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AT ELEVEN o’clock on the morning of August 14, 1919, the guns of H.M.S. Dragon, lying in the harbour of St. John, New Brunswick, blazed in a royal salute as a naval pinnace with a canvas top raced through the rain to Reid’s Point with blue-jackets standing barefooted in the stern. Five minutes later a slim, fair boy in sea captain’s uniform stepped ashore and shyly hurried to grasp the hand of the Duke of Devonshire, Governor-General of Canada, bareheaded in the drizzle. Nervously hitching at his belt with his other hand, he held on noticeably as if he realized its friendliness in this test of his quality in a strange land—while thousands roared.

There, at that moment, the legend of the Prince of Wales was born. It was then that the man who is now King Edward the Eighth stepped onto his world stage.

Canada discovered the personality of the young prince and uncovered his value as a monarchial force. England up to then had given him little notice. He was the juvenile heir to a throne yet warm from Victoria and the elderly Edward. Stories were current of how he had pleaded with Kitchener to be sent to the Front. “I have four brothers, Sir.” Yarns were told of his courage and his democracy in France. He was known to have spirit. But England had other things to think about than a king’s son of whatever mettle. It was the part of Canada to give him a rôle and a significance.

The Canadian people, of course, created it but, for myself, I may take as much credit as anyone for the fostering of the sunshine legend of him which grew and spread until it encircled the world, making him one of its most publicized figures, for on the 1919 tour of Canada I wrote about him more copiously than any other reporter. Columns and columns, from St. John, N.B., to Victoria, B.C. I wrote him lyrically across Canada and back again. It was all honest writing, of the mood, the moment and the man.

Certainly no young man, plebeian or prince, ever stepped more auspiciously into a moment and a mood. The War with its tragedies was just over. Thousands of the youth of Canada had been sacrificed in Europe for reasons which were already less certain than they seemed. People sought something clean, honest, hopeful. They looked for a sign.

And lo!—out of the Atlantic mists stepped this blond prince as from a fairyland, shy, smiling, unspoilt, magnetic, in appearance and spirit young as the morning. To a people groping he appeared a symbol of certainty, at once a resurrection and a promise; as if in him were reborn all those splendid boys who had been buried in France.

He was the exempt of a sacrificed generation, the heir of all. He had worn khaki. He had been at the Front. He soothed a national heartache. Men saw in him a lost lad come back. Women warmed to him as son, husband, lover. To mother him, to hold him, to be held in his arms—that was woman’s longing. He was Romance in the highest terms of the time. To dance with him was to be favoured by the gods. That is not to exaggerate. In scores of processions I drove three of four cars behind his—the right interval to catch reaction—and it was a moving thing to see, to feel, the joy, the exaltation, which a glimpse of him provoked in long vistas of Canadians strung on the sidewalks or massed in the streets.

No other person—prince, potentate or priest—ever surely won a whole people’s affection as the Prince of Wales did Canada’s on that 1919 tour. Maybe Mussolini, maybe Hitler, maybe Roosevelt, has swayed masses since much more powerfully by his social, economic and national appeals to self-interest. He used no voice, he had no radio, he raised no selfish cry, he urged no reason; he appeared, smiled, conquered. In the response there was no sound of the mob baying for leadership and reward. Affection, loyalty and a kind of worship blended in pure and devoted tribute.

On his three later visits to this continent I was to see the glamour of him fade somewhat as the mood changed and as the fresh, untried lad merged into the travelled, crowd-tired man, but on that 1919 tour he was the Spirit of Youth royal and incarnate. To war veterans, floundering to find lost moorings, he was more than that, a comrade in the highest place. This was no stay-at-home politician. He had been there. He understood. To thousands of other Canadians who had never been able quite to reduce it to terms he was the symbol of Great Britain, the Throne, the British Empire. For this their men had died. Thus they claimed and acclaimed him.

