MORE BITS OF PUBLIC OPINION.
The action of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in thus dismissing their
agent at Sutton Junction, apparently for no other cause than the
vigorous opposition which he offered to the work of the liquor party
in his own vicinity, like the assault case previously, elicited much
criticism from the public.
We purpose in this chapter reproducing some of the many opinions
regarding the dismissal which appeared in the columns of the public
press.
It has been said that "the greatest power under heaven is public
opinion," and it may be profitable for us sometimes to study such an
important power, and especially to consider the opinions of people who
uphold peace, temperance and religion. The following is the view of
_The Templar_ of Hamilton, as quoted in the Montreal _Daily Witness_:
"The announcement that the Canadian Pacific Railway has rallied
to the aid of the lawless and murderous liquor gang in Brome
County, Quebec, is sufficiently suggestive and startling to
demand attention. Its dismissal of Mr. W. W. Smith, C. P. R.
agent at Sutton Junction, and President of the Brome County
branch of the Dominion Alliance, because of his activity in the
discharge of his duties in the latter office, is one of the most
foolish and anti-Canadian acts of that great corporation.
"Mr. Smith, it will be remembered, incurred the hostility of the
illegal liquor venders in his locality, and, as the recent legal
investigation shows, a conspiracy was formed, and a bartender
hired to 'remove' him. One night, while in the performance of his
duties at the Sutton Junction station, he was murderously
assailed, and barely escaped with his life. Detectives were
employed, the assassin was arrested, and has confessed that he
was paid by local men, interested in the liquor traffic, for his
work. He and two others, including a hotel keeper, are now in
jail awaiting trial, bail having been refused.
"Since the committal of the prisoners, Mr. Smith was dismissed by
the C. P. R. Upon September 7th, he received a letter from the
Assistant Superintendent in which occurred these words: 'You must
either quit temperance work or quit the Company. It makes no
difference whether you are on duty or off duty, so far as this
Company is concerned. They demand the whole and entire time of
their men, and they are going to have it.' .............. This
subject is broader than Mr. Smith or any individual. It is the
question of the right of the citizen to enjoy and exercise the
rights of a citizen while employed by such a corporation as the
Canadian Pacific Railway. It is the old problem of slave or
freeman. The Railway is undoubtedly entitled to the best service
of its employees, while on duty; but, after hours, the citizens
should be free to engage in those pleasures and pursuits which do
not conflict with the welfare of society and the State, Mr. Smith
should be free to participate in the agitation to drive the
criminal liquor traffic out of the country without being called
upon to suffer the loss of income. The man who braved the liquor
party, and nearly sealed his devotion to the temperance reform
with his life blood, was not the man to abandon his convictions
at the command of a railway manager.
"The course of the C. P. R., in dismissing Mr. Smith, has been
warmly endorsed by the cowardly and murderous liquor gang in
Brome, and is so open to the suspicion of being an attempt to
coerce the conscience and abridge the liberties of the citizens
to serve the liquor interests as to make it imperative that some
member of the Commons, which has so largely subsidized that road,
demand in the approaching session a public investigation. A whole
army of men are in the service of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Company, scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the
nation cannot afford to allow the despotic authority claimed by
the Company over these men. If it can demand the entire time of
their men on or off duty, may it not next demand the service of
the men at the ballot box? An issue has been raised by this
incident which demands the vigorous protest of the press of the
country."
The opinion of the _Witness_ itself may be learned from the following
article in the _Daily Witness_ of November 24th, 1894:
"We have received a number of letters from persons who have
determined to give the preference of their railway patronage
against the Canadian Pacific Railway, as a testimony against the
attitude of that Company towards the temperance reform, as
manifested in the dismissal of Mr. W. W. Smith from his position
as station agent at Sutton Junction, for his active advocacy of
temperance and enforcement of prohibitory law. Is it right for us
to publish these letters, which are evidently only the beginning
of what is yet to come, for the feeling throughout the country is
very bitter in many quarters where this challenge to the
advocates of law and order has become known? The question amounts
to this: Is it right for persons who condemn the course of the
Company to punish it in this way, and is it right for them to
make a public question of it by publishing their action? The
reason given for the dismissal of Mr. Smith, as shown by the
correspondence which was recently made public in these columns,
was that he was making things uncomfortable for certain customers
of the Company who were importing liquor into Brome County. As
Brome is a prohibition county, those who import liquor for sale
within its bounds are outlaws. In Mr. Smith's painful experience
they are also assassins. As a matter of fact, according to Mr.
