Читать книгу The Stream Runs Fast - Nellie Letitia McClung - Страница 15

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The first time I felt the stirrings of ambition to be a public speaker was at a W.C.T.U. Convention in Manitou in 1907. This was a great event for our little town—seventy-five delegates from all parts of the Province, with morning, afternoon, and evening meetings was an undertaking to challenge all our resources. I do not remember how it happened that the Convention came to Manitou. I had not been a delegate up to that time, but I had been a member of the organization, and I was simply thrilled when I was asked to give the address of welcome on behalf of the local unit. I began my preparations at once. I got a new dress, navy blue and white striped voile trimmed with narrow white Valenciennes lace; a white leghorn hat with red velvet flowers. I was determined to be as easy as possible on the eye. Years afterward I heard Carrie Chapman Catt say when she was not sure of her speech she always got a new dress, but if she knew she had a good speech, any dress would do.

In spite of the new dress I had some anxious moments when I contemplated the task of welcoming the delegates. What could I say that hadn't been said many times before? I had a clear idea of some of the things I would not say. I would not run into statistics like some temperance speakers I had heard, nor would I tell them how many loaves of bread a man could buy if he never drank beer. I knew vaguely why people drank. It answered something in their blood, some craving for excitement and change. Hadn't I turned round and round myself to enjoy a moment of dizziness, a blotting out of the old familiar landscape? I knew it was foolish, bad, and dangerous, and yet it had a charm.

I knew the lives of these country people, with their disappointments, long hours, and grey monotony; and I felt that we must give them something rather than take something away. We must be like the pack rats who never steal but merely make an exchange.

Prohibition is a hard sounding word, worthless as a rallying cry, hard as a locked door or going to bed without your supper. It could never fire the heather, and yet the heather must be fired. People had to have something which would take them out of themselves, the Church has given many a real vision of God and His plan for the world. But even the Church often presents a dour face, with its locked door and musty smells. I often thought of the Salvation Army when they came to Brandon in 1885, with their color, warmth and band music. How they drew the lonely country boys into their barracks and set them singing the Gospel hymns. They knew the drawing power of coffee and sandwiches and the beat of a drum, the compelling power of rhythm, and light and warmth and friendliness. They knew how to fight the powers of evil, and we, the temperance women, would have to make our cause attractive. We must fight fire with fire.

I never doubted for a moment that this could be done, for I knew we had all the arguments. No one could deny that women and children were the sufferers from the liquor traffic; any fun that came from drinking belonged to men exclusively, and the men themselves would be the first to admit that. I saw in my easily stirred imagination, that life for both men and women could be made much more attractive with recreation grounds, games, handicrafts, orchestras, folk dances, better houses, better farms; new hopes for a new world. I was well away on the wings of fancy as I drafted out a speech of welcome for the delegates.

I was not the only person who prepared for the coming of the seventy-five. The two paper hangers were busy for a month preceding the event, papering and painting spare rooms. House cleaning went on apace, curtain stretchers were borrowed and lent and lay on green lawns. The air throbbed with the beating of carpets, and the dressmakers never had the pins out of their mouths. Manitou was going to show them how a convention should be managed.

Even ladies must eat, so the Manitou hostesses prepared. They filled crocks with lemon biscuits for they had a reputation for keeping well. In the drug store we knew that lemon biscuits were being produced for the real heart of a lemon biscuit comes from the five cents worth of oil of lemon and the five cents worth of citrate of ammonia—(these provide the rising and the flavor, otherwise it is just a plain beaten biscuit.) To Mrs. August Henneberg belonged the credit of bringing in the recipe from somewhere in the States, or maybe she made it up, for Mrs. Henneberg was a lady of original ideas; and I know she was the first to think of splitting the squares and putting in wild strawberry jam.

The Convention met in June, just after the school term, the leafiest, greenest time of the year—with field crops rippling in the sun and wild roses in bloom on the roadsides. The opening meal was served at one o'clock. The trains passed at Manitou at noon and the reception committee, with white bows on their watch chains, lined the sidewalk and delegates were shown to their billets. Then everyone went to the old Orange Hall where the banquet was served. The Hall was scrubbed into a state of cleanliness not known before and the long tables were a sight to remember. Everything had been prepared in advance and the only hot dish was the scalloped potatoes. In that abundant time there was cold chicken, sliced or jellied; pink sugar cured hams stuck with cloves; and moulds of head cheese on beds of lettuce garnished with hard boiled eggs; lemon pies whipped up in mounds of white meringue and stippled with orange and brown—from the two minutes in a hot oven; ice cream in freezers; and cakes which make a mock of us now in this strictly rationed time. Will I ever forget those dishes of creamed potatoes—made with real cream and served with ripe cucumber pickles clear as amber and sweet as honey? Why do I write of these things on this day of 1943, when I should be telling a sober and serious story of my country's past, revealing if I can, the mind of my people?

