Rural Life: Portraits of the Prairie Town, 1946 0887556779, 9780887553639

Table of contents :
Cover
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
ELGIN: The British-Origin Community
ROSSBURN: A Community in Transition
CARMAN: The Larger Town
CONCLUSION
AFTERWORD: Stuart Garson, Harold Innis, and Adult Education in Manitoba
INDEX
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y

Citation preview

RURAL LIFE

Southwestern Manitoba

RURAL LIFE Portraits of the Prairie Town, 1946 P. James Giffen Edited and with an Afterword by Gerald Friesen

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA PRESS

© P. James Giffen, 2004 Afterword © Gerald Friesen, 2004 University of Manitoba Press Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2M5 Canada www.umanitoba.ca/uofmpress Printed in Canada All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the University of Manitoba Press, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from ACCESS COPYRIGHT (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 6 Adelaide Street East, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M5C 1H6. Cover design: Doowah Design Text design: Sharon Caseburg Cover photo: Carman, MB, c. 1945. Colour postcard. University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections. Frontis map: Weldon Hiebert; Maps pp. 12, 70, 124: Christopher Werner Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Giffen, P. J. Rural life : portraits of the prairie town, 1946 / P. James Giffen ; edited and with an afterword by Gerald Friesen. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88755-677-9 1. Manitoba—Rural conditions. 2. Rossburn (Man.) 3. Elgin (Man.) 4. Carman (Man.) I. Friesen, Gerald, 1943- II. Tide. FC3367.3.G53 2004

971.27'03

C2004-905426-0

The University of Manitoba Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for its publication program provided by the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP); the Canada Council for the Arts; the Manitoba Arts Council; and the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism.

Editor's Note: The original version of the manuscript is shelved in the Legislative Library of Manitoba. It is entitled "Adult Education in Relation to Rural Social Structure: A Comparative Study of Three Manitoba Communities" (1947). The following text is shorter by one-quarter and omits many of the original's references to the scholarly literature of the 1930s and 1940s as well as to the adult education context of that era. Family names have been changed to preserve a degree of anonymity.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION / 3 ELGIN 711 The British-Origin Community ROSSBURN / 69 A Community in Transition CARMAN 7123 The Larger Town CONCLUSION 7 185 AFTERWORD 7 201 Stuart Garson, Harold Innis, and Adult Education in Manitoba INDEX / 2 79

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RURAL LIFE

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INTRODUCTION

The Order-in-Council establishing the Manitoba Royal Commission on Adult Education in August 1945 specified, among other things, that the commission was to make "a survey of the adult education needs" of a cross-section of types of communities. The survey was to include at least four types of communities: wholly rural, rural with a larger town in it, urban, and suburban. The commission, in turn, asked a committee of three faculty members from the University of Manitoba to find an investigator and help in planning the study. At that time I was doing graduate work in sociology at the University of Toronto and when I was approached I jumped at the opportunity to do fieldwork, whatever the remuneration, weather (I was to start in January), or time constraints. I first spent three weeks in Winnipeg, meeting with members of the university committee, and talking with adult educators, officials of farm organizations, and others familiar with rural communities. A National Film Board operator on a rural circuit

RURAL LIFE

took me to film showings in several communities and regaled me with local lore. I recorded all interviews and relevant observations in a research diary that was maintained throughout the project. The advice of the university committee was invaluable in choosing the communities to be studied. It was decided that, in addition to the criteria set out by the government, the study should include a significant sampling of people from the province's major ethnic groups: British, Ukrainian, and FrenchCanadian. This report compares the findings in the three rural communities that were most intensively studied. The first is Elgin, a prosperous British-origin grain-farming community centred on the village of that name, sixty-seven kilometres south of Brandon. At that time it was inaccessible by automobile during much of the winter. Covered horse-drawn sleighs were used for local travel and a weekly train linked the community to the outside world. The second is Rossburn, selected because of its substantial and growing population of Ukrainian farmers. The central village is located about 137 kilometres northwest of Brandon and it too was snowbound by road for most of the winter. The third community is Carman, a relatively long-settled area centred on a town of approximately 1500 people, located only seventy-four kilometres from Winnipeg over roads that were kept open year-round. A fourth centre, St. Pierre Jolys, had been selected for study as an example of a predominantly French-Canadian community, but the fieldwork there had to be abandoned after three days of productive interviewing. On the Monday following these interviews the people we approached told us apologetically that at Sunday Mass the priest had forbidden them to talk to us. We were said to be agents of the Orange Lodge. This same priest, we were told, had successfully banned dances and movies when he took over the parish many years before, leaving the beer parlour to thrive on the lack of competition. Since the priest refused to meet to discuss the situation, it seemed best to move on. 4

Introduction

In planning the study with the university committee, we agreed that "adult education needs" as a focus for the community studies required restatement. "Needs" implies a moral judgement about what ought to be, something added to the observed facts. Recommending what ought to be done about adult education clearly was the province of the Royal Commission and not the researcher. The aim of the community studies would be to provide factual information that might be useful to the members of the Royal Commission in arriving at their recommendations. A sharper focus for the fieldwork emerged from discussions in Winnipeg with knowledgeable activists in the farm movements and with government officials involved in agricultural extension. The research, it seemed, might be most useful if it looked at the means through which the adults in these communities currently increase their skills and knowledge. It became obvious fairly early in the planning that existing activities formally identified as adult education were too sparse and specialized to account for much of adult learning. The low population density of rural areas, especially (and increasingly) in the grain-growing areas of the West, places significant limits on the community institutions and infrastructure that can be maintained. The per capita cost of supporting hospitals, roads, and other public services often affects both their quality and availability. The less common cultural facilities—libraries, part-time university courses, theatres, museums, orchestras, and so on—generally require a concentrated population with the means to support them. The same is true of the voluntary associations that bring together people with specialized cultural interests or hobbies, such as producing plays, performing music, or collecting stamps. In short, even where the motivation exists, there are practical limits to the enhancement of cultural literacy for residents of typical rural communities. An important resource that most western farming communities do possess, we learned, is a complex of formal organizations. 5

RURAL LIFE

These include bodies concerned with the governance of public institutions (municipal councils, school boards, hospital boards, and agricultural fairs), the establishment and management of cooperative businesses (Pool elevators and consumer cooperatives), and promoting the interests of such agricultural specialists as livestock producers or beekeepers. These have in common their focus on practical matters associated with the traditional male role. In the early interviews with farm leaders, it was striking how many had started their careers as activists in local organizations and then progressed to leadership in regional and provincial bodies. The required knowledge and skills seemed to have been gained more from practical experience in organizations than from any formal training. Women's groups also tend to reflect the traditional division of labour. This is to be seen in the emphasis on domestic crafts and child care in the programs of Women's Institutes, the support of missionary activities and bible studies by groups associated with churches, and the collaborative efforts during the (then) recent war to supply soldiers overseas with bandages, knitted clothing, and other comforts. Since formal organizations appear to be such an important part of rural social structure, it seems essential to examine their activities and membership in each of the communities to be studied. Local organizations may contribute to adult learning in several ways. A number of observers have noted that North America has never developed an equivalent of the Swedish or Danish folk schools, originally intended to provide residential learning facilities for independent farmers. However, local organizations in provinces like Manitoba can furnish sponsorship and meeting places for educational lectures and short courses conducted by professionals from provincial bodies. Their focus generally is on practical problems of farming and of running farm households. In the long winter months, these events are, of course, difficult to stage in snowbound communities such as two in this study. They 6

Introduction

are also generally unavailable in languages other than English or French. As indicated by the background of leaders in provincial farm organizations, active participation in local associations may lead to involvement in organizations with a wider constituency. Such skills as running meetings and public speaking may be acquired and honed through increasingly demanding roles. Local associations also provide exposure to the substantive knowledge related to the purposes of the organization. Members of school boards, for example, inevitably learn about school financing, just as those on boards of consumer cooperatives learn about business management. Since the structure of organizations is also a structure of learning opportunities, these bodies will need to be examined closely in each of the communities. There are related questions about the distribution within the community of participation in activist roles. Are the required motivation, skills, and social acceptability confined to a small minority, or are they more widely diffused? From what background and section of the community do these leaders tend to be drawn? This leads to questions about the relationship among the availability of local leadership, access to professional guidance, and the nature and scope of the community's voluntary associations. In the study of each community, I included a brief examination of the historical background, economic base, and relationship to neighbouring districts to help in understanding the current situation. Characteristics selected for more intensive study were in some degree dictated by the logic of the situation. A focus for the study of Elgin was unintentionally suggested by provincial leaders who were resistant to the community's inclusion because they thought it was atypical in its relative sparsity of organizations and the lack of responsiveness to outside agencies. However, it was decided that Elgin might shed light on obstacles to organization at the community level. In Rossburn the relations between British-origin and Ukrainian-origin inhabitants seemed 7

RURAL LIFE

likely to be of central importance. Carman seemed likely to be informative about the effects of relative size and of easy access to the facilities of Winnipeg, the capital city. CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH

My fieldwork began in January with a long train journey through the snow to Elgin, stopping at many small stations. My late wife collaborated with me during the fieldwork, taking responsibility for most of the interviews with women and attending meetings of women's organizations. We spent two weeks in Elgin, where we boarded with a local merchant and his wife, a great advantage in information-gathering over the other two communities, where we stayed in hotels. The general pattern of research we developed in Elgin was followed as far as possible in the other communities. Our interviewing concentrated on local leaders and on any other individuals who were identified as highly knowledgeable about community affairs, but we also took advantage of more casual contacts. We collected membership lists of organizations and minutes of meetings where they were available, as well as any published reports. We also attended social gatherings ranging from formal meetings to recreational events, although both were few in Elgin. At the end of the fieldwork in the three communities, we had accumulated a formidable amount of documentation. Before going to Rossburn we read books and articles about Ukrainian-Canadians and I interviewed several UkrainianCanadian leaders in Winnipeg. We spent only twelve days in Rossburn, mainly because the fieldwork was limited by the inaccessability of the snowbound northern hamlets. We visited some on foot but hikes of many miles through snow contributed more to our physical fitness than to our acquisition of information. We spent a period of a little over three weeks in Carman, where there was, in comparison, a great deal to be studied and 8

Introduction

access was much easier. Many of the interviews took place in town and we were also able to visit by road all the surrounding villages and hamlets that were defined locally as part of the Carman community. The resident agricultural representative was very helpful; he gave us a guided tour of the area with extended commentary and took us to several meetings. The university advisory committee withdrew after the fieldwork began. From then on, we kept Jack H. Sword, the invaluable secretary of the commission, fully informed of our progress. On the occasions when the commissioners met in Winnipeg, I reported to them directly. They took a lively interest in what we were finding out, including the news that would never reach print. This book is an edited version of the report on the rural community studies that was submitted to the Royal Commission. It was not included in the commission's published report for reasons that were explicitly stated: (1) The length and detail of these studies make publication impractical. (2) It would be impossible to disguise the description of these communities sufficiently to preserve their anonymity; hence publication would constitute an invasion of the privacy of the communities concerned and would inevitably offend certain persons. (RC Report, 91) Instead, I was asked to prepare a summary that would attempt to disguise the identities of communities and individuals. This truncated, and thus bowdlerized, version was included in the Royal Commission's final report. The original report on the community studies lay undisturbed among the Royal Commission's papers in the provincial archives for over half a century. It was discovered in the archives by Professor Gerald Friesen of the University of Manitoba, who thought it 9

RURAL LIFE

should be published as an account of what rural communities in Manitoba were like in the mid-1940s. Professor Friesen was largely responsible for what happened to the manuscript from then on. He edited it thoroughly, had the maps redrawn professionally, tried the manuscript out on people familiar with the communities, arranged for its publication, and undertook to write an afterword. I am grateful to him not only for making the book possible, but also for the infectious intellectual excitement he has brought to the project. P. James Giffen Toronto, March 2004

10

ELGIN

The British-Origin Community

Elgin c. 1907, looking west. PAM N5788.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The unincorporated village of Elgin is very little different in appearance from hundreds of other prairie hamlets. An oasis of unpretentious buildings, and dominated by three, towering, red grain elevators, it huddles on the prairie, which stretches to the horizon on four sides. The main street runs alongside the railway track and has buildings on only one side, facing the railway. The business section consists of two blocks of frame and brick buildings. Flanking the business section and scattered over the few streets that stretch out behind, laid out to accommodate many more dwellings than have materialized, are a number of houses, mostly humble frame structures with a sprinkling of old brick homes. Intermingled with the houses are three church buildings and the grey metallic expanse of a curling and skating rink. Beyond the houses, standing alone on the prairie, is the two-storey, whitish brick school building. This, then, is Elgin in 1946: a few stores 13

ELGIN

and garages, three grain elevators, a lumberyard, some hundred residences housing approximately 300 inhabitants, three churches, and a school. The district surrounding Elgin was first opened to settlement when the railway was completed to Brandon. Settlers spread by wagon through the fertile lands south of Brandon and in 1881 the first of them reached the area of Elgin. Until the turn of the century settlers continued to come from Ontario, England, Scotland, and the north of Ireland, thus determining the future of the community as a British-origin and Protestant settlement. These settlers were fortunate in choosing land that was fertile and easy to break. Though the district occasionally lacked sufficient rain, it was not subject to persistently short growing seasons, grasshoppers, or other major economic drawbacks. As a result several of these early families flourished and bought farms for their sons, and their names still predominate in the community. The rural municipality in which most of the Elgin community lies was organized in 1897. A year later the Canadian Northern built a line from Winnipeg to a point west of Brandon that offered the marketing facilities necessary for successful farming. A settlement quickly grew around the railway at the western end of the municipality. Within a year the first elevator and church were erected, and a year later the first curling rink. A picture of the village taken from atop one of the grain elevators in 1904 shows that the two blocks of business section had reached their zenith of development. Since that time the character of the businesses has changed in response to technological developments but the number of establishments has not increased, and oldtimers in the community believe that the volume of business has decreased. The number of residences has increased considerably since that date, as the farming community has aged and prospered and the older members of the farm families have retired to the village. A list of local business places and professional people contained 14

The British-Origin Community

in the Elgin Advocate of 1911 names a number of businesses that have since become defunct: a jewellery store, a hotel, a boarding house, a harness shop, and a newspaper and printing office. At that time in Elgin there were a police magistrate, a veterinarian, and a doctor. The first two professions are no longer represented, and the community has not had a doctor since the municipal doctor left a year ago. The passing of the horse is reflected in the loss of one of the two livery barns, and of one of the blacksmith shops. The three implement stores existing at that date have been replaced by four garages, which also sell implements, employ several people, and are among the most important businesses in the village. The Chinese restaurant, telephone office, and two trucking businesses have come into being since 1911. The decline of Elgin as a business centre can be traced to transportation developments. In 1912 another railway was built seven miles to the south, decreasing the area from which grain was brought to Elgin. The development and increased use of the motor car have greatly affected the patterns of rural life over a period of years. It has enabled local farmers to shop in the larger centres where greater variety is offered, hence the decline of the specialist concerns in Elgin such as the jewellery store and the men's clothing store. Since Elgin has no picture show or beer parlour, nor a variety of retail establishments, it is not a "Saturdaynight town" and, except for the few weeks in winter when the roads are blocked, local people go on Saturdays to Souris, about twelve miles to the north, or to one of the other towns in the district. This physical mobility was greatly increased in 1932 when a market road was built north from the village to Souris, connecting with Brandon. During the past winter the municipality secured snow-ploughing equipment and it is unlikely that in the future the village will be snowed in for weeks in the winter as it has been in the past. At these periods the only transport besides the colourful horse-drawn van has been the thrice-weekly railway 15

ELGIN

train, which takes a day to complete the journey to Winnipeg. In other seasons there is a daily bus service, which reaches Winnipeg in a few hours and allows the traveller to return the same day. Elgin can no longer support small, specialist, retail stores in competition with the larger town, but it continues to retail groceries, cheap dry goods, hardware, lumber, coal, gasoline, and automobile servicing to the local community. It also sells farm machinery and automobiles, standardized goods, beyond the community. Better transportation has meant that small places such as Elgin can no longer support a hotel unless it is run in conjunction with a beer parlour, so the Elgin hotel was not rebuilt after 1921. Nor will there likely be a hotel as long as the municipality votes "dry." The increase in the village population over the period has been due largely to an influx of retired people. An informal census of the hundred households in the village bears this out. Of the 108 persons who would be listed by the census as "heads of families," twenty-six are retired farmers, five are retired from other occupations, and nineteen are widows: that is, almost 50 per cent of those who would be so listed are retired people. If the active farmers and farm labourers living in the village are included, those actually engaged in non-farming occupations have become a majority. That at least ten of the retired farmers now have a son on the home farm and none have established more than one son on farms is an important factor in explaining the social stability and conservatism of the community. The predominance of old people in the village is indicated by the fact that at least nine of the local businessmen have reached or will soon reach the retirement age and of these, five have sons in the business who will succeed them. The period of decline and change in Elgin's role as a business centre has also seen a decline in organized social activity. Older people in the community are able to remember when the village had a thriving thirty-piece band led by the local hardware 16

The British-Origin Community

merchant, baseball teams, which were "less amateurish than the ones we have now," and a lacrosse team, which won the provincial championship. They also remember the days when there were active groups of young people holding parties and staging plays, and such activities as public debates organized by the schoolteachers and ministers. One reason for the decline in community recreational activity is the trend that has affected all the smaller centres: as the farmers have become more mobile, larger towns have extended the influence of their commercialized amusements and their organizations. The remark of one older man in the community epitomized this change: "We used to make more of our own entertainment before the motor car came along." The decline in the proportion and numbers of young people in the community was accentuated during the war years. As late as the "thirties," the depression period, when comparative poverty made people less mobile and young people found it more difficult to obtain jobs outside the community, there were large and active young people's associations connected with the three churches. Young people who were in these groups estimate that in the midthirties the Young Peoples' Union (YPU) of the United Church had from fifty to eighty members, the Anglican organization from thirty to fifty members, and the Baptist from twenty to forty. These clubs were the foci of young people's activities and put on socials and plays as well as holding religious study groups. Each association staged a large annual banquet at which they entertained the members of the other two groups. Since the advent of the war, there has been only one church young people's organization, a small group of high school students led by the United Church minister. The annual agricultural fair in Elgin, which was the climax of the events in the community calendar, has become defunct, in common with a number of other small fairs in the province. Local people pride themselves that this was "the best fair in 17

ELGIN

southwestern Manitoba, outside of Brandon." The area once had the reputation of being one of the best horse-racing areas in the province and was the source of several provincial and dominion champions. From its inception in 1911 the fair centred around the showing and judging of horses and livestock. As the tractor replaced the horse for farm purposes, and the urban market for show horses to draw brewery and department store wagons declined, much of the colour and interest (and revenue) left the fair. One local man remarked, "A farmer can look at an exhibit of grain for a few minutes and he's seen all there is to see but you could watch a good team that was well set out all day and not get tired of looking." Depression conditions dealt the final blow to the fair. In 1932 the municipal council was forced to cut off its annual grant and the fair succumbed. In 1939 the council renewed the practice with a smaller grant, and with the help of the Extension Service a fair was held that year, but with the coming of the war and its attendant shortage of hired help, absence of young people, and competing patriotic and charitable activities, it has not been possible to hold one since. Most local people feel that it will never again be revived. The same period has also seen a decline in the number and activities of Elgin's religious institutions. During the First World War there were five congregations in the village: Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, and the Holiness sect. All had resident ministers and, according to the older people interviewed, they all had large congregations and regular attendance. The Holiness sect flourished for only a few years, and church union (the United Church of Canada amalgamated Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches in 1925) reduced the number of churches to three. The Baptist church was smallest of the three remaining congregations and depended chiefly on the support of one of the older farm families. When the father of this family died in 1938, the church no longer supported a regular minister, and with the death of his wife two years ago it ceased to 18

The British-Origin Community

hire a student minister during the summer. The church building is still maintained and the wife of one of the sons of this same family continues to teach a small Sunday School class. The United and Anglican churches are the only two still functioning, and the latter was without a minister during part of the war years. The history of Elgin's school system is one of centralization. By 1908 the present two-storey, six-room, brick school building was completed, and in 1913 Elgin joined with three adjacent rural schools to form a consolidated school district. Later, another school came in to form the present consolidated school district. In 1924 the school was raised to the status of a two-storey high school. Since then there has been no significant change except that the number of pupils has steadily declined as the population has aged and the rural population density decreased. ECONOMY The early settlers on the prairie land around Elgin were fortunate enough to have picked a region with black-earth or brownblack soils of good agricultural value, less fortunate in that the region has a highly variable precipitation. The northern part of the community is on the Carroll clay loam type of black-earth soil, rated as an excellent soil, suited to grain and mixed farming although subject to erosion. The southern section of the community is in the Waskada clay loam type of brown-black transition soil, also excellent soil of high fertility but more subject to climatic drought than the Carroll type. Because it has a low average yield of grasses, it is chiefly suited to wheat production. In years of adequate rainfall the whole region has produced good yields of wheat but the rainfall is variable. Elgin lies north of the extreme drought area and local farmers like to say, "We've never had a complete crop failure here," but nevertheless they have experienced some very poor crops during the drought years. Elgin lies on the boundary of two crop-reporting districts. In 19

ELGIN

the following table, the average yield of wheat per acre for both districts for a period of nine years illustrates the variability in yield. Below these figures is the average price of wheat in Manitoba at the point of shipment. Table 1 Wheat Yield per Acre and Average Price per Bushel Year

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

1936

1937

Wheat Yield District A

20.2

11.9

13.7

1.7

12.0

3.5

1.1

9.5

4.3

12.4

Wheat Yield District B

21.7

10.9

19.9

6.5

17.3

11.8

9.6

8.1

7.0

16.1

1.06

.51

.41

.38

.52

.65

.61

.91

1.02

Price per Bushel

Source: Adapted from the annual editions of the Report on Crops, Livestock, etc., issued by the Department of Agriculture and Immigration, Winnipeg.

As a result of these variations, success at farming has been achieved only through prudent farm management. In order to exist during the lean years it has been necessary for the farmers to be extremely thrifty and conservative in expenditures during the fat years. That the Elgin farmers have successfully followed these practices is shown in the accumulation of personal bank balances and in extremely large investments in Victory Bonds. Even the combination in the thirties of drought and low prices had no catastrophic effects. A few farmers were forced to get help from the municipality in the form of loans of seed, which were later repaid, and a very few lost their farms, but most were able to weather the bad times with their own financial reserves. Another result of these economic factors has been the continuous possession of the land by certain families and inheritance within the family. Only the debt-free farm is flexible enough to thrive through a long period of varying returns. To buy a farm an outsider would usually have to mortgage it, and thus incur a burden of debt, which would not make success likely in the long 20

The British-Origin Community

run. This has not only discouraged outsiders from buying farms but it has also meant that the old families have been able to expand their holdings and buy farms for their sons at the expense of the improvident. Within the community it has meant the type of social stability that arises from continuity of personnel. Like other wheat farming areas, this is a district of large farms. The average farm size in the municipality in 1941 was 495 acres and 50.7 per cent of the farms were over 480 acres in size, considerably larger than in the other municipalities studied, and an increase over the average of 473 acres in 1931. Evidence indicates a steady increase in farm size over a long period. Within the Elgin community there are no farms under a half-section and several of a section and a half. Evidence of the expansion is seen in the haphazard shape of the individual holdings; different parts of one farmer's holdings may often be a mile or more apart. This municipality is also distinguished by the fact that 97.83 per cent of the land is in farm. Given the high and still increasing degree of mechanization, the increasing farm size, and the fact that Elgin and the other, smaller, villages in the municipality are not liable to expand, the municipality is supporting a decreasing number of people. The census figures show that the municipality reached a population peak of 2038 people in 1911; since then it has steadily declined to a low of 1536 in 1941, fewer people than it had in 1901. Elgin contains three grain elevators, a bank, a lumberyard, two general stores and a confectionery store, a meat market, four garages, which also sell implements and automobiles, a poolroom, two hardware stores, a blacksmith's, a livery stable, a railway station, and a small Chinese cafe. There is also a telephone office and the district supervisor and linesman for the telephone company. Most of the people in the village not employed in these concerns are either active farmers and farm labourers or retirees. There is telephone service throughout the community, but as yet electrification extends only to the village and to a few farms. 21

ELGIN

The nearest medical services and hospital are in Souris, twelve miles to the north, and the village has had no drugstore since the last pharmacist joined the army. THE ELGIN DISTRICT

Elgin's service area depends on competing towns and on transportation facilities. The bank draws people from the widest area, since the nearest banks to Elgin are twelve miles to the north (Souris), and twelve miles to the east in the smaller settlement, Minto, that is the municipal seat. It is likely that the sale of implements and automobiles would show a wide scattering, but this is a type of major purchase for which people are willing to shop around. The smallest area is that served by the grain elevators, since these facilities tend to be located at intervals of a few miles along the railroads. The most reliable boundary of the community for both economic and social purposes was found to be the area from which people came to Elgin to collect their mail. The post office at which one receives mail is a matter of personal choice and it may be concluded that individuals collect their mail at the centre to which they come most frequently for shopping and social activities. In the case of Elgin this area is just slightly smaller than the consolidated school district shown on the preceding map, which is roughly a rectangle of seventy-six sections with the village at its centre. A few of the farmers at the north end of the school district go to Souris for their mail. Any attempt to define rigid boundaries for areas of economic activity or social interaction is defeated by the increasing mobility of the western farmer. When the community decided to give certificates to all the men and women who had been on active service in the war, or to their next of kin, it was limited to those who were resident in the consolidated school district. However, this left out some young people who had participated in social 22

The British-Origin Community

activities in the community and were not included in the "welcome home" celebrations in other communities, so that in some cases it had to be extended. Generally the consolidated school district is considered to be the limits of the community, an indication of the contribution of these institutions to the solidarity of the community.

SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE COMMUNITY One is impressed by the knowledge shared by members of the community concerning each other's family history, personality, and daily lives, by the effectiveness of informal social controls, and by the small role of formal associations in the community. One contributing factor is Elgin's ethnic and religious homogeneity. The district was originally settled by Protestant AngloSaxons from Ontario and the British Isles. At present the only "foreigners" within the community are a Belgian farmer who has taken up a farm at the eastern limits of the community, and a Belgian in the village who operates a trucking business, who belongs to the Anglican church and has been accepted into the community. A third person, of whom it is said, "He's a German but you'd never know it," came to the village at the turn of the century when it was first springing up, established a poolroom and barbershop, and became fully integrated into the community as a leader in sports. Although brought up a Roman Catholic, he is now a member of the local Anglican church and his children have been raised in that faith. It is common for residents to express satisfaction with their homogeneity: "This is a good community, all good British stock. The foreigners haven't got in here the way they have to the south." The consolidated school has also played an important part in unifying the community. Since 1913 all the young people in the community have gone to the common school in the village, which means that all residents under forty-seven years of age

23

ELGIN

have gone to school with people their own age from all sections of the community. It also means that the older people in the community have participated on the school board or in its election since that date. One result has been to accentuate the high degree of intimate knowledge of other persons usually found in rural districts. Another result has been the virtual disappearance of any rural neighbourhoods that might formerly have grouped around local schools. The only remnants of rural neighbourhoods are the occasional, informally organized "socials" held during the winter among a group of related farm families living along the road south of town, and a neighbourhood centred around a small mission church in the northwest corner of the school district. This church is served in summer by the United Church minister from Elgin. It is common for Elgin residents to joke with outsiders about the prevalence of certain family names in the community. "Once you know the Soapers, the Corkerys, the Reillys and the Morgans, you know just about everybody in Elgin." Two stories were frequently told to the writer during his stay in Elgin to illustrate the number of members in these families. One was an account of a rural school, which, prior to consolidation, was known as "Corkery" school, because at one time virtually all the pupils bore that name. The other was the story of the father in one branch of the Soaper family who formed a baseball team composed entirely of his nine sons. Stories relating to the prevalence of these family names and the degree of intermarriage are an important part of the folklore shared by members of the community. The families referred to are all pioneer families whose members have continued to play an important part in community life. Although a large number of the young people in these families have left the community, enough have remained to expand their original farm holdings. At present, of the ninety-two farm households in the school district, nine are occupied by the Soaper family, seven by the Corkery family, four by the Reilly family, and 24

The British-Origin Community

four by the Morgan family. Of the hundred village households, eight are composed of members of these families. The figures show that the four families bulked together do not constitute a majority in the community and the folklore represents an exaggeration, but it is a recognition of the part that three generations of these families have played in the life of the community. There are also three other families of early settlers or their descendants, who occupy more than one farm apiece, and whose older members have retired to the village. Statistics on the degree of intermarriage in the community were not available, but enough genealogies were related to the writer to show that a considerable amount of intermarriage has taken place between the members of the different branches of those families who have stayed in the community. This web of kinship ties reinforces the primary group nature of the community. Elgin's population is aging. An objective index of this is the decline in the number of pupils in the consolidated school, a sharper decrease than the secular decline in the birth rate would explain. Between 1924 and 1945 the school enrolment decreased from 251 to 110, and the preponderance of older people has been increased by the fact that many of them have retired within the community while a large percentage of the young adults have been leaving to find economic opportunities elsewhere. Of the students who graduated from grades 11 or 12 in the local school from 1937 to 1945 inclusive, a minority are still in Elgin. Of the twenty-five boys listed in that period, only ten are in the community, and of the forty-eight girls, ten also remain. The following statement by one of the older men in the village indicates the lack of social activity that results from this condition: The trouble with us is that we are all a bunch of old fogies with one foot in the grave, waiting around to die. It takes young people to keep things going, you know. You should have been around here when we had lots of young people—those were the days. There was always 25

ELGIN

something doing—parties, get-togethers, sports and the like. The predominance of older people contributes to the district's conservatism and stability. The fact that several of the businessmen in the village are near retirement age, and the testimony of several local people that there are more preschool children in the area than there has been for a long time, points to an increase in the proportion of young people in the community. In addition, some of the young people from the armed forces are returning to Elgin. Of the forty-two in the armed forces in Elgin whose civil occupations have already been indicated to the local rehabilitation committee, seventeen have returned to Elgin. Three are on their fathers' farms, three in their fathers' businesses, five in other occupations, and six are waiting to take up land under the Veterans' Land administration. Seven are working outside the community, nine are taking further education under veterans' grants and few of these are likely to return to Elgin. Another nine were already working outside the community when they joined the forces. A few people in the village are more interested than the rest in things "cultural." Within that group are four young married couples who form a clique in informal activities, known among some people in the community who are outside it as the "upper crust." Although referred to as "young," these couples are over thirty years of age, and one couple has two children of university age. These people could be termed "more urbanized" than the majority of the community, more oriented to the interests, ethical norms, and standards of consumption for which the city provides the ideal type and the point of diffusion. One member of this group expressed it thus: "We stick to our own groups because we like to have the occasional cocktail and to play cards." They tend to be more critical of the community and articulate about the improvements that could be made. When the biweekly "community nights" are held in the village, socials where there are dancing and games, these 26

The British-Origin Community

couples are usually absent. The attitude of one member was expressed in the statements "Most of the people here have a pretty low idea of amusement. You ought to go to one of these community nights, you'll really get a laugh out of it." In the small community this group can remain exclusive only in certain informal relationships and recreation, since it is not large enough to support its own formal associations. Members of the group participate in community associations and provide leadership in varying degrees. The clique consists of: (a) the son of a local storekeeper, who has been a bank clerk and an insurance salesman elsewhere, and is in the process of taking over his father's business; (b) his wife, who is a university graduate and was principal of the local school until her recent marriage; (c) a prosperous farmer, son of an old family who lives in the village; (d) his wife, who was formerly a schoolteacher and is recognized as the outstanding leader among the women of the community (they own "the nicest house in Elgin"); (e) a farmer who lives in the village and rents out his farm (the local MLA but not recognized as a leader and described by others as "wishy-washy"); (f) his second wife, who is an ex-schoolteacher and a public health nurse; (g) the young bank manager who last year came to Elgin from a larger centre; and (h) his wife, who was also a schoolteacher prior to her marriage. The ninth and tenth members of the group were (i) the young municipal doctor and (j) his wife, who left the community just prior to the time of the study. No other cliques as distinct as this were found in the community, but there is a cleavage in the male world, which results from the rivalry of two local men for political office. George M. is a prosperous farmer and the second generation of one of the original families. His adversary is Bill D., a local businessman who is widely known because of his offices as auctioneer. The rivalry began when George M. defeated the auctioneer for an office on the school board in the twenties. In 1942, after being a municipal councillor for twelve years, he resigned to run against Bill D. for 27

ELGIN

the office of reeve, and was decisively defeated. In the following year it is said that George M. campaigned against his own cousin as councillor because the cousin was backed by Bill D. This feud is important to the community because it means that those two men cannot be brought together in the same associations, and at times of political crisis causes a division between the two camps. Because George M. is secretary of the Board of Trade and his closest adherents are not members, the situation is complicated by other minor antagonisms such as that between the owner of the local lumberyard and Bill D. Within the community intimate knowledge and gossip about the activities and personalities of these antagonistic persons are common property and play a large part in determining public opinion on any issue involving them. George M. is referred to as "a good-living man," but also as stingy and a "poor loser." Stories are told that illustrate the compulsion to be successful in any contest that is commonly believed to characterize his personality. He is said to pick the members of his curling rink in such a way as to have no weak players on it. The annual curling bonspiel was in progress at the time of the study and a strong undercurrent of adverse feeling was expressed every time his rink was successful. Bill D. was described as "generous" but "dictatorial" and "badtempered." He was censured, particularly by the older women in the community, for the "looseness" he was said to manifest in extramarital sex relations in his younger days and his alleged maltreatment of his first wife. The feud does not extend to the women's world, and the relationships between the wives of these men are amicable. The necessity for thrifty farm management in the semidrought wheat farming area wherein Elgin is located is reflected in group behaviour. The social tendencies produced by this tradition of prudence are reinforced by the continuing presence of the older people as well as the early nature of Elgin as a strictly Protestant settlement. The prevailing mores in the community 28

The British-Origin Community

resemble what Max Weber called "the Protestant ethic" in its ideal type.1 The four main aspects of this ethic as it is found in Elgin may be arbitrarily defined as: 1. A belief in individualistic success in one's vocation measured usually in pecuniary terms, as the desirable life objective for individuals. 2. A belief in thrift and accumulation as opposed to conspicuous consumption. 3. Approval of hard work and disapproval of idleness. 4. Strict sex mores and an emphasis on the disapproval of the Protestant sins of drinking and smoking. What distinguishes Elgin especially from an urban area is the emphasis on thrift, hard work, and comparatively strict moral control. In Elgin it is striking that people do not "live up to their income," particularly in regard to housing, dress, and household labour-saving devices. Retired farmers, known from the purchases of Victory Bonds to possess considerable capital, live and dress in the simple manner that they did as struggling farmers. It is not considered anomalous that women in the village, whose husbands could afford an electric pump and plumbing, should have to pump water by hand and carry it considerable distances. The people known as the Upper Ten display more evidence of conspicuous consumption but, in general, the expenditure on things defined as luxuries among the Elgin people is decidedly less than it would be among urban people with similar incomes. The emphasis on hard work in the community does not imply that persons are expected to be continually busy, but that they should work hard at their particular occupational roles at the times recognized for their performance. A local farmer described as a "good worker" might be found any winter afternoon playing cards in a downtown store. Similarly, a retired farmer is allowed to spend his time in idleness in consequence of having fulfilled 29

ELGIN

his role during his working lifetime. On the other hand, a local man who took only such odd jobs as he needed to make a living, because he preferred tending his garden to working, was the object of community censure. In a farming community certain types of work seem to be valued more highly than others. The following statement by an Elgin farmer shows the type of economic theory from which the valuation stems: There is only one place where wealth can come from and that is the earth. You have to farm it or mine it; there's no other way of making wealth. Everybody else in the country has to live on what you get from those two sources. That's why you have to stop all these people going to the city and get more people on farms. As farmers, they tend to place a high value on agricultural pursuits and deprecate the value of clerical and intellectual occupations, especially those that have no obvious "practical" significance. Women in the community are expected to come up to certain standards in the performance of their roles as housewives, and experience competition, including critical evaluation of each other's housekeeping skills. One woman in the community expressed it thus: "People here are thrifty but they are houseproud." Elgin housewives do not employ housemaids or regular servants, although many could afford to do so, and it is likely that a woman who did would be the subject of criticism. The Elgin settlers came as individuals or individual families and their survival in the arduous struggle of the pioneer period depended on their own efforts. In the subsequent period, successful weathering of years of low prices and low yields depended on the management of the individual farm economy, rather than on any form of social cooperation. The Elgin settlers were fortunate in that they were north of the drought region, and with careful farming and financing they were able to prosper over the long 30

The British-Origin Community

run. For those who have survived and prospered, the definitions of the situation implied in "individualism" as a pattern for economic activity have never proved inadequate and hence have never been revised. Although Elgin has cooperatives, such as a Pool elevator and a United Farmers group, which buys certain commodities cooperatively, these organizations have been adopted precisely because they have facilitated individualistic economic activities. Evidence of this is seen in the fact that these organizations do not perform auxiliary functions of an educational and recreational nature, which they frequently do in other communities, or show other evidences that the missionary implications of the "cooperative philosophy" have taken root. The following statement by the chairman of the local Victory Loan Committee is evidence both of the economic individualism and sophisticated economic behaviour of the farmers: During the campaign the headquarters people sent several different entertainers and speakers to boost the loan but we had to ask them not to. The patriotic ballyhoo did more harm than good. These farmers are patriotic enough but the only way to sell them bonds is as a straight business investment. Most of them are shrewd businessmen. They wouldn't be where they are today if they weren't, and they know a good investment when they see it. The per capita sale of $259 in the municipality for the ninth Victory Bond is believed by people in Elgin to be the highest in Manitoba. A bank manager commented on the large investment in bonds and securities in the district during normal times. Individualism in economic behaviour does not imply individualistic definitions in other aspects of life. There is a wide difference between this type of individualism and that found in an urban "bohemian" group. Social controls in this small community are strong enough to inhibit behaviour not in keeping with the prevailing ethic. There are also limitations placed on economic 31

ELGIN

individualism and thrift, which are potentially disruptive if carried to the point where they interfere with contributions of time and money to certain charitable and community enterprises. Members of one family in Elgin are frequently criticized because it is considered that they "worship the almighty dollar." Several anecdotes about members of this family were related to me in which they were considered to have put financial considerations above altruism. Knowledge of others' behaviour in any situation speedily becomes common property in Elgin. It would be almost impossible, for example, for a couple to have an affair without being found out and subject to sanctions. One young married businessman is reputed to be "carrying on" with the wife of a local man away in the army and as a consequence many of the older women refuse to enter the store where the woman works. The known deviations from the sex mores are few, and it is unlikely that there are many that are unknown. There is more variation in the mores surrounding drinking. Here too the stricter code predominates and conditions the behaviour of those who deviate. When members of the Upper Ten desire the occasional cocktail, they imbibe it in the privacy of their own group. The recent municipal vote on local option brought to the fore the differences in the community. In the period preceding the vote, the "drys" conducted an open campaign. The ministers spoke against beer parlours from the pulpits, three prominent citizens distributed a signed circular advising a negative vote, and outside speakers were imported. One older woman said: The minister from Hartney came here and gave us a talk. He said that their town was a scandal on Saturday night what with the drunken men and all. No decent woman will go out in the street on Saturday night there and all because of the beer parlour. Although a few of the "wets" declared their position openly, their campaign consisted chiefly of private and confidential 32

The British-Origin Community

lobbying. Their arguments in favour of a beer parlour (as expressed to the writer) were chiefly economic: a beer parlour would bring more people to town and it would necessitate the building of a hotel—it was understood that one of the breweries would do this— which the town badly needed. Although it was in their economic interest, several of the older businessmen were against it, while some of the farmers were in favour of it. Because of the secrecy of their campaign, the exact personnel of the "wet" party was not known to the rest of the community, and individuals who revealed to the writer that they had been in favour of the beer parlour did so with the caution: "I wouldn't want this to be generally known." The Elgin community rejected the beer parlour by a large majority and thus decided the issue for the rest of the municipality where the vote was evenly divided. The community has steadily produced a majority for the local Conservative candidate. The only two known advocates of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in the community are the United Church minister and the Pool elevator operator. The former is a representative of the intelligentsia outside the community. The latter has his own version of CCF philosophy: "The trouble is that too damn many people are turning to government. Everybody wants the government to help them. If this keeps on taxes'll get so high that people will rise up in revolution, mark my words." ASSOCIATIONS In all village-centred rural communities there are certain minimal functions necessary for the running of the community, which are performed by formal associations. The name and explicit aims of the organizations doing these jobs differ, and one organization may perform several functions, but the basic requirements seem to be common to British-origin farming communities. They may be divided as follows: 33

ELGIN

1. Local government and the maintenance of educational institutions. 2. Leadership in community innovations regarded as improvements and representations to outside bodies in favour of the community, usually the function of the Board of Trade. 3. Support of religious institutions and maintenance of the moral sentiments surrounding them, performed chiefly by the women's auxiliary church associations. 4. Recreation, provided as an auxiliary function by many associations with other explicit functions, and by special associations formed for the purpose. 5. Government of cooperative economic enterprises and agricultural fairs where these exist. 6. Mobilization of the community for particular crises such as that of war. The Elgin community is known to workers in the various rural agencies whose headquarters are located in Winnipeg as "underorganized" in contrast to most other rural communities. It has few associations other than those necessary to perform the minimal functions. Nor is it regarded as exemplary by the agencies interested in widening the influence of the cooperative philosophy since it has not formed educational groups, established new cooperatives, or in other ways taken advantage of the professional leadership offered by them. The Board of Trade was formed in 1941 by a small group of local men. In a major urban centre the Board of Trade is composed of representatives of the larger economic structures and serves to integrate these with the community. In Elgin, and in other small rural centres, there are no large economic enterprises and too few businessmen to support, by themselves, a Board of Trade; hence, membership is open to any adult male in the community. Of the nineteen members, six are active farmers, four are retired farmers, and the remainder have various occupations in the village.