Smith's statement, no shipments of liquor passed through his
station, and he did not use his position as agent of the Company
to bring the lawbreakers to justice. Why both the Company and its
agents should not be ranged on the side of the law of the land,
and why the Company should so protect its share in an unlawful
business against any promoter of law and order, are questions not
raised. Commercial corporations do not pretend to have souls or
conscience. Nobody expects them to have any, and consequently no
one is angry when they show that they have not. Quite apart from
all questions of morals, the money interests of the Company are
those of the country, and the liquor business does not promote
the business of the country. Moreover, it is in the interest of
the railway, and eminently so of its customers, to have railway
servants protected from drink, and the enforcement of the laws
against liquor is the most direct way to protect them from drink.
This is all by the way, however; Companies are not abstract
reasoners.
"But there is that in this action of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Company which the public are inclined to resent even at the hands
of a Company. In the first place the Company declares that it so
values the custom of the liquor men of Brome, that it can afford
for their sake to boycott the advocates of temperance and the
enforcers of law. A station agent, or even a superior officer,
might be long and notoriously a victim of these same liquor men,
and still remain an officer of the Company, but if he becomes
their active enemy, and the active friend of mankind, he is
dismissed. This is and it is evidently accepted as being a
challenge to all friends of law and order, who are in a position
to make the Company suffer in its sensitive pockets, to show
whether the custom of the friends of law cannot be made as
powerful an engine for the defence of right as that of the
enemies of law and order is for the defence of crime. This is
what temperance men throughout the country seem to be turning
over in their minds just now, and are likely to go on doing so,
so long as the position taken by Mr. Brady towards Mr. Smith
remains the approved action of the Company, and so long as one
holding the intolerable views of Mr. Brady remains its approved
agent.
"There is another aspect of the Company's action through Mr.
Brady which is rankling in the minds of the wage-earning
population. Mr. Brady told Mr. Smith that the Company wanted all
his time, and was going to have it, and that whether on duty or
off it would not allow him to give temperance lectures. It is not
sufficient to answer that this is not the position of the
Company; that its employees, as a rule, are allowed to go to what
church they think best, to take part in Christian Endeavor, or
football, or whatever they may prefer as the occupation of their
leisure. The fact remains that the Company has, through Mr.
Brady, announced its right to check a man, if it chooses, in the
exercise of his ordinary rights and duties as a citizen and as a
Christian, and has, by sanctioning Mr. Smith's dismissal for
temperance lecturing, formally approved Mr. Brady's attitude. The
Company may summon to its defence any other reasons for Mr.
Smith's dismissal that it chooses. It cannot alter the fact that
the reason given in Mr. Brady's letters is the one which was
given to him, and which was the real cause of his act. This claim
of a soulless Company to own its employees, body and soul, is one
of the most daring and intolerable enunciations of what is in the
language of our day termed wage slavery that we have seen, and
one for which the great public will probably call it to account.
The Canadian Pacific Railway is a national institution,
constructed at the public expense, and a ruling influence in the
land, and its attitude towards the liquor question and the rights
of employees is a matter of national interest, open to free
discussion in the newspapers and in the parliament, and if there
are citizens who, for the purpose of making it feel in its only
sensitive spot how it has outraged public sentiment and done a
public wrong, are willing to sink their private advantage and
convenience in the public good, by going out of their way to
patronize another road, we think it is nothing but right that the
railway should be plainly seized of all the facts."
The comments of another Canadian paper, the Toronto Star, are thus
quoted in _The Templar_:
"It is a most regrettable condition of affairs when a corporation
like the Canadian Pacific will dismiss an employee because he is
active in the cause of prohibition, yet that is the case of a Mr.
Smith, who lost his position as agent at Sutton Junction, Quebec,
because the liquor dealers whom he opposed had sufficient
influence to secure his dismissal.
