One Man’s Terrorist is…a Suffragette

My improvised work station.

I have set up a workstation where my arms and wrists and gaze are all properly aligned. Hopefully, I can get to typing Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, my story about Edith Nicholson of Richmond, Quebec, a prim and proper Presbyterian teacher who was all for the militant suffragettes.

The other day I listed to some installments of a BBC Radio Four re-run, called History We’ve Forgotten to Remember.

The series reminds us that history gets rewritten, often by omission, and often on purpose.

I listened to the episodes called “The Suffragettes.” I wondered what part of the Suffrage Movement they’d focus on, so much of it has been rewritten and/or forgotten.

Well, they focused on that fact the suffragettes were militant, even committing ‘acts of terrorism’ over and above the window-breaking that has been remembered in popular culture such as TV shows like Upstairs Downstairs etc.

Well, nothing I don’t go around telling people. The suffragettes were the militant arm of the suffragists.

As I Canadian I learned NOTHING about the suffragettes at school. *I’m pretty sure, anyway. I took two years of British History in High School.

Indeed, I only started learning about them when I started researching the background to the Nicholson Family Letters I found in 2005.

I couldn’t help it. The Nicholsons left behind plenty of Montreal press clippings about the suffragettes. Some I transcribed and put on the Tighsolas website.

One such clipping told the story of British suffragette Barbara Wylie’s September 1912 trip to Canada.  As she detrained at Montreal’s Place Viger reporters asked her about the hurling of the axe at Asquith. (It would have knocked some sense into him had it landed, she replied.) Also about a bombing at a Dublin Theatre.

1912/13 was when the militancy was at its height, over and above the famous theatrics of Pankhurst’s WSPU.

Indeed, the suffragettes became militant because the government over-reacted and sent them to jail for acts that were not criminal, just effective in getting good press, in getting the word out. If they were going to be persecuted for non-criminal acts, such as chaining themselves to buildings, they  might as well do criminal acts. That was the thinking.

Asquith getting ‘pied’ with flour

The BBC Four Story focused on a possible assassination attempt by some suffragettes on Asquith. Not all the scholars interviewed agreed this happened for certain. Somewhere on this blog I have an press image of the suffragettes throwing flour at his car. Today that would be considered an act of terrorism – and not  mere theatrics.

One scholar who disagreed thought that the Pankhursts were far too image conscious to allow this to happen. That’s another thing, apparently, forgotten by history about the suffragettes.

Again, nothing I haven’t figured out myself. The suffragettes were masters of the media image, for their time.

Hence this Miss Wylie a fairly unknown almost rogue spokesperson, dazzled reporters with her wit and good looks. Suffragettes made sure to dress well. Even their magazine was full of dress ads. The WSPU magazine is online and I just had to read a few issues to realize how clever these suffragettes were.

I have put something about Wiley’s visit in Threshold Girl  my story about Flora Nicholson in 1911/1912. I will put something from WSPU magazine in Diary of a Confirmed Spinster. I have her reading the article on Russian Treatment of Women in Prison, the force-feeding.

On her trip, Wylie tells reporters that there are many members of the WSPU in Canada. I know Edith was a militant suffragette supporter because she writes so in a May 1913 letter. I guess I have to go through all era issues to see if her name is listed as a donor.

All to say, there is a great deal to be learned from History, REAL history. The protests happening right now in Quebec could be analyzed from that angle, but won’t be.

Edith’s clipping of the Wylie Visit from September Montreal Daily Star. “Will Canadian suffragists adopt militant tactics?” the headline asks.

ell, I also listened to another edition of the History program on BBC. This one about the Great Depression. Their conclusion, the New Deal did not end the Depression, WWII did. Hmm. I read so much about the mass youth unemployment in the Western World. It scares me because they had the same problem in the 1910′s… and that’s probably why there was a War. To kill off these excess souls rendered unemployable by the change over from an agrarian to industrial economy. (At least some historians say.)

