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BY PETER McARTHUR

"NOW IS THE STATELY COLUMN BROKE, THE BEACON LIGHT IS QUENCHED IN SMOKE, THE TRUMPET'S SILVER VOICE IS STILL, THE WARDER SILENT ON THE HILL!"

J. M. DENT & SONS, LIMITED LONDON TORONTO PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my fellow-writers of the Canadian Press. The merits of the book are due to their efforts for I have helped myself lavishly to their best brains.

I have long been of the opinion that a genius is a man who knows a good thing when he steals it, and this is the first time I have had a chance to steal on an ambitious scale. I have stolen much, and if I had had more time, I would have stolen more.

PETER MCARTHUR. TORONTO, MARCH 19TH., 1919.

ERRATA. Page 119, line 17, word "conquer" should read "contend"

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

The length of Sir Wilfrid's public career alone challenges admiration and respect. He had been almost half a century in active politics; forty-six years a salient figure in Parliament; a leader of the Liberal party for thirty years; Prime Minister for fifteen years. He saw generations of men and generations of statesmen. He saw Confederation in its cradle and watched it grow to nationhood. Since he entered public life England has had three Monarchs, while the figures of Disraeli and Gladstone, of Salisbury and Campbell-Bannerman have passed across its national stage. He witnessed the rise of Cavour and saw the sword of Garibaldi flash, and he sympathized with their aspirations for an United Italy. He saw the German States confederated by Bismarck into blood and iron, saw France, his Motherland, crushed and bleeding at the feet of the Teuton conqueror, and lived to see the structure which Bismarck reared crumbled into utter dust. Since he entered public life, Russia has had two Emperors, emancipated its slaves, fought three great wars, overthrown the House of Czars and plunged into anarchy and ruin. France has been an Empire and a Republic, and countless rulers and statesmen have appeared and vanished from her national life. During that period the United States has developed into a great power, fought four wars, and the figures of Lincoln and Grant, of Blaine and Garfield, of McKinley and Roosevelt, have left their imprint and passed away. Meanwhile the British Empire has grown and expanded in size and strength and liberty, and Canada, from the feeble infancy into which the Fathers of Confederation tried to infuse the vitality of unity, has become the great Dominion of 1919. And during all those years, while rulers have come and gone, while statesmen have flourished and faded, while empires have sprung up or been destroyed, Sir Wilfrid remained a central figure on the international stage.

Wilfrid Laurier's mother, n?e Marcelle Martineau, was a relative of the mother of the French-Canadian poet Frechette, one of the most gifted sons of Lower Canada, and it may be that the same family strain which produced the poet, showed itself in another way in the unusual qualities of the French-Canadian statesman. Five years after Wilfrid Laurier was born his mother passed away. Some time after Carolus Laurier married Adelaine Ethier, and she brought up young Wilfrid. The second offspring of the first marriage, Malvina Laurier, died at an early age. Of the second marriage, three sons were born: Uheld, a physician, who died at Arthabaska in 1898; Charlemagne, merchant, and until his death in 1907, member for the county of Ottawa, and Henri, prothonotary of Arthabaska, who died in 1906. Carolus Laurier, the father, died in 1881.

Young Laurier commenced his studies in the parochial school of St. Lin, where he learned reading and writing and the rudiments of arithmetic. His father then decided to extend his son's horizon so as to permit of his seeing something of the life and learning the language of his English compatriots. About eight miles west of St. Lin, and on the bank of the river Achigan, is the village of New Glasgow. This settlement was established about 1820 by a number of Scotch Protestants who came to Canada with English regiments. Carolus Laurier had done surveying in this neighbourhood and was well acquainted with many of the families, and thus an arrangement to have his son resident among them for a period was easily brought about. Shortly after young Wilfrid Laurier was a figure in the intimate life of the Murrays, the Guthries, the Macleans, the Bennetts and other families of the settlement. For a time he boarded with an Irish Catholic family, named Kirk, and later he lived with the Murrays, giving, in return for lodging and food, his services as a clerk in the general store kept by the head of the household.

