 |
 |
||||||||||||||||
|
|
Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 10
by Edward F. Bush Political FermentBy the turn of the century the frontier had receded far from the banks of the Klondike: Dawson had become a settled community, a mining town not so very different from similar communities scattered across the breadth of the dominion. Permanent residents, family men, had displaced in large measure the itinerant stampeders, in for a season or two in the illusive hope of striking it rich. In 1901 the territory's population stood at 27,219: a decade later it had dwindled to less than a third that figure (8,512), and by 1921 to half that again (4,157).1 Gold production, on which the economy of the territory still hinged, reached its peak in 1900, declining rapidly to 1903, thereafter more slowly. In large measure the dredge had replaced the pan and the hand rocker. It would be a great mistake to imagine that Dawson, hard up against the Arctic Circle, had settled down to a staid middle age; on the contrary, its history now entered a period of political ferment, centering upon the demand for a greater measure of popular government and reform of the mining code. These goals, however, were not easily attained, and for the five years following the recall of Ogilvie the territory was a very hot-bed of political agitation, scurrilous abuse carried on in the press and charges and counter charges which baffled the authorities in Ottawa. Only with the incomparable "Billy" McInnes, were all the goals of popular agitation realized. James Hamilton Ross James Hamilton Ross, the Yukon's third commissioner, a 45-year-old, one-time rancher, came to the territory fresh from the North-West Assembly, where he had held a seat since 1883, filling the responsible positions of treasurer, commissioner of public works and territorial secretary. Ross was born 12 May 1856 and raised in London, Canada West, but feeling the call of the West with its then wide open spaces and challenge, he went to the high Plains, taking up ranching in the vicinity of Moose Jaw whence he entered territorial politics. His appointment as commissioner of the Yukon took effect from 11 March 1901. Ross proved to be an able administrator who saw clearly the need for a better class of appointee in the Yukon, particularly on the bench, and a greater delegation of authority by the commissioner in order to leave himself freer to concentrate on matters of policy. His term as commissioner was short, and during that time he suffered manfully a personal tragedy. He bears the distinction of being the Yukon's first member of parliament, but ill health handicapped his performance in the House.
The mew commissioner arrived in Dawson by private conveyance from Whitehorse on the evening of 9 April 1901 and put up at the McDonald Hotel. He was described in the Klondike Nugget as a typical westerner — broad-minded, pleasant, affable, approachable and of quick perception. But he was neither so broad-minded nor so rash as to express himself as favouring wide-open gambling, as was reported during his progress up the coast between Juneau and Skagway. Ross stated that he had made no such statement. He replied cautiously to questions concerning his future policy. His wife and six children were still in Regina and would join him in Dawson once navigation had opened. In conclusion he paid tribute to his predecessor who was still in town, saying that he trusted that his own tenure in office would be as free from taint of scandal as had been that of William Ogilvie.2 F. T. Congdon, who had been acting briefly as administrator and who would succeed Ross, thought highly of him.
One of his early recommendations to Sifton was that greater care be taken in filling positions in the territorial administration. Too often inexperienced people had been sent up who required extensive training on the job, and who then were intent on leaving just when they were becoming of real use. He recommended that judges be appointed for three years only; otherwise they became restless and discontented, devising excuses for wintering on the outside which left the bench short-handed. Conditions were such that few men wished to stay in the territory for more than three or four years. There were many important cases before the courts, some involving large sums of money; hence the need for able and conscientious judges.4 The very best jurists should be appointed to the Yukon. Another early recommendation of Ross's of quite a different character was for the establishment of a brewery in the territory: actually the Yukon had not long to wait for this boon for Thomas O'Brien introduced a brewery in Dawson in the early years of the century. Ross also suggested the removal of restrictions on beer imports, for at the current price of the brew in Dawson men were driven to the more deleterious use of spirits. One recalls the imperial authorities' encouragement offered the brewers in the 18th century to combat the widespread addiction to gin among the lower classes.
Ross had a firm hand. He was not altogether satisfied with the administration of the gold commissioner's office and was constrained to remind that official that he was there to implement, not to formulate, policy. As Ross explained in a letter to Sifton on 16 August 1901,
Recently the 10 per cent royalty on gold production had been reduced to 5 per cent. Ross favoured a simple export tax, which was implemented within the next few sessions. One of Ross's principal assignments on appointment was to investigate the concession issue. This had been a bone of contention since gold-rush days, and entailed the granting of large tracts to various individuals and companies for the systematic exploitation of the deposits through the use of complex and expensive machinery. This practice was held by the individual miners to be a betrayal of the rights of the small entrepeneur, who went into the territory with what he could pack on his back, working with pan and pick. It was suspected that the government profited handsomely by these concessions, and that their granting withheld much rich ground from the workings of the individual prospector and miner, who had literally put the Klondike on the map to start with. Ross did not commit himself but promised to investigate the concession issue. It was not that the principle was bad per se, for concessionaires with their elaborate equipment and capital could exploit ground which the pick and shovel man could not: it was, however, widely suspected that tracts had been turned over to concessionaires which were still rich enough to be of interest to the placer miner. In his first report written in the fall of 1901, Ross did not commit himself by any means on the concession issue. Gold, he wrote, was, still is, and is likely to remain the principal product of the country. The great need was to reduce the high cost of mining through a reduction in freight rates. As matters stood,
At this date, Ross expressed a perhaps too sanguine optimism, at least in retrospect, on the future of Dawson, "No one can have spent a season in Dawson without realizing the existence of unmistakable signs of permanency."7 The new public buildings in Dawson, he wrote in the same report — a school, court house, administration building and post office — would do credit to a city of 50,000 on the outside. He also cited the completion of a commissioner's residence. Ross was to be the first commissioner to reside in the spacious comfort, and indeed elegance, of an official residence, or Government House. And yet the very circumstance was to be marred by tragedy. In order to purchase furnishings for the residence in Vancouver and Victoria, the commissioner's wife with her baby and niece took passage on the ill-fated steamer Islander south-bound out of Skagway. At 2:00 A.M. on the night of 15 August 1901, the Islander struck an iceberg off Douglas Island, going down by the head in only 20 minutes with the loss of 24 passengers and crew, including Mrs. Ross and the two children. The direful tidings were borne to the commissioner the next day by Sheriff Eilbeck, A strong family man, Ross was prostrated with grief; a closed carriage was called, and the grief-stricken commissioner was driven to his residence. All government offices were closed and flags lowered to half mast. The rough-hewn Nugget was equal to the occasion.