"No charge of neglect of duty could be made against Mr. Smith,
and the only justification the Company offered was the plea that
the agent should give his whole time to the Company, and do
nothing to antagonize the interests of the Company. There is in
this no claim that Mr. Smith had ever neglected his duty, and the
whole thing narrows down to the fact that he had incurred the
enmity of the liquor dealers, who induced the Company to dismiss
him. This action of the Company may please the men who hired a
thug to assault Mr. Smith, and nearly batter his life out, but it
is a poor way to make friends of peaceful citizens. It speaks
poorly for personal liberty when a man is dismissed from a
railway because he opposes the liquor traffic,--a traffic which
the Company itself acknowledges to be wrong when it requires its
employees not to touch liquor while on duty."
In _The Templar_ of November 23d appeared these remarks with reference
to one paper which upheld the C. P. R.:
"The dismissal of Mr. W. W. Smith from the services of the C. P.
R., because he was obnoxious to illicit whiskey sellers in Brome
County, has evoked strong expression of disapproval from not a
few of the papers of the Dominion.
"Others have preserved a silence, or feebly and unfairly stated
the case, not daring to rebuke the C. P. R. So far as we know,
the Hamilton _Spectator_ alone has had the courage to defend the
gross injustice done a fellow-citizen, and its defence is
peculiar.
"Would _The Spectator_ permit us to clear the issue? _The
Templar_, in giving the C. P. R.-Smith correspondence to the
public, pointed out the danger to the country involved in
suffering the C. P. R. contention to prevail. If that corporation
can justly dismiss a man because he employs a portion of his time
off duty to demand respect for the law of the land, on the ground
that he is antagonizing the interests of the Company, may it not
logically demand, under pain of dismissal, that he shall vote as
the Company judges to be in its interests? What right has the
citizen that the Canadian Pacific Railway may not require him to
give up to serve its ends? Is _The Spectator_ prepared to defend
such tyranny, and, yes, we will say it--treason to the State?"
Not only the journals of the Canadian Interior, but those of the
Maritime Provinces as well, showed their interest in this affair,
which had so aroused the temperance people of Quebec and Ontario. The
following, published in _The Templar_, is taken from _The
Intelligencer_, Fredericton, New Brunswick:
"We have set out the facts of the case at some length, because it
involves much more than the position and prospects of the
dismissed official. His case is certainly a hard one. It is not
denied that for fifteen years he served the Railway Company
faithfully. No charge of neglect of duty is made against him.
Even the charge of the rumsellers, that he used information
obtained as the Company's officer to aid in their prosecution, is
not proven. He denies it, and the Assistant Superintendent admits
that he has failed to find proof of it.
"But in spite of this, the Company, yielding to the clamorings of
the rum gang, dismiss an officer against whom it has not been
possible to make any charge of neglect, and not even to
substantiate the complaints of those who were bent upon his
dismissal. Mr. Smith's offense was that he was too good a citizen
to suit the views of the outlaws who are engaged in the illicit
rum-traffic. They sought to take his life, hiring one of their
own brutal gang to commit the murder. The attempt was made, but
failing to kill him, they renewed their efforts to have him
dismissed. And in this they were more successful. It is scarcely
possible that the outlawed rumsellers of Brome County had
sufficient influence alone, to accomplish Mr. Smith's discharge.
They were probably backed by the traffic in Montreal and
elsewhere. And this goes to show that the traffic is one; that
distillers, brewers, wholesalers and saloon and hotel keepers are
united; that licensed and illicit sellers make common cause, and
that they use their awful power not only to defy all laws and
regulations which hamper them, but are ready to rob of their
means of livelihood, and their good name, and even to murder such
men as they think stand in their way. These are things which
might be expected of the traffic. But it is quite amazing that a
great corporation like the C. P. R. should become its ally. Most
employers would stand by an employee who had suffered at the
hands of murderous ruffians, because of his sympathy with law
enforcement, and the promotion of the moral welfare of his
community. But the Assistant Superintendent of the C. P. R.,
under whom Mr. Smith worked, was not moved by such consideration,
a mere sentimental consideration he would probably call it. He
preferred to coöperate with the rum traffic--to become its tool.
"We find it difficult to believe that the General Manager or the
Directors can approve the dismissal of an employee for the reason
stated in this case. If they do, then men interested in
temperance reform can no longer have a place in the employ of the
Company. And further, the Company declares its willingness to be
known not only as the ally of the legalized rum traffic, but as
the friend and helper of the outlaws and would-be murderers of
the traffic.