The school which young Laurier attended for two terms, 1852-53 and 1853-54, was brusquely closed during the first term because of the departure for other parts of the teacher, one Thompson. He was quickly replaced by a man of considerable rough talent, one, "Sandy" Maclean, who possessed a pronounced and good taste for literature, and who in many ways made an admirable teacher. His young French-Canadian pupil, learning English at play, at work, at home and at school, aroused in the good Scot a kindly concern, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier in later years never failed to attribute his knowledge of English literature to the man who first opened his eyes to the wealth of English letters.

These two years at New Glasgow proved of inestimable benefit to young Laurier. Not only did he secure a good foundation for further study of the English language, but he had inculcated in him a broadness of vision, an understanding of his English compatriots and a spirit of tolerance and good will, which ever afterwards proved a great asset. In September, 1854, at the age of thirteen years, Wilfrid Laurier was sent to college at L'Assomption. There he passed seven rigorous years of study. His health was delicate, and his physique did not permit of his taking part in the ordinary sports of his fellow-students. His favourite recreation was to visit the village court house when the judicial assizes were in progress and to listen there to the pleadings of the village lawyers. Sir Wilfrid often recalled of this period of his life that a contradictory meeting of two political opponents always afforded him the keenest enjoyment. In fact, in his anxiety to miss none of such delightful and auspicious events as court sessions and public meetings he often ran foul of the school authorities.

Wilfrid Laurier's mother died when the boy was but six years old. His earlier years were spent under the constant supervision of the village cur?. He knew no language but the French. St. Lin slept quite a distance from the centre of the earth--Montreal. It heard only echoes of the outer world. But like every other French-Canadian village, it had its church, its cur?, and its dream. It prayed for a French-Canadian Messiah.

They say that something in the boy's temperament raised a vague hope in the heart of the parish priest. The priest was one of the dreamers of St. Lin, one who helped keep alive the name of New France. It is said that one afternoon he invited the lad Laurier into the garden of the presbytery, and there tested as best he could the drift of his imagination, whether he loved the heroic, whether he would make a patriot or not. He let himself hope that the little imaginative son of the land-surveyor might be of use to his race by writing songs, perhaps, that they could chant on the day of their re-establishment, or perhaps--. He took the boy into his study, where the black crucifix hung upon the wall. From the bottom of an ancient chest of drawers, one that had come from Brittany, he drew forth an object carefully folded so as to conceal certain gaping holes and frayed edges. He lifted it and let the folds slip out, so that the colored cloth hung before the eyes of the boy.

"Do you know what that is, my son?" he demanded.

"It is the French flag, Father."

"It is our flag," corrected the priest.

On various occasions he took the boy to the study and told him stories connected with the flag. The visits became a sort of ceremony. Each day the boy learned a new fact about the piece of silk. It had been carried not far from Montcalm himself on the day that he rode out of Quebec to meet Wolfe and defeat upon the Plains of Abraham. It was marked by British bullets. There were stains on it, almost faded out, that had come from French veins. This, it is said, was the strange first training which Laurier received for the works which he afterwards accomplished.

It was amid such associations that the future Prime Minister of Canada first learned the English tongue--"with a bit of Scotch accent," as he once himself described it--and religious breadth and tolerance, two endowments which helped to give to the man of French descent and Roman Catholic faith the grace and facility of expression and the breadth of vision irresistibly appealing alike to both the great races in Canada, British and French, Protestant and Catholic.

The powerful influence of the years spent under the shadow of the little Presbyterian church of New Glasgow was demonstrated throughout his whole career, while his life-long affection--almost amounting to reverence--for Murray, the sturdy Scot who "fathered" him at this time, resembled the deep sentiment entertained by David Lloyd George for the worthy Welsh cobbler-uncle who did so much to make his career possible. Wilfrid Laurier never alluded to Malcolm Murray without evidences of the deepest appreciation and admiration.

That he also enjoyed with all the enthusiasm of boyhood, his stay in this Scottish settlement he has recalled on more than one occasion. "I remember," he once observed after he had become a national figure, "I remember how I fought with the Scotch boys and made school-boy love to the Scotch girls, with more success in the latter than in the former."

