Of Poets, Poetry, Politicians, and Parliament Hill

Yet another gloriously sunny September weekend, I spent most of it stacking firewood in preparation for winter. The high point came early Saturday morning when I found myself in Ottawa's ByWard Market with an hour to kill. It was so early, that Patrick McGahern Books hadn't yet opened, and so I made for Parliament Hill to see how the restoration of the Centre Block is progressing.

Quite well, it seems.

Despite the early hour, there were swarms of tourists from the United Kingdom and China... but then it was noon in London and early evening in Shanghai.

It had been nearly twenty-four years since I'd walked around the building. The last time was on Sunday, October 1, 2000, when Pierre Elliott Trudeau's body lay in state in the Centre Block's Hall of Honour. I was there with my birth parents, both staunch Liberals. Here I am waiting in the eight-hour line with my birth mother; I have no idea as to the identity of the man in the turquoise cap:

The pins we are wearing were distributed on the evening PET made his farewell speech. I'm no Grit, but the conclusion of that speech has always inspired.

Enough nostalgia.

What I most wanted to see was the Library of Parliament. Its restoration took four years, beginning in  2002. From the outside, the library looks better than I remember. Money well spent, I say!

Several statues have had to be relocated during the restoration, but not the one honouring D'Arcy McGee. His still stands in place, though you really have to look.

See it?

It's not a good photo, but I remind that Saturday was gloriously sunny. I took a better snap of this plaque, which I'd never seen before:

cliquez pour agandir

As you can see, it lies just outside the construction zone. I really like the design and text. Sadly, "the female figure, representing Memory" is currently hidden by the fence. McGee, something of a hero to me,  made his greatest impact as a politician and journalist, of course, but I like that his work as a poet and historian is also recognized. The reference to McGee's verse sent me off walking toward what I think is the most interesting statue on Parliament Hill.

I knew just where to find it.

'A Canadian Galahad' memorializes the heroism of Henry Albert Harper, who on 6 December 1901 died attempting to save Bessie Blair, a young woman who had fallen though the ice while skating on the Ottawa River. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography features a brief entry on Harper by H. Blair Neatby. William Lyon Mackenzie King provides a more thorough biography in The Secret of Heroism: A Memoir of Henry Albert Harper (New York: Revell, 1906). The future prime minister's book, his first, was published the year after 'A Canadian Galahad' was unveiled by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. Three thousand people were in attendance.

The deaths of Henry Harper and Bessie Blair shook the national's capital, in part because the young lady's father, Andrew George Blair, was the Minister of Railways and Canals. The statue was funded by public donations. Inspiration was drawn from a reproduction of George Frederic Watts' 'Sir Galahad,' which Harper had placed above his desk.

To this Canadian, 'A Canadian Galahad,' a statue inspired by a painting, is forever linked with verse. Within days of the tragedy, William Wilfred Campbell, who had a mutual friend in King, wrote a tribute to the doomed hero. This version comes from The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell (Toronto: Briggs, 1905):

HENRY A. HARPER

(Drowned in the Ottawa River while trying to save Miss Blair)

               We crown the splendours of immortal peace,

               And laud the heroes of ensanguined war.

               Rearing in granite memory of men

               Who build the future, recreate the past.

               Or animate the present dull world's pulse

               With loftier riches of the human mind.

               But his was greatness not of common mould,

               And yet so human in its simple worth,

               That any spirit plodding its slow round

               Of social commonplace and daily moil.

               Might blunder on such greatness, did he hold

               In him the kernel sap from which it sprung.

               Men in rare hours great actions may perform,

               Heroic, lofty, whereof earth will ring,

               A world onlooking, and the spirit strung

               To high achievement, at the cannon's mouth.

               Or where fierce ranks of maddened men go down.

               But this was godlier. In the common round

               Of life's slow action, stumbling on the brink

               Of sudden opportunity, he chose

               The only noble, godlike, splendid way.

               And made his exit, as earth's great have gone,

               By that vast doorway looking out on death.

               No poet this of winged, immortal pen;

               No hero of an hundred victories;

               Nor iron moulder of unwieldy states.

               Grave counsellor of parliaments, gold-tongued.

               Standing in shadow of a centuried fame.

               Drinking the splendid plaudits of a world.