"This case should not be allowed to fade out of the memory of the
people. It asserts the right of an employer, not only to the
time of the employee, but to his conscience, his sense of the
duties of good citizenship, and his self-respect. If permitted,
unrebuked and uncorrected, it helps to establish the right of
capital to do any unjust and tyrannical thing, either of its own
will or at the dictation of the conscienceless rum traffic, or of
other organized evil.
"There ought, certainly, be some way of getting redress for what
on the face of it appears to be an act of cruel injustice, done
at the behest of the rum traffic, legal and illicit.
"Not those alone who are interested in temperance, but every man
who believes that men are other than serfs, and who would have
established beyond question the right of a man to have his own
conscience in matters which relate to himself and the community,
should be concerned to make impossible such tyrannical exercise
of power."
Not only the Canadian, but some of the American papers also, took up
the cry of tyranny, as is shown by the following, which was published
in the _Presbyterian Observer_, Philadelphia, and repeated in the
Montreal _Witness_:
"A Canadian Railway Company has been guilty of a piece of mean
persecution against one of its agents on account of his
temperance activity. The station master at Sutton Junction, of
the Canadian Pacific Railway, in the Province of Quebec, was
recently notified that he 'must quit temperance work, or quit the
Company.' The letter further states the ground upon which this
action is based. 'It makes no difference whether you are on duty
or off duty, so far as this Company is concerned. They demand the
whole and entire time of their men, and they are going to have
it.' Short, sharp, peremptory this, but is also a high-handed
proceeding--an infringement upon personal rights. It does not
appear that this man had been derelict in duty to his employers,
or that he took the time that belonged to them in promoting the
cause of temperance. His only offence was that, while
conscientious in daily work, he thought of others, and labored
for their welfare in his spare moments. For that he incurred
official reprobation, and was given the choice of quitting
temperance work or the Company.
"The railway magnates claimed entire control over all his time,
whether on duty or off duty, demanding in their tautological
language, 'The whole and entire time' of their men, and bluffly
adding that 'they are going to have it.' They would leave no room
for doubt, parley or protest. Accordingly, nothing was left a man
of conscience but to retire and seek employment where he could
exercise a little personal liberty. It is no new thing for men to
give up railway positions on conscientious grounds, when
compelled to work on the Sabbath, but this is the first instance
we have known where a Railway Company has forced a person out of
its employ because of his temperance principles. In our country,
other things being equal, total abstainers are preferred by
railway men. This Canadian Company is away behind the age."
An affair like this must indeed be very widely discussed, and awaken
considerable interest, when the general opinion in any place with
regard to it is published in the local news from that vicinity, yet
the following paragraph appeared among other items in the _Witness_ of
November 24th, as Danville news:
"Railways have a right to all the time of employees in hours of
duty, but many are grieved at the action of the Canadian Pacific
Railway in demanding of Mr. W. W. Smith, whom they dismissed for
activity in the temperance cause, that he must not give any of
his time to it when off duty, as such demand is un-British and
strongly in the direction of serfdom. Many spirited people are
going to resent the injustice."
Various associations discussed this dismissal in their meetings, and
passed resolutions concerning it. The following is an extract from a
report, which appeared in the _Witness_ of November 20th, of a meeting
of the Quebec Evangelical Alliance, held in the city of Quebec just
previous:
"It was also voted that the following resolution be placed on
record, and a copy furnished to the press for publication:
"'That this Alliance voice its sympathy through the press with
the different moral and religious organizations of the Province,
which have taken action condemnatory of the arbitrary procedure
of the management of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the
dismissal of Mr. Smith, their station agent at Sutton Junction,
for no other offence than that of being deeply interested in the
moral and religious welfare of the people of his own district.
"'And further, that this Alliance regrets that the Canadian
Pacific Railway, as a Company subsidized by the Government of
Canada, should see fit to interfere with the civil and religious
rights of its employees, and ally itself with those who are
evading established law, and doing their utmost to destroy social
order in this country.
"'And this Alliance is of the opinion that if the Canadian
Pacific Railway management seriously desires to retain the
sympathy and support of the best element in the community in
building up their business as public carriers, they will, at the
earliest possible moment, do full justice to their late agent,
Mr. Smith.'"