34

The British-Origin Community

Since boards of trade have no formal power, they are usually effective in giving leadership because their members are prominent in the economic and political organizations of the community and represent a potent section of public opinion. In Elgin the Board of Trade does not have among its members all the males with high status in the community. Since George M. is secretary of this body, his adversary Bill D. is not a member. Nor is another prominent merchant or several prominent farmers and retired farmers. Individuals in the community outside the Board of Trade remarked: "Yes, we have a Board of Trade, but it isn't up to much," or "It's dying on its feet." Nevertheless, the Board of Trade has succeeded in providing leadership in a number of projects. The Board of Trade members credit themselves with having obtained information and organized meetings that led to hiring the municipal doctor who recently left, and with having induced the Minister of Health to visit Elgin to explain the hospital plan. They also provided leadership in wartime activities such as salvage collection, Red Cross drives, and a drive for Russian relief. They petitioned the municipal government to have Elgin made a local improvement area, arranged for the lighting of the main street, distributed rat poison, and sponsored a community picnic. It is indicative of the interests of the community that "Also in June [1941] the Board of Trade went into the picture-show business which was not too successful due to lack of interest throughout the district," whereas at a public meeting on the income tax form, to which they invited the income tax inspector, over sixty people were present.2 The conclusion of the annual report by the secretary indicates other projects that are planned: "We have a few enterprises under discussion such as, How to get a resident doctor, a Creamery, Egg Pool, Road signs, also to arouse interest in Public Speaking, Sanitation, Tree Planting and the work of the Board of Trade." Since I visited the community the Board of Trade has organized a Young Members Board of Trade composed of boys of high

35

ELGIN

school age to fill the need, which was frequently expressed, for a young people's association. They have also recently formed a sports club under the direction of two young businessmen, to organize athletic activities for the young people in the community. The Elgin Pool elevator is not regarded by the headquarters executive as an ideal group. The local organization carries on only its routine economic functions. The executive does no educational work, nor is it active in trying to establish other cooperatives. Because of the proximity of other railroad points, it draws its membership from an area smaller than the limits of the community. This elevator was first established in 1927. Not only has the original secretary continued in office since that date but there has been only a small turnover in the directors since then. Average attendance at the annual meetings from 1927 to 1945 has been twelve members. The directors assemble a few times a year to admit new members, if there are any, and to perform their other routine functions. Two years ago this elevator had a travelling library but it was not maintained because it was little used. Its failure was attributed to lack of interest and, by one informant, to the type of books: "The books were too heavy. They were more CCF and Cooperative, not fit reading for a Liberal or a Conservative." The United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM) also performs purely economic functions. It was formed prior to the First World War and exists for the purpose of buying staple commodities, chiefly coal and fish, in carload lots and selling them to its members at cost. A local businessman is paid, as secretary, a small fee for handling the commodities and keeping the books. The only meeting is an annual affair at which an executive is elected. The executive has few decisions to make since most of the business is handled by the secretary. Anyone in the community may join; twenty-five cents is added to the price of the first purchase to make an individual a member. In the memory of the people in the community, the UFM group 36

The British-Origin Community

has never been anything but a cooperative buying association and has never sponsored any recreational, educational, or political activities. It is noteworthy that, when the first Bracken (UFM) government was elected, the Elgin district returned a Conservative. That the name lacks significance is seen in the fact that it has been retained in Elgin although the provincial UFM organization has gone out of existence and other UFM organizations that continue have now become locals of the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Co-operation (MFAC). Until a few years ago there was a branch of the United Farm Women (UFW) in Elgin. It performed the function that the Red Cross has done during the war, that of providing an organization for all the women of the community, irrespective of church affiliation or lodge membership. Although a farm organization in name, it included the women of the village. Through the UFW, Extension Service courses in "Clothing" and "Homecrafts" were brought to Elgin eleven and twelve years ago, respectively. When the women of the community decided that a restroom in the village was desirable for shoppers from the farm, the UFW made itself responsible for establishing it and paying for its upkeep. The UFW also brought in occasional speakers. The older women remember it as a thriving organization, uniting all the women of the district, and express the desire to see another association formed that will perform the same functions. The UFW derived a large part of its revenue from serving lunches at the annual fair, and the loss of this source of revenue is one of the reasons given for its becoming defunct. During the last few years of its life the UFW, like the UFM, was an orphan organization because the provincial body had been re-formed into the MFAC and a number of the women desired to change the society into a Women's Institute and thus have a link with similar organizations in other communities. The controversy within the group between village women who wished to change it to a Women's Institute and farm women who wanted it to continue as a farm 37

ELGIN

organization is another reason given for its demise. Some women who were members believe it died a natural death as a result of lack of interest. One farm woman expressed it thus: "Oh, it just petered out. You can belong to too many things, you know. Church work comes first, then Lodge. They have more fun at Lodge. I don't know why they stopped going, but at the last not many turned out." The job of maintaining the village restroom has been taken over by the village board and there is no longer any necessity for providing lunches at the annual fair. The Red Cross was formed to bring the women together for the specific tasks connected with the war and disbanded thereafter. When the annual fair ceased the Elgin Agricultural Society lost its principal reason for existence. The organization continues as a legal entity, owner of the fairgrounds, although legally the 1939 executive has no power because no election has been held since that date. The routine work of maintaining the fairgrounds and answering correspondence has devolved upon the secretarytreasurer. When asked about the future of the organization, he replied: "Don't ask me what we're going to do. You can't get these directors to do anything." A large part of the leadership in the Agricultural Society was formerly provided by the local veterinarian, who has left the district. The Agricultural Society has been a channel through which bulletins from the Extension Service have reached the community. The secretary still receives bulletins and, "I pass them on to the members if they seem worthwhile." Formerly the Agricultural Society had speakers on agricultural subjects at fair time, and annually sent two delegates to the district convention of agricultural societies. Religion causes no cleavage in Elgin, although it does subdivide the women's associations. The congregations of the two churches, United and Anglican, come together for such important religious ceremonies as Good Friday. During the period when the Anglicans were without a minister, many attended the United church, as do several members of the defunct Baptist 38

The British-Origin Community

church. Younger people expressed the opinion that it was pointless to maintain two small churches when they could have one strong one. At the period when the writer was in the community the roads were blocked and most of the thirty-five people who attended the United church service and the twenty at the Anglican service were from the village. However, at this same period thirty horse-drawn vans came to town to attend the biweekly Community Night. The only men's associations connected with the churches are those concerned with congregational government: the Anglican Vestry, which includes three women, and the United Church Board of Stewards. They perform only their minimal functions. The women's associations, on the other hand, are important in organizing the leisure-time activity of the women. The divisions thus caused are vertical, according to church affiliation, and horizontal, according to age-grades. The United church has the Women's Missionary Society (WMS) for older women and the Guild for younger women. Their counterparts in the Anglican church are the Women's Auxiliary (WA) and the St. John's Club. The older women in the community, whose primary interest is in church work, are in the WMS and WA. In the WMS there are twenty-one members, twenty of whom live in the village, which is not remarkable as they are all past the age at which most of the farm couples retire. The membership of the WA is smaller but the women are again predominantly from the village. The women in these associations are considered to be more serious and hardworking and less reluctant to assume office than the younger women. They are the women whose families are grown, who find themselves with unaccustomed leisure time. These associations hold monthly meetings the year round, which are divided into three phases: devotional, business, and social, with the emphasis on the devotional. The educational program carried on by the WMS group, as in all such groups across Canada, consists of a study of the missionary work in Africa using books and tracts 39

ELGIN

obtained from church headquarters as the basis for discussion. Money raised by this group through fees and collections is contributed to the central missionary fund. The United Church Guild, with its thirty-nine members, is the largest church association in Elgin. Their membership, mostly younger married women, is almost evenly divided between the village and the country. A few of the members are Anglican since the equivalent Anglican association is but newly organized. In the winter the monthly meetings are held in the homes in the village, and in the summer in farm homes. The meetings are important to its members as a "social occasion," a chance to meet friends, chat, and exchange the latest gossip over a cup of tea. Several people mentioned that were it not for the lunch being served, attendance would drop off. As in the WMS meeting, the time is divided into three periods: devotional, business, and social. Part of the devotional period is spent reading aloud two or three items from religious periodicals. Inspired by two of the Upper Ten women, an attempt was made this year to read aloud a semi-religious novel, The Robe by Lloyd Douglas, but it was abandoned after a few chapters. The reasons given were that it did not make good reading aloud, long explanations had to be given to those who missed a chapter, and, in the words of one women, "There were such big words that I didn't know what he was trying to say." The Guild raises funds for financial aid to the local church by means of bazaars, service dinners to the Board of Trade (taking turns at this with the St. John's Club), selling refreshments at the curling rink, and collecting fees from members. The St. John's Club of the Anglican church was recently organized and will likely follow somewhat the same pattern. The farm and village are equally represented in its membership of twelve. The Young Peoples' Union of the United church, the only remnant of the three active young people's associations that 40

The British-Origin Community

thrived prior to the war, is composed of approximately twenty young people of high school age. The majority belong to the United church, but three are Anglicans and three are Baptists. The meetings led by the United Church minister are given over mainly to devotional exercises. With the memory of what "Young Peoples'" had once been still fresh in their minds, several people criticized the United Church minister for lack of effort in organizing the young people. There are four secret societies in Elgin: a Masonic Lodge, an Orange Lodge, a Rebekah Lodge, and a Ladies Orange Lodge. The Masonic Lodge is reported by one of its officers to have approximately sixty members, some of whom come from adjacent communities to the south and east. The Orange Lodge, started by a man who was the first settler in the community, and strong at one time, is reported to have dwindled to a handful of men who meet irregularly. The Rebekah Lodge has sixty-four members, a few of whom also come from surrounding communities. The lodge is not the women's auxiliary of the Masons because "You have to be a relative of a Mason to be an Eastern Star, so we keep it Rebekah." When pressed for their reasons for membership in a lodge, several women said, "because we have a good time," and "they are pleasant socials." Presumably less emphasis is placed on work and money-making than in other women's associations. The Ladies Orange Lodge, like its male equivalent, is smaller and inactive, a victim of the decline in intolerance. The Community Club is a loosely knit organization that exists solely for the purpose of sponsoring the "community night" held every second Friday during the winter in the local hall. That a separate association should have been formed for this purpose is evidence of the lack of a central association representing all the elements in the community, especially the young people. Because of Elgin's homogeneity this need can be met through informal collaboration with a minimum of leadership. The Community Club has an elected executive but no formal constitution, 41

ELGIN

although certain customary procedures have arisen to ensure continuity. The president is a genial young garage owner who is not prominent in any other community association and is not rated by others as a "leader." The following abridged account from my diary gives a picture of the Community Club in action on one of these occasions: The evening began with a mixed crowd of about forty people playing "500." They were chiefly older people, with a sprinkling of high school children. There were obviously only two strangers present and they excited subdued comment. After ten o'clock a crowd of younger people began to gather at the other end of the hall, until by 11:15 when the card play ended the hall was crowded. During the serving of refreshments five young men, war veterans recently returned to the community, were obviously drunk and excited much whispered comment, especially when two were seen tipping up bottles in the dark gallery. After the refreshments a few men smoked but only one woman, an English war-bride, did so. At this juncture the president, in an embarrassed and barely audible voice, called the gathering to order. The secretary read an account of the financial balance at the last meeting and announced the names of the four couples chosen by their predecessors to arrange for the next community night. There was no discussion or comment and the dance for which the young people had been waiting commenced. Music was provided by three local young people who played the violin, guitar, and piano. Ballroom dancing and square dancing, for which a young farmer did the calling, were alternated. Soon the energetic exercise in close quarters caused most of the men to remove their coats. By this time the crowd was extremely mixed. A few small children, who could not be left at home, played among the older people sitting on the sidelines. Most of the high school students were present, and young people who had come from surrounding communities were identified for us. "Old 42

The British-Origin Community

Dizzy," the postmaster, danced gaily with high school girls onequarter his age. The crowd mingled freely and there was no separation into cliques. Young people and the younger married farm couples dominated in the gathering. Certain people were conspicuously absent: the two clergymen, the school principal, members of the Upper Ten, and most of the older married people of the community. On the way home we encountered thirty vans standing outside the livery stable, more than we saw in town on any other occasion. The Curling Club in Elgin is open to anybody in the community. It is a game that requires little athletic skill or stamina for participation, and hence is played by people of all ages. In Elgin the curling rink is the focus of social activity in the winter for people of all types, and participation seems to be limited only by extreme old age or distance from the village. The extent to which the country people take part in the curling is shown in the fact that eight of the nine members of the executive of the club are farmers. On a winter afternoon local farmers who have come to town, or village men not engaged in business who are not loafing in one of the garages, the poolroom, or the livery stable, will be found at the curling rink. During the annual men's bonspiel, matches run all day long and the outcome is watched and discussed with considerable interest by the whole community. There is also a mixed bonspiel and a special bonspiel for high school students. The skating rink in the same building is used by the young people for hockey and for skating several evenings a week. The only junior club in existence at present in Elgin is the 4-H Seed Club. A 4-H Calf Club, which flourished for a while, had lapsed at the time of the study for reasons attributed to the decreased interest in livestock. The 4-H Seed Club was organized in 1928-29 by the man who was the Pool elevator operator at that time. Last year the club had twelve members, four of whom lived just outside the Elgin community and had postal addresses in neighbouring places. 43

ELGIN

The activities of the club during its last completed year, 1911 15, seem to be characteristic of clubs of this type and to follow the pattern suggested by the Extension Service. Throughout the winter they held one, and occasionally two, meetings each month at the homes of the various members. They also sponsored a twoday short course given by Extension Service men, at which the lack of attendance was attributed to the fact that it coincided with the annual bonspiel. In the farming season each member grew a demonstration plot of wheat. These were toured in August and judged and criticized by the agricultural representative and a professor from the Agricultural College. A seed fair for the seven clubs in the district, consisting of displays of grain, was held in Elgin in August. Since there is no other agricultural organization in the community, it was the 4-H Seed Club that served as the sponsoring body when the Extension Service wished to give an implement demonstration. The interest of the highly mechanized farming community in this type of "practical" agricultural education is shown by the fact that seventy-five to one hundred farmers attended. The study program of the club consisted of reading aloud and discussing pamphlets on erosion, tillage, wheat smut and so on, obtained from the line elevators and the United States Department of Agriculture. The club also played some of the other functions of a youth organization. It held a banquet, a dance, and a hockey game, as well as engaging in such community enterprises as the blood donor clinic. This club has undoubtedly made a contribution in the introduction of better seed grain in the community and in making the young people who are members better farmers than they might otherwise have been. The contribution of the club in training young men to be future leaders in the community is difficult to assess because, as one agricultural representative elsewhere put it: "The Junior Clubs haven't been going long enough to show results in producing adult leaders. There is a sort of mid-period 44

The British-Origin Community

when you can't count on young farmers taking much part in community affairs because they are busy raising a family and getting established."3 Several young men who are described as having been most active in the Seed Club in the past year have left the community. One, who graduated from the agricultural college, has taken up land in a better farming area and is reported to be a leader in his community. Two others have gone on to university and become professional agriculturists. The initiative in starting the local Book Club came three years ago from one of the women in the Upper Ten, a former schoolteacher and public health nurse. The fifteen members each pay the price of a book and fifteen volumes, chiefly current fiction, are selected and sent out by a book service in Winnipeg. The books are circulated among the members and at the end of the year lots are drawn to determine which book each member will own permanently. The list of those composing the group is indicative of the people interested in "cultural" activities. The four Upper Ten couples form the nucleus of the group, and the other members are largely those with higher than average education or experience beyond the community. The two ministers belong and two of the younger married women of the village, one formerly a schoolteacher, the other a saleswoman from the city recently married into Elgin. Two of the older men from the village are members, one of them a businessman active in politics and secretary of the school board, the other the station master, an Englishman of wide interests who has been a leader in wartime activities. One member is from a neighbouring community, pointing up the fact that it was necessary to go beyond Elgin to get enough members. None of the schoolteachers belong. A Citizens' Forum study group was formed four years ago under the direction of the university adult education department, but it failed to reorganize during the past winter. The provincial director paid a visit to Elgin and was instrumental in causing a 45

ELGIN

group to be organized under the leadership of the former Anglican minister. When the Anglican clergyman left the community, the United Church minister undertook the job of directing it. For the first two years the response was large enough to form two groups in which the members prepared papers using the study material issued by the adult education office. Later it became a Citizens' Forum group. Membership was recruited from among the same type of people as the Book Club discussed above. For the first two years some of the schoolteachers attended but then dropped out. The group became smaller as two former schoolteachers ceased going because their husbands were uninterested or antagonistic and one family moved away. The decline and eventual death of the group was attributed to various causes. The United Church minister, an avowed socialist, said: It just didn't take hold. They are a little bit afraid of what I sponsor because I'm considered a bit of a Red. There was a large group at first but it dwindled, and this year when I was too busy to get it started nobody else started it. The schoolteachers soon dropped out because they thought the discussions didn't affect them. And then, if either a husband or wife lost interest the couple eventually stopped coming. I was disappointed with the results of the group. There was no swing to the left in their thinking.

46

The former secretary of the forum, an Upper Ten woman who had been a school principal, said that they had wanted the group and were disappointed that the Rev. R. had not started it again. However, none of the members took the initiative in re-forming it. In the words of one non-participant: "People didn't go because they made you feel you had to be a university graduate to get in with them," and another said: "Rev. R. made it quite clear several times that it was for the smart ones and that others wouldn't understand. Besides, he said we would have to do a lot of studying and that scared off some people and the idea of making speeches

The British-Origin Community

scared off the rest." Members of the group contend that any efforts to widen the membership were unsuccessful because of lack of interest on the part of others in the community. The war period brought considerable change to Elgin through the absence of young people from the community. It caused an increase in the work of the farm population in the growing season due to the shortage of labour, and it also caused a large amount of the leisure time of the people, especially the women, to be directed towards the activities attendant upon the war crisis. These activities were like those found elsewhere in communities of this type. 1. Expressions of appreciation by the community to the young men and women in the armed forces. This was part of the larger system of honours and privileges accorded the soldiers by our society, which help to encourage their acceptance of the deprivations of military life. In Elgin this consisted of sending boxes to boys from the community who were overseas, as well as having ceremonies to welcome them home. 2. Participation in the war effort of the larger society. This includes sewing for the Red Cross, collecting funds for war charities, and the purchase of Victory Bonds. On the basis of Elgin's ethnic and religious composition, it is to be expected that the "patriotic" definition of the wartime situation would win a high degree of acceptance, and this would seem to be the case as indicated by the investments and contributions. Leadership in the wartime drives for contributions came from the Board of Trade. One executive said, "People here are willing enough to give as long as six or seven people tell them what to do." Throughout the wartime organizations, the division of labour between the sexes, seen in Elgin's other associations, was found. The men were given the responsibility for government and economic decisions, "practical" affairs, and the women were responsible for the tasks that called for the mobilization of household 47

ELGIN

skills. The Red Cross Society was headed by the secretary of the Board of Trade and, although it had women on its executive, the men were responsible for raising money. The women's section of the organization looked after sewing, quilting, and sending boxes. A weekly sewing day was held in the basement of one of the churches. It included most of the women in the village and a number of the farm women, depending on the condition of the roads. The older women turned up most regularly and were referred to as "the workers." Leadership in other wartime associations illustrates the role of specialized leadership in particular crises. The English station master, who plays little part in Elgin's peacetime associations, is a veteran of the First World War, and is a capable public speaker, emerged as a leader. He was head of the War Loan Committee for the municipality, and a member of the three-man Rehabilitation Committee. The work of the latter devolved upon him and he eventually became the official liaison between the local veterans and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Board of Trade appointed nine men as the Elgin and District Reception Association, but, as that association is not representative of the whole community, they insisted on having their appointment ratified by a public meeting. Their job was to arrange receptions and framed certificates for the returning men. Although the station master was not one of those appointed, he and the secretary of the body finally collected the money and arranged for the receptions and certificates themselves because of lack of action on the part of the other men.

FORMAL EDUCATION

School consolidation has frequently been advocated as a method of raising the level of teaching and it has been shown that children in graded schools stay in school longer than those in oneroom rural schools.4 Whereas many schools are forced to accept 48

The British-Origin Community

"permit" teachers, Elgin has four qualified women teachers and a principal with a university degree. The average grade at which students left the Elgin school in the last ten years, calculated from the school registers, was 9.75. The fact that young people can continue to grade 12 while still living at home is an important consideration in explaining this relatively older age at leaving school. The school teaches nothing but the formal curriculum. There is no instruction in art, manual training, or domestic science. Nor has it any extracurricular students' associations, one reason being the fact that many students have to leave school immediately after classes to make a journey home of as long as two hours by van in the winter. Elgin people are able to cite the cases of a number of students in the district who have gone on to higher education and achieved distinction. From Elgin have come the head of the economics department at an American university, a prominent biologist, a government economist, and a prominent clergyman. With the aid of local people I learned the fate of the students who reached grade 11 or 12 at the school between 1936 and 1945. Of the twenty-eight boys, eleven are still in the community. Of the others, three have gone on to take university training and one to take vocational training, and some of the six who were still in the armed forces at the time of the study may take farther education. The remaining seven are working outside the community. Of the forty-three girls, thirteen are still in the community, and, of the others, seventeen have gone on to further education. Two have gone to university, four have gone to normal school, seven have taken nursing training, and four have taken business courses. Since this is neither a large sample nor a normal period, the figures are of limited significance. They do indicate that a larger number of girls than boys continue to the higher grades at the consolidated school.5 A larger number of girls take further training to fit them for urban occupations and a higher percentage of 49

ELGIN

those who reach the higher grades leave the community, although the agricultural prosperity of the war years may mean that more farmers are retiring to make way for their sons, a step deferred during the Depression. The tables also indicate that only a minority of those who reach the higher grades become farmers or farmers' wives. No instances were found in which young people with university education returned to the community. LIBRARY AND MUSICAL FACILITIES

There are at present only two sources of books within the community: the school library and the Book Club. The small school library is used only by schoolchildren for their supplementary reading, and the Book Club is limited, as has been explained, to a small group of people centred in the village. While the group of people who compose the Book Club expressed their desire to see a library established, the abortive efforts in the past to make books available to the community would indicate there is no general demand. Neither the UFW travelling library nor the Pool travelling library were widely enough used to justify their continuance. A few years ago some of the people who owned books contributed volumes to a common stock to be used as a library, but this also failed to arouse popular interest. The people who belong to the Book Club all own a few volumes, but the only extensive private library is possessed by an elderly recluse, who has accumulated enough wealth as a contractor and carpenter to spend most of his time at reading as a hobby. Although once active in the community, being police magistrate at one time, he now lives by himself and is regarded by the community as slightly peculiar.6 An elderly woman commented, "You know, he says he is an atheist but I don't believe him—he's such a nice man. I never knew a man who read so many books but they all seem to be about Russia. At least that's all he can talk about. 50

The British-Origin Community

Humph! I'd like to see how long he'd last over there with his funny ideas." There is no resident music teacher, although a piano teacher makes weekly visits to the village. There is no longer a band to encourage the learning of other instruments and, in fact, no music outside of the church choirs. The farm boys who play the violin and accordion for the square dances at Community Night socials have had no formal training. MEDIA OF MASS COMMUNICATION

The following table gives the circulation in Elgin (July 1946) of the two farm periodicals most widely circulated in rural Manitoba, and the two largest dailies:

Table 2 Circulation of Periodicals and Newspapers, Elgin, 1946 Number of Households

Percentage of Households

Number of households*

175

100

Free Press Weekly

135

77

Country Guide

100

57

Winnipeg Free Press (daily)

38

22

Winnipeg Tribune (daily)

25

14

*1945 Post Office Directory

Since many subscribers of farm periodicals pass them on to neighbours and relatives, it is likely that an even larger percentage than those shown have access to the two leading farm periodicals. Conversations with the postmaster indicated that a slightly smaller percentage subscribe to the other farm periodicals, and varying numbers to the other popular periodicals. The small circulation of the dailies is typical of rural Manitoba where the paper 51

ELGIN

is usually received by mail a day late and where mail may come only three times a week. The radio probably takes the place of the newspaper in providing and interpreting the daily news. The postmaster and others interviewed were unable to call to mind anyone in the community who did not possess a radio. Another medium of mass communication, the moving picture, reaches the people of Elgin only through their visits to larger centres. The National Film Board (NFB) rural operator visited Elgin during the winter from 1942 until the fall of 1945 when the circuit was changed to take in a community where fewer difficulties were encountered. Among these difficulties were winter transportation when the roads were blocked and lack of hotel accommodation. Then too there was no local organization ready to sponsor and advertise the shows. The NFB itself took the initiative in arranging the shows, at different times securing as local representative the Anglican minister, the United Church minister, and the local merchant who owns the hall. The operator's reports over the period show a decline in average attendance between 1942 and 1945. Attendance was significantly higher on the few occasions when the film was combined with a panel discussion by the Citizens' Forum group or outside speakers. The attempt of the Board of Trade to show moving pictures and thus provide one of the attractions that took people to other centres was doomed to failure by the poor quality of their equipment and the hall where the moving pictures were held. The only hall in town, that used by the NFB for showings and in which the Community Nights are held, is privately owned by a local businessman. The only other meeting places are a small Masonic hall above a store, and the small shack owned by the UFM. The Board of Trade holds its meetings in the basement of one or the other church. The school has no auditorium and is not used except for academic purposes.

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The British-Origin Community

LEADERSHIP

The training to be acquired through participation in Elgin's few formal associations is limited. Their relatively meagre development means that they require few social roles demanding attainments above the average. Thus they provide neither the means nor the incentives for greatly increasing the knowledge and skills of the participants. Formal associations place few demands on the time of the adult males in the community. The only two voluntary associations holding regular meetings, and these but once a month, are the Masonic Lodge and the Board of Trade. Municipal government involves only one or perhaps two men, since the community lies in two wards of the municipality but covers only part of both. The school board, the village board, and the boards of the two churches meet only a few times a year. The Pool directorate, as has been seen, is limited largely to routine functions, and the work of the UFM executive is done almost entirely by the secretary-treasurer. The only organized social activity involving both time and numbers is the curling in winter, and the educational value of this is obviously limited. Correlated with the unimportant role of formal associations is the high degree of informal association among the men of Elgin. Even in the winter when it is necessary to travel by van, many of the farmers come to the village each day and practically all at least once every two or three days. Since farming chores are at a minimum, they can stay in the village for several hours, loafing and chatting in one of the garages or the poolroom, playing cards in the UFM office, watching the curling, or in other informal gatherings. Within these amorphous forums, whose personnel changes as men come and go, local personalities and community affairs are discussed and views on farming methods are exchanged. Through this informal mingling much of the necessary business of the community can be carried out without recourse to formal meetings. On a winter afternoon John Wright, whose role in the

53

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community is described as that of the "perennial secretary," may be seen bustling around the main street, buttonholing individuals in the different gatherings with whom he has business to discuss or a decision to evoke in connection with one of the organizations for which he is secretary. One garage has come to be recognized as the centre for curling activities and when the arrangements for the annual bonspiel are to be made it is done through the executive's and most of the curlers' wandering into the office over a period of a few days until a list is finally drawn up and posted there. Informal association tends to fulfill some of the functions that formal associations would perform elsewhere. In particular it provides some of the psychological satisfactions since through informal association all the men of Elgin's small homogeneous world can relate to the life of the community, thus removing some of the reasons for joining formal associations found in a larger, more complex milieu. There are no informal meeting places of this type for women, although there is some informal visiting in each other's homes. Hence formal associations are called upon to provide both the psychological satisfactions that come with social contact and the social activity necessary for community solidarity. The latent functions seem to be common to the many rural women's groups whatever their manifest functions. Because of the nature of their associations the women spend much more time in organized activity than do their husbands. However, the social roles open to women through the associational structures are much more limited than those open to male activists. The role of the two sexes in the family economy tends to extend to the associational structure as it does in other rural communities. Men control the associations concerned with local government, business, and economic life. The women's associations are concerned with maintaining the sacred and moral values through their support of religious institutions and mobilizing 54

The British-Origin Community

their skills as housewives for charitable and religious purposes. The interest in things "cultural," seen in the attempt to read a religious novel in the United Church Guild, also tends to fall in the women's sphere. The lodges might seem to be an exception in that their activities are apparently equivalent to those of the men, but the fact that the women's lodges are auxiliary to the men's lodges is a symbolic form of subordination. One notable aspect of Elgin's associational structure is the extent to which it is self-contained. Local groups are not integrated with larger associations beyond the community such as the producers' associations, cooperatives, locals of farm movements and Women's Institutes to be found in other communities. The significance of associations of this type will be seen later in the analysis of the Carman community. They not only provide experience for the participants on the local level, but also draw active leaders into regional and provincial structures, thus further widening their knowledge and capabilities. Most of Elgin's executive offices are routine in nature, involving behaviour familiar to all the participants and similar to that followed by the executive's predecessors. The fact that Elgin has no active agricultural associations, either branch associations or purely local groups, means it is not easily accessible to the professional leadership of the Extension Service or the MFAC. When the Extension Service wished to put on an implement demonstration, the only organization to sponsor it was the 4-H Seed Club and, in lieu of an agricultural organization to perform these functions, it is the Board of Trade that proposes to form a poultry pool and secure a creamery. In accounting for the weakness of purely local groups, the lack of younger persons and the high percentage of older and retired people must be taken into account, as must the high mobility of the farmers. All the farmers and most of the townspeople own automobiles and, when the roads are open, they choose to travel to towns and cities. This greatly lessens the dependence of Elgin people on the social satisfactions and entertainments found in the

55

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village. At the same time, the participation of Elgin people in the organizations of the surrounding larger communities where they go for shopping, commercialized entertainment, and visiting was found to be negligible. This is to be explained partly in terms of Elgin's location and history. If Elgin had been less self-sufficient in the past and its members had less reason to identify themselves with the community, and if it lay entirely within the trade zone of one town, it is likely it would have been incorporated as a unit in a town-centred community. As it is, Elgin people divide their trade between the four surrounding towns according to convenience, and continue to look to Elgin for their organized social life. Persons who were interviewed were asked what improvements were needed in the community. The most commonly expressed need was for medical facilities—a hospital and a resident doctor. The community was particularly aware of the lack of medical facilities at the time of the fieldwork because an Elgin woman almost died from acute appendicitis when she had to undergo a twelve-mile journey to the nearest hospital by horse-drawn van over the winter roads. A variety of other suggestions were given, most of them of a practical nature: better roads, a new curling rink, a moving picture theatre, and, from a few, a community hall. Satisfaction was expressed with the accessibility of formal education but a few volunteered the opinion that the curriculum did not fit young people for rural life and was a factor in causing the migration to the city. They felt agriculture should be taught instead of some of the present subjects. The only persons to give the opinion that a library was needed, or that organized activities for young people, besides sports, would be desirable, were those who belonged to the Book Circle or the former Citizens' Forum group. The case of one experienced young leader is worth relating. When Johnson, the energetic young bank manager, came to Elgin a year ago he replaced an elderly man who had been in the community for twenty years and was very popular. Johnson came 56

The British-Origin Community

from a town in Saskatchewan where he had been a member of the active Board of Trade, a young man who would have been described by his contemporaries as 'full of pep' with lots of ideas and a 'good booster.' One of his first moves in his new job was to dispose of the numerous houseplants that the old manager had kept around the bank, and to introduce brisk efficiency in his relationships with the customers, instead of stopping to chat with them as his predecessor had done. He joined the Board of Trade with the avowed intention of 'pepping it up,' and used it as an instrument in his attempt to introduce improvements in the community that he felt were needed. A few weeks after his arrival he advocated to the Board of Trade a sewage system for Elgin or, failing this, a regular collection of garbage and toilet cans. He arranged for a canvass of the householders in the village to arouse interest, and called a public meeting. Only a handful of people turned out to the meeting, chiefly old-timers who argued that garbage collection was an unnecessary expense that they had lived without heretofore. This unsuccessful attempt earned him, among some of the hostile males of the community, the impolite sobriquet of the 'crap-can banker.' Several people pointed out triumphantly that Johnson had since begun to conform to the community. He now takes time to chat with the bank customers about the weather and the crops, although he is still regarded by some of the older members of the community as a 'young whippersnapper.' Conversation with him revealed that he still considers that "people here are living in the world of fifty years ago," but he is resigned to the conclusion that a newcomer cannot, single-handed, change the community. In the other members of the Upper Ten he and his wife have found companions with standards similar to theirs, with whom they spend most of their leisure time. His efforts are now confined to introducing public speaking lessons and discussions of current events into the Board of Trade meetings. His friends on the 57

ELGIN

Board of Trade contend that his experience makes him the mainstay and leading figure of that small body. Most of the present leadership in Elgin must of necessity be voluntary rather than professional and, in the case of the farm organizations particularly, come from persons who have received their training locally. The only men in the community who have had advanced training are the minister and the school principal. However, among the women are several who have had advanced training and outside experience. At least two women have been schoolteachers and four have been nurses, and of these two have had university training. In women's activities, members of this group play a predominant role in leadership. A man from a neighbouring community made the remark, "You know, the women are worth ten of the men in that place." It is significant that during the first two days in Elgin the writer was told by several people that "the person you ought to talk to is Mrs. Olive M." This married woman is an ex-schoolteacher and a member of the Upper Ten, but, as the wife of a successful farmer of a pioneer family, she tends to identify herself with the problems of the community more than the other women of her clique. She is regarded as the outstanding leader in women's activities. Her ideas regarding innovations she would like to see in the community were more definite than those of anyone else I interviewed. It was another woman of this clique, the former school principal, who was secretary of the Citizens' Forum and was regarded as its most interested member. The importance of outside experience and training was also seen in the case of the attempted leadership of the young bank manager. The male farm leadership in Elgin is noticeably weak. It is here that the lack of the more common skills of generalized leadership is most apparent. This is all the more important because the professional leadership of an agricultural representative is not 58

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available on a resident basis. The nearest is located at Boissevain and he serves a large territory. He visits the community only occasionally. However, it should be emphasized that the Elgin farmers interviewed expressed no dissatisfaction with this service and stated that when a particular problem arose it was only necessary to telephone the agricultural representative to have him give advice or to come in person if necessary. The shortage of trained farm leadership must be attributed, in part, to the fact that Elgin has had few active associations of the type through which, elsewhere, able farm leaders develop. In that the weakness of Elgin's leadership is a factor in the contemporary lack of active associations, there is obviously a circular relationship between associations and leadership. That there are few trained leaders in Elgin is a fact more apparent to outside observers and to the newcomers than to the majority of participants, who do not tend to remark on it. The young bank manager previously mentioned made the following remarks about the elevator agent who is president of the Board of Trade and was president of the Reception Association: I wish you'd been here for the Board of Trade meeting, if only to see old Pete Duffus in action. It's pitiful. He is so nervous he can't stand still and you've probably observed what an uncouth old bird he is. Well, he has an awful time trying to express himself when he can't swear. And he's no exception when it comes to handling a meeting. I can count the men in this community who can chair a meeting or give a speech on the fingers of one hand. That's one reason I've been trying to give some public speaking lessons in the Board of Trade.

The opinion that there were only four or five men in the community capable of conducting a meeting was affirmed by the other participants, who were more detached than the majority. The lack of ability of several other office-holders was also commented upon. The elderly farmer who is president of the Pool elevator, People's Warden of the Anglican church, and last 59

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elected president of the Agricultural Society, was described as "nice" and "well-meaning" but at the same time it was indicated that he was neither a strong nor capable leader. The English station master, who has been in the community for twenty-five years but is relatively critical of it, stated: "We haven't got one real leader here, one man strong enough to override the petty differences like Mr. Carley over in Beulah or Mr. Crosby in Heaslip. We used to have one in the days of Mr. Purdy and after him Doc Furby, although he was too busy to do a great deal, but since then things seem to have fallen apart." Holding office is not to be completely identified with the functions of leadership. The leadership of many executives in Elgin is purely nominal. When I attended a meeting of the United Church Guild, it was apparent that the personality of Mrs. Olive M. was the most influential, and the members of the group looked to her for suggestions and decisions, although she held no executive office at the time. In the case of the Board of Trade it appears that much of the actual leadership came from the young bank manager, and that several others were more influential in the group than the president. In accounting for the shortage of voluntary leadership, the incentives afforded by the social situation must be taken into account. The fact that leadership, particularly leadership in new activities, is not defined as important by most of the people in Elgin means that the prestige attached to it is small. Since knowledge of each individual's family background and personal characteristics is common property, such secondary criteria as officeholding do not usually affect his or her reputation. As a result of this, as well as the scarcity of trained persons, there tends to be little competition for office. Many hold office by default because no one else wants it, and the few who are willing and capable tend to be overworked. The president of the United Church Guild, a farm woman, told the writer: "I didn't want to be president this year because some of these women have more time than I have, 60

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but nobody else would take it. Some people say they haven't time for church work, but I notice they have plenty of time for curling." A meeting of the village taxpayers to elect a new member to the village board, which took place while the writer was in Elgin, provides a specific example. Only twelve village men attended, although the fact that several men were in Winnipeg curling at the time may have contributed to the small attendance. An attempt was made to cajole several men into taking the office before one was found who was willing. Occasionally offices go vacant when no one is willing to accept them. This happened in 1937-38 when a member of the school board resigned and no one could be found to take his place. Two public meetings were called and both times a quorum failed to attend so permission was obtained from the Department of Education to proceed with four trustees. An examination of both the school board and the directorate of the Pool elevator for a period of twenty years revealed that the average number of new members elected annually to both bodies is less than two. Political offices in the larger units of government tend to excite more interest because they give the individual power and prestige in the wider community beyond Elgin, which is reflected back in the importance attached to them in Elgin. It is these offices which excite the rivalry of the men who are personally ambitious and it was in the electoral contacts that the friction between George M. and Bill D. developed as well as a number of other minor rivalries. At the time that the last Conservative candidate in the provincial election, the present MLA, was nominated, feeling ran high because Bill D. wanted the nomination and was supported by his friends. It is perhaps indicative of the personalities of the two adversaries mentioned above that when they were separately asked to name the outstanding leader in the community, each modestly admitted that the description fitted himself better than anyone else in Elgin. There is a tendency for a very few individuals in the community to perform most of the actual work in the governing bodies 61

ELGIN

and executives in which others have nominal authority. John Wright, who is referred to by some as "the best community man we have," is the most outstanding example. His role might be termed that of "the perennial secretary." John Wright is a Scotsman who, prior to 1928, farmed in a community south of Elgin. He is reputed to have brought considerable wealth from Scotland and to be a man of education. His standard of living on the farm was high enough in contrast to his neighbours' to earn him the title of "a gentleman farmer." The farm was a showplace for flowers, he and his wife entertained lavishly, and he formed a cricket team, which played its home matches on the farm. In 1928 drought forced them off the farm and they moved to Elgin. He then lived by selling insurance, filling out income tax forms, and doing other odd jobs. Wright's education and willingness mean that he has been given the secretarial job in numerous associations. For years he has been secretary-treasurer of the Agricultural Society and at present he is all that remains of that body. He keeps the books, answers correspondence, arranges for the upkeep of the buildings, and performs all the other functions necessary to maintain the skeleton of the organization. When Elgin was made a local improvement area, he was made secretary of the village board and much of the actual administration is left to him. He was also secretary-treasurer of the Reception Association and it was he and the station master who did all the work for that body. In addition to these offices he is also vice-president of the Board of Trade, a school trustee, an officer of the Masonic Lodge, and an executive of the Red Cross Society. In evaluating the leadership of the ministers and schoolteachers, the social roles of persons in these two occupations must be considered, as well as the attributes of the particular individuals in Elgin. Both social roles limit the extent to which these men can be leaders and participants in male secular affairs. One is identified with the world of sacred values, the other with the 62

The British-Origin Community

world of children, and both embody ideal behaviour, which may prevent them from sharing in the lustier aspects of male society and inhibit other men in their presence. Since neither shares in the activities of agriculture and business, their authority and potential influence in the associations concerned with these are limited. Congregational government and vulnerability to criticism tend to render the Protestant minister conservative in providing leadership in new activities. The stereotype to which he is expected to conform is too familiar to merit elaboration outside of a few main features. He is expected to "preach a good sermon," reaffirming the moral sentiments of the community with sufficient oratorical ability to keep up attendance. He is expected to do a certain amount of "visiting," especially with his older female parishioners and those who are ill. His behaviour is expected to conform to ideal moral standards and, at the same time, he is expected to be congenial in his personal contacts. The chief social leadership that his role demands is in organized and respectable activities for young people. His wife is expected to provide leadership in the women's church organizations. In Elgin, the Anglican minister is still a newcomer and the extent to which he will provide leadership has not been established. So far he has confined himself to church affairs, but states that he is planning to start a Boy Scout troop. The United Church minister has been in Elgin several years and, to the writer, deplored the conservatism of the community from the viewpoint of his socialist philosophy. He has provided a certain amount of leadership in "cultural" activities as leader of the Citizens' Forum group and in acting as local representative for the National Film Board on a few occasions when Elgin was on a rural film circuit. He also leads the small YPU group, but young people who belong claim that the meetings are "dull" and "uninteresting." The criticism to which he is subject illustrates the difficulties of the minister's role. That he is unmarried and has apparently no

63

ELGIN

intention of marrying, despite the fact that "there are several fine young women here who would be glad to have him," causes considerable dissatisfaction. It is felt that a minister who does not provide a chatelaine of the manse is not fully earning his salary. He was also criticized for being lazy, both in regard to visiting and providing leadership for the young people. That his strong belief in socialism is expressed in his sermons is the subject of widespread criticism. One woman said, "It makes me so mad when he harps on his theme about it being wrong to make profits that I just stay away." The minister told the writer that the reason he left his last charge was that many of his congregation disapproved of his running as CCF candidate in an election. The teacher's role is in many ways analogous to that of the Protestant minister in the small community. Not only does teaching have a relatively low pay and low status among the professions, but it is a "sheltered" profession, giving security but little chance of advancement; as such it does not tend to attract the most capable persons, or those with the greatest initiative or originality of thought. There is further selection within the profession between the urban and rural schools, the latter receiving the less qualified teachers because they usually offer less pay and poorer working and living conditions. Elgin has been more fortunate than many other rural communities in the war period in that it has been able to obtain fully qualified teachers. However, the formal training of teachers in Manitoba at the time of the study did not include training in leading extracurricular activities, nor was there a system of financial rewards for work outside the classroom. The only leadership exercised by the schoolteachers in Elgin is that of two primary-school teachers who have a small group of Brownies for younger girls in the village. The school principal proved, upon meeting, to be a quiet, soft-spoken man whose only affiliation among Elgin's few associations is with the Curling Club. The female teachers take no part in the women's associations, which meet in the afternoon during school hours. The 64

The British-Origin Community

answers given to questions by one teacher show rebellion against the traditional role of the rural teacher: No, we are not interested in the YPU nor in the Citizens' Forum either. I like sports and so do the others. Young people aren't interested in those serious things these days— No, I don't belong to the book circle, but I get magazines at the store.... No, I don't bother going to church. People around here think schoolteachers should do all the things they did twenty-five years ago, but we don't have to. Anyway, I fool them. I often go out of town for the weekend, so when I don't go to church they think I've gone home. The older people in Elgin deplore the present role of the schoolteachers in the community, and point to a golden past when they were much more active. The teachers were said to have been "real leaders" at one time, leading young people's groups and organizing debates and concerts. The situation has changed in such a way as to lessen the influence of community opinion on the teacher's behaviour and decrease the incentives for leadership. The current shortage of teachers means they can be more independent of public opinion, and the high annual turnover of teachers means that they have little reason to identify themselves with a community where it is likely they will spend only one or two years. None of the Elgin teachers have been at the school for more than three years. Transportation developments mean that people in Elgin are not as dependent on the local community for approval or entertainment as they were formerly. In keeping with other social trends, the role of the schoolteacher is constantly being redefined and in some cases, like that of the young teacher quoted above, the definition of the schoolteacher has changed more rapidly than have conservative mores of the community.

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ELGIN

From the foregoing discussion it would appear that Elgin is relatively lacking in certain types of leadership and, correlatively, that the training for leadership to be derived locally is limited. The existing associational structure does not take advantage of the professional advisory and educational services that are offered by provincial bodies. Few local people have developed the general skills necessary for community leadership, those of conducting a meeting, public speaking, and creating the organizational framework for new activities. Even scarcer in Elgin are the specialized skills and knowledge necessary for performing the educational functions of leadership, especially in fields outside the practical realm of community government and the maintenance of existing institutions. There is virtually no leadership for young people's recreation, although some coaching in sports is done by young men who have played themselves. There is reported to be nobody in the community with experience in directing dramatics or teaching art or crafts. The only person capable of leading musical activities is the elderly storekeeper who had formerly led the community band, but at the time of the study he was inactive due to old age and illness. The potential leadership for study groups is more difficult to estimate because the requirements are less tangible. Persons interviewed believed that the United Church minster was the only person capable of leading a study group in non-agricultural subjects except, perhaps, the Anglican minister, about whose abilities no opinion had crystallized. The school principal was rejected as being uninterested and lacking in aggressiveness and ideas. The only person believed by any to be capable of leading a study group in agricultural subjects was the young farmer who led the Junior Seed Club. However, it was pointed out that it would not be feasible for him to lead a study group because he was "too young to be telling older and better farmers how to farm." 66

The British-Origin Community

NOTES 1. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (London, 1930). 2. Taken from a copy of a report given to the Board of Trade by its secretary. 3. Studies of participation in agricultural extension activities and other forms of rural adult education in the United States have shown that participation of young farmers is low. Various studies find the highest participation somewhere in the age group of forty to fifty-nine years and show a decrease after that age. See W.H. Anderson and H.H. Plambeck, The Social Participation of Farm Families (Department of Rural Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Mimeograph Bulletin No. 8, 1943), 14-17; D.L. Gibson, The Clientele of the Agricultural Extension Service (Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, Quarterly Bulletin No. 4, Vol. 26, 1944), 7-9; Hsi-ku Chang, "Social Factors Affecting Participation in Rural Adult Educational Programs," PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1946. 4. Report of the Special Select Committee of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly on Education (Winnipeg, 1945), 13. 5. Statistical studies of rural education in the United States have shown that farm girls continue in school longer than farm boys, on the average. See J.M. Kolb, School Attendance of Wisconsin Farm Youth (Mimeograph Bulletin of the Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, 1945), table 1, p. 2. 6. This man was the only non-professional person found in the communities studied who possessed a large library of non-fiction books, and pursued extensively self-education through the medium of books. The ministers of the established churches usually possessed and read non-fiction books but not on a scale comparable with this exceptional individual.

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ROSSBURN

A Community in Transition

Rossburn, c. mid-1940s. Courtesy Rossburn Museum.