Shortly thereafter the commissioner left the territory with the bodies of his wife and child. On 1 October he arrived back in Dawson where he received a warm welcome. He was reported to be looking hale and fit, but the illness he suffered the following summer may well be attributed to this heart-wringing tragedy. It must have been with very mixed feeling that Ross took up residence in the lavishly appointed and luxuriously furnished Government House, the first of the commissioners to have a residence befitting his office. The considerable sum (in those days) of $25,000 had been set aside in the Public Works estimates for 1900-01 for its construction, which got underway on 7 July 1901 under the direction of the government's resident architect, T. W. Fuller. It was ready for occupancy by 1 November. A three storeyed frame house with spacious verandahs and many gables decorated with ornate trim, the residence was far and away the largest and most sumptuous in Dawson. The main or ground floor contained an office for the commissioner opening off the high-ceilinged central hall, a dining-room and a reception room paneled with highly polished Douglas fir.9 A small private dining-room was situated opposite the main entrance. On the second floor were six bedrooms, some with attached bathrooms. One feature of the residence was the comfortable provision of indoor water closets, hitherto, said the Klondike Nugget, considered a luxury in Dawson. There were two brick chimneys and the roof was covered with galvanized iron, no doubt as a fire precaution. Servants' quarters were located on the third floor. The whole was heated by a hot-air furnace, later found to be inadequate. As the Nugget observed, the residence was in striking contrast to the accommodation provided Walsh and Ogilvie but then Dawson was becoming a settled community, the capital of a thriving territory with a prosperous and secure future, it was hoped. Government House was equipped with electric light. The total cost of construction, including heating and lighting equipment, came to $41,534.94.10 A further $7,000 was appropriated for furnishings, some notion of which may be gleaned from the Auditor General's report of 1900-01.11 In later years, Mrs. Martha Louise Black, wife of Yukon's last commissioner and for four years a chatelaine of Government House wrote of it,
The luxurious residence, in those early years of Yukon's prosperity, accorded well with the dignity attaching to the office of its chief executive. This was to be followed, however, by many years of sad anticlimax, boarded up and uninhabited, but none foresaw this in 1901. It was said of Ross that he had the knack of dealing with more people within a given period of time than anyone else in the public service; so said the Nugget in any case. He too was besieged by a stream of calls morning to night. In his report of 30 June 1902, Ross had considerable development to record during his first complete year in office. Improved means of transportation, and particularly the opening up of new roads to the diggings, had so manifestly lowered the cost of mining that low-grade ground scorned in the earlier period as uneconomic could now be worked to good advantage. Machinery was replacing the pick and shovel. Confidently he wrote, "Gold mining is still, and will always be, the chief industry of the territory, but the conditions of mining are rapidly changing from a speculative to a permanent business character."13 Dawson, he continued elsewhere in his report, now wore the settled aspect of a Canadian city with stores stocked with goods comparable to those on the outside, with churches, hospitals and schools; with its sidewalks and street lighting it had surpassed a number of larger centres in the long-settled regions of eastern Canada. Dawson had become an incorporated city governed by a mayor and six aldermen who were carrying on the task of municipal government which had so recently devolved upon the overworked Ogilvie. Quite a bit had been accomplished in a quiet unobtrusive way during Ross's first year in office. In the words of the Daily Morning Sun, admittedly a supporter of government,
The year 1902 was to see the election of the first member to represent the Yukon in the House of Commons. Arriving at Skagway on the Princess May on 1 June 1902, Ross was non-committal as to whether he would run for the seat. He replied that he thought he could contribute more as commissioner, but that if pressed, he would consider being a candidate. On his return to Dawson a few days later, following a 5-1/2-month absence, he denied rumours that Laurier had approached him concerning entry to the cabinet; this, however, was a rumour that died hard and was to play a part in the forthcoming election, The Sun described Ross's welcome in Dawson as the grandest and most enthusiastic reception ever tendered to a public man in the West, or in the Yukon territory at least."15 A welcoming delegation sailed upstream aboard the Susie to meet Ross inbound on the Bailey. The Susie was decorated in gala fashion, crowded with celebrants and with a portrait of the commissioner at the head of the main staircase. The two riverboats met upstream from Dawson at a point called Ensley, whereupon the band aboard the Susie struck up the national anthem, followed by the "Maple Leaf." On the return run a luncheon of heroic dimensions and no mean delicacy was served prepared by a gourmet chef formerly engaged in a luxury hotel in Honolulu. No doubt the commissioner's devotion to duty and accomplishments, despite the tragedy in his own life the previous year, had done much to endear him to the territory. But the strain of the bereavement and of the pressure to which he was undoubtedly subject had taken its toll. On the arrival of the steamer Columbian at Whitehorse on 18 July 1902, it was learned that the commissioner, a passenger, had been stricken with a severe paralytic stroke. He was at once taken to a Major Snyder's house in Whitehorse where two doctors diagnosed a partial paralysis of the left side. For a time his life was in jeopardy and he required the attendance of two trained nurses. But on 15 August, Ross was able to telegraph Sifton that he was recovering rapidly, regaining the use of both his arm and his voice; he expected to leave on 19 August for Victoria, but a physician and two nurses were to accompany him on the journey south, a journey which eventually took him as far as Los Angeles and another spell of hospitalization. Obviously Ross had been approached to stand for Parliament, for on 29 August 1902 he was telegraphing Sifton from Victoria to the effect that the doctors had told him that a political campaign would injure him, but nonetheless, if it was the will of the party, he would do so. But they must understand, he continued, that he must engage in no activity for the next three months, and even thereafter he would have to take due care. Eventually, he was told, he would recover his health. Under the circumstances, of course, his chances of election would not be as good as if he could take an active part in the campaign. Speaking in Brockville, Ontario, on 5 September, Sifton accorded Ross high praise and said that had it not been for his illness, he would undoubtedly have been taken into the cabinet to share with Senator Templeman the representation of the West.