From his earliest boyhood, Laurier gave evidence of an independent character. While at college in L'Assomption, a debating society was formed, and there are men living to-day at the base of the Laurentides who remember the debating qualities of the man who was to shine later on as a Rupert in debate, in the home of the elder daughter of the mother of parliaments--the Canadian Commons Chamber. An instance of this comes to mind. A resolution had been submitted to the effect that the old kings in the interest of Canada should have permitted the Huguenots to settle here. Opposition was, of course, manifest in the debate, but young Laurier espoused the affirmative side in the discussion which waxed very warm, and his speech, which followed, was of so aggressive a character that the prefect of studies was scandalized, and at one fell swoop stopped the debate, and threw such societies into the discard.

Up to his last days Sir Wilfrid used to laugh over this incident, and he often remarked that it was a great pity the debate was stopped, as the entire international situation in Europe might have been affected by the result of that discussion, participated in by the boys of L'Assomption College. "Of course," every ready with a joke at his own expense, "very few of us knew what a Huguenot was, but that made no difference. We had started in to settle questions affecting the religious future of humanity, and should have been allowed to accomplish our mission."

St. Valentine could not reproduce an incident so romantic, nor the gods that preside over the efficacy of Mistletoe, narrate one of their well-known triumphs more picturesque, than that which Fra Cupid could delineate when first he interfered with the heart and pulse beat, as well as with the slumbers of young Laurier trying to rest himself at Arthabaskaville! In the words of Senator David, it appropriately happened as follows:--

During his clerkship at Montreal, he made the acquaintance of a beautiful and good natured young girl, who refused a very advantageous marriage in preference to Laurier. Having heard one day, to what a degree she still remained faithful and devoted to him, he made his way to Montreal, got married on the following day, returned immediately to Arthabaska, and came a few weeks later to get his wife. Their union was a beautiful instance of unity of aim and interest. Lady Laurier proved to be a helpmate in the fullest sense, and to her love and devotion to him throughout life Sir Wilfrid paid many a proud and touching tribute. Lady Laurier, though quiet and retiring, took part in many activities and held office as vice-president of the St. John's Ambulance Association; vice-president of the Local Council of Women; vice-president of the National Council of Women; honorary president of the Canadian Immigration Guild; and honorary president of the Women's Canadian Historical Society.

In his home Sir Wilfrid Laurier was an exponent of the simple life. As a young man he cared little or nothing for games, preferring to devote his spare time to his books, and as he grew older none of the various forms of amusement to which Canadians are accustomed to devote much of their time appealed strongly to his fancy. He did not even succumb to the fascination of golf, the favourite pastime of many men of brain, and to the last was a "home" man in the truest sense of the word.

Although for fifteen years the first citizen of Canada, his residence on Laurier Avenue, Ottawa, was by no means the most imposing private dwelling in the Capital. It was comfortable and commodious, but not pretentious. Naturally within its walls entertainment was furnished to many, but it was all done without ostentation. Therein Lady Laurier presided, with an amiable and kindly grace, and what undoubtedly struck the observant guests was the note of domestic felicity and a freedom from the exactions of officialdom.

In the quiet of his library at home Sir Wilfrid spent a great deal of his time, and often burned the midnight oil. In fact, it was seldom he retired before the day had run its course. Only on very rare occasions did he go out in a social way in the evening, and on even rare occasions was seen at the theatre. The mimic world of the stage had little attraction for him. Nevertheless, he was fond of music, and few are more talented in that line than his partner in life, but the aesthetic side of things possibly appealed to him in a greater degree. He was very fond of art and painting, and his home was beautifully decorated.

A sketch of Sir Wilfrid's home life and habits would be very incomplete without more than a passing reference to his beautiful and restful domicile at Arthabaskaville, Quebec, where he always went as soon as it was possible to get away from the Capital after the close of the sessions. There it was his almost invariable custom to spend his Christmas holidays. Many were the invitations he received to be the honoured guest at more pretentious residences at the seaside and in the mountains, but these were nearly always rejected in favor of Arthabaskaville. There it was possible to get real rest and respite from the cares of a busy world. He preferred to go home back to the quaint little French-Canadian village and its restful influence. His Arthabaskaville home is a beautiful place, and it was kept open nearly all the year round. There are lovely shade trees and a beautiful lawn, and, once there, Sir Wilfrid always put on the conventional summer attire and took it easy on the lawn or in the garden. He got all the leading Canadian newspapers, and in this way kept in touch with the outside world.