But they can’t do that now, right? They learned their lesson. WWI killed off many unemployable men and then also the best and the brightest.

My BBC Program claims that  history has forgotten the militancy of the British Suffragettes because it was soon followed by the carnage of WWI that made the violent actions of the militants seem like harmless child’s play.

Politics, Education and Quebec

 

Education in Quebec is getting worldwide attention these days, and many would say ‘negative’ attention, although not all. Line Beauchamp, the Education Minister resigned yesterday over the issue and the Charest government is struggling with how to deal with the politically charged protests.

 

But I’m living in the past, 100 years ago, when it cost money to go to school, elementary and high school, let alone college and when the issue in education in the Protestant sector was “the Jewish Question.”

 

I am writing Biology and Ambition, about Marion Nicholson a teacher in Montreal in 1909-1913, the follow up the Threshold Girl (about her younger sister Flora in 1911/12 when she attended Macdonald Teachers College) and available on free ebook, and Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, about her older sister Edith, who was a teacher at French Methodist in Westmount in the same era.

 

The ebooks are based on real letters, but I am weaving into them political issues. Marion’s political issue is this Jewish Question and I have been reading up.

 

In 1909, an MLA, Mr. Finnie, introduced a bill in the Provincial Legislature, allowing for the Directors of the Protestant Board of Education to be elected rather than appointed.
In those days most of the Board Members were clergyman. (It is always said the Catholic Church had too much power in Quebec in the old days(keeping the people down) but so did the Protestant Clergy. The difference being the Protestant Clergy promoted education, as their constituency was more elite.)

 

There is a heated debate and a Commissioner, Dr. Barclay slurs the Jews and has to backtrack a bit. Also P Mackenzie, the member for Richmond ( and a ‘friend’ of the Nicholsons) seems to argue against the bill.  Finnie and his supporters say that the Board has to have more businessmen. Most Board Members are Clergymen. He brings up to recent fires in Montreal Schools (one in Marion’s Royal Arthur in 1909 and one other one where a teacher and some students died.)

 

It is a private members bill and is quashed early on. Those for the bill, Finnie and others, claim that the clergyman are just trying to save their good jobs.

 

But during that period, apparently, a lot of fear mongering happens, saying that Jews will take over the Board and change the Christian character (at least two schools in Montreal are overwhelmingly filled with Jewish students.) And that Jewish teachers will be allowed to teach and they too will start preaching their religion in the schools. (The Canadian Jewish News reminds people that Jews don’t proselytize like the Protestants do.)

 

Anyway, by 1913, Jewish Teachers are allowed to teach. The Board has consulted its lawyers (Greenshields!) and they said it is legal as long as Jewish Teachers don’t teach Bible Class.

(From Images Montreal)

The New Royal Arthur, Canning and Workman in Ste. Cunegonde or Little Burgundy. The school was built in in the 1860′s, but partially burnt in 1909, when Marion was a teacher, but in January when empty. Her mother remarks, ” I read about the fire. Is that your school? It is so lucky school was out.”

 

A Dr. Scrimger is all for it. He is a preacher very familiar to the Nicholsons. He preaches at Macdonald when Flora is there and she remarks upon it to her father.

 

I see by reading the papers that the Jewish Question of Representation on the Board was still going strong in 1965 when I was at school.

 

Anyway, this story will be edited into Marion’s actual letters. She doesn’t mention it. Oddly, none of the 1909 letters I have mention the typhoid epidemic either. It killed people in Westmount and Ste. Cuengonde, so both Edith and Marion must have been aware. I’ll have to add something about that. My play Milk and Water (taking place in Montreal in 1927) covers that issue well.

 

Another thing Marion didn’t talk about directly in letters was about the classroom. I guess that was confidential. Too bad, I’d like to know what went on.