               But simple, unrecorded in his days,

               Unostentatious, like the average man

               Of average duty, walked the common earth.

               And when fate flung her challenge in his face.

               Took all his spirit in his blinded eyes.

               And showed in action why God made the world.

               He passes as all pass, both small and great,

               Oblivion-clouded, to the common goal; —

               And all unmindful moves the dull world round.

               With baser dreams of this material day.

               And all that makes man petty, the slow pace

               Of small accomplishment that mocks the soul.

               But he hath taught us by this splendid deed,

               That under all the brutish mask of life
               And dulled intention of ignoble ends,
               Man's soul is not all sordid; that behind

               This tragedy of ills and hates that seem,

               There lurks a godlike impulse in the world,

               And men are greater than they idly dream.

Henry Albert Harper
1873-1901

Elizabeth "Bessie" Blair
1879-1901

RIP

Related post:

A Dedication Born of Tragedy

Thomas D'Arcy McGee: 150 Years

He has gone from us, and it will be long ere we find such a happy mixture of eloquence and wisdom, wit and earnestness. His was no artificial or meretricious eloquence, every word of his was as he believed, and every belief, every thought of his, was in the direction of what was good and true.

— Sir John A. Macdonald, 7 April 1868

The great Thomas D'Arcy McGee was murdered 150 years ago today, nine months after Confederation. His remains the only assassination of a federal politician in our history. Is it unseemly that I take some pride in this?

McGee became my hero at Allancroft Elementary School. He was never mentioned in class; I first learned about him through a book, Pierre Berton's Historic Headlines (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967), borrowed from the school library.

These past nine years I've marked the anniversary of McGee's death with verse written as news of the tragedy swept across the Dominion he'd brought into being. This year, a unfinished poem composed by McGee himself. Appropriate, I think.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
New York: Sadlier, 1869

Related posts:

'O Martyr'd McGee!'

D'Arcy McGee's Query (with a response)

D'Arcy McGee, All Compliment to Thee

'Death of D'Arcy McGee'

'IN MEMORIAM! The Hon. T.D. McGee'

Remembering Edith Eaton and D'Arcy McGee

'Erin's Address to the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee'

A Poet's Angry Words for the Fenian Brotherhood

'Mort de Thomas D'Arcy McGee'

On Pearson's Pennant and Ezra Levant's Fiction

"…a distinctive flag which will say to the future: I Stand for
     Canada!"
L.B. Pearson
Ottawa: Liberal Federation of Canada, [1964]

I saw Lester Pearson once. This was in front of the Parliament Buildings on the sunny Saturday the country celebrated its centenary. Look carefully and you'll find me there in the crowd, along with my mum, my dad and Prince Philip. His wife has just taken a knife to that great big birthday cake. Balloons!

Pearson is the first prime minister I remember, though I don't remember much. The man stepped down when I was in kindergarten and died when I was eight. He wasn't prime minister for five years – and never enjoyed a majority government – yet managed to usher in the Canadian Pension Plan, universal health care and, of course, the flag. This address, delivered fifty years ago today, might be seen as the official beginning of the great debate surrounding that last struggle, but in truth the bickering stretched back into the nineteenth century. The great Sanford Fleming proposed this:

The Week, 31 May 1895

Pearson would've argued against Fleming's flag for the very same reason he argued against the string of red ensigns, affixed with various coats of arms and stylistic elements, that had at one time or another stood as an unofficial Canadian flag:

The red ensign has served Canada honourably and well since it was designated for such service by order in council; but those who are in favour of retaining it and making it permanent and official by parliamentary action must surely realize that basically – this is certainly no disrespect to the red ensign – it is the flag of the British merchant marine and it is similar, except for a different coat of arms, to the flags of certain British colonies.

Pearson went so far as to propose that his own preferred design be accepted by Parliament:

The speech is both cautious and calculated; history weighs heavily. Claude Ryan was sold, as was Charles Lynch. Scott Young – Neil's dad – predicted success in words reproduced at the back of this booklet:

Of course, John Diefenbaker would have none of it. Since 1926, he'd been railing against changing the ever-changing red ensign. In 1964, as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, he walked from farmhouse to outhouse, removed the stained wooden seat, and lowered himself into the pit with the insinuation that those who supported Pearson were being bought through bribery. That July, still waist-deep in excrement,  he soiled himself thoroughly by asking why the government insisted that Christian crosses be removed from the flag.

