October 14, 1920
What was happening a century ago this week from the front page of the Cowichan Leader.
October 14, 1920
There’s no mistaking the lead story in this issue of The Leader. Two full columns in the middle of the front page (continued on page 10) are headlined IN FAVOUR OF PROHIBITION.
At least it was a change of view, after weeks of articles mostly criticizing B.C.’s experiment with legislated temperance. As the referendum on continuing a revised form of Prohibition or replacing it with government controlled distribution of liquor rapidly approached more and more citizens wanted to have their say at public meetings.
Some 90 people had attended at the IOOF Hall to hear two prominent B.C. labour leaders “expound views favourable to [P]rohibition”. First, the audience was told that the pro-Prohibitionists were enjoying popular support “from all sections of the province,” especially among women’s organizations.
Then R.A.Thorpe, Duncan businessman and president of the local movement, introduced Tom Richardson, a former coal miner, labour leader and member of the British House of Commons. He accused the Liberty League, the most vociferous of opponents of Prohibition, of having little regard for facts, and he denied that the teetotal movement wanted to “control the domestic affairs, the will and the habits of the majority”.
Not so, he said; they were employing no coercion, “simply appealing to the people, to their reason, intelligence and logic”. After all, the Prohibition Act had been amended (i.e. ‘improved’) and would be more effectively enforced. The statues of law weren’t perfect, he admitted, but it would be illogical to forego lawmaking because of its imperfections. Yes, Prohibitionists had brought much of the opposition upon themselves. What was required was “more robustness and character and a stronger conscience” by citizens. (He’s referring to those who flaunted the current liquor laws with their hip flasks and ‘blind pig’ distillers.)
He then questioned what he obviously thought would be an unlikely alliance between the provincial government and private liquor interests should the province become the sole distributor. The government would, in fact, become a private monopoly—the vendors, salesmen, agents and dispensers for the liquor interests.
Voting against Prohibition was simply giving the government a blank cheque, he charged. With the “rotten” state of politics in B.C., could the government be trusted to manage exclusive liquor distribution?
In conclusion he said that liquor had been the bane of all civilizations and he urged everyone to vote Prohibition on October 20th and bring about the “dawn of a better day for the brotherhood of man and a better human relationship”.
W.R. Trotter of the Vancouver Labour Council refuted rumours that women had to pay $2 to vote then lambasted doctors who’d used the original Prohibition Act to enrich themselves by charging patients for prescriptions for liquor for “medicinal purposes”. The new, amended Act would end this prescription evil and he gave figures showing that prescription sales had already fallen dramatically over the past four months.
Crime was down and four provincial jails had been closed! One was being demolished and another converted to a high school! All thanks to Prohibition! As for the reported increase in the use of narcotics, he said there was no connection between drug and alcohol abuse.
And he pooh-poohed the idea that government regulation would put bootleggers out of business. Neither would the increased revenues from government controlled liquor distribution wipe out the public debt.
In short, Trotter believed it was up to the working class to stand for the public good by voting to continue Prohibition. He concluded with a rant about capitalists who saw booze as a means of “chloroform[ing]” the worker.
And on and on.
In other news, E.H. Grant was accidentally shot and killed at Cowichan Lake while hunting alone. The hired hand had set out from Henry March’s farm at dusk with a .44 carbine. When he didn’t return March became worried and went looking for him. A quarter of a mile from the house he found the rifle on the ground, pointing towards Sutton Creek. Beside it was an empty shell and there was another empty shell in the breech.
Grant’s body was found on a sandbar, 100 yards downstream. A bullet had passed through his heart and lungs and there were powder burns on his clothes. It was theorized that Grant had shot at a deer then jumped on a log to cross the creek but slipped, his gun discharged and his body fell in the water.
Forty-three, single and a veteran of the recent world war, Grant had been invalided from the Canadian Army after serving in England and France. He’d only returned to the Valley in June and he was interred in St. Peter’s, Quamichan cemetery.
More fortunate was Henry Evans of Koksilah who suffered only bruises when his threshing machine overturned on the Genoa Bay-Maple Bay Road
Victoria dramatists scored a “hugely successful rendition” of “Charley’s Aunt” at the Opera House, the YMCA began its gymnastic program for men and boys at the Agricultural Hall, and the Agricultural Society analyzed the pros and cos of their recent Fall Fair. Six people attended a tax sale conducted by the province; four properties netted a profit of $111 above outstanding taxes.
Two officials of the CNR were in town to hear a presentation by the Duncan Board of Trade for a branch line into Duncan.
The Complaints Committee of the Great War Veterans Assoc. reported that they had successfully resolved most of the cases that had come before them and the Cowichan Electoral District Health Centre reported that its two staff nurses had made 19 nursing visits and 10 instructional visits, examined 64 school children, 33 of whom needed medical or dental care, and hot chocolate at lunch was being served to 125 students at the Duncan Consolidated High School.
The nurses had driven 33 miles at a cost of $20.20.
Senior basketball players were stirring and Duncan High School students entertained their principal musically during scholastic award ceremonies.
Finally, The Leader reminded its readers that the Prohibition plebiscite was less than a week away.
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