At the time of the shooting, Woodsworth had no knowledge of the incident, nor did the general public or the press. The authorities covered it up. Buck asked Ormond for an investigation; there was none. Ormond was convinced that the October 17 “riot” was a Communist plot. Only Buck was charged with inciting to riot. His comrades were charged either as participants or with conspiracy. All of them were put in the Hole and kept there until they were tried.
Buck was brought to court in Kingston, a diminutive figure only five feet six inches tall, his wrists shackled to those of two burly guards and his ankles shackled to their ankles. This enforced lock step was clearly staged for the benefit of photographers to make the mild-mannered Buck look like a dangerous criminal, bent on escape. He had come to court before without shackles, and the judge, G.E. De Roche, quickly ordered them removed.
De Roche didn’t believe the strike of October 17 amounted to very much. He referred to it as a peaceful disturbance that had developed into a riot and “as riots go I would say this was a very mild riot.” Nor did he believe that Buck was the instigator – quite the opposite. “I believe,” he told the prisoner, “that you had an honest desire that no harm should come to either person or property.” Nonetheless, because Buck had taken part in an unlawful assembly, the judge reluctantly sentenced him to an additional nine months. Under the harsh laws of the time, he might have given him seven years.
Until this time, ten months after the disturbance at Kingston, no member of the public was aware that an attempt had been made to murder Buck. For all of that period, the authorities had managed to keep a lid on the affair. The story broke wide open, however, when Buck was subpoenaed to testify at the trial of another of the rioters, the notorious Mickey McDonald. “Sure they fired at me,” Buck stated in answer to a defence question. The Toronto Trades and Labour Council immediately demanded an explanation from the Minister of Justice. Guthrie in turn asked for an explanation from Superintendent Ormond, who replied that there was no substantial evidence to bear out Buck’s statement.
A further investigation, later described by the Archambault Commission as “neither comprehensive nor thorough,” followed. Guthrie used that flawed and misleading report to tell the House that “Buck is one of those who were encouraging the disorder. At the door of his cell he was making speeches and encouraging the rioters, and for the purpose of frightening him, I suppose, or cowing him, certain guards fired into the ceiling of his cell.”
None of that was true, and Guthrie must have known it. Certainly he knew that the shooting incident occurred on October 20, three days after the so-called riot of October 17. At that point there was no riot. Buck was not haranguing his fellow prisoners (secure in their cells). He wasn’t standing at the door of his cell; he was making his bed. The shots weren’t fired into the ceiling, as an investigation of the bullet holes made clear; they were fired at Tim Buck. “Certain guards,” as Guthrie called them, were not acting independently, as his remarks in the House suggested; they were acting as a team. They pumped at least three bullets and ten shotgun pellets into Buck’s cell.
Very little of these revelations filtered down to the general public, who could be pardoned for believing that all the shooting had taken place in the course of a wild mêlée of which Buck was the instigator, “TIM BUCK DESIGNATED PRISON RIOT LEADER,” one headline had read, just before Buck’s preliminary hearing. “TIM BUCK IS CONVICTED OF RIOTING AT PENITENTIARY” read another, six months later.
The impression left on the public’s mind was that the “fiery little orator,” as the press called him, had masterminded and personally led an all-out prison riot and escape attempt. It wasn’t until the end of the decade when the Archambault Commission made its report that Buck was cleared. After an exhaustive examination of all the evidence the commission declared him innocent of all the charges levelled against him. His only crime had been to leave his prison workbench when the others did because, understandably, he didn’t want to be called a “rat.”
1933
1
The shame of relief
2
Death by Depression
3
Childhood memories
4
Making headlines
5
The Regina Manifesto
6
Bible Bill
1
The shame of relief
R.B. Bennett’s credibility was running out. He had promised to “blast a way into the closed markets of the world,” but that promise had fizzled out with the Imperial Economic Conference. He had pledged that no government of which he was leader would introduce the dole, but the dole had been a fact for more than six months. He had said repeatedly that the Depression was over when it was quite clearly continuing. Now, in March of 1933, he said it again in the House of Commons. Canada, the Prime Minister declared (carefully employing the past tense), had weathered the Depression better than any other country in the world. The truth was just the opposite. With the possible exception of the United States, Canada had taken the hardest blow. Bennett’s remarkable statement scarcely squared with the figures his Minister of Labour would shortly release, which showed that 1,357,262 Canadians were now accepting direct relief. That was more than all who had enlisted for service in the Great War.
His desk was flooded with telegrams, letters, and resolutions from organizations, business leaders, political supporters, and ordinary working people detailing specific cases of need. To all these Bennett had the same answer – the one he had given the previous year to the town clerk of Glace Bay who wrote to ask for immediate aid because municipal relief had broken down and “semi-starvation” existed. Bennett replied personally with what had become a form letter: “Unemployment relief is the primary responsibility of the municipality and secondly that of the province.…” Ottawa, in short, could not directly help.
