State of the Union, Milk and Water

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.

BUSINESS MUST BE BOOMING -36th installment

Marion, left at car dealership.

334 Bleury,

May 5, 1909

Dear Mother,

Received your letter some time ago and intended answering it before this and have been lazy about it as usual.

My class has been having their examinations and has done much better than expected. I have applied for higher work to Mr. Silver, but will not know the answer until next month.

Edith and I went to Lachine his afternoon to see the Carlyles, they were telling us that Weldon was going out West.

Yesterday, coming home from school, I met Mr.and Mrs. Montgomery on the street. They are here buying an automobile and Mrs. Montgomery is having a new suit.

I am having Dr. Cleveland fix my teeth and he thinks he will be able to save my front one, but says it is in a bad state.

Mr. And Mrs. McCoy think the syrup fine and they liked the sugar too.

Monday night I went to hear Peter Hing speak at Knox’s Church. He is the first Chinaman to graduate from McGill. They praised him to the hilt. I think all the Chinamen on the island of Montreal were there beaming on their countryman.

Now I must close.

Lovingly,
Marion

Marion lifted the leaf of paper and blew on it in staccato puffs and then waved it in the air. She stilled her hand and examined her work. Not an elegant letter, but it’s all she had time for, with report cards to be filled in, 50 of them.

Small world, meeting the Montgomerys on the city street, but she lived close to the center of Montreal now, not far from Edith’s greystone on 72 Sherbrooke Street west. The snowbanks had long melted, and the sunshine was friendly and she had decided, this afternoon, to walk up to Ste. Catherine from her new boarding house on Bleury, where the skirt she had torn two months before, the morning she almost fell under a streetcar, was thrown over a chair in her small room. Next year she wouldn’t have to risk life and limb to get to school on time. She had finally found a boarding house, just one streetcar away from her school, that accepted only young ladies. Mrs.Wyatt, the woman who had run her boarding house in Sherbrooke had provided excellent references, so she has been accepted.

Marion had switched to her lighter blue suit as soon as the Spring weather had warmed and that was what she had been wearing when she bumped into the Montgomerys on Ste. Catherine, looking very much the poor school teacher in with her faded floral bonnet and lack-lustre astrachan caperone. The wealthy couple persuaded her to visit the car dealership with them, a few blocks west at the corner of Atwater about 15 blocks west on St. Catherine. They waved down a carriage.

Along the way, as the horse clip-clopped along Montreal’s main drag, Mrs. Montgomery asked many questions which Marion managed mostly to evade. Yes, it was her school that burned down, but one wing remained so she still had a job. Yes, she and Edith had seen the Merry Widow, and visited with the Dr. Clevelands. Mr. Cleveland was a dentist, formally from Richmond, who had married one of her mother’s cousins, a Thorbourne, of “The Thorbournes” who founded St. Francis College. The taxi arrived at the Forum Buildings and the trio climbed out onto the street.

“What exactly is Edith doing? asked Mrs. M. a few minutes later as the trio walked the outdoor showroom. “Giving English lessons in a private home,” was all Marion answered and then she climbed behind the wheel of a Lozier automobile in the center of the lot.

“This one suits me fine,” she joked to Mr. Montgomery. “Don’t I look grand?” She stroked the Turkish upholstery beneath her and drew a line with her index finger on the mohair roof above her.

Yes, remarked the salesman for the Motor Import Company of Canada, a short middle aged man wearing eyeglasses, a blue suit and vest and very shiny shoes. “This model, as you can see has left side drive,center control. Also a six cylinder long stroke motor, dual ignition(he was now talking to Mr. Montgomery, of course)a unit power plant as well as special Lozier smokeless lubrication. The ladies will like that. He turned to Mrs. Montgomery. It saves on the clothing.”

How much? asked Mr. M.

3250.00 replied the agent. This is a superior vehicle. But now let me show you a Pierce Arrow, the most sophisticated automobile we sell, and we are its exclusive dealers in Montreal.

$3250! thought Marion. This auto costs more than Tighsolas. The insurance business must be booming if Mr. M. can afford to buy an automobile like this.

Horses and Horseless Carriages

Regan, the Nicholson’s fine standardbred. I assume. In and around 1900 they kept this horse and a cow. By 1908, all they had was this ‘fine’ carriage in the back, which was employed by the local MNA on his election rounds in 1912.

Funny, that politicians would electioneer by horse and carriage and not by automobile. His name was Peter Mackenzie and he was Finance Minister. No doubt he owned an automobile. Most well-off men did by then and the middle-class men were following suit.