Writing to Sifton from Victoria on 23 September, Ross told him that he was going on to Los Angeles to convalesce. Nevertheless, Ross allowed his name to stand for nomination, although unable to campaign. Thereafter political game was made of his condition by the contending parties. On 8 November the Nugget proclaimed with banner headlines that Ross was now en route to Ottawa for a probable cabinet appointment. Ross was opposed by Joseph A. Clarke, the stormy petrel of Yukon politics, a man with a shady past who had served noisily and contentiously on the Yukon council and who eventually became the mayor of Edmonton. The Nugget and the Sun both supported Ross and made much of his anticipated entry to the cabinet, when Yukon would be indeed well served with a cabinet minister representing her interests. There was, however, no intention of taking Ross into the cabinet for his health was such that, when elected to the House as Yukon's member, his erstwhile supporters turned against him for the way in which he neglected their interests in the House. The Nugget's campaign, based on a false premise, backfired. The Dawson Daily News, a Clarke supporter, denied this allegation, thrown out as a vote-catcher at the last moment, that Ross was slated, if elected, for the cabinet. The News had it on the authority of the Toronto Mail and Empire that Ross's prospects of cabinet appointment were unfounded, and that further they had received a telegram from the Los Angeles Times that the candidate had been ill in hospital for three weeks with rheumatism. Rather unctuously the News concluded, "The News has the deepest sympathy for Mr. Ross in his affliction, but a stern sense of duty to the people demands that the truth be told."17 On 13 November, the Nugget published a telegram from Ross stating that he was leaving Los Angeles for Victoria the same day and that the rumour of his illness was false. The News and Nugget then charged one another with fabricating telegrams. The two rival papers could not even agree on the name of the hospital in which the ailing Ross had been treated the News referred to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, the Nugget to the Hospital of the Good Shepherd, but both agreed that the institution was in Los Angeles. The News was the stronger paper but was backing the weaker candidate. Although unable to campaign, Ross nonetheless won the seat handily. And so James Hamilton Ross entered the House as the Yukon's first member. His platform was succinctly stated: "I recognize that the whole business life of the Yukon depends upon the success of the prospector and miner, and they above all others must be encouraged."18 Among the measures he worked for were duty-free importation of mining machinery for one year, a wholly elective council, the reduction of miners' licence fees, and the establishment of a smelter. Ross foresaw the future importance of Whitehorse, both by reason of its location and the large copper deposits in the vicinity. Ross's ill health continued to plague him to such an extent that he was often absent from the House. By June of 1903 his erstwhile supporter, the Nugget, was having second thoughts about its support of Ross. The growing dissatisfaction confirmed the News' reservations about Ross the previous autumn, on the grounds of his ill health. Ross recommended F. T. Congdon, who had acted as legal adviser to the territorial government, as his successor. Of Ross the irascible pioneer editor of the Yukon Sun wrote: "Hon. J. H. Ross made a fine Commissioner but his sickness was a calamity to Yukon, for it has led to the appointment of a Mr. Fred T. Congdon, of Halifax, as Commissioner."19 There is no doubt but that Ross must be accounted a very able commissioner, a practical reformer, affable and approachable. If he was less active as a member than as commissioner, this undoubtedly was due to the poor state of his health. Ross was summoned to the Senate in 1904, no doubt in lieu of a cabinet portfolio. He retained his seat in the upper House until his death in Victoria, British Columbia, 14 December 1932. Frederick Tennyson Congdon The most controversial commissioner Yukon ever had was born in Annapolis, Nova Scotia, 16 November 1858, the son of Hinkle Congdon and Catherine Tompkins Congdon. He attended the Annapolis High School. Frederick Tennyson Congdon came of English stock: his mother indeed was a Greek and Latin scholar who, according to an article in the Yukon Sun, resided in England. The boy lived up to his parents' expectations. He took a B.A. in arts, with first-class honours in classics at Toronto in 1879, studied law for two years under the tutelage of his grandfather at the Inner Temple, London, and took his LL.B. in 1883 at Toronto, first entering partnership with a Dr. Russell, Q.C., who from 1896 sat for Halifax in the House of Commons. During his seven years in a Halifax law practice, Congdon rapidly won recognition in his profession. His two years (1885-87) as an editorial writer for the Halifax Morning Chronicle apparently gave him a taste for politics, for he twice contested Shelburne against heavy odds in the Liberal interest and he campaigned for Fielding in the 1900 election. In 1896 he was appointed a lecturer at the Dalhousie Law School, and in 1899 to the commission for the revision of provincial statutes. In this capacity he published a Digest of Provincial Laws of Nova Scotia.
The able but mercurial Congdon seems first to have arrived in the Yukon about the turn of the century, when Dawson still bore some of the earmarks of a boom town. In 1901 he was appointed legal adviser to the Yukon Council. But Congdon did not retain that post for long, for on 15 July 1901 he announced his resignation, effective 12 September 1901, in order to join the Dawson law firm of Wade and Aikman. The Nugget regretted his resignation from the council, but alleged that he could not live on the salary of $5,000 per annum with four dependents, a wife, two sons and a daughter. The Nugget considered Congdon's work on legislation worth many times his salary and strongly urged that salaries be raised for these officials in order to secure able men. Although he had not been long in the Yukon, Congdon was reported as being very popular, with many friends. Within a couple of years that popularity had faded: to many in the territory the name of Congdon had become anathema. Congdon was appointed to the commissionership on 4 March 1903, inaugurating the stormiest tenure of that office in the territory's history. Initially the appointment was popular. There could be no doubt of the man's ability, and he had been in the territory long enough, with sufficient experience in office, that he must be accounted thoroughly familiar with Yukon's needs and aspirations. He would be a strong executive, but that, after all, was what the territory needed. There was much yet to be done in the reform of the mining code, the popularization of government, the lowering of freight rates and the improvement of communications in this far northerly region. Congdon, it would appear, was just what the territory needed. The pro-government paper, soon to be repudiated and dispossessed of its patronage by Congdon, enthusiastically reported his triumphal progress along the trail to Dawson,
The new commissioner arrived in Dawson shortly before eleven on the morning of 9 April, his wife and family to follow on from Victoria with the opening of Yukon navigation the following month. He was to be found in his office in the administration building by ten the following morning. His salary, as with the previous incumbents, was $6,000 per annum with a further $6,000 allowance for expenses. He missed a few days at his office early in August, confined to a darkened room with a badly inflamed eye thought to have been caused by a powder burn while shooting. Congdon started off well. In November he expressed himself in favour of a wholly elective council which, he opined in a letter to Sifton, would be easier to handle than the present council. In the same letter he gave it as his opinion that the Yukon seat would be safe in the Liberal interest provided the party retained power in Ottawa; otherwise it would likely fall to a Conservative. He went on to say that he had a gentleman's agreement with the Conservatives that they would support the Liberal contender as long as the government was sustained in power in Ottawa, but that the Liberals would act in the Conservative interest should the government be defeated; however, he did not anticipate this state of affairs.21 Early in the new year, Congdon wrote to Sifton that he had been working very hard on a new mining code which was in the final throes of preparation; if its main features were adopted, "I believe we shall have for the Yukon the only satisfactory mining code to be found in the world today."22 By April of the following year, 1905, the Laurier government announced widespread changes in the Yukon mining code, among which were the reduction of the miner's licence to five dollars and an increase in the size of claims. Congdon's paper, the World, in its 4 April 1905 edition, pointed out that the present member, Dr. Alfred Thompson, had been credited with these reforms, but proved through a letter from Congdon to the Dawson Board of Trade that the credit belonged rather to Congdon.23 Meantime the Congdons were taking their function as hosts at the residence seriously. On 6 November 1903, Mrs. Congdon entertained a group of young people with a dance. The Yukon Sun reported "the parlours of Government House brilliantly illuminated and decorated for the occasion."24 A total of 35 guests attended. Early in December she threw a euchre party. A New Year's Day levée was held at the residence between the hours of one and two in the afternoon, possibly the first such vice-regal occasion in Dawson. Visitors were to be met by the commissioner and chatelaine in the hall on presenting their