My own protracted eye-witnessing of His Royal Highness’ progress evolved from a ruse. The Government turned down The Star’s request for a reservation on the royal train to cover the tour. A reply came that only press association men were to be carried, not representatives of individual newspapers. Anxious to have a man throughout, the paper tried a fresh tack by asking the United Press (Association) of which it was a member to make application for a place. This was given automatically and I was named to fill it. My letter of authority, issued by the Secretary of the Governor-General, was for a United Press representative. Officially on the tour I was an American; and I did serve the U.P. to the extent of sending them such an excitement as H.R.H. donning a peaked cap and pitching a baseball at Edmonton. A yarn like that made most of this continent’s front pages.

Although Canadian newspapers were denied places on the train except through a single Canadian Press Association correspondent, Francis Aldham, and a representative of the French-Canadian press, Joseph Barnard, of L’Evénement, Quebec, six English journalists were carried throughout the tour, five of whom—the only exception being a Reuter’s man—represented not news associations but individual London papers, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Morning Post, The Daily Chronicle and The Daily Express. They were respectively Gerald Campbell, W. T. Massey, H. Warner Allen, Douglas Newton and Sir Percival Phillips, experienced and delightful men. They had been brought out on H.M.S. Dauntless to make the Canadian trip, under the aegis of the Colonial Office. Berths on the train awaited them.

His Royal Highness landed at St. John on August 14, but the furore began two or three days earlier when some forty newspapermen and photographers descended on this Eastern city which had arranged for the Prince but not for the press. His arrival on North American soil was to be whooped up as the most notable since the coming of Columbus and every one of them was determined to make good for the home folks.

In spite of rivalry, newspapermen on such an assignment, which is largely an affair of individual observation and interpretation, are usually coöperative. But not at St. John, where bribery was tried, double-crossing alleged, and at least two men came to blows. It was a case here of every man’s wits against every other man’s. Each played a lone or a clique game. Each sought to arrange exclusive advantages. Each tried to corner the few available taxicabs. Each planned to corral the few available telegraph wires to the outside world. Each broke in on officials demanding passes and favours. Every man and the odd woman, for ladies of the press were present, banged in on Premier W. E. Foster of New Brunswick, the Mayor and Chief of Police of St. John and made their lives miserable. The quiet city resounded with our wrangling.

The ten-way tug-of-war had become almost a free-for-all when, the day before the Prince landed, on official suggestion, we called a general meeting which called a truce and moved to agree on rational demands for accommodation for all. We even ironed out individual hopes of snatching a few words with His Royal Highness—an impossibility, nevertheless each man’s dream—which was the prime cause of all the jockeying, by agreeing not to attempt personal chat, rather to use our united appeal to secure a general interview or reception.

Every man kept this agreement. Only a Boston woman broke it and, maybe, she did not really subscribe to it; even in newspaper work ladies make their own rules.

At a hospital on the second day of the Prince’s visit she seized an opportunity to sidle up and shoot three questions before an equerry could thrust his body between. These were: “Prince, are you coming to Boston?”, “What does Your Highness think of American girls?” (good old chestnut), and “What advice did your mother, Queen Mary, give you when you left home?”

Dear knows what intimacy she would have dared next if it had not been for the aide’s quick footwork. As for the mere men reporters, we were mad! She worried not in the least about our chagrin. Hurrying to the telegraph office or back to Boston she poured forth her soul and had the thrill of winning a big type Page One splash of her signed article. It ran all of three columns and was tagged the first exclusive interview with the Prince of Wales!

To return to the general meeting: two of us were appointed representatives to ask for a special train to take the press group from St. John to Halifax the same night as the Prince. There was no regular train to suit; we felt the Government should provide a special and W. K. Whipple, representing the American wing, and myself set out to interview Sir Robert Borden, the Prime Minister, who was down to greet His Royal Highness the next morning. With us, self-appointed, went a young Maritime reporter who claimed local influence. Unfortunately he came along slightly tight.