 

The only time in a letter she remarks on students is in 1906, her first job, as a summer teacher in a town in the ET. She says she has two new students, the dirtiest people she ever saw and both dunces. She names them and asks her Dad if he knows the family. Beginner’s mistake, I guess.

 

I will put the letter in the book, changing the names and place. It speaks to why teachers didn’t want to work in rural schools.

 

In the same letter she mentions she is bored to death because there is nothing to do and she asks Mom to send some needlework, ‘fancywork.’

 

When she starts work in a city school, there’s no  time for such things. 50 children. And plenty of outside distractions, like Dominion Park and the Nickelodeon!

War and Prices, the Cost of Living 1914-1918

A page from Oct 1914 House Accounts, Norman Nicholson of Richmond, Quebec.

I have 50 years of Household Accounts for the Nicholson Family of Richmond, 1883 to 1921 and in those years, not that much changed with respect to what they bought and how much they spent.

I’m assuming there was wartime inflation, so I scanned two pages from October 1914 and two from November 1918.

For the story, Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, about Edith Nicholson in 1910,  the follow up toThreshold Girl about Flora, I am using the Household Accounts to tell the story of her childhood.

This morning I had a bowl of Harvest Crunch. I haven’t eaten that for years. My husband found it on sale at Costco. That product was one of the first pseudo health foods. I could look it up, but I’m pretty sure I ate it in the late 70′s. I think it is pretty fattening. It has coconut oil.. but I don’t think that is as bad for you as previously thought. I mean the Thai’s live on it.

I usually eat Bon Matin 14 grain toast for breakfast with multi berry jam.

The short of it is, we still eat ‘by habit’ but new products are being introduced every day. Not the case back then, although that era saw the birth of a number of iconic products that became favorites over the century, thanks to heavy advertising. As I wrote in an earlier post, Crisco was invented in 1911, but they tried to get Margaret Nicholson to use it in 1916. Likely because butter had risen in price due to the war.

as opposed to: 1918

Easter 1912..Titanic Week

Norman Nicholson in his Masonic Regalia. In 1912, they were starting up a Chapter of the Eastern Star, a group for women. Norman was a Presbyterian and the Presbyterians frowned upon the Masons (for keeping secrets from their wives.) Still, he spend a lot on fees to remain a Mason. He needed it for social standing.

Well, it is Easter Sunday, 2012, the 8th of April. It seems that Easter was around the same time in 1912, because I have this letter from exactly 100 years ago.

Well, I checked. It was the 7th!

The letter is from Norman Nicholson of www.tighsolas.ca . He was writing to his wife in Richmond, Quebec, from his post on the Canadian Transcontinental Railway in Cochrane, or at least near Cochrane at “end of steel” as they called it.

Their daughters, Flora, Marion were at home for Easter.  Another daughter,Edith, had to stay in town I guess to watch over students at Westmount Methodist, a boarding school.

Flora was a student at Macdonald College, studying to be a teacher, Marion and Edith were already teachers in the Big City. Flora’s story is told here Threshold Girl in free e-book form.

Cochran Ont April 8^th, 1912

Dear Margaret,

I am writing you my usual weekly letter. Did not receive yours that I usually get Saturday? I suppose your are busy entertaining your girls. But I expect to get a long one from you when the girls leave. Trust you are well.

Well, I have nothing new to write about from here. Last Friday and Saturday we had a big thaw here. It took away half of our snow and in lots of places the ground is bare and where it is the mud is terrible would prefer snow to it.

  It turned cold last night and this morning everything is frozen solid with snow falling and a north wind blowing not a very good day for Easter Bonnets here.

Did not go to Church this morning, it was too cold. I had letter yesterday from DB McLennan of Scotstown wanting to know if I could get him a job here.

I think I forgot to tell you in my last letter that I had a post card from Sophia Nicholson in Edmonton wanting to know if I had received the epistle she wrote me at Xmas.

Said Gordon was sick with the measles. I haven’t heard from Herb since writing your last, nor any of the girls.