cards, and were then to pass into the drawing room to partake of light refreshments. Officers of the North-West Mounted Police in full-dress uniform joined the commissioner and his lady in the receiving line. On the occasion of George Washington's Birthday (which in the Dawson of the early days took equal precedence with Victoria or Empire Day, both of which eclipsed Dominion Day), Mrs. Congdon gave a luncheon for American ladies of her acquaintance. The dining table's centre-piece was a cherry tree, at the base of which were toy hatchets decorated with red, white and blue ribbons: ropes in the same national colours were draped from the chandelier to the four corners of the table. The menu featured a portrait of Washington with the American eagle and entwined flags, and a liberty bell appeared on the front page, but perhaps more to the point, "The luncheon was a triumph of the culinary art."25 Coffee was served in the drawing room in approved and formal fashion. There were 11 guests, but not included was a future chatelaine of Government House, Mrs. Martha Louise Black, a lady from Chicago; of course, she and her husband may have been wintering on the outside. But against this pleasant and hospitable backdrop, giving the territory a little much-needed "class," the commissioner himself was revealing a cloven hoof. If the commissioner was a reformer on some issues, he was also a dictator who could not abide opposition. The Dawson Daily News, the little capital's first paper and one which would become a formidable opponent to Congdon in the most heated election — later in the year — that the territory would ever see, reported the first of the commissioner's arbitrary proceedings in its 6 January 1904 edition. The two elective members of the Yukon Council, Joseph A. Clarke and Dr. Alfred Thompson, had absented themselves from the seven-man body (including the commissioner) in protest against some of Congdon's measures which they did not conceive to be in the people's interest. Congdon and the four appointive members nonetheless rammed through the legislation, although in fact they did not constitute a quorum, in just 3-1/4 minutes. It was the shape of things to come, for Congdon was set upon controlling the territorial government against all comers. David R. Morrison in his Politics of the Yukon Territory 1898-1909, a masterly treatise on the political ferment which characterized those years, charges that Congdon fashioned
by naming the World as official gazette, refusing to appoint a three-man commission to administer Dawson, and by seizing the civic administration prior to the plebiscite on the Dawson city charter. Congdon had not been in office long before deciding that the Yukon Sun was too blunt an instrument for his purposes; he therefore commissioned his henchman, William Temple, to establish a new government organ to be known as the Yukon World and to engage W. A. Beddoe, an able but mischievous editor from the Dawson Daily News, as its editor. This Temple at once proceeded to do, and the first edition of the World appeared on 29 February 1904. At first the supplanted Sun tried to brave it out, but by spring was forced to take issue with Congdon. Congdon's action in arbitrarily transferring government patronage from the Sun to the World split asunder the Liberal party in the Yukon. Richard Roediger, part owner and editor of the Dawson Daily News, contended that the Liberal party in the Yukon was "a house divided." Finally, in its 2 April edition, the Sun joined issue with Congdon,
The Sun went down with dignity. In its last editorial the pioneer paper (first published in June, 1898) rebuked its enemy.
In defending himself in a letter of 2 June 1904 to Deputy Minister J. A. Smart, Congdon revealed his hand.
And later the same month to Sifton:
Nor was the commissioner above stooping to personalities with his remarks concerning "the reptile American press." By mid-July of 1904 with a federal election in the offing, Congdon tightened his control of the civil service. Those who opposed the Congdon line would suffer. The World indeed quoted the Yukon Act, by which the commissioner was given control, with powers of suspension, of all officials in the territory. The News contended that this blanket authority applied only to territorial and not federal officials such as the police, post office and customs. Only "the underlings of the administration building could be so bluffed." They had formed the "Tab" wing of the Liberals to back the commissioner regardless of the rest of their party.31 But the contention of the Dawson Daily News was incorrect, as a reading of the terms of the Yukon Act would well have confirmed. In fact, the only official whom the commissioner could not control or suspend was the chief justice. In a long letter to the Prime Minister written on 15 July 1904, Congdon complained that opposition was rife throughout the ranks of the civil service, with disgruntled officials working hand in glove with dissaffected Americans who opposed federal authority on principle. In fact, certain federal officials such as the postmaster, Hartman, had supported the News, the opposition paper, whose rascally editor had been heard to boast that the commissioner had no control over his administration. It was necessary to make one good example to restore discipline. Congdon concluded with, "I assure you that I have done nothing — and will do nothing in this Territory, which will not stand the most intimate investigation. I will not escape calumny. I do not expect to escape."32 To which Sir Wilfred replied on 6 August, The Government has absolute confidence in your zeal and judgment and hitherto, whilst we have received numerous complaints as you well know, we have taken no heed of the same and left the whole matter to your discretion."33 Congdon had more comments on the scum of Seattle, San Francisco and Tacoma, indicative that at this phase of his career he did not like Americans, especially Americans in the Klondike, with their upstart republicanism and vulgar egalitarianism. It was to be the Canadian voters, for of course the Americans had not the franchise, who were to reject Congdon. Although so many reports of party dissension in Dawson had reached his ears, Laurier no doubt felt justified in retaining confidence in Congdon. He had, after all, effected economies by reducing roads expenditure and by cutting back on the ranks of the civil service, from which he anticipated a surplus of $50,000 instead of the usual deficit. As the time for the federal election approached Congdon, with some regrets, decided to resign the commissionership and contest the seat himself. He wrote Laurier on 8 November 1904 that he considered that he was the candidate who could "reconcile the conflicting elements better than anyone else."34 Robert Lowe of Whitehorse would run if he did not, and Lowe was not acceptable to the Dawson voters. He also could reconcile the English- and French-speaking elements in the territory. He was confident of victory, he assured Laurier, "and I may say in conclusion that I shall be very greatly disappointed if my majority is not 500, and I hope for more."35 In tendering his resignation on 29 October, Congdon thanked Laurier for his unfailing support "in my difficult office. Your kindness has increased my deep devotion to you. I trust I shall receive on December 16th a right royal vindication."36 The limes were now drawn, the issues closed. Congdon was opposed by Dr. Alfred Thompson who ran as an Independent. The campaign was the nastiest and dirtiest in the Yukon's brief history. The News supported Thompson, who had the backing of the Conservatives and the anti-Congdon Liberals, known locally as the "Steam Beers" in reference to a brewery owned by one of their more prominent members. The pro-Congdon Liberals were labeled "Tabs" from the chits given out by Congdon's campaign headquarters for future redemption by his supporters. The News rallied the anti-Congdon forces under the battle cry, "We must defeat this gang or leave the territory."37 On 30 November the News warned its readers through what it termed a leak in the "Tab" headquarters that the Congdon forces were about to publish bogus telegrams purporting to emanate from Ottawa, promising all sorts of concessions and promises likely to sway the voters at the last moment. The News said that the fact that Congdon's supporters would resort to such a stale dodge showed that they were desperate for some expedient to stave off defeat. The same tactic had been used in the Ross campaign two years earlier; it had worked then, but the voters should not be gulled a second time. In the issue Thompson won by some 600 votes; it should have been more like 1,500 said the News, but the nefarious tactics of the Congdon machine had reduced it by more than half. Pontificated the News,
On 19 December the editor of the News pressed for the laying of charges against all those accused of misconduct in attempting to influence the result of the election. In the sequel many of the charges were dropped, to the disgust of the News. And so Congdon went down to defeat. Like the dog in Aesop's fables, he had dropped the substance at hand for what proved an illusion. But his eclipse was to prove temporary. One by-product of the vicious election campaign was the resentment shown the estimable Royal North-West Mounted Police by the defeated commissioner, who carried on a campaign against the force, surely the first and the last commissioner to do so. In his report dated at Dawson on 3 August 1903 a year and more before the election, Congdon paid the force the usual encomiums for its integrity and efficiency. A year later, however, writing to Sifton on 17 August 1904, he charged that the police and particularly the officers were opposed to the administration. They stood in awe of agitators. Major Zachary Taylor Wood, Royal North-West Mounted Police, in a letter to F. C. Wade, gave the reason why.