Sir Robert was courteous, but all arrangements, he said, were in the hands of Col. H. G. Henderson, Military Secretary of the Governor-General. We drove, therefore, to Rothesay, where Lieutenant-Governor William Pugsley was entertaining the vice-regal party, and asked for Col. Henderson. He came to the door, a tall unyielding Englishman. His attitude was not promising: “A special train for reporters! Ridiculous—what!”

While we pressed our claim reasonably, our Eastern friend, about half Henderson’s size, stepped forward with some direct talk. The Colonel replied with hauteur. The wrangle grew, penetrated within and drew Governor Pugsley. He appeared, bland and smiling, greeted the young Easterner by name, turned to Henderson and tried to oil the situation. His suavity was having effect when the Duke of Devonshire dawdled into sight, with his Ol’ Bill moustache and air of puzzled aristocracy, curious about the rumpus as any plebeian.

Mr. Pugsley, no doubt seething behind his smiles, presented us in most courtly fashion, specially introducing the wordy Maritimer. The latter promptly stuck his hand out.

“Please’ to meet you, Duke. You know how’t is, we’d like to stay but we’re in a hell ’v a hurry.”

His Excellency shook hands. To do him credit, he did not even wince.... And, as a matter of history, we got the special train....

It was not until the Prince reached Toronto and was leaving for Ottawa, to proceed north and west, that I joined the royal party officially. In St. John, Halifax and Quebec, I was merely one of the free news gang that trailed in his wake, bobbing up in platoons at receptions, at luncheons, on the golf links, wherever he appeared.

I shall not attempt to trace the tour’s progress but merely touch on some of its newspaper aspects. In St. John, Halifax, Quebec, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, in scores of other cities and towns right across Canada and back again, His Royal Highness paraded, received, shook hands till it hurt, smiled, waved, danced, golfed, showed himself boyish, ingenuous, charming. Always the same act in a setting that varied only according to the size and population of the place.

In Quebec we were given the interview we had so patiently awaited. It is said to have been the first ever given pressmen by ranking British royalty, but for that I cannot vouch. We gathered in a room at the Citadel. He entered, smiling, uncertain, fingering his tie, said, “Good morning,” and shook hands with everyone. As he moved along he remarked on the wonderful weather he had had so far in Canada, the wonderful view of the St. Lawrence from the window and how wonderful H.M.S. Renown looked out in the stream. We gave him little help, for we had been told not to quiz him and held our tongues. After an awkward moment or two he asked if the movie men had secured good pictures. Told Yes, he quickly said, “We want to see how ugly we look.” “How good-looking you are!” shot back an American, at which he laughed. Followed some general chat about his trip, the Prince talking freely now. Indeed, he seemed in no hurry once the ice was broken until his attention was drawn to the time. “I suppose I must be going,” he said. “Good morning, gentlemen. I am very glad to have met you all.”

“Good morning, Sir,” we chorused and the “interview” was over.

That was as closely as I ever came to speaking to him. I might as well have been recording the movements of Mars—so different was the plane on which he lived from that of the trailing news men. The latter might chat with presidents and prime ministers but not with the Prince of Wales. However, I fell very quickly into the technique of this travelling court and grew to acknowledge the value of this austerity. The power of a tradition affected the least sensitive among us and made us bear ourselves strictly. While watching him keenly always as was our duty we made it a point of honour to keep out of his sight. There was a certain humour in it and I wrote more fervently than ever about the Prince and his democracy, how he shook hands here, received flowers there, chatted with a war veteran or danced in some western city with a section man’s daughter. Thus I helped to build a public concept of a beloved figure.

Some of the newspapermen covering the

Prince of Wales’ 1919 visit to the Maritime Provinces

snapped in a New Brunswick valley.