How is Han and the Hills getting on now? As I haven’t any news to write about I will close awaiting your letter. My eye is all right but not quite as clear of the red yet as the other. Cold is quite well now. Hoping you are enjoying the Easter Holidays with your girls. I will come later if spared.

Now, My sweet pet, I will say love to your own self. Trusting to hear from you soon, Your affectionate husband N. Nicholson

Here’s the letter wife Margaret wrote back: Her letter is peppered with references to the family problems, the largest of which was a large debt owed by her son, on an insurance policy. And the family is squabbling with Margaret’s brother over care of the aged mother. The last line of her letter reveals Margaret finds it ironic that people are asking them for help getting jobs.

Richmond Thursday April 11, 1912 Dear Norman, Yours of the 8th received Tuesday night – I look for them on that day. Marion returned to the city Tuesday afternoon, Flora returned Wednesday afternoon. They both had a nice long holiday which I enjoyed very much. E. did not come. We wrote to her every day and she wrote that Marion’s young man had been very kind took her, taking her to the theatre so she was not too lonesome. Grandma is feeling better. I was up this afternoon stayed three hours and had a talk of the will business. Bella said Mother made her will the other day but she does not know what is in it. Tom  Bushell and M. Cleveland are the witness and her money is in the bank. While we were talking Clayton came in. He said they did keep Mother for nothing and that it was not a lie, though I told him mother paid her board. I said I always understood she did. Well, I suppose you think you will get your pay now. They have it in for me. How I wish I did not have to go near them. Han is having her sale the 16th, then she is going up to the farm. Sis is with her and looks black when I go over. Still I go and Han comes up here. Marion wondered why you did not say anything about Herb’s insurance. George Alexander called me up to ask. Said you told him there was a letter from Herb for you. I said I did not think it was an answer to the one you had written. Marion thought of going to see George but did not like to tell you. Am glad your cold is better.  The ice is moving a little today. Still there is a cold wind. I have to make a fire in the furnace every day.  Crombie is busy with his chimney for the fire place. Mrs. Gawn has bought Fran Shaw’s house in upper Melbourne. The new notary is moving into the Sutherland’s house. Mr. Rothney is staying in the Kelly house. Mrs. Skinner has gone to Melbourne. I do not miss them so much.  The Dr. wrote her that he was offered 90 dollars a month for his house. I sat up with grandma two nights last week. Now she does not need any one after Han’s sale and if she keeps better I am really going out to Kingsbury for a few days.   As I now see things, Bella and Clayton have made most of the trouble for us among the friends just because they are jealous of us.  I have not heard anything about our lodge yet. It may take some time. What do you think of my office? Do you think I can manage it?   I paid water tax telephone and PO box rent and got a gal of maple syrup from Fowler when the girls were here. It is very nice I wish you could have some now when it is new however there will be some when you come. Now with much love Your wife Margaret Write me what to say about the insurance PS Write to W Keenan about your wagon. The very idea of McLennan writing you about a position. I wish you was a good as most people think.

Here’s the letter Marion wrote upon her return: Her lodgings were on Tower, which is near McGill off Sherbrooke.

Edith and Marion seated Circa 1912.

Tower Avenue,

April 13, 1912

Dear Father,

You will see by the heading that I am again in Montreal and mother will have told you that I was at home Easter. Mother is busy but well. She had been with Grandma quite a lot and now I hear Florence Pepler is not well  and she has been there. Everything is much the same only the Skinners have left their house.  Flora came back the day after I did. She is well but not quite as fat as she was at Xmas. Edith has, I suppose, told you that she was thinking of taking a summer school out West somewhere, that is if she can get one and there is a  slight possibility  that I might do the same if I can find a place for the two months.

Was in at Dr. Cleveland’s yesterday having a tooth filled. He was enquiring for you.

