A tram in Montreal 1910.
Well, the US news media is all abuzz (to use a cliche) about Obama’s State of the Union Address where he called for income equality. This right after the release of beleaguered Republican candidate Romney’s income tax status, where he paid under 15 percent last year.
I’m having a serious case of the Deja Vu Blues right now, as I edit Milk and Water my eplay about Montreal in 1927, the era of US Prohibition.
In Milk and Water, my grandfather, a top Civic Servant in the Montreal Administration and my husband’s grandfather, Thomas Wells, a Westmount businessman, have a talk in front of a dance club/speakeasy , while awaiting the possible arrival of David, the Prince of Wales.
Now, my grandfather got his job as Director of the City in September 1921. In August of 1921, the Financial Post out of Toronto (Mclean) ran a profile of ‘fiancier and advocate” Herbert Ames, the author using a pseudonym.
Eerie, because the point of view of the Financial Post echoes what many Republicans feel, or at least what they have been told to feel, what is ‘good’ for them: that the rich are special and deserve more power than the poor. On the News I’ve heard the Rich like Romney called ‘the job creators.’ (Which is kind of funny, as the 1% earns its bonuses often on the basis of jobs cut.)
I’m quoting directly from the teaser of this 1921 Financial Post..
“The sketch of Herbert Ames in this issue, not only gives an insight into the character of this outstanding financier, and public worker, but in enlarging about his efforts to introduce reforms of Civic Government in Montreal reveals many of the issues of the Municipal problem of that city.
Montreal is ruled, in a business way, by a relatively small faction of financiers and businessmen who live in another city, Westmount, and is controlled by the French majority who vote a solid French ticket for City Hall.
Thus the people who pay the biggest taxes have little say in the spending of them. (Dumb democracy. Doh!)
It has been with efforts to bring about something better that Sir Herbert Ames has been identified for many years.”
Yikes! No wonder there is no street names for Herbert Ames in Montreal!
There is a street names for my grandfather, Jules Crepeau (in Ahunsic) and a long street on MOunt Royal and a Look Out named for Camillien Houde, the Mayor who ousted my grandfather.
I find this a bit strange, as it was the Anglos who hated my grandfather, Edward Beck the crusading journalist (who I suspect wrote that 1921 article) and Lord Atholstan, Hugh Graham of the Montreal Star.
They hated my grandfather, and McConnell.
I suspect this had something to do with my grandfather’s connnections, with Rodolphe Forget the Industrialist who controlled the Montreal Transportation System. With McConnell and others.
All very confusing. Why would Mayor Houde, populist French Mayor, want to oust him too?
Well, he felt he was allied with the previous City Hall Administration..
Strange bedfellows, Houde and Lord Atholstan. Did an anglo help get legendary French Canadian Mayor Camillien Houde elected? I suspect so.