On the train the royal party proper, H.R.H. and his immediate suite of comptroller, secretaries and equerries, occupied the private cars Killarney and Cromarty. Officials, including A. B. Calder of the C.P.R., diplomat, raconteur, railroadman in charge of the train, occupied the other cars. The correspondents and photographers attached officially had a car, Carnarvon, to themselves. Then there were telegraphers, baggage men, porters, the uniformed police who were carried everywhere, and the royal clerks, valets and servants. Altogether over one hundred people were carried across Canada to Vancouver and Victoria and back again on a trip of nearly three months.

Our progress was not unlike that of a circus playing one-night stands, with longer stopovers in the bigger cities. Everything was on schedule, so many hours here, so many days there. Everything was arranged in advance. There were the inevitable processions from the station to the legislative buildings, city hall, town park or hotel. It was impossible to arrive without a procession: three cars for the Prince and his party, the lieutenant-governor, mayor or other local bigwigs; a car for the plainclothes police and two cars for the attached journalists who were by way of being the “what is it?” of these parades.

We heard ourselves jibed at as body-guards, stared at as flunkeys and spoken of with awe as visiting functionaries. Occasionally we would halt on a street long enough to have someone ask, “Who are you guys?”—and, when we explained, hear, “Heck, they’re just reporters!”

But it was reporting in the grand manner. On the tour we were treated like grand dukes. On board the train fresh caviar, pâté de fois gras, imported game, succulent meats, choice fruits and other delicacies were our daily portion, cooked by the five best chefs in the C.P.R. service. We were guests of the Canadian Government and it nearly ruined our digestions. We were invited to every municipal feast on the itinerary, each city going the limit with crab cocktails, royal gumbos and milk-fed capons without end. It remained, however, for Edmonton to stage a lunch that was a Guildhall banquet. This was the noble menu: celery, ripe olives, salted almonds, fruit cocktail Belle Vue, consommé Comptesse, suprême of lake trout Dieppoise, marinated caribou Chevreuil, cauliflower Polonaise, peas French style, potatoes Lorette, breast of prairie chicken Bigarrade, salad Waldorf, hot English plum pudding with hard sauce, and demi-tasse. It was not a question of choice but of taking what the waiters brought and they brought everything.

By way of contrast there was the simple luncheon which H.R.H. gave to guests from the West at the Royal Alexandra Hotel, Winnipeg, on the return half of the tour when he announced that he had bought a ranch at High River, Alberta. The menu read: crab cocktail, chicken gumbo, mallard duck, Parisienne potatoes, baked alaska and café noir, plus cigarettes of a popular Canadian brand.

We correspondents were made guest members of every club from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We went to hotel rooms reserved in advance where we found fruit and flowers awaiting us with the compliments of the management. We had nothing anywhere to pay but tips. In hotel dining rooms we simply signed chits and hoped the resources of the country would cover them. Altogether we lived elegantly, with nothing to worry about, not even our laundry which was cared for en route, or our clothes which were pressed on board the train.

The Prince of Wales on his 1927

visit welcomed to Toronto by the

Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario

and his lady.

The tour, however, soon became a monotony of train riding, detraining, processions, crowds, guards of honour, civic receptions, presentations of medals to war veterans, speeches from mayors in unaccustomed high hats, groups of shrill youngsters in white bibs singing “God Bless the Prince of Wales”, royal golf games which we soon ceased to watch and endless dances which we also ducked with their fresh relays of local belles who hoped Providence would make them a partner of Royalty for one brief whirl.

It was hard enough looking on and listening to all this round of entertainment which grew so stereotyped. How His Royal Highness stayed smiling through those three months we never could understand. His was a fine act, he was young and a good actor, and he kept fit. But it was a mystery how he maintained the ingenuous bearing that endeared him to the throngs. He did, though. Only once did he appear peevish and that was at Nipigon, in Northern Ontario. He did not like fishing but he was taken on a three-day fishing trip; he caught nothing, it was cold and he came back in shorts, shivering and scowling. As he approached in the canoe huddled up, camera men stood ready as usual to shoot. He climbed out and chided them: “It is very rude of you to take photos when I look like this.”