The following, also published in the _Witness_, is from a report of
the meeting of a temperance society in one of the sister Provinces:
"PRESCOTT, Ont., Dec. 5th.--The forty-fifth session of the Grand
Division of the Sons of Temperance was held here to-day. The
question of the discharge of Mr. W. W. Smith, of Sutton Junction,
by the Canadian Pacific Railway, for his loyalty to the
temperance cause, was brought up, the following report of a
special committee on the subject being unanimously adopted:
WHEREAS, Mr. W. W. Smith of Sutton Junction, President of the
Brome County Alliance, in the Province of Quebec, whose attempted
assassination for his fidelity to law and order is a public fact,
has been summarily dismissed from his position as agent of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, for the express reason of his advocacy
of the cause of temperance, this Grand Division desires to
express the view that this action of the Railway Company is a
distinct violation of the rights of citizenship, and deserves
strong condemnation as being tyrannical and unjust in the
extreme, and is calculated, if not redressed, to destroy public
spirit and inflict deep injury to the civil rights of the
people."
We will now look at some of the opinions of individuals, as expressed
in letters sent by them to the temperance papers.
The following communication was sent to the _Witness_ before the
publication of Mr. Brady's letters. Doubtless, the writer of this
article may, after reading those letters, have entertained some doubts
as to the infallibility of the opinions here expressed, but they
show, at least, how impossible it seemed to some citizens that such a
corporation as the Canadian Pacific Railway could oppose temperance
activity on the part of its employees. The letter, addressed to the
Editor of the _Witness_, is as follows:
"SIR,--In your issue of October 9th, a statement occurs which
suggests the necessity of a word of caution. The following is the
sentence: 'Some astonishing revelations may be expected, as the
temperance people are intensely indignant that the Company should
have yielded to the demands of the liquor party, and removed from
its service one who has been for years a trusted servant and
faithful officer.' From a personal acquaintance with several
gentlemen who control the appointment of officials of this and
similar grades of office in connection with the Canadian Pacific
Railway, I wait an explanation of this act of executive power
which will present it in an altogether different light from that
in which it now appears. I cannot believe that officers of any
Company, transacting business with, and dependent upon, the
public, as the Canadian Pacific Railway is, would descend to an
act as described in the case in hand. What the explanation will
be, I will not conjecture, but I can easily conceive it is
susceptible of an explanation which will remove all cause of
censure from the Company. In more than one instance, I have known
the officials of this Company to firmly support an employee in
the maintenance of moral principle, even at a financial loss to
the Company. But, apart from all loyalty to right principle, on
the part of the officiary of the Company, it is to me simply
inconceivable that shrewd business men as these officials are
known to be would be guilty of an act which from a purely
business point of view would be a stupidly suicidal one. It taxes
one's credulity to too great a degree to ask one to believe that,
in view of the recent plebiscite taken in several Provinces, that
any officer, possessed of mental qualifications sufficient to
secure a position of power in the Company, would ally himself
with a coterie of lawbreakers in a secluded village, and
perpetrate an act which would be resented by thousands of
business men and tens of thousands of the travelling public in
our Dominion, and attach a stain to the name of the Company which
would challenge contempt for years future. The facilities
afforded by other competing lines at so many points in our
Dominion for such as would resent an act of this character are
too great to permit a Company that is hungering for freight and
passenger traffic to yield to such inconsiderable and immoral
influences as the liquor men of Sutton Junction and their
sympathizers could command. The Company knows well how slight a
matter often creates a prejudice for or against a railway which
affects its dividends for years, and they know well also that
when an act of this kind is actually done and unearthed, that it
appeals to principles held as sacred by the public of our
Dominion. They also know that, however the temperance ballot
holders may be divided in their political allegiances, in a
matter of this kind, when no political ties bind them, they would
be practically a unit in resenting an act not only tyrannical,
but under the circumstances cowardly and immoral. One cannot
believe that this shrewd Company of high-minded and acute
business gentlemen would be guilty of the folly attributed to
them. Their effort is in every way honorable to attract their own
line, and it is past belief that they should play into the hands
of the Grand Trunk and other competing lines in any such manner
as the accusation, if proved, would mean. Give them time and
opportunity for an explanation before any expression of
indignation manifests itself, and especially before any hasty and
inconsiderate act of discrimination against the Company is made."
SPECTATOR.