Also, he had refused to award contracts to the "Tab" faction rather than the "Steam Beers" and other Liberals at higher bids than the letter had quoted. But worse disclosures were to come. In a letter to the comptroller of the Royal North-West Mounted Police on 19 December 1904, Wood charged the "Tab" faction, or Congdon supporters, with having stolen voters' lists and with having removed names from others. But all the stolen lists had been recovered and the lists corrected, so thwarting the machinations of the Congdon machine which had only succeeded in splitting the Liberal party in twain. He added that many civil servants had been intimidated by the Congdon forces in order to force their vote for the sake of their jobs.40 But if any thought Congdon disposed to be a good sport about the election, they were mistaken. In a whining letter to Laurier the following year (20 September) Congdon attacked Wood.
Congdon pursued his vendetta with the police through the editorial columns of the Yukon World — of course, anonymously. Major Ross Cuthbert, writing to Woodside, branded these attacks as abuse and lies which none could take seriously. He concluded,
Replying to this letter on 27 August 1906, Woodside referred to Congdon as the "has been," which indeed he was for the nonce. Woodside fancied that Laurier had reproved Congdon for his abuse of the police, for the last issue he had seen of the Yukon World had contained a laudatory article on the Royal North-West Mounted Police. Laurier had indeed taken cognizance of Congdon's vendetta, for as early as May 1906 he had informed Major Wood that he need not give the World the patronage of his office. But much worse than the ex-commissioner's vindictive pursual of the force was a series of snide and anonymous attacks which Laurier described to McInnes, Congdon's successor, as scurrilous, upon the character of Mrs. Wood, Major Wood's wife. Laurier could scarce bring himself to believe that "our friend Congdon" could stoop so low as to attack a lady.43 In reply, McInnes told the prime minister in a letter of 19 June 1906 that the anonymous articles in the Yukon World, under the pseudonym Dawson were indeed the work of F. T. Congdon. But McInnes smoothed it over saying that the resentments from the 1904 election were aggravated by the rivalry between two leading families. In any case the News had just bought out the World, and so Congdon would no longer have a sounding board for his animosity. Congdon's administration, wrote McInnes, had been guilty of "many petty and ill-advised acts of administration, which were not calculated to cement our friends"44 The immediate aftermath of the election centred on the concern among Congdon's opponents that having been expelled through the front door he should return through the back; it was a foregone conclusion that a man of Congdon's manifest ability and determination would not accept defeat nor take it lying down. On the day before Christmas 1904, the News charged that "Tabs" in the council were scheming to reinstate their chief as commissioner, but in an article the following February, the News would not credit the astute Congdon with considering so foolhardy a move. On 3 June 1905, however, the World proclaimed Congdon's return as legal adviser under banner headlines. The mud, continued the World, with which Congdon had been bespattered by his enemies had not stuck. Obviously Congdon's position under the new regime cannot have been pleasant. He wrote to Laurier in September 1905 that he did not like the new commissioner who, having announced his purpose of cleansing the Augean stables, was immensely popular. Congdon at this time was alone in Dawson, his wife and family being in Vancouver. He had been snubbed at McInnes welcoming reception, not having received an invitation to the banquet. On Congdon's departure from the territory in October 1907, the Yukon Liberal Association threw a banquet for Congdon at which he was presented with a gold watch and chain. His farewell address was both witty and eloquent, for Congdon had a considerable reputation as a speaker in public. He felt that the moral tone of the community had been denigrated.
The editor of the News praised Congdon's wit, observed that his address revived no bitter memories, and was indeed one of the two best delivered in Dawson that year. The editor suggested that Congdon follow his erstwhile intention of writing a history of the territory and that "such a production from his pen would raise a far fairer monument to his memory than anything he has accomplished in the territory during the past."46 The ex-commissioner, however, was not to rest content with so academic a task; he still thirsted for power, and to power he would return. Congdon went out on the hustings in the hard-fought federal election of 1908-09, taking the field against three other candidates — Robert Lowe, supported by the News; Joseph A. Clarke, and George Black, whom the Yukon World egregiously dismissed with the observation that if elected he would prove a mere cipher in Ottawa. Black was to hold the Yukon's seat longer than any other member, in season and out of season, regardless of whether his own party (the Conservatives) were in power or not. Congdon attacked the Royal North-West Mounted Police, reported his sometime creature the World, as a vote-catching device. "If there is one thing I have accomplished and for which I claim the credit is the abolishment of the tyranny of the North-West Mounted Police."47 This at least was consistent with his hostility to the police since the previous election. By 2 February 1909 Congdon was confirmed in his victory, with 908 votes as against 577 for his nearest competitor and future victor, George Black: 1904 had been avenged. His inveterate opponent, the Dawson Daily News, accepted his victory as the will of the people and wished him well. The rest of the story on Frederick Tennyson Congdon, insofar as this paper is concerned, is soon told. He had not been long in the House ere even the News came round. Congdon contested the seat again in 1911 but was defeated by George Black. On this occasion, the News paid Congdon tribute: he had done much for the territory, and could be counted on to do yet more. Ten years later found Congdon in law partnership with Elmore Meredith and J. A. Campbell in Vancouver. He corresponded with Mackenzie King on matters political. When he died in Ottawa on 13 March 1932, both Mackenzie King and George Black were to be seen in his lengthy funeral cortege. Passing in his seventy-fifth year, Frederick Tennyson Congdon was survived by one of his two sons, his daughter and a sister. He was buried from All Saints Anglican Church in Toronto and interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in that city. It is difficult to assess Congdon, a figure of sharp contrasts, a man of considerable mental and academic ability, a polished speaker in the old classical style. He was known as one of the ablest members of the bar, an exacting and competitive profession. He contributed much in the public interest but his career as commissioner was marred by his ruthless and unscrupulous bid for power, and yet more perhaps by his vindictive campaigns of vilification following that setback. Few surely would contend that there was more on the negative side of the ledger than the positive. In a town where moral standards were freer than the Canadian norm, reflecting still a little of the frontier tradition, his personal life was above reproach. Certainly his descendants can take pride in his accomplishments and the Yukon's fourth commissioner rest easy in his grave. William Wallace Burns McInnes Congdon's successor was undoubtedly the most popular chief executive that the territory ever had, despite a mild propensity for the bottle. Following hard on the heels of Congdon, it would have been difficult for him not to court popularity. The inimitable "Billy" McInnes was born in Dresden, Kent County, Ontario. In April of 1871, the son of the Honourable T. R. McInnes, sometime lieutenant governor of British Columbia, the province to which McInnes was to return at an early stage in his career. Born of Presbyterian stock, McInnes exhibited few of the dreary earmarks of that persuasion. In fact, he had a mild but persistent addiction to the bottle; some of his political enemies and detractors even on occasion hinted of immorality. McInnes was stockily built, a little under the average in height, full featured but not corpulent. He had a keen intellect with the gift of making quick, incisive decisions, a loud rollicking laugh and a convivial nature.