It was an easy out for Bennett – simply dumping the problem on such already overburdened municipalities as Sydney and Glace Bay, whose limited resources could not cope with problems brought on when the mines laid off wage-earners. For example, Sydney had millions of gallons of water available but declined to give any of it away to landlords, who, in turn, couldn’t afford to pay the water rates because poor tenants could not afford to pay their rent.
John Dafoe’s editorial of January 12, 1933, lit into the government for this shrugging off of responsibility. “Its record has shown a tardiness and half heartedness even in co-operating with the provinces, which has been frequently condemned, even by friends of the Government.” One figure – automobile production, a notable economic bellwether – made it clear that Canada had not rounded the corner. In 1929, new car sales had outnumbered bicycle sales by a ratio of five to one. But people could no longer afford new cars. By 1933, the ratio had sunk to less than two to one.
From coast to coast, Canada seethed with dissension. Seven jobless men went to jail in Edmonton for taking part in a hunger march. Fourteen farmers received suspended sentences for their part in a riot in Arborg, Manitoba, earlier in the winter – a riot brought on by a forced tax sale. Twenty-two men were jailed for a riot in a Saskatoon relief camp that caused the death of an RCMP inspector. Four more were arrested in Nelson, B.C., for another jobless parade. The call for a national system of non-contributory unemployment insurance reached a crescendo. One thousand men and women marched on the Manitoba legislature demanding it. Two hundred paraded in Calgary. Hundreds mobbed the city hall in Victoria. But unemployment insurance was no panacea; though it might help mitigate a future depression, it was too late for it to be of much use in this one. Besides, Bennett had already made his own position clear: “No government with which I am associated will ever establish a system of non-contributory unemployment insurance.”
By May, having used up all their savings, thousands more went on the dole, swelling the relief rolls to a million and a half. They went reluctantly because even when the voucher system was adopted by most municipalities, the stigma of being
a “reliefer” was clearly advertised. As Frank Croft remembered, “merchants couldn’t see why they should wrap shoe boxes or clothing when the customer was in no condition to complain. When you saw a man with his coat over his arm it was a good bet that he was either on his way to a pawnshop or had just turned in a relief voucher for it.”
With their nest-egg gone and nothing more coming in, the newly destitute were forced to make what was to them a shameful, last-ditch decision. One such was a Toronto businessman, Arthur Lendrum, who for the past two years had watched his small company drift into bankruptcy. Borrowed money, together with an income now rapidly dwindling, had for a time helped him make ends meet. But when the holders of the second mortgage on his home foreclosed, he and his family were forced to move to a low-rent district. The day soon came when the Lendrums’ entire funds amounted to only fifteen dollars. “It’s no use trying to keep up any longer, Arthur,” his wife told him. “We’ll have to apply for relief.”
Lendrum kept putting it off, hoping something would turn up. It never did. At last, on a gloomy Thursday afternoon at the end of January, “goaded by the spectre of want,” he asked for help.
The following afternoon an inspector called and took some notes. He asked to see Lendrum’s bank passbook, checked over the electrical equipment in the house – washing machine, floor polisher, vacuum cleaner – examined the scanty supply of coal, and departed “knowing more about our private affairs than our relatives did.” He told Mrs. Lendrum that her husband should go to the House of Industry (it had been given that name when used as a poor house) where relief supplies and vouchers were dispensed.
Lendrum couldn’t bring himself to take this final, irreversible step. That would be an admission that he, who had been a successful small businessman, earning a good independent living, had failed. He vacillated through the weekend. Finally, on Monday he realized he had no choice, for the family was faced with starvation. That afternoon he mustered his courage and walked down to Elm Street, feeling the way a dog does when it puts its tail between its legs.
When he reached the building, he felt lost and disoriented. He had no idea what the procedure was. He spotted a man standing near the doorway. “What do I do now?” he asked.
“Take a seat on the benches there,” came the reply.
Lendrum looked inside. The first row of benches was full but there was some room in the second row. He made his way between the rows, feeling horribly mortified but then a little relieved when he realized that a sort of order prevailed and that no one was staring at him.
As he took his seat he looked about him. He felt conspicuously well dressed. If only his overcoat was shabbier, his hat a little slouchier! Yet nobody took any notice. He turned to an elderly man sitting next to him.
“I never thought it would come to this,” he said in a low voice.
“Not me neither,” came the reply. It was a mild voice, modulated and pleasing, the kind of voice one might expect to hear from a clergyman of ripe experience. In it Lendrum detected a note of gentle resignation. The man was an old-timer, he learned; he’d been coming to the House of Industry for months and knew the ropes.
“How do they run things?” Lendrum asked.