THE VILLAGE

When I visited the village of Rossburn on a Saturday night, I was immediately struck by the difference between it and Elgin. Although it is winter and most of the roads are blocked, throngs of people come and go on the street and from the lighted cafes and stores. Several vans with steaming horses stand in the street, and a large number without horses are lined up in front of the livery stable. The sound of music comes from the large community hall where a dance is being held and a hum of talk can be heard in passing the crowded beer parlour. Large numbers of the passing people in the street or congregated in groups have the features usually termed "Slavic" and the snatches of conversation one hears are in the unfamiliar sounds of a language not English. Interspersed with these groups are others composed of Indians or English-speaking people. The atmosphere is one of the rough hustle and bustle of a frontier community. 71

ROSSBURN

The frontier atmosphere is augmented by the physical appearance of the settlement. Whereas in Elgin the two blocks of business section faced the railway track in a prim and closeknit regularity, and the few residential streets stretched out behind in geometric blocks on the flat prairie, Rossburn sprawls untidily on rolling land. The stores, offices, and garages comprising the business section are scattered over one main street and two side streets. The smaller residences in the village, onestorey frame structures, some of almost dollhouse size, are located chiefly in a few blocks north of the business section known locally as "pension row," and most of the more pretentious houses stand along one tree-lined street—the "avenue"— which stretches by itself to the west. The few remaining houses are scattered through the business section and along the highways out of town. Elgin was obviously built in relation to the railway on flat land, which allowed a geometric plan. The nucleus of Rossburn grew before the completion of the railway in 1908. The placing of its buildings was partially dictated by the height of the land in the days when the spring runoff from the hills to the north made lakes of the low-lying land adjacent to the village. The cosmopolitan air of the village on a Saturday night is a result of the ethnic composition of the area which it serves. Rossburn is the only village, and the only centre of any size, in a municipality that is 75.5 per cent Ukrainian in origin. The village itself is 36 per cent Ukrainian and the proportion is steadily growing. The crowded streets and the activity on Saturday night are a reflection of the fact that Rossburn provides economic services to a large area and of a varied enough nature to make it a "Saturday night town." The map serves to illustrate some of the ecological factors that determine Rossburn's trading area. To the north and east, Riding Mountain National Park, in which there are no through roads, isolates the northern part of the municipality. People from this 72

A Community in Transition

area are forced to travel south to market their agricultural products or to make any purchases other than day-to-day necessities, which may be obtained at small crossroads stores. This means that farmers from as far as thirteen miles north, and many who must travel additional distances east and west, look to Rossburn as their centre. West of the village an Indian reserve cuts off part of the municipality and limits travel in that direction. The railway and the gravel roads are confined to the southwest corner of the municipality. All the population centres lie along the railway, which is the only means of communication during the weeks of the winter when even the gravel roads are blocked by snow. In future winters these roads may be kept open since the municipality has purchased snow-ploughing equipment, but the other roads, which are dirt and in poor condition even in summer, will continue to limit winter travel in the northern section of the municipality to the ubiquitous and colourful horsedrawn van. The condition of the roads in winter means that some of the farmers in "the bush" (the local term for the northern and eastern section) make the arduous journey of several hours into Rossburn even less frequently than once a week. The scattered post offices, stores, and one-room schools provide the minimal services necessary to maintain their isolated existence, and the community halls are centres for varying degrees of social life in the rural neighbourhoods. The isolation of the people in the bush is enhanced by the lack of telephone service. In many places where the telephone existed prior to the Depression, the luxury was foregone as a measure of economy and the lines have since been removed. The scattered churches receive the services of a visiting priest or pastor, if they receive any at all, only once every few weeks. Although journeys to Rossburn for purchases or social purposes may be infrequent during the winter, it is still to Rossburn that the farmers from the north bring their deferred purchasing. The trading area, according to local merchants, extends from about three

73

ROSSBURN

miles below the southern boundary of the municipality to the park on the north, though a few farmers from the eastern and western extremes of the municipality go to other centres closer at hand. The other two railway points in the municipality have only grain elevators and general stores, and hence Rossburn is the only centre in the municipality offering the scarcer services, such as banking. The village has no lack of centres for associational life. In addition to the community hall there is also a large hall in connection with the United church and a small Orange Hall now owned by the Canadian Legion. In the Ukrainian neighbourhoods the community halls perform the same service. The community has no covered ska ting-and curling rink, but debentures have been issued by the village to finance the construction of one. There is an open-air skating rink, which is maintained by the high school students. During the periods in winter when the roads are blocked, the triweekly railway train provides the only regular transport from the outside and horse-drawn vans provide communication within the community. At other seasons there is transport by bus between the village and the outside world, but the city of Winnipeg is too far distant to be visited in a day. The village has electricity but electrification has yet to be extended to most of the rural municipality. The village has all the prerequisites for what has been termed an independent town: a post office, telegraph office, an express and railway office, a bank, and a weekly newspaper. It also has the institutions that, in addition to shopping facilities, seem to be common to "Saturday night towns": a hotel with a beer parlour, a moving picture theatre, cafes, and a poolroom with bowling alleys. In addition dances and whist drives are sponsored frequently in the community hall by local organizations as a means of raising funds. The village offers most of the major marketing facilities for agricultural production: grain elevators, a creamery, and an egg 74

A Community in Transition

grading station. It also has the usual retail services: six general stores, four mixed cafes and groceries, a lumberyard and hardware, four garages, two of which are also implement agencies, four retail and wholesale oil agencies, two shoe-repair shops and harness makers. The distribution of the different ethnic groups as owners or managers of these businesses is indicative of a social transition but also of British influence. The managerial posts in the larger economic institutions, which are branches of outside concerns, tend to be held by British people, as in the case of the bank, the creamery, the lumberyard and hardware, and the grain elevators. But the Ukrainians and a Pole are already represented in the more competitive businesses, such as the implement and oil agencies. The largest general store is owned by a secondgeneration Jewish family that has been in the community since the early years of the Ukrainian immigration, and owes much of its success to the fact that both generations have been able to speak both Ukrainian and the Indian language of the nearby reserve. The second-largest store was formerly owned by a British man and is now a cooperative under British-Canadians' control. The three smallest general stores are owned by Ukrainians. The tendency is for the Ukrainians to own the smaller retail establishments, which require less capital and commercial experience. There are a number of small, marginal retail businesses of a type not found in a British community such as Elgin and whose existence can only be explained in terms of the peasant origin of the Ukrainian group. In the peasant economy the farm is conceived as an independent family business and the carryover of this ideal to the village setting, combined with a lower standard of living, results in the growth of a number of marginal businesses. Unable to compete as specialized businesses, they have to carry sidelines in order to exist, thus further inhibiting the growth of specialist concerns. An excellent example is the existence of four small cafes in the village, all of which carry groceries and other sundries. Each successfully ekes out a living and prevents the

75

ROSSBURN

growth of a single large cafe, which would specialize in serving meals. The other services that make Rossburn a centre are the municipal offices, a veterinarian, two visiting lawyers, and the RCMP headquarters. A municipal doctor has been acquired recently, the community having been without medical services for a year. The district has no hospital but an organization has been formed to collect funds and take advantage of the provincial hospital plan. EARLY SETTLEMENT

When in 1879 the first Rossburn settlers pushed west from Winnipeg by Red River cart or afoot, they passed over the fertile but flooded and treeless prairie country. The higher land beyond this was already occupied, but the lightly wooded, undulating terrain around Rossburn resembled the familiar countryside of Ontario and the British Isles from whence they had come, and gave promise of ample drinking water and wood for fuel and building. It appeared ideal for the type of small-scale mixed farming to which they were accustomed. Early settlers' accounts give some idea of the hardships encountered. The nearest source of supplies was a store twentyfive miles distant over a mud trail, and agricultural markets were even more inaccessible so there was no alternative to subsistence farming. Poor communication accentuated the isolation attendant upon the lack of rudimentary social institutions and inhibited their growth. These hardships might have been more bearable if their agricultural efforts had been successful, but the northern latitude and the fact that early-ripening varieties of grain had not yet been developed meant that crops were frozen year after year. The men of the families were forced to find work at seasonal jobs such as lumbering. The difficulties meant that many settlers stayed for only a short period and then moved to more promising areas. Settlement was 76

A Community in Transition

confined largely to the southwest half of the municipality, the undulating plain of fertile soils. The northeast half, the hilly and wooded southern portion of the mountain park, was left unsettled. Lumbering took place in this northeastern area and many settlers let their cattle range over the natural pastureland in the valleys. The early ripening grains for extensive and successful grain farming were not available until after the turn of the century. The nucleus of the village was already in existence when the railway, which had been expected for a period of years, arrived in 1904-05. There were a few stores, two churches, a school and some homes. Just prior to the railway came the flood of immigrants from the Ukraine. They had little money and no knowledge of the English language. They settled on homesteads "up in the bush," the unsettled hilly section, and shortly outnumbered the British farmers. The area of stony, less fertile land on which they settled was larger than the section of black-earth soils the British farmed, and their individual holdings were considerably smaller. Even from the beginning their high birth rate augmented their predominance. For several years the Ukrainian men worked on the railroads or on the farms to the south, and cut cordwood, while their wives and families looked after the farms. By dint of hard labour by the whole family, combined with a low standard of material wants, they were able to establish themselves in time to take advantage of the high agricultural prices of the First World War. Since then they have been able gradually to buy out the farms of their British-Canadian neighbours and extend southwards. At the outset, the only road to economic security for the Ukrainians lay in success as farmers. The village continued to grow as a British-Canadian community supplying economic services to the farmers of both groups. Now, the Ukrainians are about a third of the village population, they own several businesses, and the wartime prosperity has increased the influx. This process of 77

ROSSBURN

transition on the farms and in the village will be discussed at greater length below. AGRICULTURE

One outstanding characteristic of the municipality is the high percentage of the occupied farmland that is unimproved. In 1941 the unimproved farmland constituted 83,706 acres compared to 69,114 acres of improved land, the bulk of the unimproved land (about five-eighths) being natural pasture, the remainder woodland or marsh. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that farming is considerably more mixed than in the Elgin area or that the income per farm acre should be considerably less ($1.98 per farm acre in 1936, a drought year, compared with $2.35 for the municipality in which Elgin is located). However this area has a higher and steadier average precipitation and is not subject to the fluctuating yields of the Elgin district. A characteristic of the early farm holdings of the Ukrainians was their small size, a result partly of the scale of farming to which the Ukrainians had been accustomed in the homeland, but it has been increasing steadily. In 1926 there were 648 occupied farms in the municipality and of these 419, or approximately two-thirds, were between 51 and 160 acres. By 1941 the total number of occupied farms had decreased to 554, and of these 289, or over one half, were larger than 200 acres. The average farm size in 1941 was 276 acres, considerably smaller than the average of 495 for Elgin's municipality. The trend towards fewer and larger farms is borne out by the population figures. The population of the municipality more than doubled between 1901 and 1911, the period of the Ukrainian immigration. From then until 1936 it increased slowly, but between 1936 and 1941 it decreased to a figure below the 1931 level, indicating that the 1936 high was due to restricted economic activity during the Depression. The gradual increase in farm size combined with greater mechanization and a higher standard of living, and a falling78

A Community in Transition

off of the high Ukrainian birth rate, means that the population density of the municipality will probably continue to decrease. ETHNIC RELATIONS

The most important factor in determining the social structure of the community is the divide between the British and Ukrainian groups. The social distance splits the community and results in the existence side by side of two social systems, which tend to be autonomous at the levels of informal social relationships, recreation and religious observances. The groups meet only in the impersonal relationships necessary for the performance of economic and governmental functions. The division acts to maintain the social isolation of the Ukrainian group and to inhibit their participation in the larger society. The British-Canadian community centred on the village had established its identity, primary social institutions and rudimentary governmental functions before the Ukrainians arrived. The "Ruthenians" and "Galicians" moved immediately to their homesteads "in the bush" and were thus geographically segregated. Their lack of knowledge of the English language served to maintain social distance. The British-origin and Jewish families controlled the economic services of the village, for which the Ukrainians were customers, and ran the local government. The Ukrainians were a source of cheap labour for farm work, road building and other projects. Although the agricultural prosperity of the First World War consolidated the position of the Ukrainian farmers, and they were able to buy more land, they did not lose this territory when prices fell, a trend that has been observed in other Ukrainian settlements. As late as 1926 one writer had this to say of the municipality: "This large percentage of Ruthenian farmers in proportion to Canadian is not a result of any spreading-out process on the part of the Ruthenians. A line run diagonally from the north79

ROSSBURN

west corner of the municipality to the south-east corner of the municipality would make a rough division between Ruthenian and Anglo-Saxon settlement." The population figures for the rural municipality for the two groups bear out the gradual nature of the displacement: Table 3 Ethnic Origin, Rossburn, 1921-1941 Year British Isles Ukrainian

1921

1931

1941

545

516

439

2329

2542

2189

Source: R.W. Murchie and H.C. Grant, Unused Lands of Manitoba (Winnipeg, 1926).

Over this twenty-year period the percentage of "British Isles races" has only decreased from 18.99 per cent to 16.70 per cent. However, because of the larger families among the Ukrainians in the early years and the more rapid decline in the birth rate, it is safe to assume that the displacement in farm ownership has been larger than the proportionate change in the population. In the eyes of the small British-origin farming community, the loss of a hundred of its members over the period bulks exceedingly large, and lends credence to the current belief in their eventual displacement by Ukrainians. The prosperity resulting from World War II may increase the rate of displacement, since the items in the local paper indicate that Ukrainians from other communities, as well as those from the municipality, are buying up farms. The economic development of the Ukrainians since their immigration has been accompanied by the development of their own social institutions—community halls, churches and some associations—and the establishment of school districts. Since 1916 instruction in these schools has been in English, and it has been important in initiating the Ukrainians into the culture of the larger society, as have the inevitable economic relationships and 80

A Community in Transition

the experience of forming school districts. Part of the wider participation has been election of municipal councillors and displacement of British-origin citizens in the control of local government. The Ukrainian move into the village did not take place until some time after the farm displacement had begun. This is understandable in view of the fact that village-dwellers are predominantly retired farmers or business people. Retirement of a farmer to the village presupposes either a considerable accumulation of capital, availability of the old age pension, or both. It is a custom not common in European rural society, where the old couple remain in the farm home after the inheriting son and his wife take over. To start a business in the village also necessitates capital and in most cases it requires considerable acquaintance with the English language and the economic practices of the larger society. Hence the considerable increase in the number of retired farmers and business people is a sign of both higher economic standing and greater acculturation. The considerable change in composition of the village over the last ten-year census period can be seen from the following table: Table 4 Ethnic Origin, Rossburn, 1931-1941 1931

1941

298

278

Ukrainian

66

125

Polish

30

16

Jewish

19

19

Other

8

7

Year British Isles

The rate of in-migration has increased because of the retirement of Ukrainian farm couples. One official said: Up until three years ago we only had two or three retired farmers in town. Now there are God-knows how many. 81

ROSSBURN

A lot of them are Ruthenians. They have given their farms to their sons and then moved to town and applied for the old age pension. Nineteen out of the twenty-five pensioners here are Ruthenians. The continuing expansion of the Ukrainians into village businesses was impressed upon the writer when the British-origin hotel owner sold the business for $25,000 cash to a syndicate of two related Ukrainian farm families from the northern part of the municipality. The owner's stated reason for selling accelerates the voluntary emigration of the original group: "This used to be a good place to live but the damn Ruthenians have spoiled it. Give them a few more years and they'll own the whole place. A white man won't be able to hear his own language." The process of invasion and succession described above is basic to the conflict between the two groups in Rossburn. Many of the older British citizens have seen the community through three stages: 1. The period when the community was entirely Britishorigin and the bushland to the north of town was unoccupied territory in which they ranged their cattle and cut wood. 2. The period when the newcomers had cut off their access to the bushland, but had definitely inferior status as foreigners. The newcomers were perceived to possess unusual customs and they worked as unskilled labourers. Although the new immigrants were a majority, control of business and local government remained in the hands of British settlers. 3. The period, which is still in progress, when Ukrainians have risen in economic status, and have begun to displace the English on the farms and then in the village businesses. The displaced British-origin people have tended to leave the community. A belief in the inevitability of their displacement has become common. At the same time, the Ukrainians have come to play an increasing role 82

A Community in Transition

in local government, have bought motor cars and farm machinery, and in other ways have displayed a higher standard of consumption, which should, in our society, entitle them to a higher social status. The reaction of the British-origin community to this challenge has been to attempt to maintain its position by continuing to treat the Ukrainians as inferior. This adjustment, largely unconscious, has taken the form of their segregating themselves in their own informal social relationships and recreation and, as much as possible, recruiting membership for their associations from their own group. As is usually the case in discriminatory behaviour, a body of stereotypes and rationalizations, in this case based on early impressions of the behaviour of the Ukrainians, acts to justify it. Conversely, the social distance could not persist to the same degree were it not for certain aspects of the Ukrainian community. One young Ukrainian merchant said to me: "The British people made it plain they thought they were better than Ukrainians and didn't want us, so the Ukrainians said 'to hell with you, we can get on by ourselves.'" The Ukrainian community is large and homogeneous enough for members to satisfy their social needs within the group, and the motivation to conform in behaviour to the British-Canadian pattern is decreased by the fact that the British are a vanishing minority. The physical isolation of the Ukrainians, especially the majority who are "up in the bush," and the social isolation resulting from the conflict perpetuate the social distance because the newcomers continue to use the Ukrainian language and to speak English with an accent. The reaction of the Ukrainians to behaviour that they have interpreted as discriminatory has been to increase their solidarity. I discovered cases in which sanctions were brought to bear against individuals who seemed to prefer the company of British-origin people or the use of English. The solidarity of the Ukrainian group is, of course, not peculiar to Rossburn; it is merely accentuated by the local situation. The point is illustrated by a story told to the writer by a 83

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young Ukrainian from one of the rural neighbourhoods in "the bush." Several years ago in this neighbourhood a baseball team was formed, which played every Sunday against the British-origin boys from a neighbouring community. English was used by both groups at the games until some of the older Ukrainians objected. The Ukrainians ceased using English, dissension between the two groups ensued, and the games came to an end. The belief among the Ukrainians that discriminatory behaviour exists, and their expectation of it, leads in some instances to a tendency to define innocuous or unwitting behaviour on the part of British-Canadians as deliberately insulting. This tendency, combined with the solidarity of the group, has led the Ukrainians to reject some overt offers of friendship from the British, which have been meant in good faith, as in the case of the Women's Institute cited below. The existence of this conflict situation does not imply that animosity is openly expressed in social intercourse between members of the two groups, although that is occasionally the case in the heat of temper or intoxication. Indeed, in Rossburn the two groups do not commonly express to each other their opinions and grievances. To the outside observer, their behaviour towards each other in business relationships, Board of Trade meetings, and other necessary contacts would give no clue to the bitterness that would be expressed to the sympathetic listener in private conversation by members of either group. The following diary excerpt illustrates this: While sitting this morning in the store of L.—the Ukrainian ex-schoolteacher—and listening to his bitter denunciation of the British-Canadians for their "arrogance," we were interrupted by the tinkle of the bell as somebody entered. I stiffened with presentiment when I saw that the arrival was Mr. S., a prominent Britishorigin person who had treated me yesterday to his opinion of the "Damn Ruthenians." But my fear of an unpleasant situation was unjustified. The two greeted 84

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each other pleasantly, joked and carried on a conversation about the weather and the merits of the respective pairs of rubber boots which Mr. S. was viewing. Mr. S. then came over to me and commented on the inadequacy of the provincial grants for schools. Mr. L. joined the conversation, heartily concurring with everything Mr. S. said and giving examples from his own schoolteaching career. When S. had left, the storekeeper went on with the interrupted conversation without any comment on the scene which had just taken place, which he seemed to accept as a matter of course and not at all inconsistent with the opinions he was expressing of British-Canadians. The role of the "go-between" or "liaison" for the Ukrainian group has come into being, usually filled by an individual who is a leader in the Ukrainian group and at the same time is more literate than his ethnic fellows in the English language. When it is necessary to canvass the municipality for funds for such projects as the municipal hospital, Ukrainians, quite frequently the municipal councillors, are appointed as canvassers in the Ukrainian neighbourhoods. One elderly Ukrainian retired farmer in the village seems to play the role more frequently than others. He has been a director of the cooperative store and has been on other executives when Ukrainian representation was necessary in order to get Ukrainian support. Two young Ukrainian women in the village perform the same function for women's associations. When war work was being done separately by the two groups, these women belonged to both groups and acted as liaison agents between them. The social effects of the relationship between these two groups are complicated by the presence of a considerable Polish minority. The British-Canadians make no distinction and usually speak of the Poles as "Ruthenians," whereas to the ethnic groups themselves the distinction is extremely important. The hostility between them in the homeland has been transferred to the rural communities and still continues despite the fact that the nationalist leaders of the two groups in Canada have united in their

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common opposition to Russia. The Poles are excluded from the Ukrainian associations and maintain their own Roman Catholic churches. In one neighbourhood where there is a considerable number of Poles, open conflict between the two groups has taken place in the past. However, evidence gained from interviews indicates that among the younger people of both groups the historical quarrel is ceasing to be important. The Poles interviewed differed from the Ukrainians in that they expressed no desire to maintain their own culture, and deplored the social distinctions that were barriers to their rapid acceptance. A number of general statements about the nature of Ukrainians and their culture were expressed to the writer frequently. These stereotypes can be included in a composite statement, which might be termed "the myth of the Ruthenian": The damn Ruthenians (or Galicians or Gillies) make me mad, always jabbering away in their own language. Most of them know English but they won't speak it even if there is an English person present. Another thing I don't like is the way they always stick to themselves. They don't seem to want to mix, no matter how hard you try to make them welcome. Like at the dances here in town, they always stick in their own group and then their young men are jealous as anything if one of their girls dances with a British-Canadian. They get mad and want to start a fight. Even among themselves, they can't get on, and they're always going to the law with each other about something. And they get jealous if one of their own people starts getting ahead. Just ask Charlie Bruce over at the hotel. Ever since he sold the hotel to that Ruthenian up in the bush the other Ruthenians have been running down the man who bought it, and making catty remarks in the beer parlour about him. Another thing, they just don't live like white people. They're getting to be well-off now and buying cars, but they still live like pigs with their huge families. They save their money and live on the old-age pension in one of those shacks over on "pension row." They're smart all 86

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right but you can't trust them. They don't even trust each other. Up in the bush they don't dare leave their implements out in the field at night for fear they'll be stolen. They're great ones for making bootleg liquor too. One of those Ruthenian weddings is a real drunken brawl and they usually wind up in a fight. But what makes me maddest of all is when our sons are away fighting, their sons stay home and make money. Most of the young men up in the bush are zombies or deserters. Just ask the RCMP here in town. [The RCMP officer denied any significant difference between the groups.] The other day one of our returned boys was in the beer parlour and he was so mad at the insulting remarks a young Ruthenian, who hadn't joined up, was making that he let him have one right in the jaw. Some of the younger ones are pretty arrogant because they know they're going to own the whole district pretty soon and there won't be any English left. Some of them even say as much when they're mad. They can look at Oakburn [a district southeast where the Ukrainians have completely displaced the English] and see what's happened there. The beliefs included in this statement were expressed with varying degrees of emphasis by a large number of British-Canadians in the community but they were not universal. The feeling seemed to be considerably stronger among the British in the village than those in the mixed rural neighbourhoods. A few BritishCanadians expressed opposition to these views and deplored the social distance between the groups. For most, these beliefs were correlated with an ignorance of the organizations and activities within the Ukrainian group and of their actual living conditions, since they rarely visited Ukrainian homes.

Among the Ukrainians there is no such elaborate system of stereotypes. They feel strongly that their group is the injured party and hence they need no elaborate rationalizations to justify their behaviour. Moreover, the behaviour and associations of the British-Canadians are those of the dominant culture and are well

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publicized, so it is difficult for the Ukrainian group to maintain stereotypes that do not jibe with reality. Most of the Ukrainians interviewed were unanimous in blaming the British-Canadians for the local situation. The behaviour of the dominant group was denounced as "arrogant" and indicative of an attitude of superiority to the Ukrainians, and specific instances of discrimination or slights were given as examples. Certain British-Canadians, chiefly villagers, were singled out as more to blame than others for the situation. The belief that Ukrainians are awarded an inferior status and discriminated against was usually generalized to include the position of all Ukrainians in Canadian society. Two Ukrainian schoolteachers cited instances when they had applied to British-Canadian districts elsewhere for teaching positions and were told that the positions were filled, although they knew they were not. Another told of applying for a job in a war plant in Winnipeg and being rejected when they heard his name. The fact that local people use the terms "Ruthenian" and "Galician" was frequently interpreted as a deliberate slight. The Ukrainians interviewed who were most vehement in their resentment of British-Canadian behaviour were usually also those who expressed the strongest belief that the Ukrainians had a right and a duty to maintain their culture. Their arguments were usually prefaced with the statement that the first loyalty of the Canadian was to Canada. The most frequent argument given for maintaining the culture was one commonly heard from Ukrainians in Winnipeg too: "First our people must be good Ukrainians before they can be good Canadians." I heard one rationalization several times in Rossburn but did not encounter it elsewhere: "English people won't accept us as equals so if we lose our culture we are nothing."

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THE BRITISH-ORIGIN COMMUNITY

In view of the conflict between the two groups it might be expected that the solidarity of the British-Canadians would be increased. A young married woman who has been in town only a year suggests this is not the case. There is not a single thing to do, no organizations, no rink. I don't know what they do with their time. It certainly isn't that they visit much. Only four people called on me the first four months I was here and I didn't even know my next-door neighbour. The Ladies' Aid had a good turnout the other day but I have seen meetings when just six turned up. They don't do anything if they don't want to. Their attitude is, "I'll do what I like and don't you dare interfere." It is even like that about going to church. They will go if they feel like it and stay if they feel like it. Public opinion doesn't have much effect here as far as making people do things like going to church. They don't care what you think. There are no leaders here, especially for young people, so the young people just go to parties and drink and so on, and nobody interferes. Many of the factors that make for a stable, conservative, social structure in Elgin are lacking in Rossburn or found in reverse. In this northern region the highly variable yields that place a premium on prudent management and thrift are not found. Over the long run, the average level of prosperity on these smaller mixed farms has been considerably lower than in Elgin. There has been a turnover of land among the British-Canadians during the period of settlement and a consequent loss of the stabilizing influence that comes with continuous occupancy by a few families and their descendants. The community is not as close-knit as Elgin. Rather than being united in one consolidated school district, the British-Canadians are divided into two rural neighbourhoods. The village itself has a different character. It is a bustling centre serving a wide and mixed area, with a beer 89

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parlour, hotel, and considerable traffic from the outside world, and these factors have a leavening effect on standards of behaviour. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the social control and solidarity of Elgin are not as evident in Rossburn. The ethnic group situation also has disorganizing effects. The consciousness that they are being replaced by the Ukrainians is reflected in the comparative lack of community pride among the British-Canadians. In Elgin, despite minor criticism, most people concurred in the statement "this is a good community" and identified themselves with the welfare of the community. In Rossburn the British-Canadians were openly critical of the community and each other, and pessimistic about the future. The comparative breakdown of social control is reflected in the quoted statement of the young woman: "They don't care what you think." Public opinion has not the force that it has in Elgin. Other indices of the difference are the drinking parties in which high school girls and returned men are said to participate, the general irrelevance of drinking as an issue in the community, and the meagre support of religious institutions. It is difficult to obtain teachers for the United Church Sunday School. The difference is also indicated in the extent to which the parties and teas, at which the women try to outshine each other, replace the more informal hospitality of Elgin. The patterns of social interaction within the British-origin community are complicated by the existence of the two rural neighbourhoods, but the people from these districts also participate in the larger associations of Rossburn, attend the dances and socials, and do most of their shopping there. In this they differ from the large and scattered Ukrainian neighbourhoods, in that the Ukrainians do not have the associations centred on the village that would integrate them as a community. Better roads and transportation in the southern section of the municipality make for greater physical mobility among the British-origin group. Moreover, the British-Canadian group is 90

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smaller, with more literate followers and more experienced leaders; hence, a higher degree of organization and informal interaction is to be expected. Leadership among the British-Canadians exhibits many of the features of rural leadership found elsewhere. The executives of the two Pool elevators, the Agricultural Society, and the Consumers' Cooperative store are drawn from a small group of successful farmers who, probably through their education and experience in the Pool elevator organization, have become imbued with the cooperative philosophy, as witnessed by the recent formation of the cooperative store in the village and of an MFAC group in the rural neighbourhood to the southeast. Scarcity of the specific abilities involved in presiding over these organizations is seen in the fact that the same farmer is president of the village Pool elevator, the Consumers' Cooperative store, and the Agricultural Society, and vice-president of the Board of Trade, despite the fact that he was criticized to me as being "dictatorial" and "arbitrary." When I attended a meeting of the Agricultural Society, my subjective impression was that the manner in which it was conducted showed lack of experience on the part of the directors. Discussion frequently crystallized into private arguments on the floor of the meeting, and impasses arose that experience on the part of the chairman and members would quickly have resolved. Decisions were several times achieved on the basis of suggestions made by the local banker, who was acting as secretary. The number of British-Canadians who have completed higher education is fewer than in Elgin. In fact the only known university graduate in the community is the principal of the village high school. The young man who is the temporary United Church minister is a university student on a year's leave, and the Pentecostal Church minister has no university training. The school principal directs the students' association and the annual play put on by the United Church Ladies' Aid in the village. The four women teachers in the village school take no part in leadership and 91

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refused to form a CGIT (Canadian Girls in Training) group among the girls when requested to do so by some villagers. That three of these young women left at the end of the year, at least two of them to be married, is evidence that they had little reason to identify themselves with the community or to take particular cognizance of public opinion. One of the teachers who "went around" with one of her older male students continued to do so despite community censure. As in other rural communities, many of the married women formerly were schoolteachers. They tend to hold executive positions and take a more active part than women without this background. The village clerk, who has specific skills in correspondence and keeping books, performs a role akin to that of the "perennial secretary" in Elgin. He is secretary of the Agricultural Society and the Canadian Legion, and agent of the Blue Cross Hospital Plan. A veteran of the First World War, he is also the local liaison man for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Ukrainian municipal clerk performs the secretarial functions for the Board of Trade. The prominent farmer who is secretary of the Pool elevator is also secretary of the Consumers' Cooperative. VILLAGE ASSOCIATIONS

The present reeve of the municipality is the young excommander in the navy. His predecessor was the first Ukrainian reeve, an elderly immigrant who excited the impatience of the community because he did nothing about the poor roads, and the contempt of the British-Canadians because "he couldn't even sign his own name." The new reeve is acceptable to many Ukrainians because he was brought up in a mixed rural school district and is not identified with the strong anti-Ukrainian feeling. Though he was backed by the Board of Trade, which is mixed in membership, he was elected by a plurality of only one vote. He is probably the last of the British-Canadian reeves, and 92

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his election may be taken as indirect evidence of the lack of Ukrainian persons with sufficient experience and status. Of the four councillors, three are Ukrainian and one British-Canadian, reflecting the ethnic composition of their wards. The present municipal clerk is a Ukrainian, as was his predecessor. Prior to that the municipal clerks were British-Canadian. The village mayor, who has held the office for eighteen years, is a British-Canadian merchant of a pioneer family. Two years ago the election of the first Ukrainian to the village council symbolized the change in the composition of the village. The village clerk is a British-Canadian who expressed the fear that he would hold his job only as long as the British were a majority in the village. The secretary of the school board is British-Canadian, as was the board until two years ago, when the first Ukrainian was elected. When, last year, another Ukrainian was elected, bringing the number to two, the British became perturbed and several expressed their determination to rectify the situation at the next election. One man said: The English people here were pretty mad when young Danyleyko was elected to the school board, especially Bob Parsons. He was angry at his father for not letting his name stand again. His kids will be going to school soon and he doesn't want them taught by a Ruthenian. People are going to see that it doesn't happen again. The British-Canadians fear that with a Ukrainian majority of the school board, Ukrainian teachers will be given preference. When, several years ago, a Ukrainian teacher was hired, agitation on the part of several of the leading village British-Canadians led to his dismissal, despite the young man's success in organizing musical activities. The Board of Trade was organized a little over a year ago. The initiative seems to have come from the new bank manager and the young man who is now reeve. The president is the bank manager, the vice-president is the most prominent of the British-

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origin farmers, and the secretary-treasurer is the young Ukrainian municipal clerk. The membership consists of forty-eight British-Canadians and sixteen Ukrainians, four Poles, and two Jews. It is indicative of the difference between the two groups that eleven of the British-Canadians are farmers but only one of the Ukrainian members is a farmer. The other Ukrainian members are village businessmen. It is also noteworthy that seven of the members are women, a phenomenon not found in the other districts studied. The activities of the Board of Trade are similar to those of boards of trade elsewhere: petitioning the government about roads, initiating a board to press for a hospital under the Provincial Health Plan, appointing a committee to interview the council about getting a municipal doctor, and other such projects. The Agricultural Society's chief function is to arrange for the annual fair. The work is done entirely by the large board of directors elected at the annual meeting of the members. The executive and board, which meets ten times a year, is composed entirely of British-Canadians and includes most of the prominent farmers, several villagers, and some of their wives. This is especially significant in view of the fact that the British-origin farmers form such a decided minority. In reply to a comment on the lack of Ukrainian representation on the board, a director said, "We tried some Ruthenians on the Board of Directors but they wouldn't do their share so we dropped them." At the last annual meeting to elect directors, there were twenty-eight present, none of them Ukrainian. The greater participation of the British-Canadians in the actual events of the fair is shown by the fact that they constituted thirty-eight of the prizewinners in 1945, while the Ukrainians were five in number. The Agricultural Society serves as a liaison with the Department of Agriculture. It sponsored an agricultural short course by the Extension Service a few months prior to the study. The Manitoba Pool elevator serves a large area to the north, but the areas to the east and west take their grain to elevators at 94

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the nearest railway points. Of the 249 Pool members, approximately two-thirds are Ukrainian. The executive is entirely British-Canadian except for one director, who is of Polish origin. When asked about the absence of Ukrainians on the executive, the member's reply was akin to that above: "We've had Ruthenians on the Board before but they live too far out to come to meetings." The composition of the directorate is evidence of the lack of interest on the part of Ukrainians, as well as of the difficulty in getting to meetings in the village, since the Ukrainian majority could elect an entirely Ukrainian directorate if they turned out and voted. The Pool directorate sponsors the monthly National Film Board showings during the winter in the community hall. The films are shown to the schoolchildren during the afternoon and the adults at night. However, owing to the condition of the roads in winter, these showings are accessible only to those who live near the village, and fail to reach the bulk of the people who live "up in the bush." Blocked roads also mean that the operator occasionally cannot keep his monthly engagement, which has caused some irritation on the part of the Pool directors. The NFB operator says that the peak adult attendance is about eighty persons, of whom the British-Canadians form a majority. The group that initiated the Consumers' Cooperative was made up of successful farmers, the leaders in the Pool elevator and the Agricultural Society. It was formed a little over a year ago when the directors of the Pool were holding their study course. The directors signed up the majority of the British-Canadians in the village, who were the bulk of the customers of the British general storekeeper, an important factor in causing him to sell his business to the new cooperative. The original directors were all British-origin but a Ukrainian was later put on the executive, since Ukrainian members were needed if the cooperative was to succeed. Of the 173 members, 65 (38 per cent) were Ukrainians. The manager is British-Canadian and one of the clerks is Ukrainian. Several 95

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Ukrainians commented that they were discriminated against in the store and that articles in short supply were saved under the counter for British-Canadian customers. Leadership in the wartime associations, such as the Red Cross Society, Victory Loan Committee, and the Rehabilitation Committee, was British-Canadian, but when it was necessary to canvass for funds, Ukrainians were included. The women did not meet to sew for the Red Cross but the work was handed out to them to do at home. One of their "liaison" women was responsible for distributing the work to the Ukrainian women. That they did not participate to the same extent as the British-Canadians is shown by the fact that when medallions were distributed for having done a certain amount of work, the Ukrainian women received only two out of the thirty awarded. The division between the two groups was shown very clearly in the organization of the Soldiers' Aid, the women's association that in Rossburn was responsible for raising funds and packing boxes for the soldiers overseas. At first there was only one organization in which two Ukrainian women took part. Later a separate Ukrainian Soldiers' Aid was formed. Three young Ukrainian women attended both groups. Both groups raised money through fees, card parties, and, like all the other organizations in the village, through dances. Both were supposed to send boxes to all the servicemen regardless of nationality, but several British-Canadian women charged that the Ukrainian women sent boxes only to boys of their own group. Friction also resulted when it was found that the Ukrainian women used some of their funds to support the Ukrainian Canteen in London, England. Both groups became defunct soon after hostilities ceased, and a Women's Institute was reorganized by the British-Canadian women. The Canadian Legion branch in Rossburn covers the whole municipality. The executive is entirely British-Canadian and, of the forty-three members, thirty-seven are British-origin, five are Ukrainians, and one is of Polish origin. It includes virtually all 96

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the eligible British-Canadians in the community but only a small percentage of the Ukrainians. At one time the British-Canadians in Rossburn supported two lodges for men and one for women, but the only one active at present is a small Oddfellows Lodge. The executive is made up of leading British-Canadians from the village. The Ukrainians have no secret societies of their own and have never belonged to those of the British-Canadians. Most of the "best" families among the British-Canadians belong to the United Church but few attend regularly. The average attendance was said to be twenty but there were only nine persons at the service I attended. The two groups might be expected to be separated in religious observance because of differences in affiliation, but the behaviour of the one Ukrainian family in town with United Church affiliation shows the effects of the conflict since they do not attend the church in town. According to one British-Canadian woman who deplored the social distance between the groups, "they came a few times but nobody talked to them or welcomed them and after a little while they stopped coming." Equally indicative is the case of the one Ukrainian neighbourhood that has a United church, a continuation of a former Greek Independent church. This church has not had a regular visiting Ukrainian minister for almost twenty years and, although the neighbourhood is only five miles out of town, the members never attend the British-Canadian church in Rossburn. They have not requested the services of the United Church ministers from Rossburn in the past. When a liberal young minister of a few years ago established a certain rapport with these Ukrainians and proposed to conduct the occasional service in their church, he was censured by his own Britishorigin congregation. When the wife of this minister organized an active CGIT group of British, Jewish, Ukrainian, and Polish girls, the board of the church refused them the use of the church basement for a banquet on the grounds that there were Jews and 97

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Catholics in the group. The couple are reported to have come in for much criticism because they fraternized with the "Ruthenians," and one leading villager stated to the writer that the minister had been "spoiled by all that socialist nonsense they fill them with at the university." The other British-Canadian religious body is the Pentecostal Church, which has a slightly larger average attendance than the United Church, and draws its members from a considerable distance in the country. The change in the character of the community is shown in the fact that this building was formerly an Anglican church, which had long been defunct. Except for one pioneer family, which was formerly Methodist, it tends to attract the poorer farmers and retired farmers of the British-Canadian group. United Church people refer to them scornfully as "making a circus of religion." The only auxiliary association is a bible study group for women. The Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches have branches in the village but no resident clergy. They depend upon visiting priests from adjoining communities who, in the winter, come as infrequently as every six weeks. The largest is the Greek Catholic Church, with a congregation of twenty-five families and a new Byzantine church building of wood, on the outskirts of town. It has no active adult organizations, although the men and women of the church look after the maintenance of the church building and the men of the church are officially recognized as a branch of the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood. The Greek Orthodox congregation is smaller, made up of fifteen families, and services are held in the Canadian Legion. The relationship between the two main groups is shown in the refusal of the United Church board to allow the Orthodox congregation to use their church at periods when it would otherwise have been idle. The solidarity between the Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches, and the importance of the national symbols they embody to their followers, is shown in the fact that a 98

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few members sometimes attend each other's services, although the Greek Catholic priest is reported to discourage this. The small Roman Catholic congregation consists of twelve Polish families and the Irish-Catholic station master. Sermons are in Polish with an occasional English sermon for the benefit of the station master. The separation of the two groups is almost complete in the village-centred women's associations. The character of the two United Church auxiliary associations reflects the small size and lack of solidarity in the British-origin community. The personnel of the two organizations is identical, consisting of twenty women, most of them from the village. Consequently the meetings of the Ladies' Aid and the Women's Missionary Society (WMS) are held concurrently, the end of one meeting and the beginning of another being symbolized by a change of chair and secretary. Most of the women are middle-aged or older and several complained that the young women take no interest in church work. A nucleus of about six women are the faithful workers and regular attendants at the meetings. The new president complained that she found it "hard to get cooperation." The educational activities consist of an annual play put on by the Ladies' Aid, directed this year by the high school principal, and a study of missionary pamphlets by the WMS. The contrast with Elgin was striking in the one meeting we attended. Tense situations arose, a result of mutual criticism, making evident the lack of solidarity within the group. Although lunch was served afterwards, it did not appear to be an enjoyable social gathering, as it had in Elgin. The Women's Institute (wi) was allowed to lapse during the war and was reorganized in 1946. The president is the wife of the school principal, and of the twenty-nine members, twenty-four are from the village. When the group was reorganized a gesture was made towards bringing in the Ukrainian women. Twentynine formal invitations were sent out to Ukrainian women but only one woman responded, one of the women already identified 99

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as a go-between for the two groups. She was promptly made a vice-president to ensure her interest. The conflict situation has become too firmly entrenched to be overcome by a single gesture. Moreover, the Greek Orthodox women, who would be more likely to join than the Greek Catholics, have an organization of their own. Much of the work of the WI is aimed at raising money for the local hospital fund through dances, bazaars, and card parties, but an effort is also made to have an educational program since it is felt, in the words of one of the executive, "that's what the WI is supposed to be for." A few of the more articulate members have prepared short talks on subjects related to housekeeping and home decorating, using chiefly Extension Service pamphlets. The few local people who are experts on any subject have also been recruited, such as the local RCMP officer who gave a talk on gardening. The comments of several members would indicate that the level of these talks has not been high and the interest of the members has not been sustained. In view of the fact that there is no library and there are few people in the community with higher education or extensive theoretical knowledge on any subject, this is not surprising. There are no active organizations among the Polish women in the village, and the only active group among the Ukrainian women is a branch of the Canadian Ukrainian Women's Association, one of the associations of the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League. It was organized several years ago by the wife of a visiting Greek Orthodox priest and its membership of nineteen includes only two Greek Catholic women. The latter admitted that their priest had advised them not to join. The constitution of the group was said by the secretary to forbid the admission of Polish women. The formal purpose of the group is "the preservation and cultivation of Ukrainian culture," and it raises money for nationalist causes by dances and bazaars. There is evidence that their effort to preserve Ukrainian culture is a losing battle. The 100

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older women in the group do the traditional cross-stitch needlework but the painstaking art is being lost by the younger women. Most of the needlework at their bazaars is of the type done by the British-Canadian women. For several years they have been unable to conduct an ethnic folk school for their children because of the lack of a teacher. However, one was organized a few months prior to the study when a Ukrainian from Saskatchewan, who had been a schoolteacher, bought a store in the village and, being an ardent nationalist, provided the necessary teaching skills. He conducts biweekly classes in Ukrainian reading and writing, history and literature, and is training an orchestra of a dozen children. The only male ethnic association is a branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee organized within the last two years. At present it has only sixteen members from the village and nearby neighbourhoods. The elderly president, the chief go-between for the Ukrainian group, attributes the small membership to the fact that "they don't come because they think we'll take some money from them." The association holds only one or two meetings a year and exists chiefly for the purpose of recruiting funds and support for the central body. It was formed by a Ukrainian lawyer from a neighbouring community and has participated in a regional convention with two other neighbouring locals. The president stated that the group proposed to hold a folk school in the village in the summer if the necessary funds could be raised to hire an outside teacher. There is also a small branch in one of the rural neighbourhoods. Concern was expressed several times about the lack of organized recreation for young people in the villages. Behaviour among the young people that the community did not approve of was attributed to the absence of such outlets. There are no associations for young people in connection with the churches. The only organized youth group is the students' association at the school under the leadership of the principal. Its activities have included the staging of a concert and three one-act plays, and the 101

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funds raised in this manner have been spent for sports equipment and the maintenance of the local skating rink. A year ago a branch of the Canadian Ukrainian Youth Association (Ukrainian Self-Reliance League) existed among the Ukrainian high school children. It was started by a paid organizer and lapsed at the end of the school year because, according to several Ukrainian informants, "there wasn't anybody to lead it." The new Ukrainian storekeeper who teaches the folk school stated his intention of re-forming the group, and an announcement in the local paper, a short time after I left the community, of a visit of a paid organizer makes it probable that this has taken place. The amount of mingling between the two groups in such social rituals as eating and the degrees of intermarriage are more reliable criteria of social distance. In Rossburn, no instances were found of British-origin and Ukrainian families being on intimate enough terms to visit for dinner. Only one instance of intermarriage, a recent union between a British-origin man and a Ukrainian girl, was encountered. This division extends to all entertaining, visiting, and most informal associations. In the beer parlour, which performs the function of a men's club for the majority of males in the community, it is noticeable that individuals sit at tables with members of their own ethnic groups and each group uses its own language. The younger British-Canadians tend to congregate in the one cafe owned by a member of their own group, and the Ukrainians in their own cafes and stores. At the frequent dances held in the community hall and sponsored by the various local associations, both groups attend, but they keep in their own groups on the sidelines and tend to dance only with others in the same group. High school students stated that although there was no conflict between the British-Canadians and Ukrainians at school, they separate into mutually exclusive cliques outside the classroom.