He was often nervous, frequently impatient but that was the only time he showed irritation.

The dining-car was on a number of occasions as the train roared along turned into a little theatre in which H.R.H. saw the moving pictures of the tour. Entering informally, pipe in mouth, his attendants trailing, he would greet the rest of us with a wave, then curl in a chair and possibly exclaim “Watch me rival Vernon Castle as a movie star!” He was boyish and outspoken about the other members of his party if they appeared, chaffing Sir Godfrey Thomas, his Private Secretary, and Sir Lionel Halsey, grim admiral who was his Chief of Staff.

It was a pleasant flash of what might be called the domestic scene. Otherwise the trip ran with almost mechanical monotony, without a hitch on the surface, without an untoward incident. We were bored and yet we enjoyed the luxury of it and even to a degree were thrilled by proxy, and a sense of possession, by the mobs and cheers.

WITH MANY THANKS FOR YOUR

HELP DURING MY TOUR

IN CANADA

Edward P.Fall. 1919.

Toronto Star

What mobs they were!—Toronto, Winnipeg and Montreal particularly. I acquired a useful technique on the tour: how to get in and out of crowds, where to park a car for a quick getaway, which way one was going to surge or break, the last moment to linger before retreat was cut off, how to reach a point of vantage for seeing, and so on. It is surprising how alike crowds behave in their excitements.

Even in those days the authorities had their Red scares. But it remained for the officials at Victoria, capital of British Columbia, to stage a real fright scene. The Prince was staying at the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor. We correspondents were at the Empress Hotel. All went quietly until the third or fourth evening when he was to attend a grand ball there. Returning from a walk just before dinner, we went as usual to the front door, only to be stopped by a Mounted Policeman in scarlet coat who barred our entrance. We explained our status. He shook his head. We produced our special passes. No, orders were orders; no admission to anyone; go around to the back.

We went there to find more Mounties. They quizzed us, scanned our passes and let us in under escort who led us through basement corridors along which police and soldiers with rifles and side-arms were prodigally strewn. At last we were carried to our floor in a freight elevator in which rode a constable. In the hall leading to our rooms police stood at every corner.

During the dance that evening almost as many police and soldiers were present as guests. There was a plot afoot to shoot the Prince, or bomb him, or something. So it was whispered.

Days later the true story came out. An American girl in Seattle had telephoned a young fellow in Victoria asking him to engage a room at the Empress for the night of the dance.

“Close to the Prince’s,” she said, “same floor if you can. It’s important, you know.”

Police officials, checking on everything, heard of this mysterious call and decided it had a fell purpose. Hence the picturesque display of force.

I have often seen police act vigorously in moments of official nerves but the royal ride through Montreal from Lafontaine Park to the Art Gallery provided an odd example. What a crowd that was!—over half a million people massed along the route. At Lafontaine Park, where H.R.H. reviewed war veterans and distributed medals, the masses got out of hand and surged through the lines of police. For several minutes they threatened to swamp the big parade ground but the situation was saved by traffic constables. They set their motor cycles with side-cars in line and rode stuttering at the insurgents, cutting into the mass like scythes into wheat. Followed a sauve-qui-peut as the shrieking people streaked for the sides while the motor-cycles, turning and reforming, buzzed at them like hornet tanks. That cleared the campus by a method ruthless but effective.

On the previous evening the streets of Montreal had been a tornado of vives and hurrahs as the Prince rode from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel to the City Hall reception. This had been a mere appetizer for the enthusiasm that greeted his drive next day from Lafontaine Park along Sherbrooke Street to the Art Gallery. It was the volcanic climax of the Canadian tour. Toronto, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Vancouver crowds had been quiet by comparison. Montrealers, French and English-speaking, with the many foreign-born, massed in the streets so deeply that they outflowed from the sidewalks into the roadway, leaving little more than enough room for the procession to pass. If the police had not been lusty, the Prince might have been suffocated or clawed to death. The police, frightened, had excuse for being brutal. Scratches on his neck showed where people had caught him with their fingernails in their eagerness to touch him.