The publication of the correspondence between Messrs. Brady and Smith
brought a flood of letters from the public to the Editor's offices. It
would be scarcely possible in this place to give all the letters which
appeared in the various papers, but we quote a few. The following is
from the _Witness_ of November 23d:
"SIR,--I read with much pleasure the letter from 'A Total
Abstainer' in your issue of November 4th, and his purpose not to
travel by the C. P. R. in future, when he has the privilege of
another route. I would like to assure him that he does not stand
alone, that there are many others who feel just as strongly. It
was only to-day that I learned of two persons who, at some
inconvenience to themselves, took passage by the Grand Trunk
Railway in preference to the Canadian Pacific Railway, on account
of the way in which the Company has played so miserably into the
hands of the liquor dealers; and I know of other travellers who
are resolved to use the C. P. R. only when it cannot be avoided.
I am informed that some of the temperance organizations to which
he refers are not going to let the matter rest where it now is,
but will manifest their indignation in their own way and time.
"It is almost beyond belief that a Company like this should treat
a servant with such inhumanity.
"After being almost murdered when on duty by an employed agent of
the liquor party, and when about recovered from his wounds, he is
dismissed from the service for taking part in temperance work in
his own time. These are the facts as stated in the published
correspondence, and they need only to be stated to call forth the
indignation and condemnation of all honorable men.
"ANOTHER TOTAL ABSTAINER."
Another letter, published in the _Witness_ of December 29th, and
signed "Disinterested," is given below. The allusion to the queries of
the Alliance and the replies of the Assistant General Manager will be
more fully explained in the next chapter.
"To the Editor of the _Witness_:
"SIR,--I am usually of moderate temperament and seldom take
extreme views or measures on any subject, but if I understand
rightly the present state of the controversy between the Dominion
Alliance and the Canadian Pacific Railway, unless the latter has
a secret compact with the brewers, distillers and liquor venders
of this county, to warrant their taking the present stand, they
are adopting the most extraordinary course of any corporation
seeking public patronage I have ever known. The following is, as
I understand it, the present position of the affair:
"1. There are lawbreakers in the county of Brome.
"2. An employee of the C. P. R. aids in detecting them, and
bringing them to justice.
"3. The lawbreakers hire a man to murder him, who fails to quite
accomplish his task.
"4. The employee, in his hours off duty, denounces the practices
of the lawbreakers, and the traffic that creates such lawbreakers
and murderers.
"5. A district superintendent of the C. P. R. informs him that
for so doing he is dismissed.
"6. The Dominion Alliance asks why this should be so? Is it not
interfering with the liberty of the British subject? Is not
slavery revived in another form for an employer to say to an
employee, 'You must not express an opinion on any subject of
social reform or otherwise on pain of being dismissed from my
employ.'
"7. The Assistant General Manager comes out in a two-column
letter explaining the attitude and act of the C. P. R. The
purport of that letter is that the man who antagonizes a
considerable portion of the community is therefore ... less
useful than he otherwise would be in any position (such, for
instance, as a station agent) in the employ of a railway company,
whose main object must be to increase the business, from every
possible source, and who must be careful not to antagonize any
portion of the community upon whose patronage, as a part of the
general public, the success of the Company depends. In all this
letter there is no distinction between the law-abiding and
lawbreaking sections of the community. The logical inference of
the whole letter is, the agent at Sutton antagonized the
lawbreakers of Brome, and those who abetted their doings, and,
therefore, the superintendent of the road was justified in
dismissing him. But by that act the superintendent 'antagonizes'
a very large section of the community, stretching from Halifax to
Vancouver, but he is sustained by the Company in his act.
'Consistency, thou art a jewel!' As a Canadian I have felt just
pride in the C. P. R., I have advocated its claims against all
other transcontinental routes, especially have I compared it with
the Grand Trunk Railway, and advised my friends to patronize the
former. Now, however, as a free and law-abiding citizen I must,
on principle, change my method unless Mr. Tait, or some one else,
can explain the act of the Company. If both employees interested
in the Sutton matter had been dismissed, I could see that there
was an honest effort on the part of the Company to do justly, but
as it is I can only see underneath all this the intention of the
Company to favor the lawbreakers of Brome and liquor interests
generally at the expense of the temperance and Christian
community. If my views are wrong, and anyone will do me the
kindness to correct them, I shall owe him a debt of gratitude;
for I am exceedingly loath to believe such things of the
management of our noble Canadian Pacific Railway. Until then,
however, I must say that I shall not travel on one mile of the C.