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RURAL NEIGHBOURHOODS The line of demarcation between the two major soil zones in the municipality, which separates the original areas of British-origin and Ukrainian settlement, runs roughly on a diagonal direction across the municipality from the southeast to the northwest. Above this line the population is solidly Ukrainian. Below, it has become mixed with the southward advance of the Ukrainians. The Vista neighbourhood, centred on the first railroad point southeast of Rossburn, has three stores, a post office, and a grain elevator. There is also a small United church, occasionally visited by the minister from Rossburn, and a Greek Orthodox church a little way out of the hamlet. The area tributary to it is the best farmland found in the municipality and is part of the territory originally settled by the British-Canadians. Local informants believe the Ukrainians and British to be about equal in numbers. There are two United Church women's associations, the Ladies' Aid and the Women's Missionary Society, with overlapping membership. The Pool elevator organization, whose executive is entirely British-Canadian, does no educational work. This neighbourhood has one development not found elsewhere in the community—a flourishing set of boys' and girls' 4-H clubs. The clubs were first formed seven years ago by a retired BritishCanadian farmer, Mr. M., who was a champion swine breeder, with the help of an elderly farm labourer. These two men were struck by the lack of activity for young people. They wrote to the Extension Service for advice and had already formed the clubs by the time the agricultural representative arrived. Before starting the clubs they formed a Senior Committee of the local BritishCanadian farmers in order to have their help and backing. The first members of the clubs were British-Canadian, but Mr. M. followed a policy of encouraging the Ukrainian children to join and they have gradually done so. As Mr. M. said, "The Ruthenians don't understand the clubs in principle but when they see them in action they get interested and want to join." A Ukrainian

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farmer was this year added to the Senior Committee and there are Ukrainian children on the executives of several of the clubs. Mr. M. stated that the Ukrainians have shown considerable enthusiasm for the clubs and have been ready to give donations for club activities. There are six clubs in all: calf, swine, seed, poultry, cooking, and sewing. The four agricultural clubs are under the leadership of British-Canadian farmers, the cooking under a local housewife, and the sewing club under the Ukrainian teacher in the local one-room high school. An annual 4-H fair at which all the clubs give displays of their achievements has become a local event, and is visited by Extension Service officials. This exemplary set-up of boys' and girls' clubs, which is considered by the Extension Service as being one of the best in the province, demonstrates the importance of local leadership in an area that is a good distance from the nearest agricultural representative. That this neighbourhood was particularly fortunate in its leadership is shown in the deliberate policy of Mr. M. (as stated to me) of making the young people take as large a part as possible in leading their own meetings and their own decisions. There is already evidence that the participation of both groups of young people in the clubs is tending to lessen the barrier between them. The role it plays in bringing the younger Ukrainians in to participate is shown in the following statement: Last year Johnny Sawchuk, a Ruthenian lad, was chosen as the delegate to Winnipeg, but he came to me and said he couldn't go because his father needed him at home. This year I went and talked to his father. It turned out that neither he nor Johnny had ever been to Winnipeg and he was afraid that Johnny wouldn't know what to do or where to go. I told him that the Department of Agriculture people would meet him at the train and look after him the whole time. He went and got along fine. The delegates always have to get up and give reports when they get back and he gave as good a one as we ever had. 104

A Community in Transition

The Birdtail neighbourhood is located about six miles northeast of the village and lies north of the railway. Much smaller than Vista, it takes in approximately twelve sections and is equally divided between sixteen British-origin and sixteen Ukrainian families. This was one of the earliest British-Canadian settlements. It was a scene of considerable activity in the days when the small river was used for floating logs and the settlers allowed their cattle to range up its broad valley. Part of the land in this neighbourhood in the river valley is the poorest soil type in the municipality, and the general level of prosperity is not as high as in the southern section. The centre of the neighbourhood is a crossroads United church and a small hall owned by the local branch of the Women's Institute. The neighbourhood extends to the nearest railway point, which has an elevator, store and post office. The United church, whose membership in the past was entirely British-Canadian, has become defunct but until a few years ago it was visited occasionally by the minister from Rossburn. Its failure is attributed to the displacement of several of the British-Canadian families by Ukrainians and the defection of several former Methodists to the Pentecostal church in the village. The only associations of the neighbourhood are confined to women. The Women's Institute, which has twelve British-origin members and two Ukrainian, continued during the war in name only and was replaced by a Soldier's Aid and a Red Cross group, which included Ukrainian women. When the Women's Institute was reorganized, the two groups again separated. There is also a Ladies' Aid with approximately the same officers and members as the Wl, which maintains the church building. Prior to the war the "social evenings" were held weekly at the hall and both the British- and Ukrainian-origin people came from a considerable distance to attend. These are no longer held. It is also indicative of the decline of the neighbourhood that when the women's organizations wish to hold dances or teas for money-making purposes, they hold them in Rossburn. 105

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The Ukrainian rural neighbourhoods "up in the bush" are centred on various buildings—halls, schools, churches, post offices, and small stores. The areas covered by these different institutions are by no means congruent. The school districts cover the smallest areas and the schools are the most numerous institutions. The community halls are least frequent and usually include portions of several school districts. These halls were the earliest community centres and continue to play that function, so it is from them that the neighbourhoods usually take their names, as have most of the post offices. In most cases the stores have been established in proximity to the community halls. The churches were located according to the concentration of their communicants rather than by neighbourhood, which accounts for their apparently random scattering. Greek Catholic churches are the most numerous, indicating the religious affiliation of the majority. The one rural Roman Catholic church serves the Polish minority. Like the village churches, these are served by visiting priests who come at intervals of several weeks. The isolation of these neighbourhoods in winter is noteworthy. Impassable roads mean that travel is limited to horse-drawn vans and the journey to the village from the more remote districts takes several hours. The isolation is made complete by the lack of telephones, except for emergency telephones located at the post offices or halls. On the social side, isolation has meant that the people have had to organize their own recreation around their community halls. In the past these halls are reported to have been the scene of considerable activity. They usually have stages and libraries of Ukrainian plays and literature, and have been the centre for dances, dramatics, and concerts celebrating the anniversaries of Ukrainian national figures. All the Ukrainians in the neighbourhood participate in the activities of the hall, regardless of religious denomination, since they are intermingled and no group could alone support its own activities. 106

A Community in Transition

The decline in recent years in activity around the halls is attributed to two causes: the decline in the number of young people, and the lack of leadership. Prior to the war there was a surplus of young people throughout the district. A high birth rate was coupled with the competitive disadvantage suffered by young Ukrainians in finding economic opportunities elsewhere, which was aggravated during the Depression period. To the disadvantage of having a "foreign" name was added the handicap of speaking English with an accent, and lack of experience in the larger society. The size of this backlog of young people is shown in the population figures. Until 1936, the Ukrainian population in Rossburn showed a steady increase. After 1939 the war provided outlets in urban employment and the armed forces. The extent to which the young people emigrated is shown by the decrease of 353 between 1936 and 1941 in the number of Ukrainians in the municipality. The shortage of leadership is related to the difficulty of recruiting trained schoolteachers. The Ukrainian rural districts have been particularly dependent on their own ethnic schoolteachers to provide leadership in community activities, due to the lack of other educated persons. The schoolteachers have not only been better acquainted with the culture of the larger society, but also with Ukrainian literature, history, and music. The statement of an elderly Ukrainian leader in the district is indicative: "The young people who took education, they are better Ukrainians than the ones who stay home. They want to keep our Ukrainian culture and are ready to take an active part, but the ones who stay home, all they are interested in is dances and to amuse themselves." The schoolteachers have usually been responsible for teaching the ethnic folk schools after-hours. During the war qualified teachers of Ukrainian origin, like all qualified teachers, have been difficult to obtain. Consequently, all the teachers in the solidly Ukrainian districts, except one, are "permit" (a special licence) teachers, many of them recently grade 11 pupils in the village

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high school. They are not mature enough, nor literate enough in either British-Canadian or Ukrainian culture, to provide leadership. The one exception is the teacher at the first neighbourhood northeast of the village, who has a second-class teaching certificate. He has taught at the school for seven years and the appreciation of the neighbourhood for his services as a leader is shown by the fact that they have built him a house beside the school and pay him a higher than average salary. Despite his leadership the lack of young people has meant that the plays, choirs, and socials he formerly organized have fallen off considerably during the war. The scarcity of leadership is reflected in the fact that he is also a leader in the larger Ukrainian community. He is secretary of the branch of the Canadian Ukrainian Committee centred in the village, and was CCF candidate for the riding in the last provincial election. The shortage of leaders in the Ukrainian neighbourhoods and throughout the larger Ukrainian community is not peculiar to Rossburn. Several Ukrainian leaders in Winnipeg stated that their organizers frequently started associations in rural places, which became defunct soon afterwards, due to a lack of local leadership. The first-generation immigrant group, and the older members of the second generation who received only a modicum of formal education, have little training for leadership. In Rossburn the Ukrainians have no educated professional people of their own group. This is in contrast to the Ukrainian town of Oakburn to the southeast, which has a resident Ukrainian priest, lawyer, and high school teacher, and consequently has several active ethnic associations. In the past leaders with specific skills in various aspects of Ukrainian culture, such as literature, music, and folk dancing, have been occasionally hired from the outside by the rural neighbourhoods to teach young people during the summer. The national associations have established branches in many rural communities. To what extent do these associations exist in Rossburn? Since the Rossburn immigrants came soon after the turn of the century, it is not surprising that neither of the 108

A Community in Transition

extremely nationalistic associations, the Ukrainian National Federation or the United Hetman organization, predominantly postwar in membership, have branches in the district. The national Ukrainian Greek Catholic associations have just reached the stage of forming head offices, acquiring a paid organizer, and extending their secular activities. Hence the "sisters and brothers" in the Greek Catholic churches that rely on a visiting priest perform only the offices of maintaining the church building. The Ukrainian Self-Reliance League, predominantly Greek Orthodox, has had more influence, though the district is predominantly Greek Catholic. In recent years their organizer formed four branches of the youth association in the municipality, including one in the village, all of which have since become inactive. There is a branch of the women's association in the village, the only one in the community. The only known pro-Russian group in the community consists of a few people in the neighbourhood at the northeast corner of the municipality. This group was formed by an outside organizer in 1927 and still causes an ideological split, although it is at present inactive. Branches of the Canadian Ukrainian Committee exist, as already noted, one in the village and one in a rural neighbourhood. In the table below the circulation of the principal Ukrainian newspapers, the two largest English-language farm periodicals, and the two Winnipeg dailies is given for the post offices in the community. The circulation of the Ukrainian newspapers, organs of the different associations, gives a rough indication of the shades of nationalist sympathy in the community. The circulation of the English periodicals in the purely Ukrainian neighbourhoods is important because, other than the radio, it is the only regular form of adult education in the English language reaching the people.

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Table 5 Circulation of Newspapers and Periodicals, Rossburn, 1946 Entirely Ukraiilian

Mixed Post Office

Total

Rossburn

PI

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

218

45

107

38

48

57

37

550

Canadian Fanner (Independent Nationalist)

26

6

10

7

13

4

11

77

Ukrainian Voice (Ukrainian Self-Reliance League)

26

3

8

11

8

4

2

62

New Pathway (Ukrainian National Federation)

17

3

4

1

1

.

26

Future of the Nation (Greek Catholic)

Number of Households

5

2

5

1

3

2

5

23

Ukrainian News (Greek Catholic)

18

1

7

5

3

5

2

41

Ukrainian Word (Pro-Russian)

-

1

1

4

1

2

9

Weekly Free Press

192

33

81

48

27

24

27

432

Country Guide

113

17

55

16

15

9

14

239

Daily Free Press

58

7

-

-

Tribune

36

4

6

-

65

-

46

Source: These figures were obtained from the offices of these papers in July 1946.

Among the Ukrainian-language papers, the Canadian Farmer, independent of any of the groups though nationalist in sympathy, has the largest following. Next comes the Ukrainian Voice, organ of the comparatively mild Ukrainian Self-Reliance League, although its circulation is less than that of the two Greek Catholic papers combined. The Ukrainian National Federation organ has a decidedly smaller following, and only a handful of people in the community are subscribers to the pro-Russian weekly. The largest English-language farm weekly not only has a much larger circulation throughout the community, but at the four, entirely Ukrainian, post offices, its total circulation is larger than the six Ukrainian weeklies combined. The monthly Country Guide circulation, though considerably smaller, is still larger than any of the Ukrainian papers, taken individually. The negligible 110

A Community in Transition

circulation of the Winnipeg dailies is not surprising, since trains and mail service come to the village only three times a week, and even less frequently to the post offices in the bush. The comparatively large circulation of the two English-language farm papers must be attributed to the education of the second generation in Canadian schools. The ownership of radios could not be objectively determined, as there is apparently no correlation between the possession of radio licences (a government tax on reception), and the possession of radios. However, the opinion of several of the more literate Ukrainians was that over half the Ukrainian farmers owned radios and that the proportion was increasing rapidly with wartime prosperity. A discussion of the associations found in the Ukrainian neighbourhoods would not be complete without some mention of the branches of the CCF political organization, the only association of the larger Anglo-Canadian society having branches in the rural neighbourhoods of Rossburn. Centred in the village is an association for the provincial riding with both Ukrainian and British-Canadian members, and in four of the purely Ukrainian neighbourhoods there are local units. Since there are none in the mixed or predominantly British-origin neighbourhoods, and only a few British-Canadians belong to the party, it is identified with the Ukrainians. The last provincial candidate from the riding was the Ukrainian schoolteacher mentioned above. The success of the CCF in organizing these units can be partly attributed to the fact that the MLA in a neighbouring riding is Ukrainian, and that a Ukrainian MLA for a Winnipeg riding comes from the community. The support of the Ukrainians can also be interpreted as a protest against their subordinate position. The local units function chiefly at election time and carry on few activities in the intervening period, due, in the view of the head office, to "lack of leadership." Ill

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FORMAL EDUCATION

112

No data were gathered on the early problems of education in the Ukrainian neighbourhoods but much that has been written about the problems in "Ruthenian" districts throughout the West may be applied to Rossburn. These writers indicate that the standards of teaching, attendance, and physical equipment were below the level regarded as desirable. The public school was an unfamiliar institution to most of the immigrants. In some cases there was opposition to the English-language school as a deliberate means of assimilation. In Manitoba the effectiveness of Englishlanguage education in Ukrainian districts was diminished by bilingual teaching, which was allowed prior to 1916 in any school where there were ten pupils of any foreign origin. By 1915 there were in Manitoba 111 Ruthenian and Polish bilingual schools with 114 teachers. The manifest defects in the bilingual system without enforced attendance—little knowledge of English on the part of the pupils, poor attendance, and few students in the higher grades—were a factor in the defeat of the Roblin government in 1915.1 After that date compulsory attendance was enforced, bilingual training schools for teachers disbanded, and the official trustee system extended. Difficulties in administering school districts in the Ukrainian neighbourhoods continued as late as eight years ago, when two of the school districts were put under a trustee for a period, due to factional disagreements over financial matters. The small one-room schoolhouses scattered through the community are all primary schools, in which education for an additional grade or two may be obtained by correspondence if desired. The only high schools in the municipality are the tworoom high school in the village, and the one-room high school at Vista. This means that in order to get education above the primary level, young people who do not live in proximity to these two places must undergo the expense and inconvenience of boarding away from home during the school year. Since both

A Community in Transition

these schools are located in the southern part of the municipality where the British-Canadians dwell, it means a difference in opportunity for these two groups. The differential is augmented by the quality of teaching at the primary level. The village has been able to acquire fully qualified teachers who have to teach only two or three grades each, whereas the schools in Ukrainian neighbourhoods, with the one exception cited, have young permit teachers of their own ethnic group, many of whom turned to teaching when they failed their grade 11 examinations in the village school. Each is compelled to teach all the primary grades. Figures are not available on the difference in educational level between the young people of the two groups but certain indicative facts have been obtained. Cultural differences as well as differences in opportunity must be taken into account. When the Ukrainians first settled in the district, their strongest orientation was on the struggle for existence and economic security. Increasing numbers of children have gone on to higher education as the Ukrainians have attained a degree of economic security and acquired some of the values of the larger society. The Ukrainianlanguage papers emphasize the value of education, especially the Canadian Farmer, which devotes a page to that theme and has an ex-schoolteacher as its editor. At one of the Ukrainian rural schools, school registers were used, in consultation with the teacher, to determine the average grade at which children left school. The period for which complete registers were available was from 1930 to 1936, Depression years that were not typical. During that period the average grade at which children withdrew was 5.5, and only three of the children went beyond grade 7. Most of the children who were withdrawn immediately upon reaching the legal age were oldest children who were needed at home to help with the farm or housework. The teacher stated that the children have been staying in school longer in recent years. A study of education in the province made in 1936 gives some 113

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basis for comparing the degree of schooling attained by rural Ukrainians and British-Canadians. Rossburn municipality, which at that date was 73.26 per cent eastern Europeans (Ukrainian), is compared with the prosperous municipality of Roland, which is 64.36 per cent British: Table 6 Percentage of School Enrolment in Grades 10-12, 1936

Roland Rossburn

Boys

Girls

12.26

15.42

3.83

7.03

Source: Adapted from D.S. Woods, Education in Manitoba, Vol. I (Winnipeg, 1938), a report for the Economic Survey of Manitoba, which also shows Rossburn municipality to have the seventh highest illiteracy rate among Manitoba municipalities.

A survey I conducted of the young people in grades 11 and 12 at the Rossburn high school from 1937 to 1945 showed that of the 118 registered in the period, 37, or 31.35 per cent, were Ukrainian or Polish in origin, the remainder of British or Jewish origin. This would indicate that in proportion to their numbers, Ukrainian youth are still getting considerably less education than their British-origin contemporaries. Language is one of the obstacles to education, as the following statement by the Rossburn school principal indicates: There are some Ruthenian pupils in grade 11 who are clever enough but they won't pass their exams because they're not good enough at English. A lot of the children up in the bush can't talk a word of English when they enter grade 1. It takes all year to teach them a little English, and then by the next term they've forgotten all they learned. Besides, some of those teachers don't know much English themselves. Other local people commented that the Ukrainian children raised in the village spoke much better English than those in the rural neighbourhoods. This reflects one of the difficulties 114

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arising from the solidly Ukrainian nature of the northern district, where Ukrainian is the language in common use. Children have little or no occasion to use English until they enter school, where lack of familiarity with the language retards their progress. The schoolteacher, who is usually Ukrainian, frequently has a limited knowledge of English, or speaks it with an accent. The only qualified teacher in the wholly Ukrainian neighbourhoods speaks with a strong accent. Among adults, English is needed very rarely except in business relationships, and the increasing number of Ukrainian businessmen in the community is making it less necessary. The result for a majority is a limited facility in the English language and a noticeable accent when speaking it. In view of the fact that large numbers of the young people have to find employment elsewhere, chiefly in the urban centres, language difficulties place them at an additional competitive disadvantage. LIBRARIES AND OTHER CULTURAL FACILITIES

The only library facilities available in the village are the small school library and the travelling library at the Pool elevator, which is little used and little known. There is no book circle as in Elgin and only one person was found who bought books from one of the book clubs. The school principal, when asked what he did for reading material, replied, "I don't have any time for reading during the week and when I want something for the weekend I usually get some magazines over at the store." The only individual in the rural districts found to possess a private library of English books was the Ukrainian rural schoolteacher mentioned above, who was the CCF candidate for the riding. The Ukrainian halls have small collections of Ukrainian literature but, other than school books and English-language periodicals, there is usually no source through which Ukrainians in the rural neighbourhoods can extend their reading in the 115

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English language. An occurrence that took place in one of the neighbourhoods during the Depression indicates that there may be more interest among the young people in acquiring Englishlanguage books than the outsider might expect. In 1932 twentyfive or thirty young people organized what they called a New Outlook Club to study social problems, and a Ukrainian organizer formed it into a branch of an organization known as the Cooperative Christian Youth Movement with headquarters in Toronto. Over a period of from four to five years they acquired through this organization a number of "progressive" books, such as those of Van Paasen and Bellamy, which they read and discussed. The departure of a number of the young people from the neighbourhood brought an end to the group. One of the participants later became a member of the provincial legislature. The facilities for musical education among the BritishCanadians are few. The only music teacher in the village is the United church organist, who teaches piano to twelve Britishorigin and two Ukrainian children. There is no town band, although the Pool elevator operator has a small dance band, which plays for the local dances. The only choir is the small one in the United church, and no music is taught at the village school. Among the Ukrainians, folk music is part of the cultural heritage, and, like their folk culture, a certain amount is passed on without formal teaching. Individuals learn to play instruments by ear and are assisted by others who have learned in the same fashion. Because music plays a large part in the culture, laymen who can give instruction are more common; the Ukrainian storekeeper in the village who gives music lessons is an example. However, the failure of the folk culture to be transmitted through informal channels is shown by the larger role being given to formal teaching, especially in Winnipeg where the facilities can be supported. The organizers sent out by the different associations to the rural areas are usually competent along these lines. In Rossburn, some of the neighbourhoods have employed summer 116

A Community in Transition

teachers of Ukrainian culture since the beginning of the war. Evidence points to the fact that the Ukrainian heritage, other than the language, is gradually being lost by the younger people. Not only are the handicrafts not being produced by the younger generation, but at dances in the rural halls the usual American type of ballroom dancing prevails rather than the traditional folk dancing. Music at Ukrainian weddings and other celebrations is frequently provided by the British-Canadian dance band from the village. While the spoken language remains the medium of ordinary discourse, knowledge of the written language was reported to be decreasing among the young people, due to the lack of teachers. Loss of the ethnic culture appears to be inevitable in the long run and the British-origin community offers little to replace it. AGRICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

The Rossburn area is served by an agricultural representative whose office is in Shoal Lake, a village twenty-four miles to the southeast. Rossburn is at the northern edge of his large territory. Over a period of years the office has been closed at intervals, due to the difficulty of getting agricultural representatives. Several British-Canadian farmers expressed the belief that this service was inadequate and that they needed an agricultural representative closer at hand. Ukrainian leaders who were interviewed expressed even stronger views about the need for agricultural advice among their own group, and invariably stated that the agriculturist doing this work should speak Ukrainian. The present "ag rep" is British-Canadian. One Ukrainian said, "If a Ukrainian agronomist called a meeting at Joe's Lake he'd fill the hall." Two facts about the Ukrainian farm community are obvious even to the layman: first, the Ukrainian immigrants, at the time they came to Canada, were accustomed to the farming methods peculiar to small-scale subsistence farms and a different physical environment, facts that enhance their need for technical advice; 117

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and, second, there have been few formal channels through which agricultural knowledge could be disseminated in the Ukrainian community. Improvements in their standard of living beyond a certain point have involved increased specialization, improved livestock and seed, greater use of farm machinery, and the adoption of other Western techniques. It has also involved an increase in the size of farm holdings. That these changes have been taking place is evident, but it is also evident that the Ukrainian farmers have had to acquire the necessary knowledge largely through informal channels. Even today the formal channels for the diffusion of agricultural knowledge and housekeeping skills among the Rossburn Ukrainians are few. From the discussion of the associations throughout the Ukrainian neighbourhoods, it can be seen that there are no organizations of the type that serve as a liaison with the facilities offered by the Extension Service. Although pamphlet material is available upon written request from the government or the MFAC, the Ukrainian farmers are not likely to know of its existence or to write for it on their own initiative. The chief contact with the Extension Service consists of such personal visits as are made to the bush region by the agricultural representative. In default of formal channels, much of the technical knowledge Ukrainian farmers have acquired must have been gained through emulation of their neighbours, from the periodicals in both languages, and by word of mouth. Both the Pool and the line elevators have played some part in distributing and encouraging the use of better seed. Since 1929 four Extension Service courses for women have been held in the village. In the 1938-39 season, two of the eighteen "local leaders" who attended were Ukrainian women. In the "family health" course given in 1941-42, two of the twelve women were Ukrainian. The Ukrainian women were not represented in proportion to their numbers. Those who did attend were the younger, more literate women of the village who have been identified as playing the role of "go-betweens." 118

A Community in Transition

The foregoing analysis of the Ukrainian-Canadian rural community cannot claim to be adequate. It consists, rather, of a description based on the type of data a non-Ukrainian observer can collect in a short period of fieldwork. Despite its limitations, one can suggest that the journey of the Ukrainian rural community to full participation is an arduous one. Settlement on second-rate land augmented their initial poverty, and further inhibited the acculturation process. These factors meant also that adequate English-language schools, probably the most important acculturation agents of the larger society, were established in many cases only after years of settlement. The physical isolation attendant upon group settlement brought social isolation. The ethnic homogeneity of the settlement, which has been increasing with the displacement of the British-Canadians, has limited the cultural learning that comes from interaction with members of the dominant society. In particular, it has not made for the development of facility in the English language. Difficulties of transportation in the bush country have limited interaction with the larger Ukrainian community and made inaccessible for a large part of the year whatever professional leadership was offered. The ownership of automobiles by the Ukrainians, a factor in breaking down this isolation, has not been widespread until recent years, when increasing prosperity has been correlated with a rising standard of living.2 The belief that they are discriminated against has probably strengthened the Ukrainians' desire to maintain their own culture and lessened their motivation to conform to the expectations of the dominant society. This situation has its ramification in the absence of Ukrainians from the governing bodies of the cooperatives and the Agricultural Society, and the almost complete cleavage between the two groups at the level of informal interaction. In addition to not participating in the village and district associations, the Ukrainians have almost no active voluntary associations of their own, either purely local groups or branches 119

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of the national Ukrainian-Canadian associations. Again, the lack of trained Ukrainian leadership is clearly a factor, as are the religious and ideological cleavages within the community. Active ethnic associations in Rossburn would contribute to the acculturation process, especially insofar as they helped to train Ukrainian leadership. The popular belief that closed ethnic associations act only to retard acculturation can be challenged since ethnic associations tend to incorporate elements of the dominant culture as they develop. In both Rossburn and in the national Ukrainian associations, there is a tendency for the ethnic leaders also to be more active participants in the associations of the dominant society. That acculturation is occurring inevitably in Rossburn is evident in the increasing role that Ukrainians are taking in local government and is, perhaps, most apparent in visible indices of a higher standard of living, such as ownership of farm machinery, automobiles, better houses, and dress. That it is taking place more rapidly in the proximity of the village is seen in the unaccented English spoken by the young people, as compared to the heavy accents characteristic of young people in the more remote neighbourhoods. Changes that will facilitate acculturation seem likely to emerge, such as the provision of better qualified teachers in the primary schools and more accessible high school education for the rural neighbourhoods, as well as the provision of library facilities. The direct technological advice of an agricultural representative is likely to be made more accessible than it is at present, as will other types of professional leadership. The rural young people, who are poised between two cultural worlds but full participants in neither, would seem to be the most receptive audience.

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A Community in Transition

NOTES 1. C.H. Young, The Ukrainian-Canadians (Toronto, 1921), 182. 2. The number of Ukrainian automobile owners in Rossburn was estimated by informants to have doubled during the war period. Figures obtained from the local issuer of automobile licences showed that 190 had been issued by him in 1943, and that this had risen to 282 in 1945.

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CARMAN

The Larger Town

Carman, c. 1928, north view. PAM.

INTRODUCTION

In its appearance the town of Carman bears few of the marks of a prairie settlement. A narrow river twists through the middle of the town and causes the streets to conform to it rather than to a grid. Even the main street must make a jog halfway in its course, cross a bridge, and divide itself between the two banks. Where the ordinary prairie town sits on the open prairie, trees line the river and shade the streets and gardens in the central district. To the west, beginning a short block from the business section, are the bright green stretches of the golf course. Beyond that lie a park and the buildings of the large fairground. The substantial brick buildings found in the middle of the town suggest permanence and one-time prosperity, qualities that are not typical of prairie village architecture. The activity on the main street and the number of business establishments are evidence of Carman's commercial importance. 125

CARMAN

Unlike Rossburn, which comes to life fully only on Saturday, or Elgin, which never seems to achieve that quickening, Carman's main street is a scene of activity six days a week, mounting to a climax on Saturday evening. The number of cars and trucks on the main street, the large buses that come into town several times a day, the well-dressed strangers coming and going from the main hotel lend an impression of mobility and movement. Several buildings are to be seen that symbolize a large centre: a brick hospital, a large brick school, the tanks and overhead pipes of a small oil refinery, a three-storey community hall of red brick set in a small park, and a tall water tower. Just outside the town is a provincial home for delinquent boys. The pattern of the residences suggests social stratification. The businesses and larger houses of the town are close to the river. On the north and south of this main section are railway tracks and beyond the railway tracks are clusters of smaller frame dwellings. Carman is a town of approximately 1500 persons, and is the largest distributing centre in the area of south-central Manitoba. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Carman is situated within forty-five miles of the city of Winnipeg in an area of relatively stable agricultural production. Its early settlement took place during the 1880s when settlers were largely from Ontario, with a sprinkling from the British Isles. The settlers brought with them the institutions and associations of the Ontario rural community and adapted these to the new environment. The early establishment of agricultural organizations, local government, and schools created conditions favourable to the development of local leadership and a literate farm population. Good roads were built and automobiles adopted earlier than in newer and more remote sections. In 1900 the village was incorporated and by that time there were many business establishments, including a bank and two 126

The Larger Town

newspapers. The town had five churches, a curling rink, and medical, legal, and veterinary services. The census figures for the town indicate that the population has changed little over a period of forty years, a fairly stable adjustment to the economic demands of the region it serves. Table 7 Population of Carman, 1901-1941 1901

1911

1921

1931

1936

1941

1439

1271

1591

1418

1364

1455

Town officials estimate the 1946 population to be over 1500, due particularly to the large number of farmers retiring to town during the war. The comparatively early establishment and prosperity of the town are reflected in the age of its public utilities. In the period from 1901 to 1905 a small hydroelectric plant was built by local investors, later taken over by the town and finally incorporated in the provincial hydro system. By 1907 the town had completed a waterworks and sewage system, a local company had installed the first telephone system, and a hospital was erected. The easily accessible rural region around Carman was among the earliest to have hydroelectric power and telephones extended to the farms. After the First World War the town and municipality cooperated to build a large Memorial Hall, which houses the offices of both bodies and provides a space for meetings, concerts, and dances. The history of the farmers' organizations in the district is too complex to trace in detail; the present structure will be treated below. Suffice it to say that circumstances in terms of both leadership and a literate farm population were favourable to the growth of marketing associations, consumer cooperatives, and agricultural clubs of various types when the social situation made 127

CARMAN

the need for these strongly felt. Carman farmers were well represented on the provincial executives of farm movements. At the same time this district, with its Ontario heritage and relatively stable economy, was not as prone to agrarian radicalism as the newer communities of the straight wheat-farming areas further west. In the 1922 election, when the farmers' party almost swept the province, the Carman constituency returned the Conservative candidate, a local lawyer. The various structures of local government and the party organizations also provided training for local activists. Lawyers and businessmen tended to predominate in the candidacy for provincial and federal offices, while farmers and ordinary citizens garnered their experience in local government. The municipality was organized in 1879 and the first election held that year. School districts were created as the settlement grew and after 1901 the town had its own government. When added to the offices in voluntary and semi-public associations, activists were involved in a complex round of duties over a period dating from before the turn of the century. The population of the rural municipality continued to grow after the town had achieved relative stability of numbers. From 1898 to 1920 government drainage projects progressively freed more land for agriculture, leading to population increases. The census figures below do not indicate the magnitude of the increase, because in the period from 1881 to 1921 the municipal boundaries were greatly reduced and three additional municipalities created. Table 8 Population of Rural Rural Municipality, Municipality, 1881-1941 1881 1202

1891 1891 1202 1202

1901 1901 2322

1911 1911 2556

1921 1921

1931 1931

2071 2071

2847

1936 1936 1941 1941 3177 3177

3076

A stationary or declining population can be expected in the future. 128

The Larger Town

ETHNIC ORIGINS

Although British-origin settlers enjoyed a monopoly in the early period, members of other ethnic groups settled later on newly drained land. The largest non-British group is the Mennonites. Approximately twenty-five years ago a section of swamp in the northeast of the municipality, comprising between twenty-five and thirty sections, was drained and Mennonites bought and settled this as a group. Other single Mennonite families moving up from the area of original settlement to the south have purchased farms from British-origin settlers. It is believed locally that this displacement has been accelerated in the war period. The next largest group are the French-Canadians, concentrated in the northwest corner where the municipality overlaps with comparatively old French settlements. There is no evidence that they have expanded their holdings or displaced British-origin farmers to any extent. The increase in numbers, shown below, would seem to be a result of natural increase without an increase in farm holdings. Table 9

Ethnic Origin in Rural Municipality, 1931-1941

1931

1941

Increase

2153

2105

(48)

Dutch and German (chiefly Mennonite)

212

570

258

French

127

199

72

Polish

84

137

53

171

166

(5)

2847

3177

330

British Isles

Other/unspecified Totals

Ethnic representation in the town population shows trends similar to those in the rural municipality, as indicated in the chart below. 129

CARMAN

Table 10 Ethnic Origin in Town of Carman, 1931-1941 1931

1941

Increase

1093

1041

(52)

85

154

69

French

133

179

46

Polish

84

137

53

107

81

(26)

1418

1455

37

British Isles Dutch and German (chiefly Mennonite)

Other/unspecified Totals

The persons who list their origin as French and who form the largest non-British group in town are French-Canadian Metis. This small colony concentrated in Carman at an early period when local industries and road building created demand for day labourers, and since then their numbers have grown through natural increase. The Mennonites are relative newcomers, representative of the trend for them to move out from the crowded area of original settlement. As in the rural municipality, persons of British origin show a decrease in numbers. THE ECONOMY

The agricultural statistics for Dufferin municipality, in which Carman is located, show it to be intermediate between the Elgin municipality and Rossburn municipality in average farm size, number of livestock per acre, and the percentage of total acreage improved. The area is not subject to the wide variation in precipitation found in Elgin, or the problems of topography characteristic of Rossburn's bush district. In 1936 the average income per farm acre in Carman was considerably higher than in the other two municipalities. That year was one of poor crops in the Elgin district, combined with low prices; in bumper years Elgin's 130

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average income probably exceeds that of the Carman area, but the figures show the greater stability of Carman's farm economy. The businesses and professions in the town of Carman itself, as well as its rate of growth, are determined by the demands of the region it serves. Within the municipality Carman is the only incorporated centre; the hamlets have only elevators, general stores, garages, perhaps mission churches, and a few houses. To the south the nearest town, Morden, is twenty-six miles distant; to the southeast, Morris is thirty-four miles. To the northeast there are no big towns between Carman and Winnipeg, and to the west the line of rugged hills starting just beyond the edge of the municipality is a natural boundary from which trade flows east. Within this larger area there are centres of village-size, Roland and Elm Creek, supplying more specialized services than the hamlets, but less than Carman. Once a centre has reached the size of Carman, its range of goods, services, and entertainment exercises a cumulative attraction. Thus farm families may bypass the local hamlet store and buy groceries in the town where the women can wander around the other retail stores, the men can visit the beer parlour and picture show, and the children can go to a dance. This is particularly true of the "Saturday night trade," which in Carman attracts people from a wide area. The influence of this on the smaller centres is seen in Roland, where the merchants are vocal in protest at the shopping done in Carman by local people who could find the same goods in the village. The comparatively good roads in the district, kept open by snow-ploughing equipment in the winter, have facilitated the trend towards centralization in Carman but, at the same time, have made the shops of nearby Winnipeg more accessible. Each Saturday the numbers going to and from the city are large enough to justify the running of several extra buses. The only group of any size in town that is independent of the farm economy for their present livelihood is made up of retired persons, most retired from farming. The town voters' list for 131

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1945 indicates that of 733 resident voters, 132 are either retired males and their wives, or widows. The efforts of the local Board of Trade, as in other western towns, to secure "local industries" are aimed at escaping this exclusive dependence on the farming economy. The businesses and occupations in Carman include the usual retail services but also the more specialized furniture, clothing, and jewellery stores, as well as an undertaking establishment and a dry-cleaning plant. It offers the services of three lawyers, a dentist, an optometrist, and a veterinarian. At present the only hospital in the region (the nearest are in other towns and in the city) is in Carman, and there are three resident doctors. Centred in the town are such agricultural services as a creamery, a poultry pool and egg station, a private chick hatchery, a seed business, and the offices of the agricultural representative, who serves four municipalities. It possesses regional facilities such as the telephone headquarters, land-titles office, and Veterans' Land Act offices. The entertainments associated with a Saturday-night town are also present: a modern theatre, two hotels with beer parlours, and Saturday-night dances in the Memorial Hall. The thronged streets on that evening and the farm trucks bearing the names of a variety of communities testify to Carman's regional dominance. Local associations and other social gatherings tend to meet in the community where groceries are bought and mail collected. It is in Carman that district agricultural associations meet and that wartime associations make their headquarters. One indication of Carman's influence can be gained from the weekly newspaper. Like other rural papers, it includes separate sections of local news from every village, hamlet, and neighbourhood wherein it has any considerable circulation. On the preceding map, the outer limit of the places meriting local correspondents have been marked. Carman has a twelve-room public and high school, with an 132

The Larger Town

equal number of teachers, which serves the town and a small adjoining area. The Memorial Hall provides meeting space for various organizations, and has a theatre with stage, and a basement hall, which is used for dances and other types of recreation to which a low ceiling and pillars are suited. The town has no public library facilities, although a stationery store operates a small lending library of current fiction of the more popular type. Other recreation facilities include a large curling and skating rink, a golf course, and a "swimming pool" created by widening a section of the narrow, murky river and erecting diving boards and bathhouses. The town has five churches: United, Anglican, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic. Carman also has a large fairgrounds with a grandstand, track, exhibition buildings, and an adjoining park. TOWN-COUNTRY INTERACTION The town, in contrast to the two smaller communities previously studied, is relatively distinct from the surrounding farms. Although the merchants and professional people may depend on farm customers for their livelihood, the fact that these consumers are a large and scattered group and the fact that some of the services are in relatively high demand (e.g., those of doctors) help to insulate their behaviour to some extent from rural public opinion. Those who work for employers are even less dependent on rural approval. The number of non-farm people is large enough to enable them to predominate in some formal associations and to maintain their own informal cliques. Thus emancipated from the conservative mores of the rural society, the town business and professional people might be expected to behave more freely than the Upper Ten in Elgin. On examination, however, the differences between town and country are far from clear-cut. Carman's stable farming economy has not encouraged the growth of agrarian radicalism. As a consequence, farmer and

133

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merchants have not been made conscious of differences in economic interest. There is no apparent cleavage between the town and rural community in political affiliation. Occasionally there are differences of opinion in respect to specific issues but these usually are settled amicably. One example occurred at the time of the study. The Board of Trade circulated a petition that caused the town council to legislate in favour of daylight saving time. The farmers objected so strongly that a special meeting of the Board of Trade was held. Twenty-two farmers turned out, and a recommendation to rescind daylight saving time carried the day. Issues like the above are reported to be rare. In the ordinary conduct of the community, differences in norms and interests between farm families and townspeople are expressed peacefully and, in the main, unconsciously in the patterns of association. There is some farmer representation in town-centred associations. These male farmers who participate in town activities, some of whom play leadership roles in the town social structure, tend to live close to town and to be active in agricultural organizations as well. The distinction between the rural and town social structures is also blurred by the townsmen who are active in the larger agricultural associations, including the Agricultural Society and its Young Men's Section (VMS). There are a number of townsmen who are closely identified with agriculture, either because they operate farms or are engaged in occupations closely linked with agriculture; e.g. the local auctioneer. However, in the case of the YMS, one also finds such businessmen as a druggist and the manager of the chain grocery store among the membership. There remain some significant town-country differences in the extent of participation in recreational, religious, and women's groups. Curling in Carman, as in other rural communities, tends to be the most democratic of organized activities, cutting across status and ethnic lines. The nearest curling clubs are in the surrounding villages; the golf club is the only one in the region. 134

The Larger Town

Farmers are well represented in curling in comparison to the golf club, which has only three young farmers in its membership. Each church is different in its membership pattern. The United Church has by far the largest number of nominal church members throughout the community (1648 of 3177). There are either joint ministry churches or resident ministers of this faith in all the surrounding hamlets and villages, so that the rural population served by the town church is limited to within a few miles of town. In the town church 130 of the 400 families are rural but, according to the minister, these numbers exaggerate the degree of rural participation. He states that the number of farm people who attend church services is small and the number who participate in other church activities is negligible. In an interview the minister indicated that in his opinion the majority of rural people prefer church services in their own neighbourhood, perhaps feeling ill at ease in the town church: I've done what I can to bring them to church and induce them to join in, but without much success. They seem to prefer their own church services and if they can't have them they don't attend at all. When they've come to some of our church 'do's' they've seemed awkward and out of place; some of them have admitted feeling that way to me. Before I took this charge about five years ago my predecessor used to hold services out at [two districts centred on one-room schools]. When I took over the Board decided there was no reason they shouldn't come to Carman. They reasoned that they all had cars and they all came to town several times a week for other things. Nevertheless I went out for a couple of years and gave them services because they pressed me to. Then I had to drop it and the outcome has been that most of them don't come to church at all. Their women's groups were invited to merge with our WMS or WA but they kept them up and changed their names. They carry on the same sort of activity but they use the money they collect for some charitable purpose or other. 135

CARMAN

The Anglican church in town is too small and too recently reorganized to reveal a rural-urban pattern but the two Protestant sects do reveal differences. The Church of Christ is the only church congregation of this faith in the municipality. In the number of active participants, it is somewhat larger than the Anglican church. The congregation is reported to include a number of former Baptists, as well as former Methodists and Presbyterians who disapprove of the liberal religious interpretations of the United Church. A majority of its members are rural, and several of the townspeople who belong are retired farmers. On the other hand, the small Pentecostal church draws its twenty regular participants entirely from the lower status group in town. The only other Pentecostal church in the municipality is in the hamlet of Roseisle, which is located in the poorest soil zone of the district. In the membership of women's groups, other than women's lodges, a cleavage between town and country becomes very apparent. Rural women have much less opportunity than men to meet either informally or in the formal associations connected with government and administration. Consequently, their church and charitable organizations must provide much of the social interaction necessary for the solidarity of the local group, be it a rural hamlet or a subgroup within the town. Through their afternoon meetings, bazaars, and other activities, the individuals concerned derive recreation and social contacts. It is not surprising that these groups tend to be local in scope and that congeniality is important in determining membership. The separation of town and country women's associations in Carman reveals that country women prefer to have their own groups. Around Carman, the women's group is the most common type of rural association. At least one is found in every rural neighbourhood and hamlet in the area and, in several cases, it is the only voluntary association. Farm women living on the outskirts of town belonged to their rural neighbourhood groups in preference to a town group, although this frequently entailed 136

The Larger Town

travelling several miles out into the country for meetings. During the war each neighbourhood and hamlet had its own Red Cross group. Since the Anglican church is in a precarious financial position, the group concentrates almost entirely on money-making activities, and both rural and town women from the small congregation feel it a duty to take part. There are, in Carman, several cliques made up exclusively of town business or professional people. Informal mingling among the higher status British-origin group and the farmers was limited. The most noticeable of these cliques, and the most clearly set apart from the rural community, is a group known as the "fast set," made up of younger married business people who are sufficiently out of the ordinary to make them a subject of gossip, and to differentiate them from most of their fellow townspeople of equivalent status, as well. Another distinctively town clique is made up of the older, better-educated leading town citizens who belong to the Citizens' Forum group. The most apparent clique among the women with higher status is the one that crystallized into the formal association known as the Community Welfare Group. These cliques among the business and professional group tend to be urban in their orientation, and to symbolize the rural-town differentiation more clearly than most of the formal associations. Most of the retired farmers in town are known to have many ties with the country and they often visit back and forth with their friends and relatives among the farmers. TOWN SOCIETY Within the town there exist differences in ethnic origin, religion, wealth, occupation, and education sufficient to lead to considerable differences in social status. The sharpest distinctions are based on ethnic origin and religion, which appear to be more significant than those between town and country. More subtle and complex are the differences within the dominant group in town, 137

CARMAN

that made up of British-origin persons who belong to the United and Anglican churches. Differences in status are important because they are correlated with the extent of active participation. Persons with high status tend to be the leaders and active participants in the major associations of the community. The French-Canadian Metis are the most clearly demarcated lower status group in the community. In the town economy they perform the most menial and least remunerative jobs. Most of them live on the returns from day labour or odd jobs, although a few have acquired trucks since the war; during the Depression all, with one or two exceptions, were on welfare. Residential segregation reinforces their social segregation. Their cluster of small frame houses is divided from the main part of the town by railway tracks, and in the midst of their colony is located the small Roman Catholic church. This district is known to the other townspeople as "moccasin flats," indicative of the fact that the Indian portion of their heritage is important in the eyes of their neighbours. The Metis are referred to by the less sympathetic of their neighbours as "breeds" and described as "shiftless," "rowdy," "drunken," and "no-good." They are regarded as responsible for the problems of drunkenness, brawls, and illegitimacy identified with the informal society centred around the three Chinese cafes in town. They participate little in the organized recreation of the town or in the formal associations of the other townspeople. A few Metis veterans take part in the Canadian Legion, where, in theory, war service is the only criterion for entrance, but the following statement by one of the executives indicates that they are not welcomed by all the members: "There are some undesirable and rowdy elements in this town that we don't want in the Legion and you know who I mean. They give it a bad name. Of course if they want to join and they've been in the services we can't refuse them, but we don't go out of our way to encourage them." Lacking leadership, the Metis had developed no organized 138

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social activities of their own until, a year ago, the first resident priest came to the parish. The priest has virtually no contact with persons in the community other than his parishioners, and it is indicative of the social isolation of the Metis that many people in town are unaware that the church has a resident priest. This man, a French-Canadian educated at the University of Montreal, tends to be highly critical of his parishioners and refers to the parish as "rather a hopeless case." In a lengthy interview he deplored aspects of Metis behaviour in a way that parallels majority group stereotypes: lack of thrift, meagre interest in education, absence of conventional and acceptable recreational interests, and heavy drinking. He has started coaching the altar boys in baseball and boxing, and has encouraged participation in the sports activities of the Recreational Association. Dancing is out because it is forbidden by the Bishop. He preaches in English because "most of the breeds have lost all their French." Nevertheless, some of the English who are Catholics "would rather drive miles to another church than come here." And he has been enjoined by the Bishop to try to get the Metis back to speaking French. The Metis, it would seem, are marginal to more than one world: In many ways the parish is rather a hopeless case. For years now they've only had a visiting priest so that the people have gotten away from religion. Some of them haven't been to mass in years. My first attack on the problem has been religious, visiting them in their homes and getting them to come to mass regularly. . . . The young men that have come back from the army are restless and they have drifted even further away from religion— The educational level is terribly low—some of the old people can't read or write at all. Most of them leave school as soon as possible. No young boys from this parish have gone on in school yet, but I expect to send a boy to St. Paul's [in Winnipeg] next year. I've preached several sermons in favour of education to get them interested. Not long ago I devoted a whole sermon 139

CARMAN

to praising a girl who got a scholarship to St. Joseph's this year and I think that had a good effect— They have been so long without the guidance of a priest that their chief amusement has become drinking parties in their homes Things have been a lot better here since the Mounties came in March. Before you couldn't go downtown at night without being tripped or jostled by drunks. Now the Chinese cafes have to be emptied after a certain hour at nights and the streets are kept orderly. One reason for the drinking ... is that they have had no organized social life of their own— The ladies of the church have started to put on some socials to raise money, although I usually have to name the women to take charge. There is no dancing, of course, because the Bishop forbids it in this diocese and I have to enforce his ruling no matter what I think personally.... Of course, too much mingling with Protestants isn't desirable because we recognize that it causes a weakening of faith The people all speak English in their homes and I feel that it is hopeless to try to get them speaking French again but the Bishop wants me to keep on trying.