His Royal Highness, held erect by attendants, stood in the first car waving in response to the roar that beat on his ears like the sound of ocean waves. A phalanx of snorting motor-cycle police rode ahead with a venom that swerved not in its course. They bumped and pitched to the ground enthusiasts who crept out too far. They flung them back in the crowd. Their sirens screeched as they mowed their way ahead. But gradually they lost speed. Backing up, they sought fresh momentum to charge. Slower and slower became the progress.

The noise, like breakers, rose and fell, and reverberated, until the ear refused to register its variations, and it became a monotonous thundering.

I had a close-up never to be forgotten for, sensing unusual action, I had forsaken the correspondents’ car which was shortly cut off and had contrived a seat in an open automobile carrying six big plainclothesmen of the Montreal Police. This ran behind that of H.R.H., ahead of the other official cars. And I sat in it alone! The six detectives rode on the running board, three to each side—rode and ran. For most of the time they were on foot, charging, shoving, punching. Down one would drop as a man threatened to board the Prince’s car, a short run—and wham! Back staggered the victim, holding his chest or his jaw.

It was idle to argue that his impulse had been excitement or loyalty. There was no argument. The police simply hit where a threat showed. I saw scores of people shoved, hurled or walloped by the riding, running, jumping detectives who puffed and sweated like rugby plungers.

The jam grew steadily more dense. In the wide place between the Ritz-Carlton and the Art Gallery it became an impasse. Possibly 50,000 people were crammed into this space. A saluting platform had been erected to review a march past of troops but this and the gallery steps swarmed with sightseers held there by the mob.

We could not proceed. The car of His Royal Highness came to a stop; and for nearly half an hour he had to sit imprisoned in the heart of the throng while police battled to keep at bay fans who tried to touch or kiss him. The motor-cycle men essayed the Lafontaine Park plan of riding at the crowd but it was so dense that they could not start their machines. At any rate, so thick was it that none nearby could yield.

At last, however, enough reserves were mobilized to cut a lane through and the Prince was virtually carried into the Art Gallery. There he stayed until clearance was made to enable him to reach the hotel. The march past was abandoned. Montreal had proven its loyalty.

So much for mob scenes. It was not the crowds that gave good copy so much as incidental contacts at some wayside place where the train happened to stop. Then I watched keenly, if discreetly, for some really human note as country girls came up unaffectedly to chat with the famous visitor or children swarmed around shouting, “Hey! It’s the Prince!” One of the most touching features of the tour was the reception on the Prairies. Sometimes at two or three o’clock in the morning, as the train rumbled along, I would awaken to hear the brief sound of a cheer from people who had driven in long distances and waited up, just to give their one flashing shout in the dark. I often wondered if the Prince heard such little loyalties of the night and how he felt about them. I wondered how he felt about the whole big parade. If only I might have interviewed him as non-royal folk are interviewed! I wondered what a Prince thought, who heard people cheering him every day and even at night.

The trip was a surfeit of cheers. The crowds have never been duplicated in Canada. The emotion was amazing... now, looking back on it. Much money was spent. Great shows were put on. Heavy luncheons were given. Beautiful dances were staged. People smiled, curtseyed, shouted. And yet.... the greatest thing of all came like the song of bird on the Saskatchewan prairie, as the train thundered by.

It was this, a man standing at the salute on the roof of his isolated farm.

We saw him by chance, out of the window of the train. Evidently an ex-soldier. For he had dressed up. He wore khaki. He had donned his steel helmet. He had taken his rifle. Alone he had climbed to the roof to stand at the present as the Prince of Wales passed.

We thought that was the most moving loyalty of the tour, that unknown soldier’s lone salute. We wondered if the Prince had seen it and if it had stirred him as it had stirred us.