There was nothing doing at home except the talk of Uncle Dan’s will but mother has told you all about that I suppose. Aunt Han gave them a great old calling down and does not want to have anything more to do with them. I saw Aunt Sarah and Florence. They left the day after I got home. There is not any more news so I will stop now and write later. Rec’d your check all right and Flora is all right for this month.  What about Herb’s insurance?  I was going to speak to Geo Alexander when at home but thought perhaps I had better not as I had not heard back from you. Let me know: I  can take it over all right without burdening myself. Now, I think this is all for now,

Lovingly

Marion

PS Am enclosing the take on the Liberals but think it should apply to the Cons don’t you.

Marion.

Here’s a letter Flora wrote to her Dad upon returning to school for the final push before graduation.

She mentions the Titanic – but also the death of  a girl at school. In those days, someone could get sick one week and be dead the next. Pneumonia. The King of Death. Charles Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railway, was the most prominent Montrealer to go down with the Titanic. (He was American.) He had visited Richmond in 1911,  because the railway station there burnt down. This was a significant event, as Richmond was an important railway hub.

Flora 1908, on the beach at Nantucket. The Nicholsons had many relations in Boston. During this visit she took a car ride (in a Stanely Steamer) to Wellesley College. She thought Macdonald College resembled Wellesley.

A page from her  Spring 1912 Nature Diary.

Macdonald College.

April 19, 1912

Dear Father,No doubt you will be thinking it is about time you were hearing from me. I intended answering your letter long before this but it seemed as if I never could get around to it.

I suppose mother has told you I was home for Easter holidays. We had a week, from Wednesday to Wednesday.  It seemed good to get home, although I was in the house all the time with a cold. Still, Marion and I helped out with Mother’s day at home. She had 10 visitors, so we all got the local news.

 Apparently, they are thinking of setting up a chapter of the Eastern Star in Richmond.  Something else for mother to do.

One day Mother Marion went out the cemetery to see Uncle Dan’s grave.

Ever since I have got back I have been quite busy. Our exams commence about the middle of May and it won’t be long before they are here.

I applied for a school in the city but have not heard yet anything about it. I won’t know until June whether I will be accepted. I supposed they have to wait until they see what we will do in our exams, that is, if we manage to carry off a model diploma.  Mabel is going to Valleyfield  next year. She is to have first and second model.

I don’t think there is any danger about not getting a school. The commissioners of schools are really at our mercy. There are so few qualified teachers and so many new students. I hope I will be accepted in the city as I think I will like it fine with Edith and Marion there too.

Next week I have to assist in the Kindergarten from 9 to 10.20. am  in the day school and next week in the upper grades. So you see, I will be pretty busy but it will be good practice for me…. I suppose you have not heard about the death of Edith Storke, one of the girls attending the college. She was in the Elementary class. She took cold and it developed into pneumonia and died in a few days. She did not live in residence as Dr. Lynde, one of the professors, is her brother-in- law.

This is the second death of a student this year.

The Titanic is all everyone can talk about. Mother saw Mr. Hays, the President of the GTR , at the Train Station last summer. Edith says she is going to the American Presbyterian church to hear the eulogy for him.

They are having a service here, too. But for all the dead.

Your Loving Daughter, Flora

Edith sends Norman a letter later in the month:

1095 Greene Ave Westmount Quebec April 19, 1912 Dear Father, I suppose you heard that I was unable to go home for the holidays. I got through the time very well, considering  Marion and Flora both had a very nice little holiday  and it did them good. I just got a letter from Mother this morning. What a time she is having between Florance and Grandma. If there is any work to be done they, of course ,will  have to have Mother. I think they are perfectly dreadful, the things they have said and done. And all for the sake of a little money. I hope we shall never have to be so mean. Only 5 weeks until we close. This year has gone by very quickly after all. What a dreadful accident to the Titanic and such a great loss of life. It seems to have cast a gloom over every one. People can talk of nothing else.  Mr. Hays will be a great loss to the Grand Trunk. There are to be memorial services in all the churches on Sunday morning. A special one for Mr. Hays in the American Presbyterian. I think I shall go out to Macdonald tomorrow and see Flora. Later Sunday Afternoon. I went out to Macdonald on the 1.30 train and spent a pleasant afternoon. She is looking splendid and is to beautifully dug out there. It is an ideal spot. The ice has moved out of the Ottawa a little but not yet from the St. Lawrence. I went to the memorial service in the American Presbyterian this morning. The front was draped with black. The pulpit with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. The service was very impressive . He is certainly well spoken of. Today is anniversary service in St. Andrew’s. Dr. Barcley is preaching.  It has been a beautiful Sunday, the warmest yet and getting so nice and dry.  How are things up North? What do you think of the coming elections in the province? Do you think Peter will have a hard run. Saw by the Record that Charlie Campbell started on a business trip to Winnipeg. M. Got your letter the other day. Your loving Edith In my story, Threshold Girl  I have Edith come home for the 1912 Easter Holidays.  Creative License.

Canadian Elections 2011 and before

The proclamation of results for Richmond Wolfe in 1904 Elections. Total eligible voters: 8447 (all men of course): Spoiled ballots 55; ballots rejected 39; ballots for E.W. Tobin 3789; ballots for McGrady 2516. Total votes cast 6305.

Now, one of the excuses I’ve read for not giving women the vote back then was that polling stations were unseemly. But here’s were they voted in the district: at school houses (most often); office of Municipal council; town Hall, stores (where women often went); at private homes. So what was the problem? One commentator I read suggested polling should take place in churches, as voting is a sacred act. (Hmm.) Well, I will likely vote in a school, I usually do.

For this next 2011 Federal election. The Bloc has won for the last little while here, so I am basically disenfranchised anyway.

I am editing the Nicholson Family Letters from May 11 1911 to May 1913, with an eye toward having them published in an academic press.

I am also annotating them, using material I have gathered in my research. Today, I’m on the late 1912 letters. Edith Nicholson is home alone. She had quit her job. Her letters are long and disjointed and gossipy. She is writing to her Mom who is with her sisters in the city. There’s not enough room for her, so she is making the best of it at home. Telling her mom she is keeping warm (always a worry) and always sleeping at someone else’s house or having someone sleep in with her. I thought about seriously cutting these letters down, but then it hit me: they are as important as the others.

The Nicholson Letters are all about POLITICS. Yes, they discuss the 1911 Federal Election and the 1912 Provincial Election, but they also talk about life, which is politics. And gossip is undoubtedly a form of politics, a female form. So the Days at Home where the women “give the town a good raking” as Edith once put it, is as much a form of politics as the town meetings. It’s a way to learn about things and ‘control’ things by putting your personal stamp, opinion, on them. Interesting thing I didn’t notice. Edith attends a sermon with a guess minister from Quebec and the subject is the 1913 budget! So there, more politics.

The Nicholson women were very political. No surprise that Marion went on to become a union leader.

On that note: I found a letter from 1920 where Edith writes that Marion and her family were going to spend a holiday, Christmas or Easter with the Sutherlands. This is likely J.C. Sutherland, the Superintendent of Protestant Schools. So even when she was retired from teaching, as a wife and mother, she kept in touch with the politics of education in Quebec.

Letter From Hugh 1912

Marion, in Hudson? Love wasn’t always such smooth sailing. A real ‘love’ letter from Hugh to Marion. In September he blows off a woman, Jean, who has clearly been on his back to marry, so he is seeing two women here, at this moment in time. So his address My Dear Marion is slightly premature

Montreal, Quebec
August 11, 1912
My dear Marion,

Your very kind letter of the 6th came duly to hand a few days ago and intended to answer it at once but have not been able. Bill went away to see about a cut of lumber which was offered our firm and I had to see to the business here. I phoned home on Friday evening telling them that I thought that I would go down for over Sunday by the 1.30 train, but when the hour came around for me to go I was closing a purchase which I made so therefore I could not leave. Then I decided to go down at 5 o’clock, but at 2.50 I was called up by one of my customers at Mile End and had to go out and fix him up, by the time I was through with him, I had the pleasure of seeing the 5 o’clock train going by at the crossing at Park Avenue. So instead of writing you from home in Three Rivers, I am as you will no doubt notice, writing you from Montreal.