“We wait here till there’s room in that other place,” his new companion told him, jerking a thumb towards a door at the end of the room. “Your first time, ain’t it? Oh, well, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
He explained that they would eventually be sent to a second room “where there’s a bunch of gals sitting at tables.” You would give them your name and address, he said, “and then stand back until your address is called. Then you goes up to the girl and gets your tickets. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Lendrum looked about him at men and women presenting tickets to others who stood in front of tall piles of parcels stacked against the walls.
“Them as has families gets the large parcels,” his friend told him. “But if there’s only two of you, like me and the missus, you gets the small parcel. I come every ten days but if you has a family you come in every week.”
Lendrum watched curiously, taking in the faces of the relief recipients. Most, he noted, brightened up when they were given their parcel. Many smiled; some joked a little lamely. Others never changed expression. They had brought shopping bags, suitcases, pieces of luggage, or sacks, which they slung over their shoulders.
The lines moved, row by row, up the stairs to a second waiting room, crowded with benches. Lendrum’s row filed in and took seats. At the far end was another door with a man standing in front who called out “next two rows” at ten-minute intervals. As the people in these rows stood up and shuffled forward, their places were taken by others from the downstairs waiting room.
A peculiar scene, Lendrum thought. It reminded him of wartime and refugee queues except that there was no evidence of grief or wounds, no bedlam of chattering tongues. The crowd was largely male, with a few women and one or two children; a good many had foreign accents. There was one black.
Over the whole assembly solid Canadian order reigned supreme. There was a strange quiet. Most of the supplicants had come alone. They knew nobody, nobody knew them; and so they sat, silently waiting their turn. Those who did speak conversed in low tones, as in a church. All waited expectantly for the man at the door to say: “Next two rows.”
Lendrum chanced a quiet remark to a man on his right who seemed better dressed than the average.
“When’s it all going to end?” he asked. It was a question that thousands like him were asking that year, and the answer was always the same.
“Nobody seems to know,” the man replied quietly. He looked at Lendrum with puzzled eyes and then blurted out a brief confession: “I kept going as long as I could but now there’s no jobs to be had anymore. It’s getting worse. When I first came here, there wasn’t the crowd there is now. Something ought to be done about getting money in circulation again. Your first time here?”
Lendrum nodded.
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that. We’re all alike.”
All alike! Lendrum murmured to himself. There they all were, sitting with bowed shoulders on the backless benches – business executives, labourers, mechanics, artisans, housewives, salesmen, accountants, clerks, and tramps – all social and industrial rank gone, everybody reduced to the primary level of want, equality established by need.
“The Government ought to do something,” somebody else said, breaking the silence. Lendrum had heard that line before and would hear it again. Yet he also knew that if anyone in this anonymous crowd were to stand up and denounce the system he would promptly be called a Red and ejected.
“Next two rows,” the doorman called.
Two minutes later Lendrum’s group passed through the doorway and found themselves in an inner courtyard. Lendrum noticed a rough booth labelled “Exchanges” and assumed it was for those who wished to substitute sago for salmon or rolled oats for rice. At the far end of the courtyard, in another large room, long lines of young women sat at tables and desks with thousands of cards stacked in front of them and placards marked with letters of the alphabet strung on wires above them. He went to the table marked by an L and after a few minutes managed to get the girl’s attention. He gave her his name and address and the names and ages of his wife and two daughters.
“Get a declaration that you have no liquor permit and register at Lombard Street,” the girl told him. “Do this before you come back next week. Please stand back until your name is called.”
Lendrum joined the crowd – all standing, waiting to be called. A man ahead of him left empty-handed. “The inspector says you’re not entitled to relief,” the girl told him. “You made a three-dollar purchase on your liquor permit the day before he called.”
Then, from the far end of the room, he heard not his name but his address. He was given some white squares of paper and a ticket the size of a cash register receipt.
“What about coal?” he asked.
“The inspector says you don’t need any right away.”
He made his way, coal-less, back through the labyrinth of rooms to the first waiting room.
“How do you work this?” he asked the ticket taker.
“Keep those” – indicating vouchers for milk, butter, and bread. “I’ll take this ticket; now get your parcels there. Large,” he told his assistant, and in twenty seconds, Lendrum’s arms were filled from the various piles.
He carried this armful for half a mile to the office of a friend where he’d left his club bag, wondering all the time how many passersby recognized the parcels and asked themselves how it could be that a well-dressed man should get so far down on his luck. At home, he showed his wife the vouchers.
“What will the milkman say?” she asked in dismay.
But the milkman was used to it. “Nothing to be ashamed of, going on relief,” he told her, and he showed her a sheaf of similar vouchers from her district. “I never let on,” he explained.
By the time the baker and the grocer had received their vouchers, the Lendrum family had begun to feel like old hands. Mrs. Lendrum stopped blushing and accepted her lot.
“Who gives a darn anyway,” she said to her husband.
The Great Depression Page 20