140

The priest's leadership reflects the role of the church in the western Canadian parish as the preserver of language, religion, and other aspects of French-Canadian culture, including the stricter morality of rural French Canada. The techniques commonly used include separate education where possible, keeping to a minimum the participation in Protestant activities, and the development of separate French-Catholic associations. The Metis have grown away from the ideal pattern in their lack of religious observance and assimilation to the English language. The priest's statements showed the nature of some of his efforts to cope with this situation. It is significant that he should be expected by the Bishop to try to reintroduce the French language among a group isolated in an English-speaking community. The Mennonite group is very different from the Metis in status and homogeneity. Since the Mennonites are fair-skinned,

The Larger Town

their appearance presents no barrier to acceptance and their Protestant religious background facilitates acculturation. Within the Mennonite population in North America, original sectarian differences have been accentuated by varying rates of assimilation. The result has been the loss of numbers and the splitting off of new religious sects, representing, in different degrees, acceptance of the norms of the larger society. The small group in Carman reflects these trends. Three local merchants of Mennonite origin and their families belong to the United Church and report that they interact little with other Mennonites in town. Two labourers of Mennonite origin belong to the Pentecostal Church. Most of the other families are adherents of the recently formed Mennonite Brethren church, a liberal sect that represents a compromise since the sectarian background of the members is mixed. In occupation, the people of Mennonite origin include merchants, agents, artisans, and labourers, with the largest number in the last group. Some resentment against Mennonites was expressed to me, but this seems to be chiefly aimed at those who had bought farms recently. It was believed that as conscientious objectors they had an advantage in the matter of family labour, which enabled them to expand during the war at the expense of the British-origin farmers. The feeling has crystallized a few issues in the town of recent years. One occasion arose from the selling of a former United church building, which was unused after two congregations merged a few years ago. The Mennonite Brethren congregation had made the preliminary arrangements to purchase it, but when they began to hold services there, public opinion against the sale grew. As a result the agreement was rescinded and the building was later leased to the Church of Christ. Recently, when it was announced that a Mennonite was to be given the local agency for a large implement company, a petition was circulated, urging that the agency be given instead to a veteran. Earlier in the war the Pentecostal church had a German-speaking 141

CARMAN

evangelist visit the town periodically in order to draw in the Mennonites, a practice that was discontinued when the Canadian Legion officially protested to the minister of the church. However, when criticism of the Mennonites was expressed to me, usually it was tempered with remarks about their "good qualities." In their behaviour the Mennonites are generally believed to be thrifty, industrious, and moral, thus conforming to ideal norms having widespread acceptance. An examination of local associations shows that the participation of Mennonites is limited, and that none fill leadership roles in the community. Those who are merchants or agents, as might be expected, tend to participate more than labourers. One Mennonite is on the Board of Trade, the three women in the United church belong to a church group, and five men participate in curling, but the majority have no affiliation with local organization, other than their churches. In the larger community no Mennonites are on the board of the Agricultural Society or in the Young Men's Section of the Agricultural Society. When asked about their participation, the secretary of the latter group said: "No, we don't get the Mennonites. They're awful skinflints. They won't come to anything where they have to pay." Most of the Mennonite families have relatives or other ties in the original Mennonite area to the south and there is considerable visiting back and forth. Two of the families have children attending private Mennonite high schools in that district. Mennonites do not form a group of uniformly low status, even though their participation in associational life is small. All the Mennonites, in the eyes of their fellow townspeople, have a status higher than the Metis. In terms of occupational achievement and possessions, some Mennonite families have a higher status than some British-origin families. The two United Church families are exceptional in that they do not identify themselves, and are usually not identified by others, with the Mennonite group. Looking to the future, complete assimilation of the town 142

The Larger Town

Mennonites within a generation seems likely. Those who have migrated to town occupations are to some extent a select group because of their emancipation from the conservative norms of the traditional congregational village, and town life further hastens the process of assimilation. In numbers and in influence, residents of British origin dominate Carman. It is from their ranks that the leadership is drawn. The few Scandinavian families may be treated as part of this group: they have assimilated completely and can be distinguished only by their names. Within the British-origin majority there is further differentiation in terms of religious affiliation, which is significant because of the relation it bears to status and participation. The Pentecostal Church and its activities are looked down upon by most others in the community. References to it vary from humorous condescension to indignation at the emotionalism believed to be associated with its services. The small congregation is made up entirely of persons of lower than average economic status, and this is reflected in their residential location. Most of the members and the minister dwell in the "south end." This is the other area of small frame houses at the opposite end of town from "moccasin flats," also separated from the better residences by railway tracks. Like "moccasin flats" the area is not served by the town water and sewage systems. A comparison of the membership of local associations with the church roll reveals that none of its members have any organizational affiliations outside church. Their fundamentalist beliefs devalue many worldly forms of activity and specifically forbid others that are regarded as frivolous or immoral. Only two of the young people of the Pentecostal church take part in the activities of the Recreation Association, and these two eschew the frequent dances. The church has no auxiliary associations. The Church of Christ is more highly regarded by nonmembers than the Pentecostal Church. One informant said: "They get a better class of people than the Pentecostal church.

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CARMAN

On the whole they're better educated and they get some pretty solid farmers." Their religious observances, according to their minister, are similar to the older Baptist services and do not involve the emotionalism associated with the Pentecostal Church. In terms of status they are not as clear-cut a group as the latter. Of the minority of members who come from town, over half are retired persons or widows whose status is ill-defined. The rural members are a mixed group who participate in varying degrees in the social activities of their local neighbourhoods or hamlets. However, no Church of Christ members were among the farmers who are the active leaders in the agricultural associations of the larger community. In the town, except for a schoolteacher, none of the activists were in the Church of Christ congregation. Within the British-origin group, an overwhelming majority are affiliated with the United Church or the Anglican Church. Although they include a cross-section of occupational levels in the community, they number among their adherents all the active leaders and persons of higher status, with one or two notable exceptions. The 1941 census shows that considerably more than half the people of the town claim the United Church as their religion (931 of 1455), and approximately one-seventh give their religion as Anglican. Both churches, as might be expected, have many adherents whose affiliation is largely nominal. Neither church tries to exercise sanctions over the everyday behaviour of its members. The young married couples of the "fast set" are all adherents of the United Church, although they rarely attend. Sermons tend to concentrate on acceptable abstractions bearing such titles as "Science Looks to Religion." Like other churches of this type, they encourage auxiliary associations. Because of its large membership, the United church has no financial problems and its women's groups are not expected to raise money for ordinary church expenses. The financial difficulties of the smaller Anglican church are indicative of the weaker religious orientation among its members 144

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than in the fundamentalist churches. The Anglican church was without a pastor for two years prior to the arrival of the present clergyman two years ago. Among the congregation there was some opposition to the new minister because it was felt that they could not support him financially. The Anglican church depends heavily on the bazaars and money-raising activities of its Women's Auxiliary to prevent a deficit. Carman does not have, within the dominant group, a clearly defined class system, in the sense of extensive areas of exclusive social interaction. Members of this group tend to be ranked by their fellow townspeople according to the usual criteria of occupational achievement and possession of the status symbols, but it is not possible to delineate a clear hierarchy. The male associations concerned with government and business, although they tend to be made up predominantly of leading businessmen and some of the leading farmers, include others whose achievements are widely varied. Even such deliberately selective associations as the lodges tend to be mixed. On the executive of the Masonic Lodge are a day labourer and a railway section hand. Class differentiation is blurred by the fact that Carman is an agricultural community. The varied types of achievement defy the neat ranking possible in an industrial town where the occupational hierarchy tends to be reproduced in the social structure. One group difficult to place is the retired farmers. Although their interaction with the other people of the town is limited, many have been leaders in the larger community in the past and several are reported to possess considerable wealth, although it is rarely displayed in their standard of living. The reckoning of status is also complicated by the type of social interaction characteristic of Carman. A few years ago, it is reported, there existed in Carman an "upper crust" made up of a doctor, a dentist, a few merchants, and their wives. This group was distinguished by the round of dinners and bridge parties at which formal dress was worn. The group disintegrated when 145

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some of the members retired and moved away. At present there is no counterpart to this clique other than the younger "fast set," whose activity does not enjoy the same prestige. The more prosperous and older British-origin residents are not set apart by this type of informal interaction. On the other hand, most of the activist-led committees are exclusively either male or female. Thus one finds several businessmen who are outstanding leaders in the community whose wives are rarely heard of. At least one woman in town is a prominent leader, while her husband is a relative nonentity. This separate participation relieves some of the strains that might arise from inequality in the attainments of husband and wife but does not make for a clearly defined class system. The statement of a woman who is a relative newcomer to the community indicates that to make "class" the key to social organization in Carman would be to distort the social situation as it is experienced by the participants: People here make some distinctions I suppose, but it's really democratic compared to the place in Saskatchewan where we used to live. It was a railway divisional point and a real "company town" because nearly everybody worked for the railway. People were terribly snooty. The superintendents and their wives and the other top people in the railway wouldn't have anything to do with anybody else in town. The people whose jobs were just a little bit less important hung around together too and it was the same all the way down the scale. There is really nothing like that here, although people do tell me there used to be a sort of "upper crust," as they call it, a few years ago that held parties. Now, nobody does any formal entertaining to speak of. If you want an example of how democratic it is here look at — and his wife. In "P"— I can just imagine a janitor and his wife being allowed to run as many things as they do!

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As in any other large community, certain persons do stand out as having higher status than the majority. There is no agreement among informants as to who are the "leading families." However,

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those who were named tended to have in common that they are all middle-aged or older and that the men play leadership roles in governance: the town council, the school board, the board of the local hospital, and the boards of the two churches. Just as the town-country division is more clearly defined in women's groups than in the male associations, so are differences in status within the town. Here, congeniality is an important consideration. The composition of the three United church groups and a fourth non-religious organization known as the Community Welfare Group illustrates some of the selective factors that operate. Though the four groups include ninety women, there is little overlapping in their membership. The three women who belong to more than one of the groups are significant exceptions. One is the minister's wife, whose social role demands participation in all church women's groups. She attends none of the church groups regularly, but does attend every meeting of the more sophisticated Community Welfare Group, which (she admits privately) she finds more enjoyable. The school vice-principal's wife belongs to all four groups and the principal's wife to three, which can be related to their position as newcomers in the community within the last two years. Newcomers are scrutinized by each group and may be invited to join one or more. Since these two women enjoy a respectable status because of their husbands' positions, they were approached by all four. For the newcomer, joining the groups is a quick method of acquiring acquaintances and becoming accepted in the women's world. The Community Welfare Group grew out of a local Red Cross group formed by a number of women who were on friendly terms. The members found the gatherings so convivial that they decided to continue with a new name and a charitable mandate. It has furnished a ward at the hospital and made uniforms for the Recreation Association baseball teams. The original group was founded by a dentist's wife who had belonged to the former "upper crust." It tended to attract young and middle-aged women 147

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who might be described as "smarter" and "more sophisticated" than the average. Members of this group emphasized to the interviewer the enjoyment they derived from the meetings, and that they did so was apparent from the two meetings attended. In contrast to the three church groups, several of the women smoked and some of the humour was of a mildly bawdy nature. One meeting was a masquerade to which each came dressed to represent a popular song; many of the costumes were extremely elaborate and caused much hilarity. All but four of the members belong to the United Church, and none are farm women. All the members come from the upper half of the economic and occupational scale, but the requirements in terms of congeniality tend to cut across other lines. Its diverse membership includes the wife of a Jewish merchant, the young unmarried daughter of a lawyer, a schoolteacher, several women from the "fast set," and the minister's wife. Notably absent are the older women of some of the leading families who prefer the more serious church groups. However, it is to the Community Welfare Group that socially ambitious women, whose position is not yet established, aspire. Unlike the church groups, which are officially open to any church member, new members must have the approval of the group. The wife of the new agricultural representative, who joined the first church group that invited her, said: "I was crazy to do that. I should have waited a while and looked around but I wanted to get into something so I joined the first thing I was asked to join. Now I wish I hadn't because the women I want to know are in the Community Welfare Group." Its attendance is much higher than at the meetings of the church organizations. The three United church groups are conspicuously more heterogeneous in their membership, which is determined by religious orientation rather than considerations of congeniality. The conduct of the women in their meetings is much more sedate, the content more serious, and the esprit de corps much less evident 148

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than in the Community Welfare Group. In general, they are closer in nature to the purely rural women's group and it is not surprising that they include some of the retired farmers' wives, although only three farm women from close to town belong. These church groups encompass women of prominent families who prefer the religious groups because of their more conservative values, and women of lower status, some of whom may aspire to inclusion in the more exclusive group but do not have the requirements to gain entrance. The Women's Missionary Society (WMS) consists of older women who manifest both in interviews and in their behaviour a strong religious orientation. Leadership derives from the women of prominent families, three of whom in conversation deplored the "lack of direction" and "frivolity" of the other women's groups. The group seriously studies and discusses missionary activities among the "heathen," using the material provided by church headquarters. A financial committee handles all money matters so that the whole time of the meeting may be devoted to study and discussion. In this group are such leading women as the newspaper publisher's wife, the wife of the superintendent of the provincial home for delinquent boys, and the wife of the municipal clerk. Also included are four retired farmers' wives. The Women's Aid consists of an equal number of older women, but there is a difference in the nature of its activities. Its interest is in raising money for "extras" for the church, such as acousticon equipment and a new baptismal font, by bazaars and the other customary means. It may be considered to attract older women whose religious orientation is less strong than that found in the WMS, or who may feel inadequate in the study and discussion of that group. It includes two women whose husbands are prominent leaders but who appear little as leaders themselves, the wife of the school inspector, the wife of the veterinarian, and the wife of a day labourer. One-third of the members are retired farmers' wives or widows. 149

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The third organization is called the "Sunshine Group" and is described as a "younger women's WA." The activities parallel those of the WA and during the war the women also constituted themselves a Red Cross group and sewed for that purpose. It provides an interesting comparison with the Community Welfare Group since the members are largely from the same age group. It is obviously not as selective nor do the members appear to enjoy themselves as much. Among the members are the wives of two young doctors who are otherwise not active in the community, a schoolteacher, and a schoolteacher's wife, and, in contrast, the wives of a shoemaker, two truck drivers, and a labourer. To this group belong the three Mennonite women in the church and a German woman who speaks with a strong accent, none of the four being known to have any other affiliation in town. The four women, who are friends, joined the group together, and it was observed at one of the meetings that they spoke little and appeared to be somewhat ill at ease. These four organizations illustrate the operation of Carman's status system within the women's sphere of the dominant group. The Community Welfare Group, which closely resembles a clique in its structure and functions, selects members on the basis of status, but also employs other critieria. The church groups are more diverse, given that they are drawn largely from the dominant group. Religious orientation and age appear to be the major determinants of membership, except insofar as some women belong because of non-acceptance by the more exclusive group. The amount of deviant behaviour encountered in Carman shows a weakening of the social controls that typified the older rural community. The behaviour attributed to the "fast set" exemplifies one type of deviation, but since they are a group with a fairly high status and their activities are carried on in private, they are not defined as a public problem. What they actually do is not as important in understanding Carman's social structure as the fact that no effective social sanctions are brought to bear 150

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against them. Gossip apparently affects them little, and the members are accepted in the various associations of the community without discrimination. On the other hand, the drunkenness, brawls in public places, and the high rate of illegitimacy that are identified in the public mind primarily with the Metis group have been construed as community problems. The Carman newspapers for the past few years contain many references both in the news columns and in editorials to the problems of drinking and brawling. The newspaper items deal with drunken fights that have broken out at local dances, restaurants, or in the streets, and, in a few cases, with criminal behaviour such as car thefts. The three cafes in town, all Chinese-owned, are identified with these problems because the people involved have made them the headquarters for their informal society. The local newspaper carried this item: Something was finally done this week about the appalling use of foul language in some local cafes when police brought a young soldier into court before Magistrate Gundarson— It happened that the magistrate was in the cafe when the soldier, who was considerably the worse for liquor, made the atmosphere lurid with profane abuse of the proprietor. The notoriety of these places in the eyes of the townspeople is expressed in the following statement by a young woman: A decent girl just didn't dare to go in there in the evening because you never know what those toughs would say. I guess the Chinks didn't like it much either because they were always getting insulted and pushed around themselves, and besides it gave their places a bad name. It really made me angry because there isn't any place else to go in the evenings for a soda or after a show. The high rate of illegitimate births in Carman is regarded as another manifestation of the same social situation. Although it

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receives no publicity in the newspaper, the rate is high relative to comparable communities in southern Manitoba, according to a letter to the writer from the acting executive-secretary of the Children's Aid Society: Following our conversation of the other day I checked on the unmarried mothers in Carman. I find that Carman's population comprises approximately 1.3 percent of our district (9000 square miles) and 7.0 percent of our unmarried mothers came from there last year. In comparison, Portage, which has a population five times as much as Carman, has just twice as many unmarried mothers. The problem in Portage last year would have been aggravated by the air force and army stationed there. The official also stated that a high percentage of the young women had either been waitresses in the cafes or frequented them. The two conspicuous measures taken to cope with this situation were the introduction of the RCMP and the formation of the Recreation Association. A few months prior to my fieldwork the town policeman resigned with the plea that as a native of the town he was unable to enforce the law. Not only did strict enforcement make for bad relations with many people, but he had been threatened with physical violence by "rowdies." As a result, a contract was negotiated with the RCMP to police the town. Now at least two policemen in uniform are to be found on the street each evening and frequent visits are made to the cafes. A curfew has been declared for children under sixteen and a bylaw enforced, which causes the cafes to be closed each night by midnight. At the time I was in the community, the brawls and other obvious manifestations of the situation had diminished and satisfaction was expressed. It is interesting to note this statement in the newspaper four months later:

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There has been a certain amount of feeling around the town that the move by the Town Council to better law

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enforcement inside the town by the employment of the RCMP rather than a town constable has not resulted in any appreciable benefit, since the number of offences committed has not diminished to any appreciable extent. The Recreation Association developed out of the same expressions of concern. A weekly "teen canteen" for this group was started by a group of young adults under the leadership of the United Church minister, and since this was felt to be inadequate, the Board of Trade appointed a committee to study the situation. The advice of the Physical Health Director of the Provincial Health Department was sought and through him a professional "recreational director" was hired. A local leader who was active in establishing the Recreation Association discussed the reasons it was formed, and its objects: It was started because we saw something was needed for our young people. They were spending all their spare time hanging around the Chinese cafes and, as you have probably heard, those cafes were no places for young people in the days before we got the Mounties. The main object has been to give them good, healthy recreation. A lot of people would like to see the Recreation Association do something more serious but you have to give the young people what they're interested in, that is in being amused, or they won't come out.

TOWN-BASED ASSOCIATIONS

Leaders in the town and district commonly refer to Carman as "over-organized," particularly when the possibility of new activity is raised. The number of organizations and the range of their activities reflect not only the influence of trained voluntary leadership but also the accessibility of professional guidance. Carman was one of the earliest areas in the province to have a resident agricultural representative. In addition, the facilities of the provincial government departments, the university, and the farm

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organizations, which are centralized in the city, are easily available. Frequently speakers from the city of Winnipeg drive to Carman, address a meeting, and return the same evening. The more important town-centred organizations include voluntary associations, administrative boards, and government bodies covering a variety of areas. An example is the Rehabilitation Committee, a wartime body still operating at the time of the study, which consisted of thirty representatives from all the districts of the municipality and the town. The purpose of this body was to arrange testimonials and dinners for returning veterans, and to aid them in securing jobs and houses. The committee includes nearly all the most active leaders in the larger community. Another administrative body following lines laid down by government, the District Memorial Hospital Board, attempts to follow the natural trade region rather than the political unit. Consequently, it takes in part of six adjoining municipalities. Under the plan Carman is to be the site of the proposed district hospital, and the three adjoining villages the sites of smaller nursing units, to be paid for partly by a special tax levy on the whole area. At the time of the study the function of the board, consisting of representatives from the areas involved, was to make plans for the hospital and publicize it favourably in preparation for a vote of the ratepayers. On several occasions the board met in Carman with the Deputy Minister of Health or other experts connected with the department, and the Director of Health Education addressed several public meetings throughout the area. The history of the board also reflects the onus placed on the most active voluntary leaders. Its success is attributed to two Carman businessmen, one of whom resigned as mayor to devote more time to the task and who addressed twenty-four meetings in the area between the time of the fieldwork and the vote in the fall of 1946. Only fifty persons appeared at a public meeting in Carman addressed by the Director of Health Education, and the vote on the issue was so light that it was almost defeated by a 154

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strong negative vote in the French-Canadian district to the northwest. The Carman region, typically, is one of the first to organize a hospital district. The various producer associations and the larger structures of the farm movement are all set up on a regional basis. Although they meet only a few times a year, their meetings disseminate specialized information and give some of their members experience on provincial directorates. Three examples in Carman are the District Livestock Producers' Association, the District Sugar Beet Growers, and the District Beekeepers' Association. Outside experts who address their meetings are easily secured. There are two cooperative organizations for the district. The chief activity of the District Council of the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Co-operation (MFAC) is an annual convention at which resolutions are passed and representatives elected to the provincial board. The District Co-operative Co-ordinating Council is a new body made up of representatives of cooperatives throughout the district, which was formed at the suggestion of the provincial leadership of the MFAC and with professional help from their head office for the purpose of promoting the cooperative movement. It was apparent from a meeting attended and members interviewed that they were not clear about their goals. Since that time a large picnic for cooperative members throughout the district has been held, and a committee formed to buy a projector and obtain films through the NFB for showing to local cooperatives. Another new district farm body is the Advisory Committee to the agricultural representative. It consists of representatives of the councils of the four municipalities he covers and of the farm organizations in that territory. It is meant to serve as a means through which the agricultural representative can influence the farm leaders in favour of improved practices, in addition to its manifest functions of giving him advice that would make his work more effective. Shortly after its organization the committee sponsored a public meeting in Carman on "Bangs disease," 155

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addressed by the Provincial Veterinarian and the Assistant Livestock Commissioner. The oldest and most important of the agricultural associations is the Carman Agricultural Society. Most of the twenty-three directors come from within the municipality, almost entirely from the better soil zones, so that it covers a smaller area than the agricultural organizations mentioned above. The size of the annual fair means that its administration makes necessary frequent meetings throughout the year, and it tends to attract the ablest of the farmers in the area around town. The detailed administration of the departments of the fair, which is divided among the directors according to their talents and interests, entails considerable technical knowledge and previous experience. The following account of a directors' meeting is taken from my research diary: The meeting took place in the large council chamber of the Municipal Hall. It started late like all local meetings, but drew almost full attendance. From the outset, the contrast with the meeting of the Rossburn directors that I attended was striking. Whereas the Rossburn meeting seemed in retrospect like an amateur play with a small cast of awkward and poorly costumed players, this was a professional performance. The appearance and conduct of the farmers were indistinguishable from that of leading townsmen in other meetings I have attended here. The meeting was handled expertly by the chairman, and discussion from the floor was capable and to the point, showing both experience in taking part in this sort of thing on the part of the members and familiarity with the technical problems of the fair. The agenda consisted largely of decisions in regard to the forthcoming fair: setting aside a special day for Hereford cattle, increasing the prize money, when to hold the grandstand performance and how many tickets to have printed. There was also an illuminating discussion of the area within which the customary bonus of $15.00 to each new 4-H club in the district was to be paid. When no general agreement 156

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as to the boundaries of the district could be reached, it was finally decided to consider it the four municipalities served by the "ag rep." The ag rep was at the meeting but remained in the background except when asked for information about specific aspects of Department of Agriculture policy by the chairman. He was accompanied by an official of the department from Winnipeg who asked permission to address them for a few minutes when the business on the agenda was completed. He showed lantern slides of 4-H club rallies at other fairs, then gave a short talk advocating that they enlarge the accommodation for the rally at the Carman fair, a proposal which was accepted after some discussion about arranging space. The meeting was over within two hours, which was astonishing in view of the amount of business that had been covered. There is also a Ladies' Section of the Agricultural Society with an equal number of directors, which has the duty of arranging the technical details of the women's exhibits. The members come from approximately the same area, and nearly all are wives of men who are directors or former directors. The Young Men's Section (YMS) of the Agricultural Society is an educational organization for younger farmers sponsored by the senior group. It was started by the Agricultural Society in 1937 and a committee of older men was appointed to guide it during the early years. One explicit purpose was to train the younger farmers who would later become directors of the fair. With this in mind the YMS elects two representatives to the senior directorate, and representatives to each of the eleven committees that look after the running of the fair. The regular meetings of the YMS are monthly dinner meetings held during the winter in a Carman cafe. Usually a local person gives an address at the dinner and then the meeting adjourns to the Memorial Hall, where an expert on some technical aspect of agriculture is heard. With one or two exceptions, the main speakers over the last two years have been persons specially qualified in some branch of 157

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agriculture, most of them from Winnipeg. At the suggestion of the agricultural representative, the YMS has undertaken to look after the organization of 4-H clubs in the district and the provision of the adult leaders required for each club. The YMS draws membership from a wider area than the directorate of the Agricultural Society, and includes a mixed group of twelve men from town. Actually the participation is larger than the paid-up membership of fifty-six would indicate because attendance at the banquets usually exceeds that number. Despite the name of the association there is no upper age limit on membership and one finds a number of members well past middle age, including several of the senior directors of the Agricultural Society. In this regard the secretary said: Getting the younger farmers interested is one of our problems. We don't seem to be getting as many of them as we'd like to. It's the same old story you find everywhere else I guess—the ones that need it more don't turn out and the fellows that are already in everything else are right in there pitching. Most of the leadership roles that the activists in Carman are called upon to perform on a voluntary basis, or perhaps for a small honorarium, are those common to western towns of a comparable size. The town council of six consists of five businessmen and a retired farmer, and the mayor is a middle-aged clothing merchant. The school board, which takes in the rural area for a mile around the town, is made up of older men who are prominent in the community, and one farmer. As in Elgin, members tend to continue in office for several terms (the same man has been secretary-treasurer for forty years) and there is little rivalry for election. The lack of popular interest in the election of both bodies is seen in the last election when only one-third of the eligible voters went to the polls. The board of the Carman General Hospital, the original hospital, which is about to be replaced by the new structure, is made up of the same type of person as the 158

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school board. In fact the elderly man who is chairman is also secretary-treasurer of the school board. The same tendency for the interested few to continue in office is seen in the change of only one member at the last election of the board. The Board of Trade is closely allied to local government in the functions it performs and in the constitution of its leadership (e.g., the mayor is vice-president). Like its counterparts elsewhere, it is concerned with "boosting" the town, thus furthering its influence as a trade centre, and representing the interests of town business people in the local body politic. The tides of some of its committees give a picture of its functions: Good Roads, Civic Affairs, Beautifying the Home Town, and Industrial Development. It follows the typical pattern of dealing with local issues as they arise and abandoning them once some sort of conclusion has been reached or report made, rather than following any long-term agenda. Thus the Board of Trade sends the usual delegations to request the government not to close the Boys' Home in the neighbourhood, or the land-titles office, and to request lower hydro rates. A committee made a recent trip to a nearby American state to investigate an alfalfa dehydrating plant and they reported that a similar plant would be feasible in Carman. The report was discussed at the next meeting but nothing further was done. The role of the Board of Trade in community leadership is seen in the fact that it called the original meeting that led to the formation of the Recreation Association. Earlier a committee of the board made up of three younger businessmen was responsible for creating the "swimming pool." The Board of Trade membership of fifty-eight takes in most of the businessmen, including all the Chinese restaurant owners and Jewish merchants but only one Mennonite. It also includes nine farmers, seven of whom are from the country, and such occupations as the local fireman and the shoemaker. The task of administering the Recreation Association places heavy demands on its voluntary leadership. The original committee members had to create a new organization without precedent 159

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in their own experience, but in this they received considerable guidance from the professional leadership. The plans were made in consultation with the Provincial Director of the Physical Fitness Program, who has visited Carman frequently and who secured for them a professional recreation director, a young man with YMCA training who has been a physical training instructor in the armed forces. At first the committee was made up of fifteen prominent leaders, three of them women. Later it was enlarged by the addition of four representatives of the young people in the community. The hired director has taken over much of the actual leadership of the young people's activities, but the duties of the committee still require several hours a week of the members' time. The committee must plan the activities of the association, arrange accommodation, supplement the leadership of the director in various activities, and raise the necessary money—its most onerous duty. The financial difficulties have been such that the committee recently appealed to the town council to assume the cost of paying the director, a proposal rejected chiefly, its proponents allege, because of the opposition of the retired farmer group to incurring increased taxation. The program of the Recreation Association has emphasized sports and physical training for young people, particularly for those of high school age. The director gives physical training to the baseball and hockey leagues and, in winter, weekly skiing expeditions are organized. Lifesaving, swimming instruction, and diving lessons are held in the swimming pool in the summer. A recreation evening for adults is held weekly in the Memorial Hall basement, with such activities as ping-pong, carpet bowling, and a dance. This is attended chiefly by the young people from the two upper grades in high school, and a few young adults with less sophisticated tastes. Another evening is held for young people over twelve years of age and below grade 11 in school. The only activity of an explicitly educational nature is a small camera club 160

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led by a local enthusiast. Committee members state that specialized leadership is not available, and that young people would probably not be interested in any case. There is some difficulty in finding voluntary leadership to supplement that of the director in the present program. There are four active fraternal orders in town: the Masons and Oddfellows for men, the Eastern Star and Rebekahs for women. A majority of the leaders in town are reported to be affiliated with one of them, and the names of several appear on the executives. Although the fraternal orders are selective by design, like other associations in Carman they are not limited to people of high status and they take in some of the more active farmers. Nor do they seem to enjoy an exclusiveness in the eyes of the community sufficient to excite much competition to belong. An executive of a men's lodge said: "We've been busying ourselves with membership lately because we've woken up to the fact that we're losing ground. We're putting on a campaign to get more of the young men into the order." The emphasis on congeniality characteristic of the women's associations seems to be present also in the women's lodges. Several women interviewed stated that they felt they "get more fun out of the lodge" than do the men. That several women who have moved from the community retain their local affiliation and frequently come from Winnipeg for meetings might be evidence of this. There is also a small Foresters Lodge for men, performing chiefly benefit functions, and there is the skeleton organization of a once thriving Orange Lodge. The largest voluntary association is the Canadian Legion, which has 200 members. Most of the activities of the Legion are recreational in nature, although it also makes representations in the interest of veterans and takes part in patriotic observances. Several prominent citizens who are veterans are not attached to the organization, and some others who nominally belong take part in the activities very rarely. One of the former had this to say: "There are several of us who were in the last war and are 161

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eligible to belong to the Legion but don't because we prefer not to have our names associated with it. They've acquired rather a bad reputation locally for the drinking and fighting that goes on at their dances and parties." The mixed association known as the Young Adult Group was started five years ago by the United Church minister and his wife. Although the organization is supposed to be non-denominational, all the members are affiliated with the United church except two schoolteachers, one Catholic and one Church of Christ. A nonmember described the group as a "pretty serious bunch." Most of the members have more education than average and their standards of behaviour are conservative in contrast with those manifested by the "fast set." The membership of twenty-four is made up of four young married couples, two single men, and the rest are single women. Only two live in the country but several have rural backgrounds, five are schoolteachers, and two are graduates of the Agricultural College who live in town but are engaged in farming and agricultural processing. The regular program consists of semi-monthly meetings during the winter, each planned by one of the committees into which they are divided. The majority of the meetings are expected to be educational, with a discussion on some current topic or book prepared by the group in charge. Such topics as "The JapaneseCanadians," "Etiquette," and the popular novel The King's General were discussed in the winter prior to my fieldwork. Several members of the group were interviewed, and all expressed the opinion that the discussions and papers had not been a complete success. The minister attributed this to the lack of preparation and ability on the part of the discussion leaders. The secretary of the group, a young woman of rural background with an incomplete high school education but wide experience through participation in organizations, had this to say: The papers people got up weren't up to much. Very few of them done any work on it. Take one week one of the 162

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school teachers that was the citizenship convener was supposed to arrange the evening. All she done was to bring that book on Etiquette by that woman.. . . yes, Emily Post.... and she asked people to write down questions on a piece of paper. Then she looked up the answers in the book. Nobody could think of any sensible questions. It was a silly waste of time as far as I was concerned. Early in the season the organizer for the CBC Citizens' Forum came to town and persuaded the group to listen to the broadcasts and hold a discussion afterwards with a view to becoming a regular listening group. The experiment was tried once but not repeated. In the words of the minister: "We found that the topics were too abstract for the group." One significant aspect of the group is that it serves as a vehicle through which the United Church minister can extend his leadership in the community by influencing its choice of projects. The potential of the group is enhanced by the fact that it usually has several hundred dollars in its treasury, money raised through an annual play shown in Carman and surrounding communities. The play was previously directed by the minister and his wife, and this year by the wife of the new high school vice-principal, who has had some experience in dramatics. The play has had to be selected in terms of the actors available, and it invariably has been necessary to press into service people outside the group. An early project of the group was to hold a public meeting at which the local candidates in the federal election presented their platforms, which drew an attendance of 500 people. The group has put up money towards financing the swimming pool and tennis courts, and has made a standing offer of $200 towards a public library if other interested groups will cooperate, a challenge that has not been taken up. The Young Adults operated a "teen canteen" for the high school crowd for a year, and then approached the Board of Trade with the suggestion of a local recreation 163

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association with a professional director, the precipitating move in the formation of the Recreation Association. Carman has both the numbers and leadership to support several associations of the urban type for young people. The Recreation Association involves the greatest number, and is somewhat analogous in its functions to the urban YMCA and YWCA. There is an organization of the high school student body that arranges hikes and picnics and some other activities. In addition there is a Boy Scout troop, led earlier by the United Church minister and then taken over by the present Anglican minister, and a Wolf Cub pack led by a local woman who has experience in that field. For the girls there are the two equivalent organizations, the Girl Guides and Brownies, both under the leadership of young women who were formerly Girl Guides. None of these groups number more than thirty and their membership is almost entirely from the United or Anglican church families. The Children's Aid worker told me of one case of a Metis girl who wished to join the Girl Guides but was refused admission by the leader. A small Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) group of seven girls is led by the wife of the head of the Boy's Home because, she says, she feels the Guides do not provide the desired religious training. The informal boys' organization started by the Roman Catholic priest has already been mentioned. It is a reflection of the changing standards of the young people that the United church is unable to support a YPU due to competing activities that have a greater attraction for the young people. There is a close parallel between the study group that existed in Carman three years ago and that which was formerly active in Elgin. Organized in Carman by the former adult education director for the province, it consisted of six prominent couples who were well-acquainted with each other. An analysis of the membership indicates that it is usually persons with higher education, extended experience beyond the community, and relatively high status who are interested. The men who made up the group were 164

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the United Church minister, the school inspector, the bank manager, the agricultural representative, the Protestant cleric who heads the Boys' Home, and the newspaper publisher. The wives went to the first two meetings and then by common agreement dropped out because, it is said, they found it uninteresting. The group followed the study pamphlets issued, but met on the wrong night to take advantage of the Citizens' Forum broadcast. At the end of the year a public Achievement Day was held, with university professors and the adult education director providing the discussion. The next year the group was not reinstituted. The reasons given by the former members for the discontinuance of the group were varied, but they reflect the difficulties of the isolated study group focussed on unfamiliar ideas rather than practicalities. It was agreed that the discussion was poor after the first few meetings and this was attributed to the fact that nobody was adequately prepared, that nobody knew enough about the topic, and that there were no informed leaders for the discussion. The adult education director was blamed by the United Church minister, who has an MA, because the study pamphlets were "so abstruse and difficult that sometimes I couldn't make head or tail of them." Another informant blamed the director because he left them on their own after the group was started. It was also contended that individuals with strong political beliefs gave long harangues, which bored the others. All the former members express their conviction, as result of this experience, that study groups are not worthwhile and that they would not be interested in forming another. The comment by participants about the "professors from Winnipeg" who conducted the Achievement Day is highly critical, varying from "they were too impractical and theoretical" at one extreme to "they didn't tell us anything we couldn't read in the newspapers" at the other. The town formerly had a Canadian Club but it became inactive a few years ago. It included about forty prominent men from the community, and, under the presidency of the newspaper

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publisher, it followed a policy of securing prominent outside speakers and opening the meetings to the public. The statements of the former members that the public turnout to these meetings was embarrassingly small was confirmed by the newspaper reports of the period. The discontinuance of the organization was blamed upon the difficulty of obtaining speakers after Ottawa ceased to send publicists out to promote the war effort, the fact that similar functions were already performed by the Young Men's Section of the Agricultural Society, and competition for members' time from other activities. The Carman area has been easily accessible to the Extension Service workers wishing to sponsor various types of courses. The town has served as the centre for those given on a regional basis, such as the "Local Leader" courses by the Women's Work section of the Extension Service. These courses in housekeeping skills were given to representatives of various women's groups throughout the region during the winter months. Between 1929 and 1943, five of the courses were given in Carman, with an average attendance of fifty women. The extent to which Carman has been able to take advantage of this service is obviously in contrast to Elgin and Rossburn. At the time of my fieldwork the services of the National Film Board reached four centres in the rural community that were on a rural circuit. The following winter a resident operator was stationed in Carman for several months. The extent to which his services broadened the programs of local associations is not known but his efforts led to the formation of two local groups to take advantage of the facilities of the NFB after he left. The District Co-operative Co-ordinating Council formed a committee to purchase a projector and secure films for showing to cooperative groups throughout the district. In town a Film Council was formed at the same time, made up of six prominent citizens, for the purpose of obtaining a projector and films for use by town organizations. 166

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ADULT EDUCATION IN THE SURROUNDING RURAL DISTRICTS

A study of the town-centred community is incomplete without an examination of the types of formal association found in the smaller centres whose inhabitants trade in Carman. It should be emphasized that the villages in the Carman region have much more active associations and participate more fully in the associations of the larger community than did Elgin. The only associations found in all the rural neighbourhoods are the women's groups. Some of the neighbourhoods hold occasional dances or socials in the local schoolhouse, and some have a loosely knit formal organization for the purpose. Two of the neighbourhoods deserve special mention because of the adult education activities found there. One of these is centred on a schoolhouse seven miles south of Carman. About half the people in the neighbourhood are considered to belong to the village of Roland because they go there for their mail and for much of their shopping. Church services are held every two weeks in a small church by the United Church minister from Roland. Male leadership in the neighbourhood comes chiefly from a young farmer who is a university graduate in arts, at present chairman of the district board of the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Cooperation (MFAC), and from his brother, who is a graduate of the Agricultural College. These two and their father are all active in the agricultural organizations of the larger community. These three combine with three other families in a CBC Farm Forum group, which is sometimes attended by other members of the community as well. There is an active MFAC local, but its sole function is to provide "socials" every two weeks, which are attended by everybody in the neighbourhood. In regard to educational activities in this group, the young leader mentioned above had this to say: We've just about reconciled ourselves to the fact that the 167

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local isn't going to do anything but provide us with entertainment, but it's better to keep it going on that basis than have it die out entirely. Most of the people here simply aren't interested in co-op study groups or study groups of any kind. We've found out to our embarrassment that they won't turn out to hear a serious speaker. Anybody is welcome to take part in our Farm Forum group, but the only time we've had a really good crowd was once a few months ago when they presented my new wife and I with a wedding gift. In another neighbourhood, centred on a schoolhouse four miles northeast of town, a small group sponsors National Film Board showings in the schoolhouse and holds discussions afterwards. The neighbourhood once had an active MFAC local and the present participants are reported to be "all good cooperators." Leadership in the group comes from a young farmer who is president of the Manitoba Pool elevator association and active in a number of town associations as well as in the agricultural organizations of the larger community. Homewood, a hamlet east of Carman, has a joint ministry United church, served from the village of Sperling, and an Anglican church of five families, served from Carman. As well as the usual women's groups and a Young Peoples' Union, Homewood has a Pool elevator organization and an oil cooperative, neither of which perform any auxiliary functions. In the past this community had an active UFM local, and, until 1943, an active MFAC local. An ex-schoolteacher, married to a local farmer, is regarded as having been the most influential leader in this group. At present she is vice-president of the district council of the MFAC. Her account of the history of the local organization, given below in an abridged form, is instructive: The last study group we had was in '41, when we studied credit unions. In '42 and '43 about five families of us had a Farm Forum group. One reason things went good in those days was that we had a good teacher here and a 168

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good Pool man and they brought people in. The year after the teacher left the men got into this curling notion and they curled the same night we held our meeting. It seems that now people aren't snowed in they just get into their cars and go into Carman for amusement. Of course there's other things to blame too. For one thing, there aren't the young people around there used to be. And then the war has meant that people have been taken up with farming and Red Cross and other things. It seemed to me that more and more was left up to me until I began to feel like I was pulling a dead weight. I had to do all the work of getting the film board showings here. The Pool and the co-op oil wouldn't sponsor it, so I eventually got the 4-H Seed Club to say they would. The leadership this woman exercises is a sign of the lack of interest in the farmers' movement on the part of the leading male farmers in the community. There are a number of farmers of marked ability in Homewood who are executives in the local cooperatives and in the agricultural associations of the larger community. As in other communities observed, there appears to be no necessary connection between leadership in the cooperative as a commercial enterprise, and participation in the social movement of which they are, in theory, part, particularly in the educational and missionary aspects. Immediately north of Homewood lies the Mennonite settlement. Most of the Mennonite farmers belong to the Pool or the oil cooperative and two are on the executive of the latter, but otherwise they take no part in the associations of Homewood. They have two school districts of their own, and the few young people who have taken high school have been sent to Mennonite schools in the area of original settlement to the south. They have their own Brethren congregation, one of the farmers being the elected lay minister. A 4-H Seed Club recently organized in this neighbourhood by the agricultural representative under the leadership of one of the Mennonite farmers is the first agricultural 169

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association to which they have belonged. Interviews with the minister and a few other Mennonites indicate that they are in a transitional state involving steadily increasing concessions to the norms of the larger society. Their church services are still in High German, but many of the young people no longer understand it although they are still at home in the Platt-Deutsch (Low German) of everyday use. Neither dancing nor attendance at commercial picture shows is permitted but I was present at a showing of short agricultural films in the schoolhouse, presented by the agricultural representative, which was welcomed and apparently enjoyed. Various other indices point to the conclusion that the loss of the ethnic culture and full participation in the structures of the dominant group are a matter only of time, although probably the period will be a longer one than in the town. Graysville, a hamlet west of Carman, is in a slightly less prosperous mixed farming area. It has a United church with a resident "student" minister and a mission Anglican church served from Carman. The student minister is a war veteran completing his schooling at the local consolidated school. About him, one farmer remarked, "He isn't going to make much of a preacher unless he learns better how to talk. When he came he said he hadn't been on a platform before but the Lord was going to put the words into his mouth. I told him right out the other day that the Lord wasn't making a very good job." In addition to the usual women's groups there is a flourishing Young Peoples' Union, which has put on plays and concerts and organized sports. The leadership appears to come chiefly from the more enterprising members. The community has a small Pool elevator organization with a Crop Improvement Club in conjunction, as well as a small credit union. There is also a community club that sponsors dances and socials once a fortnight. Like Homewood, this centre has, in the past, had active locals of the farm movement, but at present has no MFAC local. There have been three study groups in the past, one of which led to the 170

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formation of the Credit Union, and two years ago there was a small CBC Farm Radio Forum. The young farmer who is the most active leader from the community in the larger units of the farm movement indicated in an interview some of the shortcomings of the local study group: We've had study groups here but the same thing always seems to happen. They go good at the start because everybody has lots of ideas, but after a while everybody has said all they have to say and it begins to peter out. You get to know what all the others think and what they're going to say. That's when the members should begin doing some studying I guess, but most of us farmers are too busy and we aren't inclined to that sort of thing. Besides, the name "study group" scares a lot of people off. Mostly it's just the bunch of us that are strong on co-ops that turn out. Roseisle, further west of Carman, is in the poorest farming area of the municipality and this is reflected in the social structure. The community supports two fundamentalist sects— the Pentecostal church and the Plymouth Brethren—as well as a United church. Only the Pentecostal church has a resident minister. There are two women's groups with overlapping membership: a United church group and a Women's Institute, neither attracting any of the women from the fundamentalist sects. The Wl carries on no educational program, but performs charitable functions similar to the groups in the rural neighbourhoods. The only other agricultural organizations in the community are two 4-H clubs. It lacks a Pool elevator, has no cooperatives of other types, and provides no directors to the Agricultural Society. The agricultural representative refers to Roseisle as "a hopeless case" in terms of the success of his efforts. Boys' and girls' 4-H clubs are found in most of the neighbourhoods and hamlets in the municipality, a total of eight clubs at the time of the study. Both the presence of a resident agricultural representative and the voluntary leadership of the younger 171

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farmers in the YMS of the Agricultural Society make for active junior clubs and their integration with adult agricultural organizations. The annual rally at the fair brings together the junior clubs within the four municipalities served by the agricultural representative. The displays and judging provide incentives and models for achievement. In various other respects the clubs reflect the mobility and organization characteristic of the area. Several of the clubs make annual trips to Winnipeg, with visits to packing plants or other places related to their club work and annual banquets in the Carman hotel. A contest is held for essays describing this trip, and the prizewinning efforts are printed in the Carman paper. FORMAL EDUCATION AND THE ARTS

The educational facilities available throughout Carman municipality provide a favourable contrast to the situation in Rossburn. Not only does better transportation make the schools more accessible, but qualified teachers predominate. The town school provides twelve grades, with separate teachers for each grade, and there are consolidated schools in the hamlets of Graysville and Roseisle, which usually give grade 11 training. From the area east of the town, high school students must either come to Carman or go to Sperling, but the number doing so facilitates transportation arrangements. With the aid of local residents, we traced the subsequent fate of the students who reached grades 11 or 12 between the academic years of 1930-31 to 1943-44 inclusive. The results are only broadly useful because the war period meant that the further education of many was interrupted, and the future of others was unknown. In the period there were 96 boys and 160 girls who reached these grades. Of the boys, twenty-nine went on to university education. Only four entered arts courses: the rest were reported to have taken courses for specific professions. Fourteen 172

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of the boys are either on their own or on their fathers' farms. Of the total, only twenty of the boys have definitely settled in the community, and only two of these were of the number who went on to higher education, both graduates in agriculture. Of the 160 girls, 14 went on to university (5 into arts), 20 took nursing courses, 24 went to Normal School, and 34 took business courses. Thirty-four of the girls remain in Carman. None of those reaching the two upper grades were Metis. The general conclusions in regard to education in Carman are also those that seem to hold true for other prosperous Britishorigin areas. In view of its relatively good educational facilities, the average school-leaving grade is higher than that for rural Manitoba as a whole. More girls than boys reach the upper grades, and of these, fewer take university training and more take vocational training of the type to fit them for urban occupations. The majority of those who reach the upper grades leave the community and very few of those who go to university return, at least in part because Carman has only a limited market for specialized skills. Music is the only expressional form for which training is offered in the community. There are two visiting piano teachers who have classes and annual recitals in town. In the school the conventional type of group singing is taught, and the large United church choir also provides some training in singing. In connection with the town band and the local dance orchestra, there is considerable informal teaching of musical instruments. The town band gives a few concerts each year in the park, but its chief raison d'etre are the performances it gives at the annual fair. Both the leader and the players give their services without remuneration. For the past thirty years the leader has been the local optometrist, also leader of the United church choir, who says: I took a few piano and vocal lessons when I was young, but most of what I know, particularly about wind instruments, I've picked up as I went along. I teach most of the young people myself. I show them how to hold their lips 173

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and how to blow and then send them home to learn their scales. It's a sort of survival of the fittest because those that haven't the persistence or aren't really interested don't keep it up. But what really makes the band possible is the cooperation I get from the members. Some of them come from as far as Elm Creek and Roland for our Wednesday night practices. All that we can give them for their trouble is $10 for travelling expenses at the end of the year, if we have that much left over. The only regular financial help we get is $150 for playing at the fair. We could do with a lot of help. A high school band would be a good idea for training the young people for the senior band, but they would need government help to get instruments which is the big item. I think that teaching of stringed instruments is very necessary too, but we haven't anybody here now that has the training to do it. We can never have an orchestra without it, which is what I'd like to see. There are a few us that get together and make up an orchestra for our own amusement and play some good music, but we aren't good enough to put on a performance. It's public performances that make most people interested in putting in the work for a band or orchestra. If the band didn't have its yearly moment of glory at the fair, it would be pretty hard to keep the members interested.