No doubt this hearty fare had something to do with the success of the address of welcome which followed the banquet. It is easy to talk to people who have come together for a three-day holiday. It is quite likely that there is no person else who remembers that speech, but I remember it. I remember the effect it had on me. For the first tune I knew I had the power of speech. I saw faces brighten, eyes glisten, and felt the atmosphere crackle with a new power. I saw what could be done with words, for I had the vision of a new world as I talked. I was like the traveller who sees through the mist the towers of the great city. It was not ideas I was giving them exactly, but rather ferments—something which I hoped would work like yeast in their minds.

That was a long time ago as we reckon time, but it does not seem long. I still remember that my head was lighter than my heart when it was all over, for I knew that I was committed to a long fight and a hard one. Still the vision has never faded. There is a land of pure delight ahead of us, a land of richer fruitage and brighter sunshine, even though the way may be long and hard and dangerous. That Better Country has fired man's imagination since time began.

War had no place in our thoughts then. We were too civilized for war we thought. We believed the enemies we had to fight were ignorance, greed, intolerance and boredom.

It is easy to see why we concentrated on the liquor traffic. It was corporeal and always present; it walked our streets; it threw its challenge in our faces! We were worried then about Jennie Gills who was one of our members. Jennie was "expecting" again, and her husband had celebrated the last occasion by getting roaring drunk and coming home with the avowed intention of killing Jennie and the new baby.

There were other homes too, across whose portal the shadow of the trade had fallen. In a little town the currents run deeply and we knew each others sins and sorrows. We knew about the men who cashed their wheat tickets and spent most of it over the bar, forgetting to bring home the children's shoes. Elsewhere I have written the story of the woman and her little girl who were disappointed in their trip to Ontario. Oh no, there was nothing fanciful about the evils of intemperance with its waste of money as well as its moral hazards. It was ever before us. And we remembered Gladstone's words concerning the ease with which he could pay the national debt if he had a sober England.

We believed we could shape the world nearer to our heart's desire if we had a dry Canada and that, we felt would come, if and when women were allowed to vote. We did not believe that women would ever become drinkers. We argued, subconsciously, that women have more resources within themselves, more outlets for their energies, and so did not need this false exhilaration. I remember the first time I saw an intoxicated woman—the daughter of one of Winnipeg's best known families, in a box at the old Bijou Theatre. She interrupted the play and had to be removed. Her lapse from sobriety rather upset my theory that people drink to relieve the monotony of a drab life. How could life be drab for this girl, in a city, with a great house full of servants, plenty of money, books, music, companions, youth and beauty? She had not found her place in life surely. But when we achieved our ambition—the full emancipation of women—there would be work for her, work which would lift her out of herself.

So ran my dream.

About this time, that is soon after the Convention, the powers of darkness showed their hand and the stock of the Women's Christian Temperance Union soared to a new high. In Carman, a small town between Manitou and Winnipeg, a vote on local option was coming and the liquor interests were afraid they would be defeated, for at that time women who had property in their own name could vote in municipal matters. And in Carman there were enough of these to swing the vote. The Conservative Government of Manitoba was appealed to by the Interests—couldn't they think of something? It would never do to let one town carry local option. The Government had resourceful advisers and they had a plan. They would quietly and without any flourish of trumpets, disfranchise the women.

When the voting day came and the women went out to vote they found their names were not on the list—no woman could vote—by Order in Council. I would like to have been there that day. There followed a reaction which frightened the powers, and from end to end of Manitoba a new movement began which ran like a prairie fire before a high wind. If the present Government would not give us a vote there was just one thing left for us to do. We would change the Government, and that is what we did, though it took a little time.

It was a bonny fight—a knock-down and drag-out fight, but it united the women of Manitoba in a great cause. I never felt such unity of purpose and I look on these days with great satisfaction. We really believed we were about to achieve a new world. Now we had the key to the treasure house of life for we could send our own representatives to Parliament.

I believe we might have reaped a great harvest if the blight of war had not blown its poisonous breath over the world.

It is just as well that we did not foresee the day when a woman member of the Federal House would say, in her first interview after she had been elected to the seat left vacant by her husband, that she had helped to elect her husband in his campaigns—not by her speeches but by her ability to shake up a good cocktail. How indignant we were! Surely it was not for this that we had struggled to get votes for women. We felt betrayed and cast down. We felt that the House of Commons needed a lot of things more than it did another cocktail shaker. Many were the letters that I wrote in imagination to the lady in question, but I was always glad that I had not sent them. Then one day in Ottawa I met her—a dainty, gentle woman, beautiful as a Dresden shepherdess. To connect her with any phase of the evils of intemperance became an absurdity. I thought of James M. Barrie's tender words regarding the woman who swore and so put herself outside the pale of respectability in Thrums—"There was no wickedness in her words," wrote her historian, "she swore like a child who had been in ill company." Mrs. Black and I talked about the wild flowers of Canada and she gave me some of her exquisite drawings. When we parted she said, impulsively, "I've always wanted to know you. I knew you would improve on acquaintance." I gathered from that innocent remark that Mrs. Black had probably been writing letters to me too, in her mind, but the mellowing years had dulled our differences and we laughed together like two old friends.