His arrival in the little home village always caused a good deal of excitement. All Quebec was proud of her distinguished son, but he was particularly adored in the village in which he spent so large a part of his life. His neighbours, knowing that he sought Arthabaskaville for the blessed privilege of a rest, did not intrude on him, but none of them ever missed an opportunity to exchange a greeting with the famous statesman.

Every Sunday spent at Arthabaskaville saw Sir Wilfrid at the little parish church where he would attend the mass and hear a sermon to the faithful by the cur?. After church the villagers would crowd around to clasp the hand of the distinguished Canadian statesman. No barrier of haughty reserve surrounded Sir Wilfrid. It was "Bon Jour, Baptiste" here, "Comment ?a va" there, and there was general handshaking. Nowhere more markedly than at his old Arthabaskaville home were the qualities which contributed to Sir Wilfrid's success brought out--the simple manner, the genial ways and the indefinable gr?ce which drew people to him, and won their admiration and devotion.

Sir Wilfrid once said that his sympathy and respect always went out to the working newspaper man, as he had in his early life followed the business, being editor of "Le Defricheur," of Arthabaska, succeeding Eric Dorion, well-known as L'Enfant Terrible, and as Laurier was a very advanced Liberal he made things quite lively in the editorial columns of that newspaper, so hot, in fact, that his bishop, who was no other than Mgr. Lafleche, at Three Rivers, forbade the reading of Laurier's newspaper, with the result that a very large percentage of the subscription list was withdrawn, and the future leader saw his first journalistic enterprise go out of business. It is not necessary to say that the articles so severely condemned by the Bishop of Three Rivers would not be considered very radical these days, but his Lordship was a staunch Tory, as well as a churchman, and, no doubt, thought that the sheet in question could be dispensed with easily enough. Later on, however, Sir Wilfrid was a successful contributor to "L'Electeur," the predecessor of "Le Soleil," of Quebec, his article on "the den of forty thieves" creating a sensation, and a libel suit at the time. That was during the Chapleau-Senecal-Densereau regime at Quebec, and party feeling ran very high, the cause c?l?bre having been tried in Montreal before the late Mr. Justice Ramsay, resulting in the defendants being acquitted. There was intense excitement in political and journalistic circles, when it became known that Laurier was the author of the article in question, and, in fact, the paper pleaded justification through its attorneys.

About fifty-five years ago the Undergraduates' Society, faculty of law of McGill, was holding a general meeting. The students attending this meeting had the opportunity of hearing their elder confreres of the class of 1864, bidding farewell to old McGill.

Curiously enough, the proposer of the address of farewell was a young man, who in the years to come had the good fortune to reach to the height of honour, which a country can confer upon her sons, and whose name was to be written in golden letters upon the register of the faculty. This name was Wilfrid Laurier.

In his address, this talented young lawyer said among other things, that: "I pledge my honour that I will give the whole of my life to the cause of conciliation, harmony and concord amongst the different elements of this country of ours."

The routine of his student days was wise, modest, studious and sober. He employed his leisure moments, that is to say, as many as he could snatch away from his office and university work, in reading, in studying literature and great speeches and the art of eloquence, in the political or literary clubs, just as at McGill, he was counted amongst the first rank and was the means of compelling others to recognize in him the first rays of an eloquence which, later on, was to shed so much lustre.

The steady and persistent preparation of Sir Wilfrid for that which was his heritage, was early noted by his admirers. He was stamped as an orator in his speech-making address to the throne, in 1871, when he spoke on the timely topic of "National Industry." It is interesting to have the testimony of one of his contemporaries who thus describes Sir Wilfrid at that time:

Tall, slender frame, pallid face, brownish hair, supple, approachable, steadfast and convincing look, slightly a dreamer, a sort of pleasantness about his facial expression, modest and yet distinguished, a certain demeanour of confidence or of melancholy which tended to call forth sympathy.

Before Laurier left Montreal to take up his residence in the Townships, he was a prominent member of the institution known as L'Institut Canadian, which in time came under the episcopal condemnation of the late Mgr. Ignace Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, and became very prominently before the public by the death of Guibord, a well-known Montreal printer, and the subsequent refusal of the head of the diocese to allow his internment in the family lot at C?t? des Neiges. This incident belongs to the religious history of Montreal, but Hon. L. O. David is authority for the statement that had Wilfrid Laurier died under the same circumstances as Guibord, his remains would have been also denied entry into the Catholic city of the dead, as he never retracted following the fulmination of the then Bishop of Montreal.