I am pleased to learn through your letter that you are having a nice time and sincerely trust that it will continue so right through. I do not doubt your word in the least Re: Edith being a good guide. Leave it to her, as the saying goes.We have had very disagreeable weather since Wednesday. It has rained every day. This morning it seemed to be nice and clear but it started to cloud up and about one o’clock and at present looks as if we were going to have a thunder storm. I hope you are not getting this kind of weather your way or it will certainly spoil your trip.

I do not think that there is very much danger of having the White of my eye frozen right now, but I had an awful time with it from the blow I got a few weeks ago.

Some way or other a piece of paper got into it at the time I was struck and turned out to be very painful as it caused the eye to swell up again, a couple of days after I had written you, I went to the Doctor about it and he took a little piece of green paper out from under the lid. He said that it was the poison from the dye that was causing all he pain, so just gave me a solution to wash it with and it is again better and hope that I shall not get anymore green or white paper in it as it is not at all pleasant to my personal feelings, I would much rather someone else try it for a change as the sample I got was quite sufficient for my liking. The worst of it was that I was not at all satisfied with what he did take out, as I imagined that he would take out something about the size of (he draws a huge blob here) it felt all of that size) but to my great disappointment he only took out a piece about this size (he draws a dot).

That’s what really made me so made after was to think that such a mite should make me suffer so much. The doctor laughed when I first went in to see him at the question or rather the answer I gave him when he asked me what brought me there. I said that I had come to see him about my eye as I thought that I must have something in it. He said, what do you think it is? I said, I don’t think anything, all I can say that it feels very sore and about the size of an elephant. Well, he said if it is an elephant that you have in your eye, I won’t have much trouble in seeing it. I said, you shouldn’t. After examining the eye he took this speck out and said (showing the spec) there is your elephant.

You should be here tonight to hear the Mr. Gordon give a sermon to the young men. The subject tonight will be “Mistakes Young Men Make” so being so young I intend to take it in.

I notice by the advertisements that there will be quite a few nice plays out this fall in Montreal. So if I am here – and of course you also – and care to them in, I will enjoy taking you along. Of course, I would not like to neglect our Old Standby at the Orpheum. But I suppose there is no use planning too far ahead as many changes can take place between now and then.

I saw Purves last Monday and he was telling me that Mr. And Mrs. MacLeod were down at the seashore. He told me where , but I forget. And that Mrs. MacLeod was partially paralyzed since she has had fever. I am very sorry for her and the family as it will go hard with them.

I notice how very neatly you throw sarcasm at me in your letter. Re: You find that you have to send something in the shape of a letter in order to get one yourself. Very good for you, old gal, as I never thought it was in you. But of course ‘Smartness” here will have to comment by saying rather hard to write to Marion Nicholson Boston Mass. When and where do you think that the letter would find you. Then to find out that you are at 148 Hollis St, Framingham Mass. Is another proposition. So go easy. I suppose you have full intentions of trying your hand at the smuggling game upon your return home into Canada. Be careful as you might have to send for help to bail you out. I can see where you would not have anymore rest from the “Kiddy” if you do get caught.

As I have not anything very startling to tell you I will bring this chapter to an end by wishing you all kind of good wishes for a very pleasant and good trip.

Yours sincerely
Hughie

Reciprocity and Borders

Flo and Floss. The Women believed Floss protected them from the tramps… Richmond was a railway town.