LEADERSHIP

The agricultural representative, who has been in Carman only a year and previously had experience in a number of other districts, remarked: "I don't know of an area in the province where there are more capable farm leaders. I still have more work than one can do in twenty-four hours, but it means that I can specialize more. I don't have to put in time organizing and laying the groundwork." The subjective comparisons I made between the farmers interviewed and meetings attended in Carman, and the

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other two rural districts, caused me to be equally impressed with the number and abilities of the Carman farm leaders. A few years ago, prior to the war, an outstanding farm leader from the community was provincial president of the farm movement and at that time there were a number of flourishing locals in the Carman district. The social situation in Carman presents a range of opportunities for acquiring the skills and knowledge required for farm leadership. One is the socialization through the home environment; the younger farm leaders tend to come from families in which a parent has also been an active farm leader. The accessibility of relatively good facilities for formal education and the experiences acquired from the personal contact and communication with the larger society must also be taken into consideration. However, in explaining the difference in farm leadership between Elgin and Carman, the training offered by participation in the complex of organizations appears to be critical. For the young farm person, the associational structure provides a graduated series of training and responsibility. Some of these channels lead into the farm organizations of the larger community and into the interlocking structures of the district and province. In addition to the various political structures, there are, on the local level, 4-H clubs, cooperatives, and locals of the farm movement; in the larger community, the YMS and the directorate of the Agricultural Society; in the district, the producers' associations and the larger units of the farm movement, which are in turn meshed with provincial organizations. It should be emphasized that the official MFAC local is not the only channel through which farmers can ascend to participation in the larger structures: in fact, it plays only a minor role. Each cooperative has the status of an MFAC local and is entitled to send delegates to the district and provincial organizations of that body. The various producer cooperatives, such as the Pool elevator and poultry cooperatives, also send delegates to their own provincial bodies. The various 175

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producers' associations other than cooperatives—dairy, livestock, sugar beet—also have provincial organizations. In Carman the tendency for the relatively prosperous farmers to be the most active participants, observed in other studies of rural participation, seems to prevail. Various people interviewed asserted that the active leaders were among the most successful farmers. The leaders proved to be, like most of the town leaders, of British origin and members of one of the established churches rather than the fundamentalist sects. It was also found that the farmers who were active in the larger agricultural organizations tended also to be leaders in their own neighbourhoods and hamlets. A comparison of the rosters of executives shows considerable overlap in the leadership of the main farm organizations; any one leader tends to become involved in a number of leadership roles. The elderly farmer who is president of the Agricultural Society demonstrates the mobility of the most capable farm leaders. His farm is fourteen miles distant from Carman, two miles north of Sperling. He has been active in agricultural organizations for over twenty years. One of the group of older farmers who formed the YMS, he is still an active member and is also on the District Co-operative Co-ordinating Council. He has been a leader in the associations of Sperling. At one time president of the local Pool elevator, he is now a director, as well as being an officer of another cooperative in the village. The number of young farmers who play leadership roles in Carman is noteworthy, in view of the tendency found elsewhere for farmers below middle age to participate relatively infrequently. This may be attributed in part to the conscious efforts of the older farmers to train young leaders through 4-H clubs, to the YMS, and in part to rules in some Pools and cooperatives that directors may serve only two years. Two of these younger leaders illustrate something of the process through which leadership develops. They provide an interesting contrast in that one has an average education; the other, university training. 176

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Goes to Graysville for mail. Lives six miles west of town. Formal training was acquired in the local consolidated school. He attributes his present abilities as a leader to early training through YPU. He was on the provincial executive and took part in a Dominion-wide conference of that body. Further training was acquired through participation in local and regional UFM and MFA activities. Chairman District Co-operative Co-ordinating Council. Director Agricultural Society. Member YMS. Director Graysville Pool Elevator and president of Crop Improvement Club. Goes to Roland for mail. Lives seven miles southeast of town in rural neighbourhood. He was also active in the larger organizations of the YPU. His father is a prominent leader. He took a BA at United College with the intention of becoming a minister, but returned to the farm and became active in the farm movement. President District Council of the MFAC. Executive District Cooperative Co-ordinating Council. Executive YMS. Officer of cooperative cold storage plant, which he was instrumental in starting in Roland. In his own neighbourhood he is an executive of the MFAC local and a member of the Farm Forum group. These leaders are distinguished by their dual role. They are farm leaders and at the same time are activists in town associations to a greater extent than their peers. Some are farmers living near to Carman; others are town residents who farm or have occupations directly related to agriculture. Another of the young farmer-town leaders is also of interest, both because of his youth and because of the large number of leadership roles that he fills. A brief examination of his background is instructive because it reveals the rapidity with which an able individual can develop the skills for leadership if there is a hierarchy of organized roles available. His strong motivation, indicated by his present active role, may be attributed in part to his 177

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early training in the farm movement, during which he was exposed to the system of beliefs known as the cooperative philosophy. Operates his own farm three miles from town in soil zone A. He is the son of an outstanding farm leader, who is at present reeve of the municipality. His formal education was acquired in the neighbourhood one-room school and Carman high school. He early became involved in the farm movement in his neighbourhood and in the district. In 1940 he attended an MFA Folk School in Carman and was elected president. At the next summer's MFA camp he was also elected president. He won the district publicspeaking contest sponsored by the MFA, and placed third in the provincial contest at Brandon. He became president of the district board of the MFA and is a member of the provincial board. At present he is not active in the MFAC hierarchy, but he still leads a small group in his neighbourhood that views NFB films. Director Agricultural Society. Member VMS. President Carman Pool Elevator. Director Carman Consumers' Co-operative and new Credit Union. Executive Recreation Association. Board of United Church. Executive Oddfellows Lodge. Member Board of Trade. Rural activists like these account for the relative unity of town and country in the male associations. The town leadership shows that there is no necessary relationship between advanced formal training and leadership. In the town a number of persons have professional training; they might be expected to be better equipped to fill leadership roles than those who have had training only in local schools. An examination of the role in voluntary leadership of the professional people and schoolteachers reveals that, in most cases, it is small. The onus of community leadership falls largely on the businessmen, particularly the older businessmen, and on the farmers who are active in the town. Carman's lawyers, doctors, and dentists do not occupy many leadership roles in the community. Several of the teachers who 178

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have lived in the town for many years have taken positions on the executives of clubs and sports groups. One teacher, an older woman, has lived in town all her life and owns a house there. She provides leadership in organizing certain young people's activities such as a Junior Red Cross group during the war and the annual commencement exercises. She is spoken of as being a "good worker" in the Rebekah Lodge and has been elected to the new executive of the Recreation Association. A third woman teacher who has been there several years teaches Sunday School, plays the organ in the United church, and is a member of the Community Welfare Group and the Young Adult Group. The three women teachers who are least active spend most of their weekends in Winnipeg. The role of the ministers varies according to denomination. The two fundamentalist ministers and the Roman Catholic priest neither participate nor provide leadership outside their own congregations. The liberal religious ideology of the two Protestant churches means that leadership and participation in certain secular spheres are expected of the ministers. The young Anglican clergyman is a relative newcomer. He leads the Boy Scout troop and is a member of the Film Council formed the winter following the study. The United Church minister is more influential than the number of executive offices he holds would indicate. Through the Young Adult Group, he indirectly leads new activities in town. He has been active on the executive of the Recreation Association since its inception. Another Protestant minister who provides some leadership is the superintendent of the provincial Boys' Home, who is a member of the school board. Both he and the United Church minister were members of the former adult education study group. A large part of the town leadership conies from nonprofessional persons, most of whom acquired their extra training and motivation chiefly through experience in the local associations. Some of these leaders are farmers who join town associations and 179

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some are townsmen who play roles in agricultural organizations. Among the community leaders whose roles are confined to the town, certain older businessmen play an important part. They take their community responsibilities more seriously than their younger contemporaries. Whereas the young businessmen tend to be among the active "boosters" on the Board of Trade and appear on the executives of the golf and curling clubs, they are not as likely to be found on the town council, the school board, the hospital board, or the boards of the two churches. An account of the roles of two of the businessmen who are leaders, both past middle age, show the onus placed upon the minority of activists. A few leaders cannot claim high status in terms of occupation or wealth. The outstanding examples are the janitor of the Memorial Hall and his wife. An Englishman with only a little formal education, this man has skills in physical training, gained partly through his experience as a drill sergeant in the First World War. When a teen canteen was started by the Young Adult Group, he organized physical training and sports in connection with it. He has been on the executive of the Recreation Association since its inception and has taken a large part in aiding the professional director in preparing displays and coaching teams. He is president of the Canadian Legion branch, and is a member of the Film Council. His wife is president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Legion and is also a member of the executive of the Recreation Association. Both are active in various other associations. Another example is a young unmarried woman, secretary to a veterinarian, who is also the local representative in charge of issuing ration books and selling memberships in the Manitoba Hospital Service Association. Born and educated in a nearby hamlet, she participated in the system of Young People's Union organizations and developed leadership skills. She has been secretarytreasurer of the Young Adult Group since its inception, secretary of the Recreation Association, and vice-president of the women's Hospital Aid. Since the time of the study, a St. John Ambulance 180

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centre, with courses given by a local nurse, has been started in Carman and this young woman has been elected secretary. Carman has the advantage of being the headquarters of an agricultural representative who serves the adjoining four municipalities. Like most other "ag reps," he is a university-trained agronomist with a rural background, and like them he depends on his powers of persuasion to bring about better farming methods, since he lacks coercive sanctions. On the individual level, he is available to give advice in his office or to visit farmers who request his help, but he reaches his largest audience through farm organizations. He has encouraged or even initiated specialized organizations such as the various 4-H clubs and the senior breeding associations. He gives speeches, advice, and other help to existing organizations such as the Agricultural Society, locals of the farm movement, and Pool elevators. He also serves as a liaison with outside specialists, whom he obtains for speeches, demonstrations, field days, and courses of short and long duration. He also distributes the publications of the Department of Agriculture, as well as the dangerous substances for treating pathological conditions in plants and animals. An insight into the skills required in working with farm organizations may be provided by the following excerpt from my research diary: In the evening the ag rep took me to a meeting of the Crop Improvement Club at Roland, held to discuss the coming season's program. The Pool field man, a former ag rep, was already there. The farmers were seeding— we saw tractors with headlights working in the fields— and as a consequence there were only three members there by nine o'clock, although the meeting had been called for eight. The two professionals showed no haste or irritation, and in the course of the leisurely conversation that took place while we waited, the ag rep casually brought up some of the advantages that would accrue from creating a free area for cattle. The Pool man 181

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backed him up, but neither pressed the point. By ninethirty another two members had arrived and the meeting began. The Pool man advocated experimental plots in a new type of wheat which he described at some length. Later he suggested that a study group be held on a certain type of Danish cooperative, a suggestion that fell into a pool of silence and evoked an exchange of quizzical glances between two of the farmers. Then he proposed that they also study soil conservation methods since the soil around Graysville is particularly light and subject to drifting. There ensued what appeared to be a well-disguised and diplomatic blitzkrieg on the part of the two professionals. In the course of the discussion they pointed out the ultimate results of soil erosion in certain parts of the United States and the fact that drier years for Graysville were likely in the near future; this offset the first reaction of the farmers, namely that the problem was of no direct concern to them. They then gradually introduced their ideas of the type of tree planting necessary. The plan was advanced cautiously and without vehemence and the ideas left to ferment without any conclusion being reached. During the discussion the Pool man was talking in a low monotone when a farmer whose head had been nodding sleepily suddenly sat up and asked the chairman if he had any seed grain frozen. He and the chairman discussed this topic for several minutes. The Pool man sat in silence until they had finished and then went on as if nothing had happened Towards the end of the meeting the ag rep took advantage of the occasion to change the date of a forthcoming demonstration that the Crop Improvement Club was sponsoring and to arrange for the loan of implements from farmers.... The meeting seemed to have accomplished little and arrived at no tangible decisions. But when I asked the ag rep afterwards if the meeting had been satisfactory he replied: "The attendance was pretty small but it all counts. We planted the seeds of a few ideas and fertilized some others, and I got that implement demonstration fixed up." 182

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The range of leadership roles in Carman provides a contrast with Elgin, and gives evidence of the presence of more trained leaders of all types. The development of farm leaders in the larger community may be attributed in part to participation over a long period in a complex structure of organizations, including agricultural associations that provide further experience through their integration with provincial groups. The existence and scope of these associations can be related to other factors in the social situation. One of these is the influence of professional leadership, available to Carman because of its proximity to the provincial capital. While the occupational structure of the town might be expected to provide more trained persons for voluntary leadership than were present in Elgin, it was seen that the professional people do not provide leadership in proportion to their advantages in formal education. Much of the voluntary leadership comes from persons who have no advanced formal training; therefore, they must have developed the extra knowledge and skills necessary through experience outside the classroom. The differences between Carman and Elgin in regard to leadership may be regarded as differences of degree rather than kind. In both districts the demands placed upon the minority of activists are correlated with a lack of mass participation. In Carman this was exemplified in the organizing of the District Memorial Hospital, which rested almost entirely upon the efforts of two businessmen. It is also seen in the light vote cast at local elections, and the difficulties which a small group of enthusiasts have had to overcome in forming the Recreation Association. Carman still lacks much of the specialized leadership to be found in an urban centre. The only dramatic productions in town in recent years have been staged by the Young Adult Group. The minister and his wife, who formerly directed these, admitted that they did so only because there was no one else with even their small experience to do so. When a woman with somewhat wider experience came to town in the last year, her services were immediately

183

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utilized. This woman did not consider herself qualified to direct a play to enter the provincial festival. When the group considered entering a play in the contest, they appealed to the adult education office at the university for help and when no reply was forthcoming they abandoned the project. Although there is formal training in piano playing and group singing in town, the only other leadership in musical activities comes from the businessman who directs the band and the United church choir. The lack of specialized leadership is also reflected in the program of the Recreation Association. The professional director, with the voluntary aid of some of the executives, provides leadership in sports and physical training, but there are no trained persons to develop new activities of an educational nature. In the rural centres there is, of course, even less of this specialized leadership.

184

CONCLUSION

How does rural social structure affect people's literacy in the dominant culture? The three community studies, visits to other communities, interviews with persons familiar with rural Manitoba, and secondary sources have all influenced these conclusions. A discussion of the rural community inevitably involves comparisons with Winnipeg. One tends, too, to exaggerate the social differences and, in turn, the personality differences. Not only does the rural community participate in the same broad cultural tradition, but the vulnerability of the Western farming economy to urbanizing influence makes for fewer differences than found in many older-settled agricultural regions. Recent settlement in an area of large-scale specialized farming accounts for the absence of many of the elements of the social structure found in the communities of the older mixed farming regions. Professor Lower, in discussing the settlement of the West after 1896, has observed: Commercialism engulfed agriculture. The old conception of the settler as a man identified with the soil gave

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way to a middle class cupidity in the exploitation of nature— The western prairies lent themselves to largescale working, especially as power machinery came in, and where conditions were favorable "bonanza" farms sprang up [T]he west, like the east, became a country for the average man, who, nevertheless was closer to the urban middle class in the west than his father had been in the east. The very nature of the country pressed commercial standards upon him. Nearly the whole of the prairies were fitted for wheat farming and ten million acres were fitted for nothing else. Wheat was a great international commodity, which had to be grown with one eye on the financial pages of the daily press. The unforested prairies did not turn every man into a lonely pioneer with an axe in his hand; rather, they induced him to join a local society for getting a railroad built and launched him into business associations The western settler, in contrast with his eastern parallel, who originally had been closer to the peasant type in his attachment to the soil and his relative independence of a money economy, was, if an AngloSaxon almost as much a business man as a farmer. *

186

The influence of the Western farming economy in breaking down cultural isolation and developing communication with the larger society tends to be felt sooner among British-origin farmers and to have greater effect in areas of relative prosperity. The successful British-origin farmers in Elgin and Carman exemplify this. As people who had grown up in the dominant culture, the original settlers had an effective knowledge of the type of farming called for, which, coupled with favourable physical conditions, enabled them to establish themselves economically within a few years of settlement. They were also able to develop the institutional structure with which they were familiar, including the institutions of primary education. A high percentage of cash in the total farm income made them susceptible to the new trends in transportation and communication. It led to the early acquisition of automobiles by means of which travel to the towns and

Conclusion

cities became frequent. It also made for the ownership of radios and the purchase of periodicals. The influence on cultural literacy of increased individual communication with the larger society is complex and not easily accessible to measurement, but it must be regarded as highly important. It has made for what has been termed the "urbanization" of the rural population. Among ethnic groups and those in areas of marginal prosperity the development of communication tends to be slower but the same forces are at work. In Rossburn it was seen that after the longer period of economic establishment and assimilation to higher standards of living among the Ukrainians, the ownership of automobiles, radios and English-language periodicals is increasing. Although many urban groups obviously would fall below the more active Western farmers in literacy in specific aspects of culture if a standard of measurement could be applied, there remain differences in the rural community that act to limit the opportunity for extending knowledge and participation in certain fields. The more obvious of these differences may be explained in terms of the low population density of rural areas, a condition aggravated by an economy of large-scale farming. The consequent cost of supporting hospitals, roads and other public services results in poorer facilities. This is especially true of the institutions that have a more direct bearing on cultural literacy: in the schools, teaching and equipment tend to be poorer and schools are usually less accessible; libraries are rare or non-existent; public or commercial means for education in music, art and the other expressional forms are much less common than in the city. In addition, the small number of persons who constitute the rural community is one condition limiting the type of formal associations and their programs. This means that the experience to be gained in many of the more specialized associations of the larger community is not available. It is to be expected that a young person growing up under these circumstances, in a community of persons with 187

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somewhat similar conditioning, would have a limited range of interests. In regard to the technical skills necessary for occupational success, most of these are obviously acquired, in the case of farmers and their wives, through apprenticeship on the family farm and in the household, and through the other informal experiences that are part of growing up in a farming community. This was particularly evident in Elgin where, despite the meagre development of formal channels for supplementing it, the agricultural knowledge otherwise assimilated was apparently adequate to ensure success. However, the obvious instrumental relationship between certain technical knowledge and farming efficiency estimated in monetary returns means that farther knowledge of this type is usually welcomed. Where the consultant services of an agricultural representative are available and the farmers are accustomed to them, as in Carman, they tend to be extensively utilized. Such immediately relevant activities as implement demonstrations and field days tend to be universally successful, and the same is true of demonstrations and short courses in housekeeping for women. The leading farm journals, which devote considerable space to technical problems, have wide circulation, and parental approval reinforces other attractions for young people of junior agricultural clubs. It is revealing that in Elgin the most successful public meeting sponsored by the Board of Trade was one at which an income-tax inspector explained tax forms and regulations. The success of agricultural extension work depends on how quickly it produces results. Whereas the use of implements and measures to cope with current pathological conditions in plants and animals are of immediate significance, other measures such as those designed to combat long-run erosion will show results only after a period of years; consequently, it is much harder to arouse the interest of farmers in these techniques. The relationship between practical significance and interest is reflected in the cooperative movement. Farmers have organized on a large scale 188

Conclusion

to form cooperative enterprises and sought the relevant knowledge at periods of economic crisis, a fact affirmed in the history of cooperative grain marketing in western Canada.2 Cooperative study groups tend to exist as a means to the formation of cooperatives for which a need is felt, rather than for the study of abstract economic and political principles. That cooperative study groups are not more numerous in Manitoba must be related to favourable economic conditions that do not make for dissatisfaction on a significant scale with current marketing and purchasing facilities, nor for radical definitions in the political field. This was particularly evident in Elgin, but the same factors of relative economic stability must be taken into account in explaining the overall lack of mass participation in the farm movement. Cooperative education must be interpreted not only as an attempt to point out the practical advantages of cooperatives but also as an attempt to surmount the limitations of the pragmatic appeal. The normative content of cooperative education stresses "cooperation as a way of life." If these values are accepted the establishment of cooperatives becomes an end in itself and the relevant study assumes somewhat the same character of moral obligation. In the social roles other than those directly related to occupational success, the requirements do not appear to be extensive in most rural communities. The requirements can be understood from one viewpoint in terms of the fact that these social roles are developed in relation to other persons, most of whom have a somewhat similar background of experience to the actor. The small community of Elgin is probably an exceptional case in the degree to which extra requirements for adult roles are not necessary. In Elgin these roles are neither numerous nor complex in the personal attainments they demand. The knowledge needed for participation in the social life of the community may be acquired almost entirely through the formal and informal channels at present accessible to anyone growing up there. Only a minimum of formal education is necessary to take part in the 189

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informal gatherings of men or in the women's organizations. Much more important for full participation is the knowledge of local personalities, history and normative behaviour that is assimilated unconsciously through social interaction rather than derived from formal education or deliberate self-education. The newer types of behaviour outside the community that have come with better transportation—participation in commercialized amusement and shopping in the larger centres, and visiting elsewhere—emphasize the "spectator" type of participation associated with urban life, since Elgin has not been incorporated in the associations centred in a larger town. The minimal executive functions necessary to the continuity of the community, which demand somewhat wider knowledge, are taken care of by a few activists such as the "perennial secretary" whose case was described. The variety of social roles demanding more complex behaviour in the rural community depends largely on the structure of formal associations, which in Elgin were relatively small in number and scope. The more common types of rural association described in the studies—such as the local women's groups, school boards and even Pool elevator directorates where they engage in no auxiliary activities—demand little beyond average training because of their routine nature. On the other hand, in some of the less common associations of the type found in Carman—the executives of large agricultural fairs, district cooperative and producers associations, and such new activities as the Recreation Association—the requirements are, especially in the leadership roles, considerably more extensive. In relating this to the problem of adult learning it must be emphasized that the latter leadership roles are usually not so far removed from the common level of attainment, or ascribed such high status, that they lead to deliberate self-education through books or other means. It was noted that there was found in the three communities only one non-professional person who pursued learning through books extensively, and then it was a strictly amateur interest since 190

Conclusion

the individual concerned was retired and inactive in community life. Although a few of the farm leaders in Carman had advantages in formal training, in the form of university education, the majority acquired their extra training through a period of apprenticeship in less complex roles and through the accumulation of learning from numerous other informal sources. Adult education and organized extramural education for young people played some part in this but, in the main, the learning must be conceived as deriving from roles connected with practical affairs; a generalization that appears to be true of other rural communities. Under the circumstances described it is not surprising that cultural knowledge not directly related to farming and practical affairs should be called for only to a limited extent. Whereas the farm movements have pressed strongly for better medical services, roads and electrification, there has been little demand for libraries or facilities for encouraging music, dramatics and art. Any demand for the latter has usually come from women's groups, into whose sphere these fall as a matter of secondary importance. In the community studies several examples of abortive efforts on the part of leadership were cited, such as the lack of response to proposed library facilities in both Carman and Elgin, and the failure of the Canadian Club speakers in Carman to excite popular interest. During the fieldwork most people interviewed were asked what type of extracurricular educational activities they would like to see introduced in their community. The concrete suggestions were few. However, it should be kept in mind that even in the urban area, despite wider opportunities, it is probably only a minority who manifest an active interest in the arts and in the field of ideas having no direct instrumental significance. Two categories in the social structure were selected for emphasis in the community studies because of their relevance to the problem of cultural literacy in the rural community: leadership and formal associations. In the absence of many of the public and commercial facilities found in the city, equivalent types of 191

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extracurricular training must be provided by local associations to the extent that they are provided at all. Moreover, formal associations perform a function in integrating the local community with the structures of the larger society; voluntary associations of certain types are necessary to take fullest advantage of the services offered by the government departments and farm agencies, particularly where there is no resident agricultural representative to perform liaison functions. In the preceding analysis, associations have been seen to afford, through both their leadership roles and the nature of the activities offered to participants, the major means of extracurricular learning. Therefore, in assessing the level of cultural literacy in the community, it is necessary to evaluate the types of experience derived from the executive positions in local government administrative boards and voluntary associations, as well as that offered to larger numbers by the activities of voluntary associations. Leadership bears a close relation to the number and activity of voluntary associations, and for that reason is treated first. In regard to both leadership and associations, Elgin and Carman offer an instructive contrast uncomplicated by ethnic factors. In discussing leadership there is some danger of idealizing the role of personality traits in explaining the success of the individual leader and of overemphasizing the role of the individual leader. Leadership is not to be confused with mere officeholding. In many small rural associations, the functions of executives are largely routine, competition for office little and the positions rotate among a number of persons who are willing but have no capabilities above the average. They symbolize leadership rather than perform its functions. The actual leaders are those who, universally, perform certain functions in relation to their groups: those of group coordinators, planners and educators. From this viewpoint the "perennial secretary" in Elgin exercises more of a leadership role than the individuals who nominally hold a higher office in many of the associations. In every community there are 192

Conclusion

persons who perform these functions for a number of groups, who are regarded by others as "community leaders." This type of leadership in the customary structures of the community emphasizes the first two functions of leadership: those of coordinating and planning. Disregarding the elements peculiar to each situation, this leadership usually requires certain basic skills such as those involved in public speaking and conducting a meeting, at least a minimum of generalized status, and the requisite motivation. Most communities have enough leadership of this type to provide for the continuity of existing structures. Elgin appears to be exceptional in having only an estimated five persons with the required skills. The requirements tend to increase as community leadership exercises a more creative role; hence the leadership required for permissible innovations is much scarcer than that concerned largely with the continuity of existing activities. Creative leadership demands wider knowledge because, by definition, it leads into situations without immediate precedent in the community and it demands a greater exercise of the educational functions of leadership, since some of the followers must have the new activities explained and they must be convinced of their importance. The development of the Recreation Association in Carman shows the presence of creative leadership to an extent not common in rural communities. Even scarcer is the type of leadership required to perform explicitly educational functions: persons with specialized training who can supplement community leadership by leading activities of an educational nature within existing associations or special associations formed for that purpose. Leadership in the associations concerned with practical affairs does not usually require this specialized training. In the urban setting when ordinary leaders want these educational functions performed, they usually are able to call upon specialists, on occasion hiring them as full-time functionaries. In the rural community specialists for voluntary leadership are scarce and it is usually not feasible to hire professionals to lead 193

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study groups, youth work, or musical, dramatic and other activities of an educational nature. Carman is the only rural community in Manitoba known to have hired a professional recreation director. Even with a professional director the activities of the Recreation Association are circumscribed by the lack of other trained persons to supplement his leadership on a voluntary basis and widen the activities beyond those of sport and physical training. In the two smaller communities the lack of specialized leadership was even more striking. That the rural community should have available among its smaller number of participants less trained leadership than the urban community is to be expected. There are lacking the specialized knowledge and skills to be found in the varied occupational structure of the city. The majority of inhabitants from whose ranks most of the leadership must appear have been limited in their training by the type of background that has been described. The migration to the city of many of those best fitted for advanced education farther weakens rural leadership, and the retired people who are in high proportion in the villages and towns usually contribute little either as leaders or participants. However, to attribute a shortage of leadership entirely to a lack of trained persons is to overlook the problem of motivation, especially in regard to the community leadership where specialized training is less necessary. When leadership is of crucial importance to a group, it tends to be forthcoming. The social situation that gives rise, for example, to strong protest movements usually provides the motivation to bring forward the abler persons as leaders. On the other hand, there is less incentive for dayto-day leadership in the ordinary organizations on a voluntary basis. This leadership is frequently referred to by those concerned as a "thankless job." It was observed in Elgin that routine offices carry with them little status, at the same time making their holders vulnerable to criticism. The lack of motivation, as well as the shortage of trained persons, is shown in the tendency for an 194

Conclusion

interested few to hold the majority of offices, common to all the communities studied. The relationship of participation and the acquisition of leadership skills to farther leadership is recognized by the Extension Service and farm movements in their organization of junior clubs and young people's groups from which it is hoped that adult leaders will emerge. In this the cooperative movement would appear to have a decided advantage over the government agencies. Government agencies must of necessity confine their extracurricular education largely to non-controversial technical knowledge. Where courses in "citizenship" and "leadership" are taught, the value-content of the education must, as in public formal education, be limited to the values accepted by all major social groups. It limits the specific outlets in action that can be advocated or provided. On the other hand, as has been pointed out, the cooperative movement is able to give training aimed at inculcation of the system of values known popularly as the "cooperative philosophy." It is further able to indicate specific forms that leadership should take in connection with the establishment and running of cooperatives and promotion of the cooperative movement, as well as offering an extended associational structure in which capable individuals can rise. However, lack of funds and its partisan nature, as well as other factors, mean that the cooperative movement reaches only a small proportion of rural young people in comparison with the Extension Service. Specific examples given in Carman substantiated the claim of leadership that a considerable proportion of the young people involved proceed to rural leadership. Creative leadership demands, in addition to the qualities common to other leadership, either actual or vicarious experience beyond that common to the community. The motivation to introduce changes in the community arises from dissatisfaction with the status quo. The known and familiar only becomes inadequate when the individual assimilates new definitions of the 195

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situation. The ideal type illustrating this is the isolated folk society wherein rapid change can arise through important alterations in the non-social environment, or contact with a different social group, which will introduce new definitions. In the mobile western farming community the channels through which new definitions can be assimilated are too various for analysis. Real and vicarious experience beyond the community can take place through outside study, through reading, travel and participation in the activities of regional and provincial associational structures. New definitions may also be introduced through the efforts of outside professional leadership or newcomers to the community. In Elgin it is revealing that the persons who expressed the greatest dissatisfaction with the community and were, in conversation at least, most desirous of seeing new activities are the Upper Ten, a group composed of persons who had worked or studied outside the community and read more widely than average. In Carman the United Church minister, a newcomer of five years' standing, plays an important role in the introduction of new activities. The number and success of new activities in Carman relative to Elgin can be explained in part by the fact that the channels for the introduction of new ideas into the community are more numerous and highly developed. In the three communities most of the leadership was provided by local persons on a voluntary basis. Resident professional leadership in the form of an agricultural representative was found only in Carman. From the account of his activities it can be seen that he greatly supplements the effectiveness of local leadership, although not removing the need for it. The other two communities illustrated that this leadership plays only a minor role in peripheral centres when the services of the agricultural representative are spread over a large area. The number of agricultural representatives will undoubtedly increase and some resident home economists will be provided in Manitoba in the future, but the ultimate development of this type of service is limited by the 196

Conclusion

heavy subsidization involved. Voluntary local leadership will likely continue to be extremely important, if not as crucial as it is now in most communities. The leadership of two other professional persons—the schoolteacher and the minister—in activities outside their occupational roles was examined in the course of the studies. While the role of the minister varied, the role of the schoolteacher in extracurricular leadership was found, in most cases, to be small for reasons that had to do both with the nature of the teacher's occupational role and the current situation in the teaching profession. In regard to the various forms of visiting professional leadership, geographical location was seen to be one important influence. Proximity to the city has meant that Carman has been able to take advantage of outside aid to an extent much greater than the other two communities, and this has had a cumulative effect over a long period of years. However, the present use of professional help also reflects the liaison offices performed by the agricultural representative and the existence of active local associations of the appropriate types. It has already been observed that where the community is further distant from the centralized facilities and has no agricultural representative, the existence of the appropriate associations, in which local leadership is an important variable, plays a larger role in determining the extent to which professional help is utilized. In any case, visiting professional leadership is more consistently supplementary to local leadership in its functions than is the resident type. The contrast between Carman and Elgin strengthens the conclusion that all associations are not equivalent in the type of training they can give participants, in the case of voluntary associations, or in the experience derived from the leadership roles they embody, in the case of the executives of the local government and administrative boards. The routine duties of a local school board obviously provide less training than meeting the new situations involved in forming or running a local cooperative, or in the 197

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administration of an enterprise such as the Carman fair. Elgin's executives, it has already been seen, are almost entirely of the routine type. However, the community executives usually affect only a minority who are already active; in terms of their direct contribution to the general level of cultural literacy the importance of voluntary associations must be stressed because of the numbers they can affect. Among voluntary associations the purely local groups, such as many rural women's groups, are usually more limited in their potentialities than the branch organizations affiliated with a larger structure, particularly if the larger structure offers the services of professional leadership. Junior agricultural clubs, locals of the farm movement and, to some extent, Women's Institutes, are in a position to have broader programs than unaffiliated groups. They can secure aid in the form of guidance in planning activities, study materials and speakers, as well as in the form of the incentives which the larger structures can offer. Large, unaffiliated agricultural organizations, such as the Young Men's Section of the Agricultural Society in Carman, may be put in somewhat the same class because of the extent to which they are served by the Extension Service. The government agency is willing to act through any representative organizations of the farming community. It is lack of organizations of this type as well as a lack of active affiliated groups that tends to isolate Elgin and the Ukrainian community in Rossburn from the services of non-resident professional leadership. An examination of the farm leadership in Carman leads to the conclusion that the associations that draw the abler individuals into participation in a social movement extending beyond the community have contributed to its development. A member of the agricultural associations in Carman—producers associations and commercial cooperatives particularly—are of the type that are interlocked with larger structures. They give access to a hierarchy of offices on a regional, provincial and even national basis. Through these offices and related conventions and conferences 198

Conclusion

the more capable activists are able to develop their potentialities and assimilate new knowledge in widening circles of experience beyond the community. The backgrounds of some of the younger farm leaders in Carman provided specific examples of the effect of this type of training at an early age. They gained experience both from participation in the United Church Young Peoples' Union when its extended structure was active and from early participation in the farm movements. The argument thus far has substantiated certain general conclusions. The extent to which adult knowledge and skills are developed in the rural community depends largely on the type of experience to be derived from leadership in the community's associations. Most of these roles are related to the conduct of practical affairs. The type of experience derived varies with the specific nature of the associations, which is, in turn, to be partly explained in terms of the professional leadership available to the community and the voluntary leadership developed within it. The significance of these conclusions for the practical techniques used in extracurricular education, both youth work and adult education, are already implicitly recognized by most professional leaders working in these fields.3 Their limited development in Manitoba in contrast to many comparable areas is a result of lack of subsidization rather than misdirection. It follows from the conclusions that any measures that tend to provide more specialized leadership to the community, strengthen local leadership, broaden the activities of local associations, strengthen or create associations which give access to larger structures, or provide some of the missing facilities, directly or indirectly contribute to cultural literacy. The immediate success of new activities in any of these categories would appear to be closely dependent on their relevance to practical problems. In view of the contribution of varied types of participation to adult knowledge, a narrow interpretation of the type of activity that is "educational" is not justified. The development of literacy in fields not related 199

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to farming and practical affairs, which appears to be a trend, must be viewed as a long-run process, even if subsidization and professional leadership along these lines are greatly increased. The success of activities in many of the less common spheres of cultural knowledge, particularly in the expressional forms, is conceivable only after the interests of the majority have been gradually broadened over a period of time. NOTES 1. A.R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation (Toronto, 1946), 421-423. 2. H.S. Patton, Grain Growers Cooperation in Western Canada (Cambridge, 1928); also H. Boyd, New Breaking (Toronto, 1938). 3. For a further treatment by the writer of the practical implications of these findings for the techniques of adult education, see Report of the Royal Commission on Adult Education (Winnipeg, 1947), 91-125.