His followers' filibustered. So dull, dull, very dull were their words that in September 1964 Pearson agreed to convene a fourteen-member Flag Committee composed of members from all four parties in the House of Commons. The flag we know is their doing. Their work inspired this wonderful Rex Woods' cover for the 8 July 1964 edition of Maclean's:

Growing up I  never heard so much as a word against the flag. I took pride, cringing only once: in 1998, when Reform Party clowns hooted, hollered and honked about Parliament Hill for the right to display miniatures made in China on House of Commons desktops.

Today, members and defenders of the unholy party Reform spawned rank amongst the most vocal haters of that very same flag. 

Mark Steyn dismisses our flag as a propaganda tool. Kathy Shaidle looks at the centuries-old national symbol worn by my grandfather during the Great War and sees "a dead leaf – basically tree dandruff".

And then there's Ezra Levant, who is wont to go on about "the Liberal-red Pearson Pennant". Never one to be bound by fact, he refers to our flag as the "Pearson Pennant", the nickname of the rejected red, white and blue flag the prime minister proposed. Levant would also have you believe that it was "Lester Pearson's decision to change the Canadian flag to a pennant in Liberal colours".

 

Not so much a clown as the country's biggest boor, Levant long ago revealed himself as a man not to be taken seriously, but he does have his followers. Whether the topic is the restructuring of the armed forces or Thomas Mulcair's leadership of the NDP, Sun News junkies build on Levant's fantastical tale. Lester Pearson "decided to change our flag without even bothering to ask the nation's citizens", one sniffs in the comments section of a story about the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario.

Well, the 1963 Liberal platform did call for a new flag, as did those of the New Democrats and the Social Credit Party. Two-thirds of voters cast ballots in their favour. The flag flown today was supported by members of all four parties – Conservatives included – then sitting in the House of Commons.

Ah, but bastards will bastardize, trying to convince that the flag was forced upon the country. Whether it was rammed or shoved doesn't matter, the thing to take home is that it's in our throats and it's about time we cough it up. Visit the Sun News Network website – they'll appreciate the traffic – and descend into an alternate world every bit as imaginative as that of The Man in the High Castle. 

My favourite story is the one about a "flag that over 90% of Canadians wanted". Apparently, it was "designed by a young girl from Quebec – it had Three [sic] green maple leaves in the centre and sea blue borders."

Like most oft-told tales, it improves with each telling. My favourite version appeared on the site last December:

Ity [sic] was a school child [sic] a young girl from Quebec and her flag had three green real maple leaves and sea blue borders which was truly representative of our country and the most popular with the people. But the sneaky liberals [sic] under Pearson declared this was not a decision that required the full parliament [sic] and a few liberal [sic] MPs stayed behind on a Friday afternoon when parliament [sic] had supposed [sic] shut for Christmas and marked our country liberal [sic] red!"

Over to you, Ezra. You're sure to come up with something even more fanciful. 

Object and access: A twelve-page booklet with paper covers. My copy, salvaged sixteen years ago from the bin of a Toronto Goodwill, appears to have been distributed by Joseph Macaluso, Member of Parliament for Hamilton West (1963-68). A barrister, the late Mr Macaluso served as one of the fourteen members of the Flag Committee.

Just where this booklet might be found is difficult to determine; ephemera such as this isn't often recorded in library catalogues.Only two copies are listed on WorldCat, both at the University of Toronto. I can find no copies for sale online.

A Record That Speaks for Itself

Election day in Ontario. If the pollsters are correct, the Liberals may just hold onto power – a near impossibility mere months ago.

I don't write much about politics here, but things do creep in from time to time: the fabulations of Preston Manning, the oeuvres of senators Wallin and Frum and our prime minister's non-existent, yet much-hyped hockey book. There's been more, of course, but those who know me will agree that I've demonstrated considerable restraint.

Returning from the polls today with politics on my mind, thoughts turned to Wilfrid Laurier. I remembered that 1911 was the year in which the great statesman finally stepped down as prime minister. Had I missed the centenary?

As it turns out, the sad event took place 100 years ago this very day.