Well, just as I am examining the 1911 Reciprocity Elections, the Canadian and US governments announce that they are in negotiations with respect to a common perimeter, ‘border talks’.

President Obama says that these border talks are about jobs and prosperity.

Obama said, and I quote the Montreal Gazette”that he’s confident the “new vision” for the Canada-U. S. border will lead to enhanced prosperity for both countries.” This new arrangement (details to come, some of which they may actually explain to the public) will create jobs and increase exports (for which country)?

Obama said he expects Harper to be very protective of Canada values, which shows how little he knows our Prime Minister (despite being on a ‘first name’ basis, or understands Canadian values, the ones that separate us from the US, like Pot OK, Guns bad.

(Actually, the church-going statistics probably say it all. Not many atheists in the US. But if we had no social safety net, maybe more of us would attend a church. In the 1910 era, I suspect, you attended church because you needed “connections” to survive -and the preacher could be entertaining, in an era before radio.

Maybe Obama should read the Tighsolas letters!

Actually, I don’t think there is a 49th parallel between our two core ideologies. North America is divided ideologically between urban and rural, with the burbs vacillating. Two Solitudes.

So all those out of work auto workers in the American North East are going to become border patrollers. Instead of working on the assembly line, for decent money, turning out automobiles that they can afford, (there’s a great video on YouTube of the Ford Assembly line and it has 6,000,000 viewers) they are going to protect the continent from outside invaders, and pot, although I’m sure the flow of US guns north will only increase. Cause guns are good, right? Good business.

And “Whatever is “good” for business, is “good” – as in morally, ethically, good. I once read a brilliant essay, penned by an American, on this topic. I must track it down and read it again. I think it was from the 1930′s but I might be wrong.

The fact is, many Americans still believe that the 9-11 bombers came through Canada. The idea was planted in many of their brains (and as saw in a Sunday Morning feature) once an idea is firmly planted in the fear center of the brain, it cannot be removed. Politicians and pundits these days exploit this unhappy fact, making a mockery the democratic process that demands critical thinking of its citizens.

Harper says, this border deal isn’t going compromise our sovereignty. But somehow I doubt it. With the Arctic melting down, that area is so attractive to the US.

An article in the National Post says this might tie us to the US, as we’ve never been tied before.

I’m worried, because, if the US were not a country but a ‘person’, and I were a psychiatrist assessing the mental health of this ‘person’ I could only come to one conclusion: Split Personality with bouts of extreme paranoia, caused by recent trauma and declining power. (A bit like the Nicholsons in 1910.)

I’m wary, because whoever “protects” you also controls you. That’s why teenagers resent their parents so. That’s why Marion Nicholson, at 27, couldn’t find a place to stay in the city. Society was ‘protecting’ unmarried women’s virtue and their reputations. Whether it needed protecting or not.
Hmm. In 1911, Canadians voted out Laurier’s Liberals because they were afraid Reciprocity would mean a US takeover of Canada, quite literally.

In 1911, I suspect, the Border was merely a suggestion (the Nicholsons had many many relations living in the Boston area and other parts of the US.)

Anyway, as I edit the Nicholson letters, late 1911, the family is deciding whether to rent or sell their beloved house Tighsolas. They are ambivalent, but essentially, the decision is made for them. There are so many people leaving Richmond, for Montreal and other parts, so many houses available for rent or sale, that they cannot sell the house, not for a price they can afford.

This, certainly, is something that many present day Americans can identify with!

And as I edit the letters, I can see that people voted along the lines of self-interest back then too. (That’s the reason the suffragettes wanted universal suffrage: they claimed men only cared about making money and not about the human side of things. Give or take a Dickens or two.)

I see people being swayed by irrational fears too, ignoring facts and past history. So what do you do?

And my husband’s all for this perimeter pact, if it means, as with the EU, ANY Canadian can go work in the U.S. sans visa, sans green card.