McInnes took his B.A. at Toronto University in 1889 at the comparatively early age of eighteen. He attended Osgoode Hall and was admitted to the bar of British Columbia in 1893 in his twenty-second year. He entered a law firm in Nanaimo, and in 1894 married Dorothea Young of Victoria. Politics drew him at an early age, but success in this field attended only his earlier years. He was returned for the federal seat representing Vancouver in the great Liberal sweep of 1896. But in 1900 he forsook the federal field for the provincial, and from 1900 to 1903 sat for Vancouver in the legislature. He entered the cabinet of the Prior ministry, holding the office of president of the council for a week, followed by the portfolios of provincial secretary and minister of education from 1 December 1902 to the following May, when he resigned owing to disagreement with the ministry. This was really the end of his political career, for although he campaigned most strenuously in the Liberal interests on his return from the Yukon, he was never re-elected. Nevertheless he had made his mark, and of him the Honourable Joseph Martin said, "To my mind the finest speaker in Canada."48 A party supporter, Smith Curtis, blamed McInnes for contributing to the Liberal defeat in the 1903 election: his letter to Laurier of 13 October is barely legible, but the writer expostulates what a disaster would befall the party should McInnes ever be chosen as party leader. Laurier's comment is revealing. "With regard to young McInnes, I know that he has a great deal of ability. I know likewise that he is a little skittish, but I never had any reason to think so ill of him as you do."49 It may have been that Curtis was not alone in his disapproval of the able young lawyer. In any case, by March of 1905 McInnes was earnestly soliciting Laurier for the Yukon commissionership: it was important, he told the Prime Minister, that a westerner have the office and that he had the support of the Liberal associations of Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo. Laurier replied that he could scarcely encourage him because he preferred that he stick with politics. But before the end of the month McInnes was pressing his suit once more. He wanted, he wrote, to leave political life, in which he had toiled both hard and successfully, in favour of the Yukon commissionership. This he definitely preferred to a seat on the bench because he would not later be shelved. If he could have the job, he promised to resign after three years and return to the political field.
His persistency was rewarded for he received the appointment by Order in Council,51 approved 27 May 1905. The appointment was popular in the Yukon. Although an outsider, McInnes was known as a man of forceful character, a good administrator, of firm convictions and having personal magnetism. Surely he would initiate the reforms so sorely needed in the territory and re-introduce sound government free of the machinations which had been so much a feature of the Congdon regime. The Yukon World lauded the appointment as being just what the territory so sorely needed, and suggested a cessation of party strife until the new commissioner had had time to settle in; this was scouted by the opposition News. On the contrary, the new appointee should be apprised at the outset of the wrongs under which the territory had laboured; if he failed to secure redress, he could then never complain that he had not been informed. McInnes must be warned of the machinations of the grafters, for while their activity and spoilation continued, there could be no concord in the territory. McInnes was expected aboard the steamer Dawson on 3 July 1905 in the early evening. Government House had been thoroughly cleaned from cellar to attic and in a degree refurnished. McInnes' wife and two children would follow a little later on the Whitehorse. On arrival in Dawson, said the News, McInnes was clad in a black suit of good quality with a white waistcoat and a sack coat, white shirt with a standing collar, and was carrying a pair of kid gloves. "Gazing keenly through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he scrutinized all before him. He was awake."52 He was indeed, and wasted no time in announcing that he had come to make a clean sweep and that nothing would deter him from a task long overdue. McInnes was impressed by his very cordial reception. A few days after his arrival he was tendered a welcoming banquet in the Arctic Brotherhood Hall which the News described as "the most splendid banquet in the history of the North." At the head table sat Major Wood, the much maligned commandant of the Mounted Police, Justice Macaulay, J. T. Lithgow and Thomas O'Brien (both members of the Yukon council and the latter president of the Liberal Association). About 200 guests sat down to dine that evening. And indeed McInnes did not disappoint them.
The following day the News broke forth in banner headlines.
A new star has risen in Yukon.
In his address delivered at the aforementioned welcoming banquet, the new commissioner firmly proclaimed the principle that civil servants must keep clear of politics.
This declaration, promising an end to the malpractices of the Congdon regime, brought forth a wild burst of enthusiasm and prolonged applause. Further planks in his platform included greater popular representation on the council; resource development; the administration to eschew party strife; unreserved support for Yukon's member, Dr. Thompson, and the bogey of annexation of the territory to British Columbia laid to rest. Clearly the McInnes regime stood solidly on the platform of reform. Though his tenure was to be short, Billy McInnes fulfilled all expectations. On 13 July 1905, Government House threw open its doors on the occasion of a gala reception accorded a visiting delegation of the American Institute of Miming Engineers. The residence was profusely decorated with flowers and plants from the spacious gardens and greenhouse. Visitors were received in the drawing-room by the commissioner and his lady, as well as Dr. Raymond, the guest of honour; an officer of the Royal North-West Mounted Police announced each guest. A buffet supper was laid out in the dining room. On the same day, 13 July, Congdon wrote to Laurier observing that he had been excluded from both the banquet and the reception. But he had urged his friends to support McInnes and refrain from criticism. Replying on 28 July, Laurier wrote that he had urged McInnes on his departure from Ottawa to be strictly impartial in all his dealings. He had hopes that McInnes would succeed in pacifying the territory, but only time would tell whether his expectations would be fulfilled. He would need the support of every Liberal in the territory, and he trusted that Congdon would play his part. Congdon had intimated that McInnes would not receive the wholehearted support of the party.56 McInnes himself assured Laurier on 24 July that the whole territory was solidly backing his government, but that many of their friends had been alienated by "a series of acts incredibly petty and unpolitic. This condition can easily be improved by my discouraging factional strife, administering on good business principles."57 On 21 August Laurier replied that he was very well pleased with the start McInnes had made in the Yukon. He confessed himself bewildered by the party strife which had split the party in the territory, but he had every confidence that McInnes would set things to rights. In September McInnes wrote to Laurier that his first council session had been conducted harmoniously, the business put through with dispatch. He also noted that the territory was free of racial or religious strife, having in mind no doubt the agitation over the separate school issue in the new provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, lately carved from the North West Territories. A facetious comment by the News that the federal authorities had blundered into appointing an honest man as chief executive in the territory was taken all too seriously by the World, whose editor on 13 August put a perverse interpretation on it.
