H. M. Stanley in Africa were not more wonderful than the everyday lives of Sandford Fleming's engineers routeing that great new line through the Rockies; and the legend of Monte Cristo scarcely more fabulous than the exploits of Van Horne in getting the money or the work done without it. The man who bought supplies for Van Horne (when there was money) and wrote letters or
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THE PUBLIC SERVICE HOBBYIST
THE PUBLIC SERVICE HOBBYIST
Whatever may be done by the Washington Conference to the League of Nations, there still live two men to whom it is and shall be the hub of the world. Lord Robert Cecil and Sir Herbert Ames at least will never admit that the League was a mere Wilson-Democrat device for making the world safe for humanity, and that the alternative is a Harding-Republican expedient for making Washington the new hub of the world. Sir Herbert is much too cordial a cosmopolitan to begrudge Washington any eminence she c
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THE SHADOW AND THE MAN
THE SHADOW AND THE MAN
The career of the late Sam Hughes is a tragic reminder that no man in public life can afford to regard himself as bigger than his suitable job. When a nation has to retire a genius for the sake of enthroning what remains of common democracy the nation's loss is nobody's gain. In the jungle book of our aristocracy Sam Hughes should have been Lord Valcartier. Not that a democratic country cares at all to be given any more lords, even if Parliament had not asked the King to abolish the custom. But
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THE STEREOPTICON AND THE SLIDE
THE STEREOPTICON AND THE SLIDE
The war was a great cosmic artist of infinite satire, making of humanity little stereopticon slides which he slipped in front of his calcium and flashed upon the clouds for a screen. When the war was done the stereopticon was smashed. The slides remain. What shall we do with them? One of the most world-interesting characters in the magic lantern of war was Lieut.-General Sir Arthur Currie, who in 1914 locked his real estate desk in Victoria, B.C., and in 1919 came back to Canada admittedly one o
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A COAT OF MANY COLOURS
A COAT OF MANY COLOURS
After a life of wearing Joseph's coat, Sir John Willison, ex-editor of the Toronto Globe and of the News , finds himself President of the National Reconstruction Association. Programme—to reconstruct Canada, beginning in 1918, after fifty years of Confederation. A supercilious editor once asked why on such an Association no farmer had been appointed. The answer was simple enough. Sir John was born a farmer. He used to wield a handspike at logging bees in Huron County, Ont. Why no Liberals? But S
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WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH
WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." I have forgotten whether it was Paul or Solomon who said that. But Sir Joseph Flavelle, Bart., will be sure to remember. From the time he was big enough to carry in wood for his devout Christian mother near Peterborough, Ont., he was living out that text. The Flavelle family afterwards moved to Lindsay, where the future baronet went into business. Queer little town—to be the home of three such men as Flavelle, Hughes, and Mackenzie. A ma
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NO FATTED CALVES FOR PRODIGAL SONS
NO FATTED CALVES FOR PRODIGAL SONS
Were I a novelist sketching a character for Henry Herbert Drayton I would have him, except in one item, just about all that he is not. He should be unmarried, live with his maiden aunt, most of his time make very little money and depend for his income upon winning about three good criminal prosecutions a year; the rest of his time to be spent reading up criminal psychology and taking his aunt to see pictures. The commonplace scene-shifter who places behind people the scenery of real life has bun
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THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN RAILROADING
THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN RAILROADING
The main thing that E. W. Beatty, K.C., did to help win the war was to become President of the C.P.R. And he did it well. A glance at this polished pony engine of a chief executive suggests that he has never done anything but well, and that he is the kind of man likely without preachments to stimulate well-doing in other people. I first met this self-controlled master of executives not long after he became President. He was most cordial; as Shaughnessy had been austere. Under such a direct impre
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A BOURGEOIS MASTER OF QUEBEC
A BOURGEOIS MASTER OF QUEBEC
Early in January, 1917, a remarkable dinner was held in Toronto, the first of its kind ever held in that city of Orange Walks. Protestants and Catholics sat side by side. They applauded the same sentiments. Orator after orator dug into the mines of national idioms. They cracked jokes and told stories and worked up climaxes. The three hundred rose again and again with glasses of orangeade, and Apollinaris, toasting—Quebec, Ontario, and United Canada. They waved napkins and cheered and sang again
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A POLITICAL MATTAWA OF THE WEST
A POLITICAL MATTAWA OF THE WEST
First impressions are always tyrants. The first time I heard John Wesley Dafoe talk he was in his large sanctum of the Manitoba Free Press , in the summer of 1916. He was without a collar, his shirt loose at the neck, and his hair like a windrow of hay. He reminded me of some superb blacksmith hammering out irons of thought, never done mending the political waggons of other people, and from his many talks to the waggoners knowing more about all the roads than any of them. The wheat on a thousand
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HEADMASTER OF THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL
HEADMASTER OF THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL
The eminent headmaster of the Manchester School in Canada is one of the few M.P.'s who know how to build a wheat stack. He farms in the spot north of Calgary where the poplar bluffs begin to mark that you are in the black loam of wonderful crops at a maximum distance from Liverpool. It is an art to build a wheat stack. Michael Clark—so we believe—knows exactly how many tiers to lay before he begins the "belly"; how to fill up the middle so that the butts of the sheaves droop to run off the rain;
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THE SPHINX FROM SASKATCHEWAN
THE SPHINX FROM SASKATCHEWAN
The Hon. J. A. Calder has never seen the Sphinx. But he has a looking glass. He has never been in Egypt. But he has lived a long while in Saskatchewan. A man who can continue to know as much as he knows about the confessional side of government, and who can say so little, has some claim to be considered—Canada's political Sphinx. Such a reputation is sometimes enviable. The average public man babbles. Often he talks to conceal thought or as a substitute for action. The mental energy needed to tu
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A TRUE VOICE OF LABOUR
A TRUE VOICE OF LABOUR
Many years ago an Irish poet visiting Canada and voyaging down the Ottawa wrote a poem of which may people recall only the lines— "Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, the daylight's past." The Tom Moore about whom this article is sketched is not a poet. He is, in fact, one of the prosiest public men in Canada. But we may leave it to any of those who have known him during the past three years when he has been President of the Trades and Labour Congress, if many and
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A MAN WITHOUT A PUBLIC
A MAN WITHOUT A PUBLIC
A few years ago, before Stefansson reported on the blond Eskimos, the first Eskimo movie ever taken was shown in Toronto to a small audience who waited an hour for the film, which did not begin until a thick, grizzly man with shrewish, penetrating eyes came in with his party. "Sir William Mackenzie, late as usual," whispered one. "He never arrives on time at a public function, often sleeps at a play, and sometimes when his family invite musicians to his home he plays bridge in a distant room so
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THE IMPERIAL BRAINSTORM
THE IMPERIAL BRAINSTORM
Lord Beaverbrook could stroll into an Arab camp and in five minutes be psychologically persona grata as the man who could make something out of almost nothing. He could learn the Arab language, adopt their customs, interpret their ideas, transact their tribal business, and go away without an Arab to admit that the strange new chief—or whatever they might call him—would ever learn to be a true Arab. This man without a congenial country has an unlimited talent for adapting himself to the necessiti
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CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
A Canadian newspaperman once flippantly asked the late W. T. Stead: "What do you think about continentalism in North America?" The answer came just as flippantly: "Every nation has a right to go to the devil in its own way. Canada should not be denied the privilege." There was a blunt candour about the reply that even from an egotist like Stead meant infinitely more than the soothing-syrup idealism dispensed by some of the visiting prophets to this country. Stead did not mean that in establishin
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