Since 1871, Sir Wilfrid has been actively before the public. That date marked his entrance into the Quebec Assembly on his election in the Riding of Drummond and Arthabaska. His first appearance in public life revealed the qualities that were to make him famous. The effect of his fluent, cultivated and charming discourse is described by Frechette, the poet, as magical, "On the following day," he writes, "the name of Laurier was on every lip, and all who then heard it will remember how those two syllables rang out true and clear, their tone that of a coin of gold, pure from all alloy, and bearing the impress of sterling worth."

Of his triumph in the House of Commons the same author writes:--

"His d?but before the House produced a sensation. Who could be this young politician, not yet thirty years of age, who thus, in a maiden speech, handled the deepest public questions, with such boldness and authority? Whence had this new orator come--so fluent, so cultivated, and charming--who awed even his adversaries into respect by language so polished, so elevated in tone, so strong and yet so moderate, even in the heat of discussion?

"On the following day, the name of Laurier was on every lip. From this initial point of his stirring career, the future Prime Minister proceeded by master-strokes. Thus, as the resounding triumph of his d?but in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec, had placed him in the highest rank among the most brilliant French orators of his province, that which marked his entrance into the House of Commons, in 1874, carried him at one bound to the distinction of being one of the chief English-speaking debaters of the Dominion. The occasion was a solemn one, and never to be forgotten by any who were present. The subject before the House was the expulsion of Louis Riel, the rebel of the Northwest; who, though under accusation for the murder of Thomas Scott, and a fugitive from justice, had just been elected member for Provencher. The question was a burning one, and the public mind was greatly inflamed over it. It required, in very truth, a master of eloquence to take the case in hand and thread his way without falling or stumbling among the masses and mazes of prejudice which rose up around the Metis chief. The debate, which was violent, and heated, had been going on for two days when at last Laurier took the floor.

"He was known to be eloquent. He had already addressed the House in his own tongue at the opening of the session.

"No one dreamed, however, that he would risk his reputation by attempting a speech in English under such hazardous circumstances. Great as was the general surprise, the revelation was greater. In the belief of many who heard him that day, no orator--unless indeed it be himself--has since achieved a like success in any of our deliberative assemblies. As in the elegance and academic language of which he is so thorough a master, the brilliant speaker entered calmly into the heart of his subject, a great silence spread itself through the chamber and the English members listened in amazement to this charmer who wielded their own language with such grace, and who dealt them such cold home-truths, in a tone they could not resist applauding. Astonished glances were exchanged on every side.

"Laurier kept his whole audience hanging upon his lips for over an hour. Not for a single moment did his eloquence fail him. He expounded the doctrines and elucidated the principles of legal and constitutional right with the ease of a parliamentary veteran and the precision of a practised dialectician. He grouped his facts so skilfully, adduced his proofs and authorities with such cumulative force, reared his arguments one upon the foundation of another with such quick inexorable logic, that his conclusions seemed to flash out of their own accord, unfolded but irresistible.

"Then occurred a singular mishap, which furnishes a striking example of the aberrations of the popular mind, as well as the often unaccountable vicissitudes of political life. The new Minister, although he had been returned at previous elections by a majority of over seven hundred votes over a distinguished member of the legal profession, found himself unable to secure his re-election, and was defeated by a worthy and inoffensive village tradesman, who distanced him by a majority of 21 votes. This was one of the repulses to the Mackenzie Government from which it never recovered. Laurier, indeed, returned to the Capital as the chosen representative of Quebec East, but it was in vain. The impulse had been given and the political seesaw had begun to sway. The young Minister's popularity in the province at large was powerless to check it in any way. Nevertheless the crushing defeat which was suffered by the Liberals did not in the least degree affect Laurier's personal influence, as may be inferred from the fact of his appointment a few years later to the position of leader of the party for the whole Dominion."

An interesting account has been given of the first interview that Sir Wilfrid ever gave out. This was on the morrow of his great victory in 1896, which gave him a long lease of power, and the opportunity to impress the country with the policies which he had advocated so long and fervently. When asked for an interview he replied:

"I am never interviewed, you know."

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