200

AFTERWORD

Stuart Garson, Harold Innis, and Adult Education in Manitoba Gerald Friesen

James Giffen wrote the preceding field study at the invitation of Manitoba's Royal Commission on Adult Education. Appointed in the summer of 1945 by the Garson government, the commission had been asked to consider how adults in Manitoba developed their skills and their understanding of the world. Implicitly, they were being invited to assess whether such typical prairie institutions as Pool elevator associations and women's missionary societies were effective vehicles for cultural renewal. This is where Giffen came in. The commissioners hoped to look through his eyes into a few rural neighbourhoods and thereby to estimate the prospects for local creativity. Their determination to hear first-hand about rural leadership and a village's capacity for cultural change led them to meet regularly with Giffen, to quiz him on his experiences and his research, and to incorporate his first-hand observations into their recommendations to the Manitoba government. Giffen's

AFTERWORD

perspective, in turn, was shaped by his conversations with the commissioners and other adult educators in Winnipeg. In the following essay I would like to consider the cultural and political climate in which the Royal Commission worked. Jim Giffen's field study provides a detailed picture of the institutions that structured public life in rural Manitoba at the close of the Second World War. The Manitoba government's planning documents suggest why a Royal Commission was appointed and what was its political purpose. The commission's research addressed the then-urgent matter of adult education and its Report offered valuable insights into the mental or spiritual climate in which these questions were addressed. Each of these subjects—Giffen's field study, the political environment, and the cultural context of adult education—will be addressed in the following pages. My goal is to understand Manitoba's political and cultural circumstances as the province moved into the post-war era. JAMES GIFFEN AND RURAL MANITOBA

Jim Giffen grew up in Edmonton and attended local schools before moving to Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, from which he graduated in 1939. He then entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where he served as the president of the student club of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and, among other courses, took Professor Harold Innis's classes on the political economy of Canada ("cod and fur") and the history of communication. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1943, he served for two years in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Returning to the University of Toronto in the autumn of 1945, Giffen enrolled in a Master's program in sociology and within a matter of months was invited to undertake a research assignment for the newly appointed Royal Commission on Adult Education in Manitoba. His supervisor, sociologist S.D. Clark, encouraged him to seize the opportunity. * 202

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Giffen was just twenty-six when he conducted his remarkable field study but he had already seen a good deal of the world and he possessed a shrewdness that would stand him in good stead. In a letter to WJ. Waines of the University of Manitoba recommending his protege, Professor Clark added: "You will like Giffen and you will quickly discover that he is a man you can have the fullest confidence in. I think he will do a very good job; I know he will make a valiant try."2 As the manuscript attests, he proved to be an able researcher. A scholarly review of the commission's report by J.B. Brebner, a leading historian of North America, commented that "in Mr P.J. Giffen the Commission has uncovered a sensible, trained, and perceptive sociologist of whom more seems certain to be heard. "^ Though her work was rarely mentioned in the text, Giffen's wife also contributed to the project by accompanying him during the field studies. Giffen's genial, forthright approach and his sense of humour undoubtedly won the confidence of those whom he interviewed and his persistence and sheer hard work ensured that the finished product would stand the test of time. At his first meeting with an advisory committee at the University of Manitoba in January 1946, Giffen was told to survey the educational and cultural services available in a few selected communities. He should "study their physical facilities, their existing organizations, their expressed needs" and note how well the various community agencies worked together.4 The committee identified six communities as a representative sample of the province— the three that appear in Giffen's manuscript and three others, Winnipeg, East Kildonan, and St. Pierre Jolys, that did not become the subject of extended analysis. The most precise statement of his object appeared in the MA thesis based on this research that he submitted to the University of Toronto a year later: he was to write "a field study of cultural literacy and leadership in rural communities." When President A.W. Trueman of the University of Manitoba 203

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delivered the commission's report to the Minister of Education, J.C. Dryden, in 1947, he expressed warm thanks to Giffen but added that, "since this report deals with certain communities by name, we advise that it be regarded as confidential to the Government— [I]t could be made available, however, to Adult Education authorities."5 In the event, fictional names were applied to the three towns (though anyone familiar with rural Manitoba would have recognized them), and the report was placed in the Legislative Library. Giffen's manuscript is testimony to his commitment and his abilities. A scholarly paper on his findings, presented to the 1947 annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, was published immediately.6 Giffen taught at the University of Manitoba during the following year and then went to Columbia University in New York to begin a doctoral program. His studies were interrupted a year later by an invitation from Innis to return to the University of Toronto. Such positions would not come up very often, Innis said in his most persuasive way. Giffen worked in the sociology department from 1949 until his retirement in 1985, serving as chair for a term and becoming a founder of the field of criminology in Canada. Jim Giffen conducted his field study at the end of an era. He records the last moments of a society that had enjoyed a long period—nearly seventy-five years—of cultural stability. During these three generations, Manitoba's small towns and rural districts, despite many internal tensions and several periods of economic difficulty, had functioned in predictable ways. The newcomers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had learned the limits of the land and had adjusted their expectations accordingly. Whether migrants from eastern Canada, Europe, or the United States, they worked within the institutions wrought by Ontario democracy in Manitoba.7 Even the stresses so evident in Giffen's encounters, such as those between British- and Ukrainian-origin people in the Rossburn district, or between the Metis 204

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and the British in Carman, had long histories and were part of an accustomed pattern of daily life. This depiction of the rhythms of prairie history—cultural continuity from the 1880s to 1946—would have been scoffed at by the citizens whom Giffen met. They saw their own history as a succession of crises, each following quickly on the heels of the last. Their chronology would have highlighted a few distinct chapters: the pioneer years, when simply learning the limits of the possible imposed great burdens; the cycles of boom and debt between the mid-1890s and 1914, including recessions in 1893, 1907, and 1913; the Great War, a period of rural prosperity but also wrenching losses of young men at the Front and of many more citizens in the influenza pandemic of 1918-19; the recession and political protests resulting in farmer and labour uprisings in the years after the war; the economic bubble of the late 1920s, when prairie Canada briefly enjoyed wealth once again; the grinding years of drought and economic depression during the 1930s; and the extraordinary circumstances of government regulation and concerted national mobilization of people and industry during the Second World War. Such a depiction is not wrong, of course, but it suggests how events that seemed to constitute turbulent change appear differently with the passage of time. Looked at from today's vantage point, the crucial change in rural Manitoba during this period lay in the economic institutions that structured so much of daily life. As a recent history of American agriculture has suggested, a new "industrial ideal" increasingly pervaded the rural family's thinking about everyday things: timeliness of operations, large-scale production sites, mechanization, standardization of product, specialization, speed of throughput, routinization of the workforce, and a belief that success was based first and foremost upon a notion of 'efficiency'—all these principles were drawn directly from the factories and businesses only recently declared successful. Henry Ford's production facilities, for instance, stood as a dramatic 205

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example of the efficacy of rational management techniques, which many felt should now be applied to farming. As an International Harvester promotion exhorted, 'Every Farm a Factory.'** Despite this fundamental shift in outlook, farm families in Manitoba continued to believe that agriculture was the foundation of civilization. There was no question in rural minds but that the entire prairie community—even Winnipeg—relied on the products of the farm. There was no doubt that the world needed farm products and that the family farm was best suited to supply them. As a result, rural Manitobans focussed on making improvements in a system that, after all, functioned fairly efficiently when measured against prevailing practices in other countries. The Second World War marked a watershed in rural prairie history. The dislocations began with the military effort itself but soon extended into every area of life. The signs of change were not evident, however, when Giffen descended from the train in Elgin in January 1946. The triweekly rail service by which he travelled was still a crucial lifeline during the winter months. The town was shut off from the outside world for days on end during periods of heavy snow, as it had been from its foundation. Yet, within a decade, the passenger train and the "ubiquitous and colourful horse-drawn van" that had been normal aspects of winter for a half-century were replaced by trucks and cars that travelled on ploughed "all-weather" roads except in the fiercest blizzards. The telephone and even electric power—luxuries in many districts in 1946—reached most homes in southern Manitoba by the end of the 1950s. Radio, which Giffen discovered was popular in Carman and Elgin but present in only half the rural households around Rossburn, was a mere supplement to television by the 1960s. And the one-room schools of the rural districts emptied as students travelled daily by bus to larger centralized institutions. Most striking of all the changes, residents of prairie farms and villages had to come to terms with the fact that 206

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neighbours were thinking about moving. Between 1945 and the 1980s, the number of farm and village dwellers was cut in half. This meant fewer people in any one district with whom to meet and talk and maintain a community. What gives Giffen's field studies special resonance is that they chronicle the habits of a society that had evolved within a relatively consistent pattern for sixty to eighty years. Looking back from today's vantage point, sixty years later, one sees his encounters in even sharper relief. Three subjects stand out: gender, ethnicity, and leadership. Of the three, the role of the sexes was to undergo the greatest revolution in subsequent decades. In 1946, men's and women's roles in public life were as clearly separated as they had been two generations earlier. Giffen's wife, who complemented his interviews by attending women's events, observed that women contributed to public causes through their own formal associations. Although this work in church and charity provided important services, it also afforded women opportunities to meet and socialize with friends. Thus, their public life seemed to be conducted within the rules and conventions of "the meeting." These formal relations actually structured women's experience of the public sphere, Giffen implied, but had less influence than

Women's Institute, photograph from Institute News XXII, 1 (January 1950), PAM. Frances McKay is seated front row, left.

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male conversations on decisions concerning schools or public works or the government's farm policy. Men had numerous opportunities to meet and talk informally in public spaces. In such male-dominated locations as the rink, the post office, and the service station, they exchanged information and opinions about the community's public affairs and exercised whatever local direction was possible in the spheres of government and business. Giffen's estimates of men's and women's roles in community decision making can be seen as a sign of the times but also as an inevitable shortcoming of a short-term research visit. He did not hear the women's phone calls, could not estimate the importance of the garden and store as venues of conversations, did not see the summertime expansiveness that diminished the isolation of winter. Nonetheless, his generalization rings true. Ethnic difference concerned public officials in 1946 and, thus, was a specific target of Giffen's questions. In his report, the complacent, rock-ribbed, conservative individualism of British Protestant Elgin was very evident. So was the gulf between Ukrainian and British citizens in Rossburn, and between the French Catholic Metis and their Protestant neighbours in Carman. However, Giffen's depiction of the prejudices of 1946, seen from the perspective of today's readers, must appear exaggerated. Giffen recorded not only the evident hostility between the ethnic groups but also the superficial friendliness that papered over such differences. His account of a conversation in a Rossburn store emphasized the hypocrisy in a British Canadian's relationship with a Ukrainian Canadian. Despite the superficiality of their good-humoured exchange—and one man's hostility expressed after the other had left—Giffen might have chosen a more tolerant interpretation, putting his emphasis on the relatively civil tone of this ordinary conversation. Indeed, widespread acknowledgement of the need for compromise and accommodation in Manitoba welded diverse cultural groups into something approaching a common culture in 1946 and, more convincingly, during the decades to come.9 208

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Leadership was Giffen's main concern. Who, in each small town and farm community, could be relied upon to recognize the need for change and to organize others in adapting to it? Giffen saw both men and women of influence in each of the communities he visited. He implied that longer-term visitors such as bank managers and ministers and teachers—people with further education and often from outside local circles—constituted a major source of creativity. He noted the influence of local people who were insular and he stressed the merits of province-wide associations wherein delegates might learn what was going on in other centres. He recorded the impact of big-city media, especially the newspapers but also film and radio; he estimated the influence of the university; and he considered the relevance—or irrelevance, in his estimation—of local discussion clubs. His own view is evident in his report. As he told the commissioners at a private meeting in the fall of 1946, "the central problem of adult education in Manitoba is the lack of educated persons.... [there is] a very conspicuous lack of leadership for educational and other activities." He also argued that most rural districts suffered from "the early departure of the most able young people," which placed an even heavier burden on local professionals.10 It is a common response among readers of books and writers of reports to look to the city and to formal education for the injection of new ideas into a rural society. But is this a fitting response? One of the strongest leaders of rural Manitoba in the next generation, a future president of the Manitoba Pool, was farming in the Elgin district when Giffen visited but did not figure in Giffen's report. Such an oversight in a relatively short visit is not surprising but it does serve as a reminder that generalizations about a community are notoriously difficult. Giffen created a useful sketch of the main educational and communication institutions in three districts but he could not be expected to produce a definitive account of all that went on in these neighbourhoods. One should remember in reading the manuscript that Giffen was 209

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a young man from the city, had only a very brief period in which to work and, naturally, asked questions designed to test his employers' assumptions. His very presence in the field expressed the commissioners' belief that rural Manitoba must pick up the pace if it was to remain internationally competitive. Though this may have been true, it did not necessarily imply that rural people lacked ability or gumption. Indeed, of all people, they possessed the energy required to sustain a stable, living community. Despite some reservations, the commissioners had faith in them. Giffen's manuscript documents European settlement on the prairies at a moment when the first phase of that rural society was still in fall flower. It encourages readers today to imagine how cultural change, in particular, had been generated within these communities during the previous six decades. The manuscript's very existence, as well as its quality and the exceptional effort that went into it, push us to ask questions about the province and the cultural and political moment. * *

STUART GARSON AND THE POLITICS OF 'RECONSTRUCTION' The story of James Giffen and the Royal Commission starts with the single most powerful figure in Manitoba public life in 1945, Premier Stuart Garson. His Liberal Progressive party had been in power for over twenty years but he had been its leader for just two. Nonetheless, he had already enjoyed a long career in public life and knew the province well. He remembered the disastrous transition to peace in 1919. He had been in government throughout the great depression of the 1930s. He recognized the province's heavy obligations to the men and women who had given selflessly during the six years of the Second World War. Garson was genuinely worried about the role government should occupy in restoring prosperity at the end of a global war. Could Manitoba avoid the crippling social divisions that had accompanied Winnipeg's 210

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General Strike of 1919? One can understand the commissioning of Giffen's research study only by coming to terms with Garson. Stuart Garson was was born in 1898, and was struck by polio as a child. His Orkney-born father, a successful businessman and one of the founders of the Tyndall stone industry (the Manitoba village of Garson is named after him), died in 1911, just as Stuart was entering his teens. His mother then moved Stuart Sinclair Garson, c. 1941 with Stuart and his seven-yearPAM. old brother to shared accommodations in the city's Wolseley district, a step down from their former Crescentwood home. Though he walked with a limp, Stuart contributed to the family upkeep by taking such jobs as grocer's delivery boy and harvest labourer. He won a place in a Winnipeg law firm after high school and was called to the bar in 1919. He then opened a branch office of the firm in Ashern, in Manitoba's Interlake, and, during the next few years, became well known in the farm, fishing, and trapping communities of the district as a practical and genial young professional.12 Garson gravitated quickly to public life. There, he discovered that accustomed patterns in provincial politics, including Manitoba's generation-old, two-party system, had been turned upside down by the events of the First World War. Both rural people and Winnipeg working families had been shocked by the rapid rise in prices during the war and by the sudden collapse of their own incomes after it was over. The explosive general strike in Winnipeg and the rise to prominence of farm- and labour-based 211

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parties changed political institutions forever. One of these new parties was the United Farmers of Manitoba, which won the 1922 provincial election and then recruited the principal of the Manitoba Agricultural College, field husbandry professor John Bracken, to serve as their leader. Bracken governed the province for twenty years as the head of the United Farmers—later renamed Progressive—administration, which, during the 1930s, he expanded into a broader coalition with Liberals and even Social Credit.13 When Garson joined Bracken's Progressive caucus after the 1927 election, he had not yet turned thirty. He moved to Winnipeg, continued his law practice, and soon gave evidence of his abilities in the legislature. Promoted to the crucial post of Provincial Treasurer in 1936, he became Bracken's indispensable subordinate. When the latter accepted the leadership of the federal Conservative party, Garson acceded to the premiership. His five years as leader of the Manitoba government, 1943 to 1948, encompassed the closing years of the Second World War and the period of 'reconstruction' that followed. He enjoyed unanimous support in his party and, indeed, was respected by all sides in provincial politics. As one of his cabinet colleagues, and later premier, D.L. Campbell, said of him, "Mr Garson . . . [was] a strong man and very highly thought of in every way. Intellectually, he towered over most of the people in the House so that as long as he was there, there was no question about the leadership."14 Garson moved to the federal Liberal government at the end of 1948, serving in the St. Laurent administration as Minister of Justice and Attorney-General until its defeat by John Diefenbaker's Conservatives in 1957. He then returned briefly to a Winnipeg law practice before ill health forced him to retire. He died in 1977. Garson received invaluable instruction in economics while he was Manitoba's finance minister between 1936 and 1943. He and Bracken had shared responsibility for the preparation of Manitoba's case to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial 212

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Relations (the Rowell-Sirois Commission), "the most comprehensive and best argued" of all the presentations submitted to that historic inquiry.15 Garson's work won the attention of one of Canada's most influential political observers, John W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, who sat on that commission. Thus, when Garson became premier in January 1943, Dafoe welcomed him with a glowing editorial tribute: He has proved himself to have ability, integrity and a capacity for hard, honest work. He is modest, yet sure of himself, not in any narrow way but because he studies hard and gets good counsel and builds himself a background of knowledge before he makes a decision. He is mature in judgment. He also has charm and a sense of humor ... he and Mr. Bracken have operated as a team for several years past. Both know and understand probably more fully than any other provincial ministers both the implications and the necessities of [the Rowell-Sirois report] The masterly advocacy of the Manitoba case, which won kudos everywhere, was due as much to Mr. Garson as to his premier."1(^ From his first days in the premier's office, Garson was thinking about war's end. Like Bracken, he relied on social science research to define changes in the world and, not coincidentally, to defend his political decisions. Thus, the prospect of a military victory over Germany and Japan, which had become more certain after American entry into the war on 7 December 1941, prompted him to commission a series of special committees on "reconstruction and rehabilitation" that would define Manitoba's needs in the post-war years. The people of the province, about three-quarters of a million in number, roughly one-third residing in Winnipeg and most of the rest in southern agricultural districts, had just endured a very difficult Depression decade. The income from agriculture, to which nearly half the province's labour force was dedicated, had fallen precipitously. Tax revenues were correspondingly meagre. 213

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Still, the province's agricultural advisors did not blame farm families. As J.H. Ellis, the leading agricultural expert in the province, explained: The farmers of Manitoba have been repeatedly criticised by outsiders and others for not adopting a more diversified system of agriculture—The facts are, that throughout the years, farmers in Manitoba repeatedly have made attempts to modify the agricultural system followed, but the internal economic conditions, together with the lack of external markets for diversified products that were responsible for the establishment of the agricultural land use policy in Manitoba in the past have been responsible for its continuation in the present. ... It is impractical, therefore, to expect any marked change in the type of agriculture in Manitoba until markets are available for the products of diversification (except for such temporary periods that arise during wartime conditions or national emergencies). The type of agriculture and land use that has been practised on Manitoba farms, therefore, is the logical outcome of natural and economic laws.1 ^ Provincial advisors believed that the farm economy, which was responsible for nearly 40 per cent of provincial output, reached the limit of its potential in 1914 and had been declining relative to other sectors during the 1920s and 1930s: "no further growth in agriculture need be expected." The second great pillar of the province, manufacturing, accounted for just under one-third of the net value of production but less than 10 per cent of the labour force, and was based chiefly on agricultural products (slaughterhouses, flour mills, dairies, bakeries) and local markets (men's clothing, cotton bags, printing and publishing): "It is not too much to say that one part of the manufacturing industry is subject to the same forces and conditions as are most branches of our primary production, namely the uncertainty of foreign markets, while much of the rest of the industry is dependent upon local welfare and prosperity for its success—" Given the small local markets, there 214

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were "serious limitations to any great developments in manufacturing in the province." Thus, each of the two main sectors in the provincial economy, agriculture and manufacturing, was to a considerable degree dependent on the other. The other primary industries—mining, forests, lumber, fishing, hunting, trapping— remained small contributors to economic activity and created less than 10 per cent of the net value of production. From the 1930s, observers recognized that "the chief cause of instability lies in agricultural income."18 Garson appointed an Advisory Committee on Coordination of Post-War Planning in the autumn of 1944. He said very little in his introductory speech except that Ottawa bore the chief responsibility for employment and social security, not the provinces. Given that federal policies had yet to be decided, Manitoba must seek flexibility in its economic planning. As might be expected from someone of his political stripe, he emphasized that private enterprise would provide "the major part of employment in the post-war." The provincial government's main contribution would be to ensure that "overlapping, duplication and conflict" were eliminated. This modest goal was the Advisory Committee's main task.19 The Manitoba position on reconstruction grew a little clearer in the spring of 1945 when Garson delivered a major speech on the government's plans to the legislative assembly. Agriculture remained at the foundation of provincial and, indeed, prairie life, he asserted. Workers must be encouraged to enter the lumber industry so that post-war housing shortages could be alleviated. A number of specific matters—municipal finance and rural electrification, for example—must be addressed. However, the main thrust of his speech concerned not broad policy positions but, rather, the attitudes of Manitobans and especially of the Opposition parties. The economic danger to be feared, according to Garson, was a recurrence of the disaster that befell Canada after the First World 215

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War. On that occasion, he said, "cataclysmic deflation" caused "not only a great deal of acute short-term unemployment and distress, but also a long-term disruption in our price structure which persisted after the short-term deflation had run its course." He continued: "From 1921 onwards the prices of our primary products, and of our wheat in particular, were so low relative to the prices of other things in Canada that the purchasing power of a large proportion of our people was severely restricted. As a result, there was no complete resumption after 1921 of our industrial activities." The imbalance lasted from 1921 to 1924. Then, in 1925, the "economic system" found a balance that was more apparent than real. The five years of relative prosperity that we enjoyed, beginning in 1925, were the result of our customers abroad becoming eager buyers of our surplus goods. Why? Simply because producers in Canada and the United States and other countries with large surpluses of goods to sell, lent to our insolvent customers in Europe, the money with which to buy our surpluses. This money was not repaid and never will be. The moment we stopped lending, their purchases from us dwindled and our economic system was again thrown out of balance. Thus the depression of the 1930's was a continuation of the deflation beginning in 1921. The silly optimism which was displayed by eminent people in the prosperous period of 1925-29 would not have been indulged in if they had been conscious of the fundamental lack of balance following the last war, and thus had realized how precarious was our economic position in the whole period between the two wars. This concept that after total war balance must be restored to an international system which war has thrown out of balance, is something that we must act upon in our approach of our present postwar period.20 One sees in these passages the economic understanding of a practical and persistent student of society. Garson's main point was that the entire twenty years after 1919 had been one long 216

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depression, interrupted for five years in the late 1920s by a brief and ill-founded bubble of optimism. The cause of interwar disaster was the worldwide failure to make the economic transition from war to peace within a "balanced economic system." Who could ignore his warnings at the end of war in 1945, given the wild fluctuations that had so obviously occurred before? Garson also outlined the reforms contemplated by his government. He promised a report on rural housing; a report on the planning of small towns, especially water and sewage systems (Minnedosa, Killarney, Boissevain, Virden, Morden, and Rivers had already begun the surveys); a committee on the planning of streets, transportation, and housing in Winnipeg; questionnaires concerning the establishment and expansion of industries in rural areas, notably those dealing with "processing of agricultural commodities"; a report on the conversion of wartime industries to peacetime production; a report on farm electrification; a report on public welfare and another on a public health program; a plan for school buildings; progress reports on drainage projects, flood control, and so on. Over the course of eight years, from 1940 to 1948, during what might be called the prosperous portion of the Bracken and Garson years, the provincial debt fell from $130 to $90 million.21 In short, Garson promised that his government would conduct investigations and undertake a cautious, measured approach to public expenditure. Garson's speech constituted an electoral manifesto. The Liberal Progressive administration had started its five-year mandate under one premier, John Bracken, in 1940 and was approaching the end under another. As a wartime coalition, it had initially incorporated all the main parties in the house. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), social democratic critics of the government, bolted the coalition when Bracken departed for Ottawa. They constituted a significant threat on the left. Most of the Conservatives who had stayed in the coalition would be running against the government from the right. Garson had to step 217

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carefully if he was to secure another mandate for his Liberal Progressive movement. One sphere that would require close attention was education, a most complicated policy field at war's end. The fate of returned soldiers was partly an education issue. Few believed that veterans had received generous settlements after the First World War. Now, in the wake of a second global conflict, citizens were keenly aware of the country's collective obligation to the people who had sacrificed so much. As Garson was told repeatedly, "our boys" deserved fair treatment.22 The federal government would assume most of the financial burden but would the provincial government have to undertake special arrangements for technical training or completion of high school requirements? Garson was also concerned about Manitoba schools. The topic had been referred to a special committee of the legislature, which reported after an extensive inquiry that the school system required reform. 23 The MLAs identified a number of problems, starting with school districts (too small), financial resources (too limited), agricultural education and technical education (inadequate), and "training in citizenship" (also insufficient). To make its case, the committee produced an analysis of school completion rates. It was a telling piece of evidence. Of 100 students entering grade 1 in Winnipeg, sixtyeight attained at least grade 8 standing; in smaller towns and villages, sixty-five; in rural schools, only forty-three. Though Winnipeg contained 40 per cent of the provincial population, it supplied 65 per cent of the University of Manitoba students.24 A third explanation for Garson's concern about educational policy emerges from the thicket of church, farm, cooperative, and community adult education agencies. The legislature's committee had commented critically on the inadequacy of adult education in the province. These programs, it concluded, were "very seldom in coordination" and activists in the various interest groups were often jealous or ignorant of their colleagues. The committee 218

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argued that adult education should be recognized as "an integral part of the public education system with administrative machinery within the Department of Education." It proposed that the department and the University of Manitoba should survey the situation "with a view to close co-operation in this field." It also called for an investigation of the libraries of the province and requested that "a definite policy [be] evolved as part of an adult education programme."25 This reference to the university's role raised a fourth question that worried Garson in the spring of 1945. The university would face a crisis in the coming year. As the members of the armed forces demobilized, university enrollments would rise sharply. Attendance at the University of Manitoba in the decade before 1944 had fluctuated between 2400 and 2900 students, averaging about 2700 per year. Half as many again, about 4100, entered its halls in the autumn of 1945 and no fewer than 6900, nearly triple the earlier average, enrolled in 1946-47.26 Professors would be asked to teach two or three times as many students and, simultaneously, to maintain the adult education programs that had always been seen as supplements to their regular loads. Having received Carnegie Foundation support for adult education in the late 1930s and through the war, the university had maintained its extension program to the spring of 1945. When the Carnegie grant came to an end, the Garson government stepped into the breach and increased its annual grant to the university by $30,000, approximately the amount that Carnegie had provided. The money did not reach the university's extension courses. Professors who were bearing the brunt of the enrollment crisis argued that the money should go toward their work, including their salaries, rather than to activities not at the centre of their mandate. The Board of Governors agreed. The university suspended its adult education program on 30 April 1945. An interim program consisting of drama, the Citizens' Forum on radio, the Evening Institute, the Workers' Educational Association, and some 219

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agricultural field days and short courses was to be maintained. Garson suddenly had a new problem: criticism from middle-class citizens, trade union activists, and farm leaders whose constituencies had enjoyed the university courses for the past decade.27 Adult education thus represented a complicated challenge to the government. How does one get such problems off one's desk, spend neither money nor effort on them, yet seem to be tackling them vigorously? The time-honoured Canadian answer to this riddle was to appoint a Royal Commission. As early as April 1945, Garson was musing about this solution and, in August, as the war ended, he established the Royal Commission on Adult Education. Its assignment was to advise on "the co-ordination of ... [adult education] work in the province in order to eliminate all overlapping, duplication and conflict, to advise as to whether the whole field is now being adequately covered and if not as to what steps should be taken. ..." It was to survey all the agencies active in the province and to examine six sample communities to determine how well their needs were served. It was also asked to consult widely in the "Prairie West" and the American Midwest to assess the merits of alternative models of adult education. Finally, it was supposed to outline "a comprehensive plan of adult education that would meet the needs of Manitoba today."28 That issue safely in others' hands, Garson announced that the election would take place on 15 October 1945. His Liberal Progressive Coalition, as it was still called, emerged from the autumn campaign with twenty-six seats and the support of two others, having carried about 50 per cent of the vote, while the Conservatives won fifteen seats, the CCF ten, and others two. Discounting the seven seats won by acclamation, about 55 per cent of eligible electors cast ballots. It was a very narrow majority but it was sufficient, nevertheless, for Garson to form another government.29 In the premier's files there exists an untided, undated, unsigned, handwritten memorandum that outlines the thinking behind the Garson administration. Probably written by the premier's economic 220

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advisor, H.C. Grant, perhaps in late 1943 or early 1944, the memo reveals the premier's sympathies and priorities. It begins by asserting that prairie farm families were "making an outstanding contribution to the war effort," whether measured by enlistments, by the absence of strikes and slowdowns, or by their "radical readjustment" to wheat surpluses and livestock shortages. Now, the document suggested, the key question was the nature of change in the post-war world: "Peacemakers and statesmen of the past have paid little attention to regional and economic factors. They have been overconcerned with national and ethnic factors. This must not be repeated." The document emphasized that economists at Minnesota and Manitoba universities had a common perception of postwar "plains area" regional problems: Some of us want to know how we can free international trade from the shackles that bound it during the depression years. We want to know how we can restore free enterprise from the necessary regulations of a war economy. If greater individual initiative is to be restored after the war we want to know what is going to happen to the farmer who has too often suffered from hidden controls and monopoly conditions in a supposedly liberal society. We would like to know what the effects will be of increased industrialization in Eastern North America on the farmers of the West. These are questions that can only be properly answered by men trained in objective thinking and factual analyses. We feel we are entitled to ask our universities to throw what light they can on these questions. Thank God the lights can still burn in a million farm homes in this great heart of the continent. What we are determined to prevent, if human wisdom can prevent it, is an economic black out after the war.30 The memo articulated Garson's preoccupations during his five years as premier: concern for rural Manitoba; concern for farmers' economic adjustment after twenty years on the roller coaster that was the world grain market; concern to avoid unnecessary government interventions in complicated matters best left 221

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to private initiatives; concern that national policies not penalize western agriculture or favour eastern industry; concern that "national and ethnic" considerations (code words for central Canada and French Canada) not eclipse the interests of western farm families; concern that "facts" and "rationality"—as Garson and his colleagues defined them—rather than ideology and partisan sentiment (which allegedly shaped the views of the Opposition parties) shape policy choices; and, finally—most of all—concern that the disasters of the post-1918 years not be revisited. As the memo commented, no one wanted to endure another "economic black out" of the type experienced in the 1930s. But how to ensure that lights would still be burning in a million farm homes? This is where openness to cultural innovation and an effective adult education program came in. THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON ADULT EDUCATION

Why a full-scale Royal Commission, rather than just another committee, for adult education? The short-term reasoning behind Garson's apparently quixotic choice, including returned soldiers, weak rural schools, duplicated adult education efforts, and the special problems of the university, cannot account for his decision. After all, mere task forces and advisory groups and legislative committees could have done the job. The Royal Commission was a real departure. What is more, its members included only one Manitoban. In truth, Garson was seeking an outsider's view of his home province. As ambitious as it might seem, the premier was asking the commissioners to reconsider Manitoba's cultural development. Should governments have a role in the encouragement of adults' cultural expressions—their thinking and debating and performing and reading and just plain socializing? Was the province competitive with farm communities across the international boundary in the United States? Did the socialist experiment next door in 222

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Saskatchewan pose a challenge? Could the people of Manitoba overcome the deep ethnic, racial, and religious gulfs that separated them? Could the new communication technologies of radio and film be utilized to create a more efficient "learning society"? Could the lights in those mid-continent farm homes be kept burning? These were complicated questions and it spoke volumes about the premier's concerns for rural Manitoba that they were being addressed. Garson had started a hare, something that politicians are loath to do, given that they cannot determine—or even predict—its course. Only the Royal Commission itself could decide the answers to these potentially profound cultural questions. The premier selected an exceptionally able, five-member panel. He asked the newly appointed president of the University of Manitoba, Albert W. Trueman, to serve as chair. Trueman had been superintendent of city schools in Saint John and knew little about the problems that faced Manitoba but he jumped into the task after his arrival on the university campus in August 1945. He handled the responsibilities effectively and, certainly, learned a great deal about the province in the process.31 He left for the University of New Brunswick after three years, thankful to escape the hard-headed, tight-fisted businessmen on the university's board who made his life miserable. His job on the commission, by contrast, must have been a delight. The panel included Dr. John Deutsch, a Saskatchewan-born economist who had returned from work in eastern Canada to write editorials for the Winnipeg Free Press, He had been recruited to the Free Press by John Dafoe "to help devise and develop the new thinking that would be essential in the post-war years." Described later as "Canada's least doctrinaire, most humble economist," he was famous for his use of the saying, "Let's try it out on the dog," allegedly the test of a cook in the Glengarry lumber camps. Deutsch's distinguished career in government and academe included service on several other royal commissions and, eventually, the principalship of Queen's University.32 223

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Another commission member, Frances McKay, Director of Women's Work in the government's Agriculture Extension Service, was said by the Free Press "to know Manitoba like the back of her hand."33 She received her degree in Home Economics from the University of Manitoba in 1928 and then went to Cornell University for graduate work. She later wrote a textbook on applied nutrition that circulated in "half the countries of the world." She also became a stalwart in Canada's Women's Institute and the Associated Countrywomen of the World.34 A fourth appointment, John Grierson, had just completed five years' service as head of both the National Film Board and the Wartime Information Board. Sometimes described as the father of documentary film in the world (an exaggerated but not ridiculous claim), Grierson was chosen because of his keen interest in adult education. He may have been an uncertain quantity but a speech he delivered in Winnipeg in June 1945 had captured public attention and his expertise was undeniable. The last appointment, and almost an afterthought, chosen because a distinguished journalist had declined, was Harold Adams Innis, economic historian at the University of Toronto and then the single most powerful academic in Canada's social sciences. Innis became an invaluable member of the group, participated fully and positively in its deliberations, and wrote some of the most sweeping sections of the final report. The commissioners began their work without delay. John K. Friesen, executive secretary of the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Cooperation, served briefly as advisor until Jack Sword could fill the crucial position of secretary.35 The three commissioners who resided in Winnipeg held an initial organizing meeting within a week of their appointment and four similar brief sessions to expedite matters during the next year. All five commissioners sat down together to plan their strategy at a three-day meeting in late September 1945. All but one participated in six other meetings: at Christmas 1945, then in April and June, 1946 224

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(when public hearings were convened to listen to the many citizens' groups), and again for two- or three-day sessions in September, November, and December of 1946. The report was completed in early 1947, submitted on 3 February, and copies were made available in several formats for public distribution later in the spring. In sum, the work of the commission required eighteen months, and involved seven extended meetings of the commissioners, a province-wide public consultation, intensive firsthand study of adult education activities in seven neighbouring jurisdictions in the prairies and mid-west United States, literature surveys on similar activities in a half-dozen other countries, and a specially commissioned field survey (Giffen's manuscript) of leadership and cultural literacy in certain rural communities. It represented, in short, a considerable expenditure of effort on the part of some very able citizens. As in the rest of his planning for the post-war period, Garson wanted the Royal Commission to advise on "duplication and conflict." He recognized that some parts of Manitoba were wellserved by courses and programs but others were not. Farm, cooperative, and credit union organizations—all run by local activists with the aid of provincial and national institutions—played an important role in generating new ideas but they also represented duplicated effort. Moreover, adult education was carried on in

Members of the Royal Commission on Adult Education, Winnipeg Free Press, 11 September 1945, PAM. L to R: John Deutsch, John Grierson, Albert Trueman, Harold Innis, Frances McKay, Jack Sword. 225

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the provincial agriculture department and the University of Manitoba's extension courses for men and women, as well as in ethnic groups' theatre and reading clubs and in classes associated with church mission work. Many voluntary agencies, such as the Women's Institute, the Wheat Pool, the Historical Society, and the Canadian National Railways (CNR) Colonization Department (by means of "community progress competitions"), also conducted meetings that had educational purposes. In the mid19308, provincial interest in the Scandinavian folk school movement prompted a group of citizens to create a steering committee for further adult education programming and encouraged the University of Manitoba to found an Evening Institute, a kind of non-credit smorgasbord of lecture courses on a wide range of humanities, social science, and science subjects.36 Then, in response to Winnipeg residents' enthusiasm for such programs (and perhaps to a request from University of Manitoba President Sidney Smith), the American Carnegie Foundation offered a $10,000 grant for the hiring of a professional education officer and the development of a program.37 This was the state of adult education in the province before 1940: feisty, unfocussed, and not necessarily making the best use of people's energies. The war magnified these problems. Quite simply, adult education became an important social movement for a few years, roughly the decade of the 1940s, when radio and documentary film obtained a brief cultural ascendancy and before television radically revised people's habits and expectations. The number of study groups in the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture educational program rose from 17 in 1937-38 to 58, over 200, and 435 in the next three years. The boom was not just a prairie Canada phenomenon. Similar increases occurred in the Ohio Farm Bureau, for example, and in the CBC'S nation-wide "Labour Forum" broadcasts aimed at workers.38 However, while residents in Winnipeg and the larger towns had numerous educational options, many citizens in rural and northern areas had not even 226

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been contacted.39 The integration of these citizens into the larger community was one obvious goal of the Royal Commission. It is difficult to recapture at this distance the degree to which the society of farm households—outside the established towns— was an isolated and inward-looking world in 1945. One of the clearest measures was the brief from Manitoba Pool elevators to the Royal Commission. This powerful organization, as close to the grassroots as any in the province, explained that it conducted adult education by means of Pool meetings, radio broadcasts, a newspaper, and study groups. It focussed members' attention on agricultural practices, research, marketing, and international affairs. But, the brief admitted, members' attendance at its 180 local elevator associations was "poor": only about one in six members actually came to the meetings. In 1945, only 507 borrowers made use of its vaunted "mailing library," which contained 5000 volumes and was free to members. And its study-group reference library, consisting mainly of pamphlets, was not well used, though some communities did rely on it to generate discussions at local meetings.40 Men were more likely than women and poorer households more likely than the prosperous to suffer from a lack of interest in the wider world. A farm leader suggested that income shaped or at least corresponded with reading habits; families of medium income read Liberty, Maclean's, and Saturday Evening Post, whereas "lower income groups read true confession magazines and true love stories as well as other adventure pulps." When challenged by President Trueman to say whether residents of rural Manitoba "were really interested in culture," the leader of the Women's Institute answered yes; confronted by the same question, the male farm leader acknowledged that women were "the most persistent readers of farm papers" and that men did not read them.41 French-language communities were probably even less connected to metropolitan intellectual currents. A grant of $2500 from the Carnegie Foundation to the Societe d'Enseignement 227

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Postscolaire in 1940 and 1941 permitted this Franco-Manitoban group to hire a secretary and to conduct the first extensive adult education activity in French-speaking communities in the province. It also created a 600-member library in Saint Boniface with "very good books"—a collection of 5000 volumes. It instituted French-language courses in agriculture for boys, domestic arts for girls, a summer school in weaving for teachers, a domestic science residential school for thirty students in the winter, and twenty groups of "Cercle de Fermieres" (a French-language Women's Institute). But, as the Societe explained, "The work is very slow. We have realized after a few years of experiment that our farmers have little or no rural mentality; we see the need of this particular form of education, but we have not actually the means to do it thoroughly. "42 Observers who did not belong to the group were even more critical of the Franco-Manitoban community's educational deficiencies. In one private discussion, members of the Royal Commission noted that, though the French constituted the third-largest group in the province, they did not take kindly to outside intervention. Any program designed to assist the French community to meet its educational needs "would have to be channeled through the church and the local priests."43 Isolation and resistance were issues not only among FrancoManitobans. The town of Roblin's Handicraft Society, founded in 1935, conducted an active program in glove making, woodworking and crafts during the late 1930s and early '40s. Its organizer, Mrs. Charles Brydon, lamented that its efforts did not extend far beyond the town's boundaries. She wrote that the small towns of Manitoba were "over-organized now but the rural districts have very little that appeals to the young people."44 Though she did not say so, she was referring to extensive settlements of Ukrainian-origin citizens, the second-largest group, after British Canadians, in the province. The commission was told that the 70,000 to 75,000 Manitobans of Ukrainian heritage included both Winnipeg residents and an 228

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estimated one in four rural households. These UkrainianCanadians were divided—bitterly divided, it was said—between two organizations, run by communists and nationalists, each of which claimed to represent the majority of their people and sought to extend its own influence. The rural residents lived on the parkland fringes northeast and southeast of Winnipeg, and in an arc stretching across the parkland belt from Beausejour northwest to Swan River. Whereas the urban Ukrainians of both political outlooks expected to assimilate to a British and Canadian norm within a few decades, or so the commissioners were told, those who lived in the countryside did not. Ukrainians lived with a serious disappointment—the poor quality of the agricultural land available when they arrived—that seemed to promise their continued social isolation. Indeed, Giffen told the commissioners that Ukrainians had only a "limited sense of gratitude" for their homesteads because of this "poor land." Giffen also reported that those who lived on farms learned English much more slowly and less perfectly than those in town and worked hard to maintain Ukrainian language schools after-hours. He suggested, finally, that "there are antagonisms in the local communities which act to reinforce the desire of the Ukrainians to maintain their own culture."45 The situation of Aboriginal Manitoba was similarly difficult. Speaking to the Royal Commission in 1946, Chief Cornelius Bignell of The Pas reserve called for adult education programs among northern Manitoba Aboriginal people "to permit them to earn livelihoods in keeping with their changing mode of living." He asked that the federal and provincial governments cooperate in the education of both "reserve and halfbreed" children. And he suggested that films be taken to reserves in order "to teach Indians trades and to prove to them the progress of Indians in other parts of Canada in the white men's trades." Finally, he urged that the residential school system, wherein Aboriginal children studied for only half-days and devoted the other half-day to 229

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labour that sustained the institution, be stopped. It was time, he said, that Aboriginal children be given an education "nearer equal" that of white students.46 Even in the capital city, there was evidence to suggest that cultural attainments were not all they might be. A newspaper editorial lamented: "Winnipeg can hardly be called a city of books. There is no well-equipped book store in the city ... [and] the main university library ... is miles out of the city and is hampered by a budget totally inadequate to its needs."47 Manitoba historian W.L. Morton's own conclusion about the mid-1940s, written only a decade later, was that "The grey pall of pragmatism hung heavy over all areas of provincial life."48 Could changes be introduced to ensure all Manitobans participated as equals in the economy and enjoyed equal access to cultural opportunities? Many adult education leaders believed passionately that such goals were attainable. They were activists and saw a chance to better humankind. In approaching this enthusiasm for adult education, the Royal Commission and the government were motivated by two particular concerns, one economic and the other cultural. Premier Garson, as might be expected, was always ready to articulate the former. He was very conscious that, because agriculture still accounted for a significant proportion of provincial income, failure to adapt to changing circumstances would handicap governments and undermine rural society. Garson explained the problem in a 1943 letter to an economic advisor: the farmer in Western Canada pays a substantially higher price for nearly all of the things that he requires than does his counterpart across the American border in Minnesota or North Dakota. The comparisons of the Sears-Roebuck catalogue on the one hand with the T Eaton Company catalogue on the other is a pretty clear evidence that this is so.... Not only are the Canadian farmer's costs higher but the prices which he gets for his 230

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products are lower than those in the United States. The result is that he has not much of a margin—49 Garson recognized, in short, that Canadian farmers could not afford to make mistakes because they would lose out to American competitors in the international grain trade. For this reason, rural adult education was necessary if Manitobans were to keep abreast of the competition. The Royal Commission also identified cultural issues as a source of danger to the province's future development. Anyone could see that Manitobans were divided by race, religion, and language. The commissioners recognized that these barriers imposed an onerous intellectual isolation on many families. At one of the commission's public hearings, A.W. Trueman asked a Ukrainian leader what the nationalist groups hoped to achieve. N. Herrn replied that his organization hoped "to establish and preserve the traditions of their 'native land' in the same way as the French had done in Quebec." Trueman was not satisfied and, taking issue with Herrn's statement, he replied: "I don't think that is a fair analogy. . . . The French in Canada certainly do not look to France."50 Behind Trueman's willingness to confront Herrn was the commission's concern that ethnic loyalties handicapped families adjusting to what it saw as Manitoba's and Canada's culture. Harold Innis expressed the commission's preoccupation with ethnic difference when he commented on the rapid exodus from rural areas during the war, an out-migration he estimated to involve 350,000 people across the prairies and to be predominantly British in ethnic composition. He wrote that "ethnic groups intent on checking migration to urban areas have resorted to small farms, to an industrial specialized agriculture and to encroachment on adjacent Anglo-Saxon communities—" These strategies, he suggested, "increased the friction between these groups in rural areas... ."^ In other words, uneconomic farm practices, such as specialization and small cultivation units, might drive progressive British farmers out of a district, encourage 231

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"ethnic groups" to embark on a near-subsistence farm strategy, and introduce greater social conflict. The result, he implied, would be a less successful farm economy and a divided rural society. The commissioners' most pressing question was how to respond to Manitoba's unique economic and cultural problems. On this subject, there were activists, opponents of activism, and pragmatists. The activists offered an optimistic view of adult education. Their approach can be illustrated by reference to John Grierson, an outspoken advocate of government intervention in citizenship. Grierson, then commissioner of the National Film Board, told a home and school club in Ottawa that every society must address the need for "a vast new system of education by which the people will be made aware of the living processes and needs of the State and of their duties as citizens." He denied that he saw the world in terms of communism, fascism, or "the Roman Catholic Church in earlier times," three obvious versions of centrally directed cultural development. Nevertheless, he admitted he approved of state education of adults: "propaganda, so far from being the denial of the democratic principle of education, becomes the necessary instrument for its practical fulfilment." Grierson saw no need to apologize for his endorsation of propaganda and no need to apologize for using government's power to reach every citizen. Education would provide "direct leadership," he said: "it becomes . . . an essential function of the State in these times of revolutionary change to give men a pattern of faith."52 These were dangerous sentiments, no matter how cautiously they were phrased, and Grierson was often incautious in his choice of words. Grierson was not alone in wondering whether the new media might strengthen citizen discussions and increase their participation in a democratic state. The director of programs at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Ernest Bushnell, was part of a national initiative to coordinate National Farm Radio Forum and Citizens' Forum (both CBC radio productions) and the National 232

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Film Board's rural film circuits. The goal was to create "a coordinated plan of citizenship education for Canada." Like Grierson, these adult education activists wanted "to use the different media of information and educational organizations . . . with greater effectiveness. . . ." They concluded that radio programs, "like films, are not to be regarded as ends in themselves." Rather, they should be supplemented by discussion groups and should "tackle problems vigorously and directly. "5? The activists may have been Utopian but they dreamed of a participatory democracy where all citizens would be well-informed and make their opinions heard. This siren call was directed at the Royal Commission: improved citizens and economically competitive workers could be developed by means of adult education. On the other side of the political spectrum, conservative individuals strongly opposed government intervention in the education of adults. Their fears focussed on Saskatchewan, where the new CCF government (1944) introduced an active citizenship program. As an article in the Financial Post suggested, "The mass propaganda plan of the CCF Douglas Government under the guise of adult education has aroused wide misgivings. . .. The Goebbels technique of continuously hammering away on a single narrow theory" must not continue, it said. The Post article denounced the CCF plan because the government was not merely spreading some "mild form of socialism" (with which, the author implied, he might have been comfortable), but "straight international communism."54 A similar note was struck by an editorial in the Ottawa Journal that attacked a pamphlet distributed by the Saskatchewan government's adult education branch. 'The Journal described the pamphlet's author, Dyson Carter, as "a selfconfessed Communist" and lamented that such people were now "the paid propagandists of one of our governments, made instructors in programs of 'adult education' " The editorial concluded: "it is time that our people woke up." The Roman 233