The Globe, 6 October 1911

A result of this:

The Globe, 22 September 1911

Not exactly a dark day in Canadian history, but most certainly one on which things dimmed.

Carry On, Brith'ish Business Men!

This second part of my review of W.G. MacKendrick's The Destiny of the British empire and The U.S.A. now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Related post:

Onward, Brith'ish Business Men!

Politician Picks Playwright!

The Greatest Englishman of History

Arthur Meighen

Toronto: S.B. Gundy/Oxford University Press, 1936

It's been eighteen months since we traded our swanky Vancouver condo for a Victorian Italianate in St Marys, Ontario. Our first experience with small town living, I think we're taking to it. Besides, we're not all that far from Toronto, London is close by and Stratford, with its famous festival, is only fifteen minutes down the road. This is not to say that St Marys doesn't have its own attractions. The town has produced more than its fair share of professional hockey players and was home to poets James MacRae and David Donnell. 

Being a political beast, in my mind the one name that rises above all others is that of Arthur Meighen, our ninth prime minister. Meighen wasn't born in St Marys, but he spent much of his youth here, considered it home, and was buried in the cemetery on the edge of town.

I doubt I'd have voted for the man, but I certainly would've made an effort to see him speak. Meighen was known as a great orator; while he couldn't best rival Mackenzie King in political manoeuvring  he was most certainly the tubby bachelor's better on the floor of the House of Commons.

Meighen published three volumes of speeches. The first, Oversea Addresses (Musson, 1921), collected those made during his summer 1921 visit to Europe, while the second, Unrevised and Unrepented (Clarke, Irwin, 1949), relies almost entirely on hansard. Sandwiched in-between is this curious little book.

Meighen wrote The Greatest Englishman of History in 1934, while en route to Australia. His subject was Shakespeare, whom he'd read and reread since that St Marys childhood. "In literature I am only a layman", he acknowledges at the beginning, "and it is to laymen alone that I have a right to speak."

Meighen's problem, as he discovered upon arrival at Melbourne, was that laymen didn't much want to listen. True, there was interest at first. Just who was this "Greatest Englishman of History"? Nelson? Wellington? Pitt the Younger? But when Meighen revealed his subject, he met indifference and incredulity. Brass at the Millions Club of New South Wales, for example, passed up the chance to hear the Canadian's thoughts on the Immortal Bard, preferring a talk on the 1932 Ottawa Economic Conference and the international trade agreements it produced.

The Canberra Times, 16 November 1934

Meighen returned to Canada a wiser man. Aboard ship he accepted an invitation to speak to the Vancouver Canadian Club, wiring back that his subject would be the "Greatest Englishman of History". This time, Meighen chose not to disclose the identity beforehand. Biographer Roger Graham tells us that when it was revealed "the audience drooped visibly, slumping in their seats to endure an hour's boredom. What could be worse than a politician on Shakespeare? Before long, however, they were aroused, sitting up straight and listening intently. When he had finished they stood and gave him a resounding ovation, shouting, cheering and throwing their table napkins in the air."

Addresses in Ottawa, Montreal and – oddly – Pittsburgh followed. The delivery before the Toronto Canadian Club was recorded and found its way into college and university libraries. And, of course, we have this little book, which went through a number of printings.

Seven decades later, it's difficult to see what all the fuss was about. Meighen's is a work of admiration, appreciation and love – all of which are very much on display – but there's not anything particularly insightful or novel about his words. I suspect the reaction had much to do with the statesman's delivery, executed without speech in hand. This, and the fact that, as a subject, Shakespeare was a darn sight more interesting than the 1932 Ottawa Economic Conference; no matter what those in charge of the Millions Club might have thought.

Object: A slim hardcover with paper label, the entire first edition appears to suffer from an unsightly skin affliction.

Access: A few public libraries, including St Marys' own, have copies, but universities are the best bet. The news that Library and Archives doesn't have this book – by a former prime minister – will come as small surprise to regular readers of this blog. There are plenty of Very Good copies of the first edition going for under C$20. That Vermont bookstore with the absurd prices shows up yet again, asking C$110 – over ninety dollars more than anyone else – for a copy described as being faded, soiled and yellowed, with a previous owner's signature on the front endpaper. Unless that previous owner was Mackenzie King, I advise all to pass.