P. R. when I can take another line. I am constantly on the road
between Quebec and Toronto, with headquarters in Montreal. I take
this stand not by choice nor caprice, but on the principles of a
free citizen."
The following is an extract from a letter discussing the same subject,
published in _The Templar_ of Jan. 4th, 1895, and signed J. W. Shaw:
"Without giving names, let me state what I have learned directly
affecting the moneyed interests of the C. P. R. Thinking of
visiting a certain station on one of their lines I asked a friend
who had just returned from it: 'What is the fare to that place?'
He replied, 'I don't know; I never buy a ticket; I can't say.'
When remonstrated with, he just said: 'I pay whatever is handy,
sometimes more and sometimes less!' Another individual, in the
habit of travelling in the same way, and boasting of his
smartness, casually remarked: 'My trip this time was a failure,
for Conductor ---- was on the train, and you know I could not
work him.' It did me good to hear that, for the conductor in
question is a well-known gospel and temperance worker, who labors
as he has opportunity for the uplifting of fallen humanity. On
this low plane then it would pay these companies to employ such
conductors, and give them all the scope required outside their
own business. Such employees save more to them than they will
ever lose through the fidelity to principle of any Mr. Smith.
Sterling honesty of principle that such men manifest, instead of
proving an objection, should merit the recognition if not the
approval of the wisest directorate, and should denote their
qualification rather than the reverse."
Part of another letter, which was signed W. J. Clark, and appeared in
the same issue of _The Templar_, is as follows:
"Now, suppose the 'section' which Mr. Smith had antagonized had
been the temperance people instead of the liquor element, what
would gentlemen Brady and Tait have said then if the matter had
been brought to their notice? Would they have dismissed Mr.
Smith? I trow not. They would in all likelihood have attributed
the complaint to what they would mentally designate as a handful
of cranks, and paid no attention to it. But when the liquor
element complains, what then? Their complaint is attended to at
once. Why? Because they are the most law-abiding and influential
section of the community? No, but because they are just at the
present time the most powerful section of the community. Do not
misunderstand me. I do not mean that the temperance people of our
land have not the balance of power in their own hands. They
certainly have, but they do not make use of it, while the liquor
element use what power they have for all it is worth. The C. P.
R., and all other such like corporations know full well this
state of affairs, and as Mr. Tait says: 'Their objects do not
extend beyond the promotion of their business,' and consequently
they are ready at all times to cater to the commands of those who
are making their power felt in the land, and to ignore almost
entirely the wishes of those who have the power, but fear to use
it. Mr. Editor, what are the temperance people doing? Are we
sleeping on guard? It seems to me that we are. How many of us,
after reading the two last issues of _The Templar_, will not
deliberately step on board of a C. P. R. train, and pay our money
to that corporation when in many cases we could just as
conveniently transfer our patronage to some other road. What is
our plain duty in the case? Is it not to show the Canadian
Pacific Railway that we are a power in the land, and that we
intend to plainly show that corporation that the rights of good
citizenship are not to be trampled upon with impunity? The action
of the C. P. R. in the Smith case should call vividly to our
minds the action of the Grand Trunk a few years ago, when they
discharged their agent at Richmond, Que., because he openly
opposed the temperance people."
In concluding this chapter, we will give the opinion of an eminent
clergyman, Rev. J. B. Silcox, as expressed by him from the pulpit of
Emanuel Church, Montreal. Nor is this by any means the only voice
which sounded from Canadian pulpits on the same subject. The _Witness_
of December 31st, 1894, has the following:
"Referring to the C. P. R., Mr. Silcox denounced it vigorously
for its action in dismissing an employee because he saw fit to
fight the drink traffic. There was nothing in the world so
heartless as a great corporation. The C. P. R. had shown itself
more heartless than a despotic king. It had come to a sorry pass
when an employee was robbed of the right of exercising his own
free will. By its action the Company had thrown all its weight on
the side of the liquor party to which it catered. He had lived in
the Northwest several years, and had seen other instances of how
this great Company had ground others under its iron heel. 'In
discharging the man I refer to, the Canadian Pacific Railway has
shown that it lays claim to both the body and soul of its
employees. In the history of this country did you ever hear of
anything more shameful? It makes one's blood boil. And the men
who commit these acts can boast of knighthood. Alas!'"