I have a copy of her book "My Seventy Years" with a friendly inscription from her and her collaborator, Elizabeth Bailey Price. It is a fascinating book, revealing the writer with frankness and sincerity, untainted by egotism, and showing in many an instance the mischievous delight she took in shocking the complacent, which no doubt explains her first interview.

She tells the story in her book about a Missionary meeting she was asked to address in London in 1916. George Black, her husband, was then Commissioner of the Yukon and also the commander of the Yukon Infantry, and while in London she was feted and honored and in great demand as a speaker. She had confined her observation to the Yukon and its beauties, not venturing into the political or religious field. On arrival at the Church house she was ushered to the platform where there were many clergymen and Bishops who eyed her suspiciously. The Bishop of London, in his preliminary remarks, mentioned all the speakers but Mrs. Black. When at last her turn came to speak she received a few curt words from His Lordship who said, "I believe Mrs. Black is what is called a sourdough, and she will speak a few words."

The lady from the Yukon was not accustomed to such oblique treatment, so she began—"My Lord chairman. If this is the way you treat women who are asked to speak, I do not wonder that suffragettes go around with axes over here." Then she spoke of religion and the influence that marriage has in deciding a women's religion. "I am an Anglican," she said, "because I married one. If I had married a Fiji Islander, I would probably be eating a missionary today instead of talking to missionaries."

This, to come from a sweet-tongued gentle little person with the face of a Madonna, must have created a sensation at the Church House.

Before I leave this part of my story I must pay my tribute to the brave women of the W.C.T.U. Looking back at our life in the small town I see we owed much to the activities of the W.C.T.U. and these initials, I hasten to explain, stand for "Women's Christian Temperance Union", and not "Women Continually Torment Us", as some have believed.

It was the W.C.T.U. who planned debates, and spelling matches, and ran a reading room, wherein the Review of Reviews, and Scribners and McClure's magazines could be read, along with the Family Herald, the Witness and others.

They were a resolute band of women, these early Crusaders, and I am always glad I met them and fell under their influence at an early age.

A composite picture of the leaders at that time would show a tall, thin woman with her hair parted in the middle and waved back into a bun at the back of her well-shaped head, a crisp white frill at her neck fastened with a cameo brooch, a hunting case watch pinned on her left shoulder, secured by a gold chain around her neck; black henrietta cloth dress, black stockings, and a white handkerchief, a white bow of ribbon, probably tied on the watch chain; clear eye, a light hand with cakes, and not afraid of anything!

The rank and file of the sisterhood sometimes had fears! For the W.C.T.U. was never in any danger of inheriting that "woe" which is pronounced against those "of whom all men speak well". Little Mrs. Durban found that out the day she joined, and went home wearing the bow of white ribbon. Mrs. Chisholm of Winnipeg had given an address in the Methodist Church, and under the spell of her eloquence, Mrs. Durban had paid her dollar, signed the pledge and had the bow pinned on her.

But when she got home, her husband, James Durban, being a man of the world, engaged in the fuel business, saw danger in this innocent little white bow. He knew it might endanger his trade with the Ellis House, licensed to sell malt and spirituous liquors. Once every week Mr. Durban delivered fuel to the Ellis House, and got his money "right on the nail".

This being in the nineties when men were masters of their own house, James Durban commanded his wife to lay aside her white ribbon bow and go no more to the meetings of the W.C.T.U. and Mrs. Durban obeyed. But that was not the end. Mrs. Durban still paid her dues, still considered herself a member of the society pledged to rid the world of the curse of alcoholism, but she worked behind the lines. She made cakes for the socials; made candy for the Band of Hope; minded Mrs. Brown's two children on Monday afternoons, when she led the singing at the Loyal Temperance Legion. There were other unseen members who worked quietly for peace sake, but were all part of the Maginot Line of defence against the invader. The W.C.T.U. had tact as well as courage.

The W.C.T.U. trained young orators and reciters, and gave medals for the winners, and people travelled long distances to attend these gatherings. They also got permission to give temperance talks in the schools, and studied charts, and diagrams to make their lessons "stick". They explained the circulation of the blood, and the effect of alcohol on the stomach, and showed why athletes do not drink even mild intoxicants, and had the children figure out how many pairs of boots and little red sleighs a man could buy with the money he spends on a daily glass of beer. At the Band of Hope, they gave badges and pins, and taught the children a marching song of which the refrain was: "Tremble King Alcohol! We will grow up!" They did grow up—these young people—and it looked like victory, for there were definite signs that the evils of intemperance were being curtailed.

Then came the war and the Band of Hope boys went out to fight for democracy and some did not return—and some of these who did were shattered and disillusioned and embittered, and King Alcohol did not tremble any more! Not even when women received the vote! Other societies came into being and the W.C.T.U. found its ranks thinning, though it has never rested from the conflict.

There are only two left of the Old Guard—Mrs. Ruttan who lives in Winnipeg and Mrs. Clendenan in London, Ontario. The others are gone—Mrs. Chisholm, Dr. Youmans, Mrs. Hislop, Mrs. Best, Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. Vrooman, Mrs. McClung (my mother-in-law), Mrs. Stewart, Mrs. Dolsen and many more. They are all gone. But their memory is still vivid in hearts made better by their presence.