Up to this time in the Klondike, miners working for others — men who had failed to strike it rich themselves and hence were reduced to labouring for their better-heeled and shrewder contemporaries — were often in a bad way. Should the employer himself fail, the employee might well find himself at the end of the season whistling for his wages. The labourers' wages were about the last charge on an employer's estate. George Black, a future commissioner and then on the council, set himself to correct this evil which victimized the underdog. His solution was the Miners' Lien Law, which he himself drew up and shepherded through council. This legislation provided guarantees for employees working in the gold-fields, affirming that the labourer was indeed worthy of his hire and that his wages should never be in jeopardy. The passage of the bill through council established a precedent. Deadlock ensued, whereupon the commissioner cast his vote in favour of the bill, securing its passage. This was the first occasion on which a commissioner had intervened in favour of a popular measure. The Miners' Lien Bill became law on Dominion Day, 1906.
Early in December 1905, the council began work on a new mining code which McInnes himself took to Ottawa in February of the following year. The commissioner saw water, transportation and fuel as the three crucial factors in the future of the territory. An adequate supply of water was needed for mining operations, on which the whole economy of the territory chiefly depended. McInnes had the knack of tempering justice with mercy. Three officials suspended for peculation and awaiting dismissal were reinstated, with loss of pay during their period of suspension. McInnes advised Laurier that the full penalty need no longer be exacted, since the public now had confidence in the integrity of the administration. The levée held New Year's Day, 1906, at the residence was declared one of the most lavish in the territory's history. Before leaving for Ottawa in February with his family, McInnes announced a reduction in the ranks of the civil service and a simplification of work procedures. While in Ottawa, McInnes recommended a reduction of the Mounted Police from the present 200-man force in the Yukon to a bare 35, effecting a savings of some $350,000. The territory was quiet and law abiding, hence a much smaller force would suffice. McInnes also favoured putting the police on a strictly civilian basis without the semi-military trappings. Whether his motives were based on economy or whether he had inbibed from Congdon a resentment of the pretensions of the force is not apparent. By mid-summer a number of the famous and elite force had submitted their resignations. On his arrival in Vancouver aboard the Amuren route to Ottawa, McInnes expressed confidence in the economic future of the Yukon, going so far, according to the Vancouver News Advertiser, as to predict a future prosperity eclipsing that of 1898. He referred to the Yukoners as the "flower of the West." While in Ottawa, McInnes conferred with Laurier on policy measures which met with the prime minister's approval. Obviously the government had fences to mend in the Yukon and McInnes was setting about it with a will. Laurier expressed as much in writing to Congdon on 2 April 1906. The proposed reduction in the number of territorial officials, he wrote, would obviously hurt some unavoidably; he nonetheless had complete confidence in the commissioner's sense of justice and fair play.59 By summer of 1906 much apprehension had developed in the administration building, with many of the officials not knowing where they stood. But the commissioner was in no hurry to lower the axe. Interviewed by the Dawson Daily News (which was very much in favour of cutting and thinning the ranks of the civil service), McInnes put a light touch to the proceedings.
The ills of the Yukon called for drastic measures, and without doubt an inflated civil service, which had been made the tool of the previous administration, must needs expect to suffer. McInnes had very much the iron hand in the velvet glove. In the words of an old saw, one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. The drastic measures called for made enemies for the commissioner within a party already riven asunder before his arrival on the scene. One wonders, in reading the charges made by the Yukon Territorial Liberal Association (later repudiated) in July 1906, whether the critics were striking at the commissioner's weakest point. Obviously there was smoke, but was there fire? A set of condemnatory resolutions submitted by this body on 25 July accused McInnes of public immorality and drunkenness. In fact, the document accuses him of "frequently exhibiting himself in public in a condition of disgusting drunkenness."61 In forwarding the submission to Ottawa, McInnes denied its allegations as ridiculous, pointing to the success of his administration. These charges, he said, were lies generated by political partisans. C. H. Wells, President of the Yukon Territorial Liberal Association, wrote to Laurier on 13 August 1906 without reserve:
Rhetorical questions, these, but demanding an answer. Laurier's reply to Wells is not in hand, and research at time of writing has not uncovered it. It is inferred from subsequent correspondence that Laurier considered the charges had some, but slight, substance, being grossly exaggerated. Perusal of the two Dawson papers of the time uncovered no scandalous misdemeanors on the part of the commissioner which, had there been any real substance to Well's charges, would have made headlines. On 21 August 1906 Laurier wrote a mild letter of reproof to McInnes, referring to a letter he had received from an undisclosed correspondent, concluding with,
To this McInnes made a complete denial.
For what it is worth, so notorious a moralist as the Reverend John Pringle, who had been making capital out of charges of widespread immorality in the Yukon which lost nothing in the telling, completely exonerated McInnes of any scandal. More to the point, in the New Year, after McInnes had actually left the territory, Laurier was able to inform him that a petition had been received from the Yukon Liberal Association charging that the former missive condemning McInnes on sundry charges was a hoax, no doubt emanating from unscrupulous political foes. The second document exonerated McInnes of all charges. McInnes acts nevertheless became the subject of a House of Commons inquiry, but unfortunately the report of the Commons committee was never printed.65 The terms in which Laurier expressed himself on McInnes resignation lead to the conclusion that the charges were not substantiated.
It may have been in anticipation of his resignation and departure from the territory that arrangements were in train late in September 1906 for Mrs. McInnes and the children to winter in Honolulu, far from the ice-bound Klondike. On 29 September the commissioner played host in his residence to two of his staff, Nelson P. MacDonald and Mary McQue. The palatial residence was on this occasion the scene of a wedding, perhaps the last function to take place in the original Government House, for the embellishment of which no expense had been spared. The commissioner was in jovial spirits and "the wedding supper the most joyous Dawson has seen."67 A turkey supplied by the California Market was the main item on the bill of fare, very much a luxury in 1906, and nowhere more so than in Dawson. On 8 November McInnes was wined and dined at what the News described as "the greatest and most enthusiastic and harmonious banquet ever given in Yukon"68 on the eve of his departure for Ottawa. He told the gathering that internecine strife had been at the root of their troubles and that he had sought to provide a clean, fair administration in order that concord and stability might be restored. The mining of gold was still the basis of the economy, and the security of the miners' titles its prime requisite; this the new mining code had secured. He foresaw great prosperity for the future. But within a fortnight rumours were rife that "Billy" was trifling with a return to politics, with an alleged offer to assume the leadership of the British Columbia Liberals. The News admitted that the rumours had been persistent, but McInnes had rejected the offer while on the coast although he may have accepted it at the behest of party leaders once in Ottawa. In any case, McInnes' resignation as commissioner of the Yukon Territory was submitted to the prime minister on 31 December 1906. His valedictory pronounced by the Dawson Daily News reflected the changing circumstances of the Yukon. "His talents were too much in demand elsewhere to be buried in Yukon, which, after all, is a very small part of the Dominion, and hardly a fitting range for a gentleman of his calibre."69 Had he only been a man 20 years older, perhaps he would have been content to serve out his career in Dawson, but as it was, the smell of battle on the hustings of British Columbia had been too much for one of his active and combative temperament. The passing of McInnes from the scene and the reforms he had initiated marked the close of the turbulent phase of the Yukon's history. Its passing was marked also by an accident all too common in the early history of Dawson. Shortly after noon on Boxing Day, 26 December 1906, fire broke out in the commissioner's residence which was finally brought under control by eight in the evening. The residence was unoccupied at the time, the McInnes family having left more than a month before. The house was closed for the season and under the surveillance of a caretaker, who was not on the premises at the time of the outbreak. Damage was estimated at $75,000. The foundation and the walls were intact. McInnes lost some personal effects left in the house, including a sealskin coat worth over $1,200. The cause of the fire was unknown. In her memoirs entitled My Seventy Years published in 1938, Mrs. Martha Louise Black, wife of the last commissioner and chatelaine from 1912 to 1916, wrote that rumour had it that the fire was the work of an arsonist who had first broken into and burglarized the house, then resorted to arson to destroy the evidence.70 A three-man commission instituted to investigate failed to determine the exact cause of the fire, which had started on the ground floor in or near the front hall. They found that the hot air conductors were not properly insulated. In common with most of the public buildings in Dawson at the time, the electrical wiring left something to be desired.71 Their report recommended that in future, in the absence of the commissioner, the house be left unheated, and in any case that the caretaker should be in continuous attendance when the fires were on. On 19 January 1907, $25,000 was allotted to the estimates for the restoration of Government House. But the polished Douglas fir in the hallways and interior was not to be replaced; wallpaper would serve. In like manner the ornate trim along the gables and verandahs was not to be replaced. A comparison of Figures 9 and 11 clearly indicates that the restored residence had a plainer appearance; some might say in better taste, perhaps also more in keeping with the declining affluence of the territory. The restored residence, still a commodious and for Dawson imposing structure, somehow better befitted the changed circumstances. McInnes stands out as an incisive reformer, warm-hearted and of more flamboyant disposition than his predecessors. He had been commissioned to right the wrongs of the territory, and this he had done in his 18 months in office. One senses that his minor peccadillos were worked for all they were worth by his political enemies. He was very much what is termed a good fellow, in contrast to his moralizing successor. But with McInnes the Dawson of mining-camp days has receded well below the horizon.
Fresh from the Yukon, McInnes hurled himself into the broil of British Columbia politics, running in the provincial election of 1907 for the Vancouver riding. He conducted a vigorous campaign in which he did not spare himself, but he was defeated. According to the News, McInnes dominated the campaign, polarizing the voters either for or against him. The Liberals won only 10 seats in the 37-seat House. But then he had been assigned the Vancouver riding, said the News, which was known as a Tory stronghold. Some residents to the south thought that McInnes had come to them at financial sacrifice, but Yukoners knew better. The $12,000 per annum with living allowance was not adequate for a commissioner in Dawson, alleged the editor, so much so that honest commissioners were out of pocket. A very much smaller income in Nanaimo, for example, living in one's own house, would serve better than the seemingly munificent income of the Yukon commissioner. McInnes declined an offer of the post of Deputy Minister of Mines in favour of a one-year contract with Guggenheim of New York who had acquired mining interests in the Yukon. McInnes' salary was set at $25,000 per annum. It was said that he owed the position to his knowledge of the Yukon and particularly of the mining code, to which he had contributed so singly. Again in 1908 McInnes contested Vancouver for the Liberals and was again defeated. In the spring of 1909 he was appointed a county judge in Vancouver. In replying to his letter thanking him for the appointment, Laurier made evident that it hinged on patronage. "You owe me no thanks whatever; we simply carried out the wishes of our friends in British Columbia,"72 A few items on McInnes got into print in later years. One concerned what must have been at the time an embarrassing incident on a Vancouver street corner. McInnes was talking with an acquaintance when a police constable ordered him to move on, in compliance no doubt with some bylaw about loitering. Judge McInnes protested that he was not blocking traffic and that he had the right to stand and converse with a friend. On this the constable, no toady to authority, called a patrol wagon to take the judge into custody. Cooler counsels prevailed, however, with the arrival on the scene of a second constable, and no further action was taken. McInnes, somewhat nettled, said that he would take no action against the policeman but added that if the incident impressed on the chief of police the need to weed out the unsuited from his force, then he himself was glad of the experience. The crowd attracted by the street corner altercation strongly favoured McInnes.73 McInnes served eight years as a county court judge in Vancouver. He earned a reputation, as in the Yukon, for justice tempered with mercy. His judgements were quick and to the point. He showed leniency toward first offenders even when charged with serious offences, if there were indications of contrition or regret; but hardened criminals received draconian sentences. In February of 1913, for example, he sentenced a man convicted of beating and robbing an Indian to 5 years imprisonment and 20 lashes, half the latter to be applied at the commencement of the sentence and the remainder, as a terrible reminder, on the first anniversary of the offence. Again the siren call of politics lured the ever sanguine McInnes to the hustings. He resigned from the bench as a senior county court judge on 10 September 1917 in order to contest Comox-Alberni in the Liberal interest. This was the highly charged federal election of 1917, fought on the conscription issue and Borden's appeal for national unity on non-party lines. McInnes was defeated by the Unionist candidate, H. S. Clements, and this appears to have been his final essay in politics.74 McInnes had campaigned on an anti-conscription platform on the basis that wealth, and not just men, should be conscripted. Conscription was not necessary, contended McInnes; Canada had raised 440,000 men already by voluntary enlistment, a formidable levy from a country of seven to eight million. He contended that the taking of the king's shilling by no means was a warrant that a man was not a slacker, a time-server, seeking a safe billet far from the firing line where he ran no more risk than a civilian. He argued that promotion in the army should be based strictly on merit, and not social connections, antecedents, or what was vulgarly known as "pull." The army, contended the candidate, was too snobbish and aristocratic in sentiment. He cited a recent incident in a local club when a group of officers on the premises protested the presence of some non-commissioned ranks who had ventured therein. On this issue McInnes revealed himself as a true egalitarian, and in this respect was perhaps ahead of his time. A country such as Canada or the United States, of course, with its fluid class lines, would never condone an officer caste such as was only too evident in Europe at the time. Nevertheless, a distinction was made between commissioned and non-commissioned ranks which was observed beyond the confines of camp or barrack square. But to McInnes, even in 1917, such distinctions were odious.
McInnes' later career is shrouded in obscurity at time of writing. He was in law practice as late as 1922 in Vancouver, but the place, time and circumstances of his death are unknown. He was an attractive, commanding and amiable creature with enough of the more generous failings and foibles to keep him human. With his resignation and departure from Dawson, the last vestiges of the good old days had gone. Dawson now wore very much the aspect of a settled Canadian community. Mining was its prime industry and the basis of its economy, but henceforth the town entered an unmistakable decline. By 1908 its population had shrunk to one-tenth the 20,000 to 25,000 of 1898. But for a time the territory continued with the outward appearance of the days of its youth.
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||