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Catholic Bishop of The Pas, Rev. Alcide Cossette, forwarded this editorial to the Manitoba Royal Commission.55 Between the liberal optimists and conservative pessimists, there were a few pragmatic doubters. W.A. Mackintosh, the distinguished economist and, briefly, Garson's informal advisor on economic matters, articulated such doubts. He argued that not every person could be a philosopher-king, as Jeffersonian democrats sometimes dreamed. Nor did he trust advocates of "mass propaganda." Those who controlled the mass media would hold great power but to whom would they answer? Mackintosh stuck to the cautious view that, in political debates, a country had to depend on community leaders, "people of judgment and integrity." He did not believe a mass communication vehicle, such as the radio, would educate people effectively because it could not "select its listeners.... [Radio] has, no doubt, an important place," Mackintosh wrote, "but its place would be much more important... if there were in each group or community an adequately informed nucleus capable of stating counter arguments and giving explanations in a much more direct and immediate way than in a publicity department."56 Mackintosh was a practical person, not given to flights of fancy about human nature. He distrusted government propaganda and what he would have seen as the excessive ambition of activist educators. How would the Royal Commission respond to these alternatives in the case of Manitoba? Should they endorse activism? Non-intervention? Pragmatism? The commissioners eventually decided on a pragmatic path, a non-governmental approach, to the adult education dilemma. They found their solution in the United States Midwest. John Deutsch and the commission secretary, Jack Sword, visited five states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa, in October 1945. Their report highlighted the activities in the first three, and sketched alternative models that might serve Canadians. In Minnesota, the state government offered almost no services 234

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or financial support to adult education. Instead, the university ran the entire system on a self-sustaining basis and with a modest (in American terms) $200,000 budget. Deutsch explained the range of classes, the number of professors involved, and the comprehensiveness of the Minnesota service, though he did not, in the end, recommend that Manitoba adopt its system.57 Wisconsin, a second model, offered both a university extension service like that in Minnesota and an "official state-sponsored and state-supported adult education program." Its program was much larger and more expensive than the one in Minnesota, and required a budget of nearly one million dollars, including a direct state subsidy of $300,000. Deutsch suggested that the government and university offerings constituted a kind of ideal. But he warned about problems associated with the cost and the system of administration. Moreover, he pointed out that the Wisconsin Department of Debating and Public Discussion's package service (books, pamphlets, articles, clippings) might be seen as interventionist: "The package service has been a great stimulus to study groups throughout the state and is said to have played a significant part in the political ferment that has been characteristic of Wisconsin."58 Even this understated warning—governments in power rarely seek political ferment—would warn off the cautious Manitoba premier. Michigan, according to the commissioners, offered the ideal solution for Manitoba. Its system "is perhaps the outstanding example in the United States of the attempt to build up a coordinated and comprehensive program with a minimum of centralized direction from the top." Like Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Michigan scheme built adult education activities into the public school system or, failing that, into the work of the universities. But the wider world of voluntary educational agencies— churches, men's clubs, women's groups—was disciplined by a supervisory body, the Michigan Council on Adult Education. This council, a voluntary group of about sixty people, worked "as 235

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a clearing house of the various agencies but also as an active instrument for the formation of policy on the basis of agreement between the many diverse interests in adult education."59 According to the commissioners, "the whole program is designed to operate on the basis of the initiative and desires of local educational and voluntary groups" without direct state involvement. The main recommendation delivered by the Royal Commission, the Michigan solution, did answer Garson's question about how to achieve state coordination without state intervention. The commissioners proposed that an autonomous central "adult education council" be established, consisting of one representative of each adult education agency in the province. Meeting once a year, the council would elect a governing board as its executive body to supervise a director and small staff, including regional offices ("Brandon, Dauphin, Flin Flon are suggested"). The goal of council, board, and director would be "to consider adult education problems and needs, and ways for making the best use of existing facilities and resources " They would pool information, determine policy, and coordinate effort.60 The commissioners also proposed that the council be financed by a small government grant ($15,000 in the first year, $25,000 in the second, up to $50,000 or $60,000 "as the program expands"), and fees paid by the various agencies. On the burning matter of ethnic fragmentation, the commissioners did not pull their punches. They addressed French and Ukrainian "cultural literacy" directly and emphasized the merit of facilitating an "assimilation process." However, they were careful to explain that the term "assimilation" was meant "only to apply to the process of attaining maximum literacy in the dominant culture." The word "assimilation" implied "no ethical judgement," the commissioners wrote, "as to the desirability of maintaining the ethnic culture." On the other hand, they did not shrink from the likely consequences of their suggestion. As they said, "experience shows that participation in the dominant 236

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culture inevitably means a gradual loss of the ethnic culture as it becomes more of a vestigial element." However, the commissioners did not suggest that assimilation be tackled head-on. Rather, they believed that the "most acceptable form of adult education among the Ukrainians would seem to be along lines that would increase their efficiency as farmers." The summary of the section on French-Canadian rural community emphasized "the priest is the gateway to the community."61 In each case, the commissioners accepted that the groups would be travelling a trajectory toward greater cultural and economic convergence with the larger, English-language, British-Canadian society. The total cost of Manitoba's Royal Commission on Adult Education was about $16,000, a small sum for what had seemed in 1945 to be a large problem but, nonetheless, a sizable expense.62 How should the Manitoba government respond to it? The first briefing document that summarized the report for Cabinet ministers dealt mainly with the commission's general recommendations and the price of implementing them, especially of a central supervisory body for adult education. Where the American mid-west states spent several hundred thousand dollars and upwards in this field, Manitoba had directed only a $30,000 grant to the University of Manitoba as a stop-gap measure, and even that sum had been diverted into the university's general revenues. Money represented the first hurdle. More important, at least to education minister J.C. Dryden, was whether a single body of overseers could cooperate in a field as contentious as adult education. Manitoba, he emphasized, was a relatively divided society. Therefore, he doubted whether the commission's main recommendation could ever be implemented. As Albert Trueman reported, Dryden seems to feel that there is a very poor chance that the various voluntary adult education agencies would be able to work together in any effective way through the Council or Board which we have suggested 237

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might be set up. His opinion, I gather, is that there would be so little unanimity of purpose that it might be impossible to work out an agreed upon programme which (a) would be supported well, and (b) would be adequate. The feeling seems to be that the price of cooperation might be a watering down of the programme to the point of ineffectuality.63 Dryden and his Cabinet colleagues understood the province well. His statement presented its reality in a nutshell: social divisions, weak central authority, respect for religious and ethnic cultures, and commitment to a liberal democracy. The government did not have far to seek if it really wanted to travel the activist route. An enthusiastic Manitoban, Helen Watson, then the National Film Board's officer in Sydney, Australia, was eager to return to her home province. She had been a whirlwind in the early 1940s in the NFB's rural film circuits and she could have been counted on to stir up the province if invited to lead the adult education council. Moreover, she would have found many willing allies in the cooperative movement. Garson and Dryden did not respond to Watson's fascinating and entrepreneurial proposal for film and radio production, leadership forums, and recreational activities that could be accomplished with a staff of perhaps twenty-five (as she suggested), including a film producer, a library officer, folk school and physical education instructors, and field representatives. Her plan seems not to have received serious consideration.64 Given the cost, perhaps one should not be surprised. There is another explanation than frugality for the government's failure to act. One can understand provincial governments only by understanding premiers and their perspectives. Garson had set up the Royal Commission in the summer of 1945 when no one knew what war's end would bring. Thoughts of the 1919 general strike, returned soldiers without jobs, the interwar economic disaster, and ethnic groups' isolation probably gnawed at 238

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him during those months of uncertainty. Then the tide turned. He won an election that fall, the federal government did contribute effectively to reconstruction, and the Manitoba economy cruised along quite smoothly. The crisis had passed. His fears dissipated. The commission's report, which arrived in February 1947, simply did not respond to the circumstances of the time. Only three letters on the matter, none pressing, arrived in his office during all of 1948. What is more, Prime Minister Mackenzie King was retiring and his successor, Louis St. Laurent, was urging Garson to join a new Liberal administration in Ottawa as justice minister. Adult education could be left to the next Manitoba government. Garson had posed some very difficult questions to the Royal Commission. Implicit as much as explicit, they demanded searching analysis. His challenges to them: assess the paths that Manitoba, especially rural Manitoba, might follow as it adjusts to the rapidly changing circumstances of the postwar world; assess the cultural barriers that held Manitobans apart from each other and advise on how to dismantle them; assess the role that government should occupy in these sensitive matters. The commissioners felt their way cautiously and, in the end, selected a community-based model for a coordinated adult education agency. Garson, who was frugal and pragmatic as well as cautious, decided he could get away without committing himself even to this modest gesture. He did nothing. GARSON, PROPAGANDA, AND THE CULTURE OF MANITOBA

Though the Royal Commission's recommendations were ignored, its life and work tell us a great deal about the province. Giffen's manuscript and the Royal Commission that employed him to write it provide a mirror within which we can see Manitoba, 1946 version, more clearly. What becomes evident is not only the ethnic barriers in the province but also the ideological divisions and 239

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the partisanship that the commission avoided and Garson was at pains to deny. The Manitoba government did not want the commission to recommend large-scale state intervention in adult education. During the commission's public hearings, the provincial minister of health and public works, Ivan Schultz, told the Free Press that a government should not be running adult education because it "might be labeled a propaganda agency."65 It was one thing to make these views known, however, and another to secure the commission's agreement with them. There is no doubt that Garson himself respected intellectual inquiry and recognized the importance of academic freedom. Just before he set up the Royal Commission, he wrote to a farm group about his adult education problems and the university's role in the province. In this letter, he set out clear principles about government-university relations: The University of Manitoba is a wholly autonomous body, and makes appointments and dismissals without any reference or consultation with the government of Manitoba. As long as I am Premier it will remain a wholly autonomous body, because I am completely opposed to political interference with universities. The decay of German universities, which were at one time amongst the finest in the world, is a good example of what happens when higher education or adult education is controlled by political parties. The line between adult education and party propaganda is a difficult one to draw, and by no one more so than the politician, however conscientious he may be. This is an extremely important principle of which appreciation is lacking in parts of Canada today. There are few matters which would form a more suitable topic of inquiry for study by those who are accustomed to freedom and value it to the full.66 These are fine sentiments and Garson undoubtedly believed them. But he was the leader of a government, too, and, as we have 240

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seen, he was facing a great deal of pressure as the war came to an end. A story about Garson's combativeness conveys these pressures and illustrates his concerns about propaganda and the Royal Commission. It happens that the new president of the University of Manitoba, Albert Trueman, recorded in his memoirs some comments on his first interview with the premier. It is likely that the conversation dealt with university business, in part, but it must also have concerned the Royal Commission that Trueman had agreed to chair. More than either of these matters, however, it concerned university-government relations. The story speaks volumes about Garson and Manitoba politics. A student delegation had recently bearded the premier on the inadequacies of the 'temporary' downtown campus, according to Trueman's account. Unbeknownst to Trueman, The Manitoban, the student newspaper, had just published two feature articles criticizing classroom conditions and quoting an interview with him, as the newly arrived president, in which Trueman expressed the hope that facilities would soon be improved. Garson saw an organized campaign to embarrass his government. Once the two men were seated in the premier's office, the bantamweight lawyer delivered a dressing-down to the newcomer. Trueman recorded that "he rode me with spurs for eighteen minutes by my watch, obviously in a rage over the whole affair, and resentful of me for the part he assumed I had played in it." When Garson's anger eventually subsided, Trueman managed to convince him that the students had acted without his knowledge. There the story might remain. However, a month later, Trueman wrote the premier, an unusual gesture prompted by a note from Garson in which the premier apologized for his inability to attend a lecture by the university president. In his letter, Trueman said he wished to "extend my best wishes to you in the coming election, and my sincere hope that the people of the Province will have the great wisdom to return you and your Government to 241

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power. I feel that it would be a great mistake to interfere in any way with the plans which you have in contemplation."67 This was an unusual step for a senior university official to take. As Garson had already indicated, the university-government relationship is delicate at the best of times. What is more, Trueman was also chairing an important Royal Commission whose work had only just begun. He was signalling, one can only assume, that he would do nothing to offend the premier. The letter demonstrated that Garson, despite or because of his feisty ways, had won an ally. The existence of an understanding, unstated or not, between Garson and Trueman can only be guessed at. It should not be seen as subversive or inappropriate. But the little evidence available indicates that the university president, as commission chair, saw eye to eye with the premier on one crucial matter, that governments in modern democracies had to tread very carefully if they were to avoid undermining the very system they served. All this Garson had recognized before he appointed the Royal Commission. He was clear in his own mind that the government wanted advice on how to coordinate expensive, essential educational activities and yet wished to avoid state intervention in matters that were best left in private hands. The Order-in-Council establishing the inquiry asked the commissioners to make recommendations to the government "concerning the extent to which the federal government and the provincial government, or either of them, should engage in adult education and indicating where in a democracy like Canada the line between adult education and government or state propaganda properly should be drawn."68 Garson wanted them specifically to draw that line. What is remarkable, in retrospect, is the degree to which the commission agreed with Premier Garson. The commissioners began their report with a little joke about propaganda, noting that it had been defined as "that branch of the art of lying which consists in very nearly deceiving your friends without quite 242

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deceiving your enemies."69 They then dealt directly with the problem. The related issues of propaganda and government intervention in culture shaped the commission's thinking and became the focus of its major recommendations.70 One wonders what would have happened if John Grierson had been able to devote his fall attention to the Manitoba commission. He might have had little impact on his fellow commissioners or, perhaps, he might have provoked a fight. In the event, he did not attend meetings beyond the first session and the commissioners eventually asked him to choose between Manitoba and his other commitments. Grierson's letter of resignation, written from New York where he was trying to create a worldwide media consortium promoting global civic education, expressed the cultural activists' dilemma: could one employ the new communication media to realize democratic ends? The root of the matter is to engage the great forces of the film industry and the radio industry in a positive use of film in conjunction with not only the scholastic systems, but also with what I now believe to be the greatest potential medium of enlightenment of all: the youth organizations, the churches, the business and service organizations, the women's clubs, the trade unions and other centers of community leadership. We must, in short, closely relate the service of the media to the specialized civic needs of the community. The solution, however, is not made easier by the fact that the film and radio industries are relatively untutored in the functional basis of civic education; and the community organizations on their side have still far to go before they realize how great their power can be if they will add to their work the use of modern instruments of enlightenment.7 * Grierson resigned from the Manitoba commission, because, having left the National Film Board a year earlier, he had been struggling to create useful, socially responsible communication media. He argued that little civic instruction was likely to emerge

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from Hollywood films and the privately owned, advertisingbased American radio networks. His alternative, initially called International Film Associates, was to be a non-profit group of film experts who would encourage and advise on the production of "socially valuable films" around the world.'72 He failed and Hollywood carried on. The relation of John Grierson to the Royal Commission reflected the problems of adult education in the western world but, ironically, not the commission's view of propaganda. Due to the pressure of other commitments, Grierson missed the April, June, and September sessions in 1946 and resigned in November. Despite appearances to the contrary, his departure seems not to have been an event of the early Cold War, though Grierson himself was deeply implicated in the Ottawa spy trials that are often said to have been the Cold War's first campaign. In its report, the Manitoba Royal Commission stated that "personal responsibilities which had prevented [him] from attending more than two Commission meetings finally became so heavy that, in November 1946, he felt compelled to submit his resignation. There was no alternative to acceptance of Mr. Grierson's decision." In his letter to the Minister of Education submitting the report, Trueman, as chair of the Royal Commission, emphasized that Grierson "did not participate in the shaping of the recommendations ... and therefore cannot be held responsible, in any way, for them." Such an emphasis might incline one to think the worst, that a commissioner who had become tainted was dumped for political reasons and that the others distanced themselves from him. This assumption about the commission's fears is simply wrong, although any Canadian in the inner circles of power would have been aware that Grierson's name had been linked to a Soviet spy ring. In early 1946, Grierson had been called back from the United States twice to testify behind closed doors to the TaschereauKellock Royal Commission investigating "Agents of a Foreign Power," the commission created after Soviet embassy cypher clerk 244

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Igor Gouzenko had dropped his bombshell revelations about Soviet espionage in North America. One aspect of this investigation concerned Grierson's temporary secretary at the National Film Board, Freda Linton, who had allegedly had a sexual relationship with the communist Member of Parliament from Montreal, Fred Rose. What was far worse, a brief entry in the notebook of Lieutenant Colonel Motinov of the Soviet Embassy linked Grierson to the Soviet Union's interest in research on explosives at Canada's National Research Council. The entry read: "Professor. Research Council—report on reorganization and work. Freda to the Professor through Grierson." These enigmatic phrases seemed to imply that the Soviets wished to have Freda Linton, the secretary, transferred to Professor Raymond Boyer's office (she was said to be a "lady-friend" of Boyer as well) whence she might convey useful information to Fred Rose, MP, or the Soviet Embassy. The words in this notebook and the commission inquiry they inspired altered the course of Grierson's life. However, the view that Grierson's alleged communist sympathies or connections alienated his fellow commissioners or the Manitoba government cannot be sustained. It is certainly true that Grierson was treated harshly by E.K. Williams, the investigation's lawyer, at the secret hearings of the Taschereau-Kellock Commission concerning the Gouzenko charges. Indeed, Williams accused him of being a communist sympathizer and suggested that the Film Board and the Wartime Information Board under Grierson's direction had employed communist sympathizers. And it is true that these allegations were not merely incidental to the larger picture of conspiracy and espionage circulating among authorities in Ottawa and Washington. The FBI had opened a file on Grierson in 1942 because several NFB films treated the Soviet Union in what the Americans judged to be too-sympathetic terms. Director J. Edgar Hoover described Grierson as "communistically inclined" and said several of his films "appear to be written and directed from a pro-Soviet viewpoint." But there is not a 245

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scrap of evidence concerning espionage or communist charges in the Manitoba Royal Commission records. What appears in the documentary record is a telegram from Grierson, at a relatively late moment, announcing that pressures of business prevented his travelling to the commission meeting in September 1946 in Winnipeg. Having missed the major events in the commission's calendar, the two sequences of public hearings in the spring, and now having to skip the session where the conclusions of the report were debated and decided on, Grierson had really ruled himself out of the group.73 Harold Innis was given the task of setting out the commission's view on the question of government activism in adult education. His reply came in the form of a draft statement on propaganda, a note that eventually became the opening pages of the commission's report. It asserted that "The government itself must be vitally concerned with securing independent criticism.... The fostering of the importance of a wide divergence of interests is a basic consideration in the generous support of the government to the furtherance of adult education." And Innis added: "we have attempted to devise machinery by which the government's support to agencies concerned with adult education will not imply government control of those agencies."74 The commission elaborated on this conclusion in another part of the report where the new Saskatchewan CCF government's Adult Education Division came in for comment: "although admirable in many of its phases, [the Saskatchewan group] had stepped across the boundary which separates the legitimate supporting function of government in adult education, on the one hand, and the dangerous attempt to direct public thought in accordance with a departmental creed, on the other."7^ The Manitoba commission and the Manitoba premier agreed: churches, farm movements, ethnic groups, women's institutes and the like might act as they chose in seeking to change public opinion and to educate individual Manitobans but the government should not be directly involved. 246

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As a result of this sensitivity to propaganda, the commissioners were very cautious in their public statements. When the superintendent of Winnipeg schools, J.C. Pincock, proposed at a public hearing that the Royal Commission tackle the problem of school dropouts, Innis responded that mobilizing the heavy hand of the state in this way might be seen as a "propaganda campaign."''6 Similar exchanges are scattered across the reports of the hearings. The conservatism of the commission can be understood by following the thinking of Harold Innis as it appeared in several crucial passages of the report.'''7 He had written obscurely in the section on adult education principles: the basic problem of the Commission is that of assessing the possibilities of education. Consideration of this problem has become imperative with the increasing recognition by provincial and state governments in the Prairie region, of the necessity of emphasizing adult education to offset the influence of mechanization of instruction in the film and the radio. Governmental units which lag behind other units are in danger of becoming intellectual slums with their narrow provincialism and their consequent loss of the more highly trained of their population to other regions. The problem of relations with adjoining governmental units is a part of the problem of urban and rural relations within the Province of Manitoba.^ This is phrased in Innis's distinctive code and requires explication. Innis was worried about the impact of mass media ("mechanization of instruction") on society. He was also worried about competition between prairie Canadian and mid-west American farmers ("adjoining governmental units") and that Canada would not be competitive if it did not focus on adult education in rural areas. Significantly, Innis's harsh words about "intellectual slums"— he was saying that Manitoba might lag behind the nearby American states—were even harsher in an earlier draft. He had written some months before that Manitoba must give increased attention 247

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to adult education "or run the risk of seeing its population placed in an unfavourable position. . .. Indeed the provinces north of the American border run the risk of becoming intellectual slums. The growing incompatibility between those who like to think, and those who do not . . . becomes particularly applicable to the western provinces." It is noteworthy that the Harold Adams Innis, 1947. Canadian-American contrast University of Manitoba Archives was removed from the final and Special Collections, Tribune draft of the report, replaced Collection. by the nearly meaningless "governmental units." Moreover, the sentence about "those who like to think and those who don't" was excised completely. It is not likely that Innis had changed his view about the dangers Manitobans faced. Rather, the commissioners decided not to offend their readers.79 Innis was arguing that rural people must "adapt themselves to urban life," meaning that more and more of them would end up in cities but also that urban media would inundate rural districts with their wares. At that point, farm families, too, would have to cope with a flood of information and to sort the meritorious from the foolish. In Innis's view, the "mechanization of communication in print, radio and film" increased a tendency toward conservatism in society because it undermined the possibility of sober, quiet reflection. These technologies "have not only tended to eliminate the personal factor but also to emphasize the factual and the concrete. Abstract ideas are less susceptible to treatment by mechanical devices." One learns a great deal more about specific 248

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things and events in a mass media-dominated world, he was saying, but one has less opportunity—and less time, more to the point—to integrate this blizzard of detail into one's thinking. There is less likelihood that one's values and philosophy can shape this factual intake, let alone devise the abstract principles that might constitute the truly radical response to it. The advertiser, especially, "assumes an average age of twelve" and, as a result, the "Anglo-Saxon world has become 'distinguished for its lack of intellectual strenuousness.'"80 Manitobans would need help if they were to respond effectively to these new cultural challenges. Innis addressed universal concerns in these pages, despite his seemingly parochial subject. He wrote with a sense of urgency: Any community has only a limited number capable of sustained mental effort and the number is being lessened by the impact of industrialism. Biologically they may be found in all regions and in all strata of the community. A democratic society can thrive only by the persistent search for its greatest asset and by constant efforts to conserve it, to encourage it, to train it, and to extend it. Throughout the community assiduous interest must be taken in the discovery, conservation and improvement of its limited intellectual resources.81 This was his fundamental concern. Young people in rural areas must be given opportunities to develop into community leaders. If they were not discovered, and if they did not benefit from proper tutelage, the entire community—Manitoba, Canada, and, more broadly, civilization—would be the poorer. Innis then expanded on the role of universities in breaking down prejudice, opening minds, and sustaining oral methods of learning: It [the university] should produce a philosophical approach which will constantly question assumptions, constantly weaken the overwhelming tendency, reinforced by mechanization, to build up and accept dogma, and constantly attempt to destroy fanaticism. The university and in particular the arts faculty is at the heart of the problem 249

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of adult education.... If the university becomes thoroughly seized of its role in a community, namely the training of the best intellectual resources and the development of a philosophical approach which assumes an open mind on the part of staff and student, it can contribute powerfully to a solution of the problems of adult education.82 Innis argued that every promising student should be given an opportunity to attend university. He had suggested at an early commission meeting that "a basic problem of adult education is to make it possible for all persons capable of development by means of a university course to get to the university regardless of their financial resources." He noted that Winnipeg, with 300,000 residents, provided 60 per cent to 65 per cent of the University of Manitoba student body, whereas the rest of the province, about 450,000 residents, accounted for 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the students. In this circumstance, he wrote, "it becomes imperative to resist the pull of the centre."83 How was this resistance to be maintained? By developing the abilities of rural Manitobans. As a product of a farm himself, he recognized that indigenous knowledge depended on the development of effective local leaders. The Royal Commissioners did not doubt the need for more education. Jim Giffen's field study provided them with plenty of evidence concerning the shortcomings of public discussion in some rural communities. Moreover, progressive educational activities in the upper Midwest constituted a warning. If the American example was not followed, would the Canadian prairie farm family be able to compete? The commissioners had received expressions of disquiet and had themselves expressed concern about the state of Manitoba's rural society. Social division among Ukrainians, French, Aboriginal, and British-Canadian families was part of the story, but the larger picture was the commissioners' fear that these districts might become further divided, might 250

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resist modern agricultural science, and then might fall ever further behind in economic and intellectual terms.84 Garson had similar concerns but he was a practising politician, not a university professor concerned to define a consistent social and political philosophy. He could only warn and encourage the commissioners while awaiting their final word. In the end, he alone would choose whether to implement their advice. However, one cannot doubt that the premier appreciated the Royal Commission's analysis because it addressed rural leadership directly and gave no quarter to the activists who sought greater government intervention in adult education. In his approach to such questions of public policy, Garson was conservative and pragmatic. He tried to establish a sphere of "common sense" in any political discussion, a sphere that permitted him to define the terms of debate and to rule out of bounds the goals, even the policy positions, of his opponents. Like Bracken, he claimed to be dedicated to non-partisan government. He preferred the "coalition" principles that had served Bracken well and he tried to argue that his task was simply honest administration. As political scientist Murray Donnelly observed, the two premiers "wanted a more or less permanent executive composed of men of superior administrative talent—" Their legislative sessions in the 1940s were devoted to amendments to existing legislation rather than to new bills. They claimed that they listened to and debated with the people in their various local organizations, such as the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and the Union of Rural Municipalities, but, as Donnelly argued, "no really meaningful debate on government policy did in fact take place within these organizations." The consequence was "complete cabinet domination."85 What is more, Garson worked tirelessly to ensure that the parties operating in the national and municipal spheres did not infect his provincial administration.86 As he said to Manitobans in a radio broadcast, 251

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When I became leader of the government I recommended to Cabinet... that as long as the non-partisan provincial government continued each and every one of its members should refrain from taking part in partisan federal politics in a manner which would bring members of the Manitoba cabinet into partisan conflict with one another. My colleagues unanimously concurred in this recommendation, and since the time that I became Premier that rule has been strictly followed by all members of the Cabinet.87 Garson, quite simply, utilized the claim of non-partisanship to put his opponents—partisans, by definition, in Garson's terms— at a disadvantage. When he first recognized that the all-party wartime coalition created in 1940 would not survive Bracken's departure, Garson declared that the main social democratic alternative, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, did not understand contemporary circumstances and, besides, threatened long-standing freedoms. Speaking to the Manitoba Liberal Association at the end of 1943, he argued that liberalism "originated in a struggle to extend and defend human freedom, and was still fighting that battle." However, he warned, "Today it is being challenged by a group of men,... some of whom no doubt are sincere in thinking that government should take over the normal processes of business and industry. On the other hand some of them know it is quite impossible. They know, if they follow the authorities they profess to follow, that the state cannot take over economic processes of the nation and at the same time maintain freedom of the individual." This is where, he argued, the CCF made its crucial error: "not a single suggestion has been made by any of its leaders which evidences the slightest appreciation of problems of government, let alone any attempt to solve them."88 These two themes, socialists' lack of understanding and the threat they posed to individual freedom, figured regularly in his speeches as premier. 252

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Though Garson was often described as a generous and thoughtful public figure, his treatment of socialists was as inflammatory as that of any other market enthusiast.89 In 1948, just before he left the premiership, he visited Regina, home of the only CCF government in Canada, and addressed the Chamber of Commerce on the "Folklore of Socialism." In quite outrageous pronouncements, he suggested that socialism and lack of respect for liberal virtues went together. Both, he said, had German roots: "both world wars were started by a country in which the state was supreme and both started in acts of aggression against free countries. The object was first to destroy the system of capitalist production which had brought the highest standards of living for workers and to replace the system by one of regimentation by small cliques of politicians."90 He seemed to be equating Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, and Tommy Douglas. No doubt his audience loved it. If Garson appeared to be a Cold Warrior after 1945, it should be remembered that his views had a much longer lineage. They had developed in Manitoba between 1919 and 1940, when the province had been convulsed by ideological conflict. Eric Hobsbawm, the British historian, has commented on the type of argument employed in capitalist societies by middle-class leaders such as Garson and Bracken. Hobsbawm distinguishes between middle-class and working-class parties, arguing that they spring from different social contexts. Bourgeois movements like Garson's "claimed to be socially classless or all-embracing even when they were visibly not." They were generally loose and informal, "often apparently for limited purposes, and involved much less loyalty and discipline. . . ." Working people's movements, on the other hand, according to Hobsbawm, "are based on explicit class consciousness and class cohesion." The distinction rests on the power and the habit of authority that pervades bourgeois leaders' daily lives. The middle class generates an elite, Hobsbawm writes, "not because its members are 253

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specially selected for ability or enterprise (as they always felt sure they were), but because it consists essentially of people who are, at least potentially, in positions of command or influence, however local; of people who can make things happen as individuals or in small numbers." By contrast, the working class "consists almost by definition of people who cannot make things happen except collectively...." Hobsbawm crystallizes this line of thought in an aphorism: "In other words, bourgeois or middle-class movements can operate as 'stage armies of the good'; proletarian ones can only operate as real armies with real generals and staffs."91 This thinking, which is based on European assumptions about class, has resonance in Winnipeg and Manitoba because of the opposition that developed between labouring people and the middle class in this quite European, Canadian city. Winnipegers developed a very strong consciousness of class during the first half of the twentieth century. The intense commitment of the middle class, which denied the legitimacy of labouring peoples' political views—just as Garson ruled them out of ordinary discourse—blinded the Royal Commissioners to the potential creativity of such class-based debates. Indeed, the commissioners not only adopted the bourgeois view but placed it on record as an alleged fact in their report: In Canada generally the trade union movement is not a 'people's movement' in the sense which it is in Great Britain. It is highly dependent on its salaried executives and a minority of other leaders for its continuance and growth, and comparatively less on the mass support and participation of its members. In Canada, as in the United States, the heterogeneity of cultural backgrounds and the belief in the opportunities for advancement in our society, militate against spontaneous organization and the development of class-consciousness.^

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Such generalizations may have applied in some parts of North America. They did not apply in Winnipeg.

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The Royal Commission's analysis fit perfectly with Garson's strategy to rule his socialist opponents out of political debate. His approach was evident in a speech to the legislature in which he argued that political parties should not disseminate "doctored versions of the truth." There must be no dispute about "the facts," he said, because that would confuse the public. Rather, the "federal parties would be wise to try to reach mutual agreement upon the facts and the solution of our current problems. How can we ever expect to have the unity of purpose which is indispensable for the success of our postwar policy, if Canadian public opinion is a hodge-podge of internationalism, isolationism, capitalism, socialism, social credit and communism, created by the propaganda wars of political parties?" Garson proposed that during this critical period, parties should discard "our theories, our dogmas and doctrines" and deal only with "the facts" in order to create "a united public opinion."93 Like Bracken, Garson defined his own views as rational and sensible. Other folk might cling to their dogmas but, as far as he was concerned, he worked with "the facts." The electoral advantages of such an argument were only too obvious. Garson's profound commitment to one side in Manitoba's political economy battles is illustrated by the story of a minor appointment. He had been looking for someone to serve on a committee and asked a colleague to find a Brandon representative, preferably one with connections to working people. His correspondent, G.R. Rowe of Brandon, replied frankly, using the informal language of the street and the club that is so hard to discover in archival documents. Rowe was nominating Fred Cross, a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, whom he depicted as an excellent candidate because he was the son of an Anglican minister and "a first-rate citizen." Rowe explained that Cross was probably a Conservative in politics rather than a Liberal, as Garson would have preferred, but he possessed the essential qualification: "of one thing I am certain [Rowe wrote]: he is not a leftist."94 Here was the legacy of 1919 and the labour255

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capital confrontations of the first half of the twentieth century in Manitoba: Rowe, Cross, and Garson stood on the side of the middle class and against socialists when partisan considerations were at stake. Much of the government's creativity and political success during the postwar reconstruction period can be attributed to Garson's leadership. When he joined the federal Liberal cabinet at the end of 1948, he could claim to have left his native province on a sound economic footing. Though he had governed cautiously, he had embraced the need for planning and had encouraged reforms in public schools and investment in public works. But Garson can also be faulted for his blindness to the legitimate arguments of his social democratic opponents. Despite his rhetoric, Garson was profoundly partisan. He tried not only to keep socialism or social democracy out of power but also to ensure that the movement remained outside the bounds of acceptable political thought. The story of the Royal Commission and of government leadership in adult education fades away after 1947. The subject does not merit a mention in the memoirs of Premier Douglas Campbell. An editorial in the Manitoba Co-operator just after the Royal Commission report was made public noted the key failing of the commission's conservative approach to adult education. Encouragement of a "wide divergence of interests" is fine, the Co-operator said, but in whom is responsibility vested for the direction of adult education? Yes, the "various voluntary agencies" should "row their own boat" but who will ensure that action is taken? "One corporate body," such as the University of Manitoba, should be given this role: "Thus control remains with the people but direction comes from one main responsible source acceptable to all."95 The subject was dropped. Coordination of effort was forgotten. And the government stayed out of the field as much as possible. Manitoba was poorer for the loss of an adult education agency. This was particularly true in rural districts where the forces 256

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dismantling farm society gathered force in the 1950s. The Pool, the credit unions, the cooperative stores, and the Women's Institutes probably did as much as could have been expected to identify the changes and to prepare people for the consequences. But the notion of a province-wide response to the rural crisis, as in Saskatchewan, never took root. The gulf between Winnipeg and the rest of the province widened. Citizens on both sides of the perimeter highway—the ring road surrounding the capital city— simply accepted the development of "perimeter vision" or "perimeteritis." They increasingly assumed that their counterparts knew nothing of their circumstances and cared less. This was a consequence of the failure to build cultural institutions that possessed a participatory, inclusive, province-wide mandate. Could government or university or arm's-length agency have made a difference? CONCLUSION

Raymond Aron, French historian and philosopher, reacting to what he called "The Century of Total War," raised fundamental questions about citizenship in Europe after the Second World War: "Every social order is one of the possible solutions to a problem that is not scientific but human, the problem of community life. Are Europeans still capable of practising the subtle art required by liberal communities? Have they retained their own system of values?"96 Such a question might be posed in every democratic society. The Royal Commission was considering it in the Manitoba context. How can governments encourage something as complicated as cultural innovation without infringing upon citizens' freedom of choice or inhibiting their creativity? As Jim Giffen's manuscript and the Royal Commission conclusions demonstrate, Manitoba had the benefit of circumspect, insightful advice when it faced these issues at the close of the Second World War. This very able 257

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group conducted a model investigation, deliberated with seriousness, and reached measured conclusions. That such an elaborate inquiry should address the issue attests not only to the urgency of Premier Garson's political brush fires but also to the depth of his concerns about the problems confronting Manitoba. The result was a conservative document and, given the passage of time, the government's decision to leave well enough alone. Building a "liberal community" and sustaining Manitoba's "system of values"—notions addressed by Aron—require time and sober reflection. Garson should not be condemned for his caution. Nor should the Royal Commission. J.B. Brebner, a wise and critical scholar, concentrated on the difficulties posed by government propaganda in his review of the Royal Commission report. He noted that "for three or four centuries liberals have responded to [conflict between conservative and radical] . . . by pinning their faith on education, not so much as the buttress for tradition, or as the lever for change, but as the culture medium for intelligent variety, since pluralism is conceived to be identical with liberty." Brebner correctly perceived that the commissioners were conservative in their approach to government's role in educating citizens. He argued that they "alternately woo and reject the democratic state because they have a low opinion of human nature.... Unfortunately the very nature of the Commission's task operates so as almost to forbid the utterance of a robust, persuasive faith in the majority of the people today. [The people] are conceived of as needing education for the development of the critical attitudes towards government which will justify that faith tomorrow." Brebner also perceived that the commissioners were not narrow advocates of simplistic solutions such as "national unity, the Puritan ethic, reliance upon intellectual elites, etc. [The Report] thus succeeds quite well in maintaining emphasis in favour of the variety in men, their pursuits, and their institutions which, in the Commissioners' general view, is the health of society, and against the impulses of the administrative mind towards 258

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the mergers, the hierarchies, and the 'stream-lining' which are believed to devitalize it."97 This was a judicious, perceptive summation. Brebner recognized that the commission's main theme concerned the state and propaganda. He also concluded, rightly, that the commissioners were determined to sustain individual initiative and to oppose state intervention in the field of education. What can one learn, a half-century later, from this forgotten Royal Commission? First, one sees the growing power of the province to shape Canadians' social or public identities. Educational systems were becoming central in the development of citizens. And each provincial system had distinctive characteristics. Manitoba's differences from the other prairie provinces increased during this era. Premier Ernest Manning, leader of Alberta's Social Credit government from 1943, relied on private initiatives such as the Glenbow Foundation in Calgary, and public institutions such as the Banff School of the Fine Arts and the University of Alberta's Extension Division, in his approach to extension education. Saskatchewan's Co-operative Commonwealth Federation famously sought to build a statedirected adult education system. It utilized state mechanisms—the archives and the 1955 golden jubilee committee crucial among them—to cultivate a strong, province-centred ethos. Manitoba was different again: more decentralized, less interested in state mechanisms for adult education, more reliant on church organizations, controlled by a cautious majority—in a word, more conservative. Thus, though he never draws interprovincial parallels, one sees in Giffen's depiction of rural Manitoba an evolving provincial culture. Accompanying this Manitoba uniqueness, though he could not have perceived it at the time, was the demise of "the prairies" as a single collective force in Canadian life.98 Second, it is impossible to miss the impact of the Cold War on a community wherein Ukrainians wielded considerable political influence and the Roman Catholic Church (notably in French and Ukrainian districts but also in Winnipeg) was very strong. 259

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Both factors militated against communist and even socialist political legitimacy. The story of John Grierson's failures and the defeat of adult education activists also belongs under this rubric. Third, the commissioners' concern about rural backwardness is striking. Innis employed an incendiary term, "intellectual slum," to describe the possible future that must be avoided. He was thinking about Manitoba's competitors who benefitted from the very advanced, well-funded, effective adult education systems in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. He was also thinking of the serious British-Ukrainian and British-French social divisions in Manitoba that could easily sustain rural backwardness by limiting so many of the young people in those communities to a relatively unlettered, isolated existence. Other groups in the province—Aboriginal people, Mennonites, Poles, Jews, Icelanders—escaped specific study but the implication of Giffen's work seemed to be that Manitoba was handicapped by its many and deep social divisions. Fourth, though it takes us away from Manitoba, some mention must be made of the development of Harold Innis's approach to social study. What students needed, he wrote, was not more facts, not more advertisements or mechanical communication devices (meaning messages mediated by such "machines" as the radio and the newspaper), but character, on the one hand, and confidence in their own analysis that developed out of the conditions they encountered in daily life. Innis's own thought, which entered a new stage in the early 1940s, crystallized during the eighteen months that he worked on the commission. He had moved away from staples and the material foundations of the Canadian nation during the preceding years. Now, communication technology and the communication of values—they travelled in tandem—preoccupied him. These were interesting, important lessons, and we are still in debt to the Royal Commission for sustaining his inquiries and providing him with the circumstances in which he could test his ideas in discussions with other experienced, sensible observers such as Albert Trueman, James 260

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Giffen, Frances McKay, John Deutsch, Jack Sword, John Friesen, and the many Manitobans who contributed to this exercise. Fifth, it is relevant to underline that Manitoba had its own skilled chronicler of rural society during postwar reconstruction. Jim Giffen arrived in time to witness quite far-reaching debates about public affairs. To many, including young people who were heading back to school or into new jobs after the wartime hiatus, all things seemed possible. But which path to choose? Liberalism, private enterprise, denominational loyalty, socialism, cooperativism, ethnic survival— all were part of the mix. Giffen created a wonderful record of the appearance, the institutions, the discussions, the actual functioning of rural communities on the brink of change. We are in his debt. Finally, the commission's work and the Giffen study help us to understand the community that developed in Manitoba during the twentieth century. The characteristic that seems particularly striking is social division, not just among ethnic and class and religious groups, but also between metropolis and countryside. These divisions were much wider in Manitoba than in Saskatchewan or Alberta, and Manitoba's public conversation often seemed to be taking place not in a single forum but in distinct spheres, including the physically separate units of Winnipeg, the rural south, and the north. In deference to these divisions, the Manitoba government was less interested than its neighbours in agencies of adult education that might claim a province-wide mandate. Such conclusions can be stated in more positive terms. Giffen's research report parallels Jean Burnet's classic study, Next-Year Country: A Study of Rural Social Organization in Alberta. Burnet conducted her research in the district surrounding Hanna, Alberta, in the same year that Giffen was working in Manitoba, but she reached very different conclusions. Where Burnet saw social disintegration caused by the Depression, Giffen found a relatively stable society. Where Burnet emphasized "personal disorganization," "social unrest," and the failure of farm enterprises in the Alberta dry belt, Giffen emphasized the stability of 261

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the many formal organizations—elevator, church, Board of Trade, 4-H club, and annual fair—that he encountered. Whatever his concerns about the future, he acknowledged the ability of residents in these three neighbourhoods to make a living. Giffen's Manitoba was very different from the drought zone of southwest Saskatchewan and southeast-southcentral Alberta as depicted by Burnet." Moreover, to continue on this positive note, if Manitoba was cautious and fragmented, it was also respectful of religious, ethnic, class, and community bonds. If it was intensely local, its villages and school districts were older and able to command a loyalty that ensured their proud survival for another generation. Most of all, if Manitoba had been crippled by social and political divisions in the preceding generation, it was coming to terms with them. The "subtle art required by liberal communities"— Raymond Aron's concern in Europe—had been sorely tested in Manitoba during the decades before the Second World War. Premier Garson's speeches as premier illustrated that these divisions still moved people deeply. His deeds, however, offered another perspective. The very fact that he had appointed this Royal Commission attested to his willingness to contemplate change, though not his acceptance of the criticisms levied by those outside his class and culture. Manitoba's "system of values," to use Aron's phrase, had undergone a period of testing and was now more open to compromise. Though he may not have appreciated all the implications of his act, the premier had initiated a public conversation in Manitoba that presumed accommodations could be made by the different ethnic, religious, and ideological groups. The conversation initiated by Jim Giffen, Stuart Garson, and the Royal Commission— a conversation with and among the people of the province—constituted an intelligent, responsible, and, yes, conservative reply to the challenges of liberal democracy in Manitoba.

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NOTES I would like to thank Chris Dooley, Chris Werner, Lisa Friesen, Jennifer Simons, Leah Morton, Lewis St. George Stubbs, Chris Kotecki, Garron Wells, and Bret Lougheed for research assistance and archival advice. In addition, I am grateful to Jim Giffen, John K. Friesen, Helen Watson Gordon, and Helen Matheson Sissons for granting me interviews that, in several cases, consumed considerable amounts of their time. Murray Cormack, Don Wilton, Leonard Harapiak, Jean Friesen, Ken Norell, Donna Norell, Morris Mott, and Royden Loewen read the manuscript. I wanted to say how much I appreciated their thoughtful comments and to thank them for sharing their knowledge of rural Manitoba. Pat Sanders, Sharon Caseburg, and David Carr at the University of Manitoba Press offered endless support, excellent advice, and, just when I needed it, a generous helping of patience. 1. This information is drawn from my interview with Professor Giffen at the University of Toronto on 13 August 2001. 2. S.D. Clark to W J. Waines, 16 November 1945, Waines file, Papers of the Manitoba Royal Commission on Adult Education GR76/ A0063, Archives of Manitoba (henceforth RCAE Papers). 3. J.B. Brebner, "Report of the Manitoba Royal Commission on Adult Education," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science xiv, 1 (February 1948): 114. 4. Memo by John Sword summarizing meeting of 11 January 1946 in "Community Surveys Committee" file, RCAE Papers. 5. Trueman to J.C. Dryden, 3 February 1947, copy in file on "Manitoba Royal Commission on Adult Education," Harold A. Innis Papers, University of Toronto Archives. 6. P.J. Giffen, "Adult Education and the Rural Community," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science xiii, 4 (November 1947): 533-544. 7. W.L. Morton, Manitoba: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1957, 1967). 8. Deborah Fitzgerald, Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 5; Jeffery Taylor, Fashioning Farmers: Ideology, Agricultural Knowledge and the Manitoba Farm Movement, 1890-1925 (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre, 1994). 9. Murray Cormack (resident of Rossburn in 1946), interview with the author, Winnipeg, August 2003. Cormack believed that the gulf 263

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between the British Canadian and the Ukrainian actually was closing in the 1940s and probably was bridged in the few years after Giffen's visit. However, he said that the relatively close and trusting relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, as he perceived them in the 1940s, grew more distant in the following generation. 10. Minutes of Meeting 20-21 September 1946, RCAE Papers. 11. Historical works on Manitoba in this era include: John Kendle, John Bracken: A Political Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979); Doug Smith, Joe Zuken: Citizen and Socialist (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1990); Gabrielle Roy, Enchantment and Sorrow: The Autobiography ofGabrielle Roy (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1987; translated by Patricia Claxton from La Detresse et I'enchantement, published by les Editions du Boreal Express, 1984); Francis Russell, The Canadian Crucible: Manitoba's Role in Canada's Great Divide (Winnipeg: Heartland Publishers, 2003); Mary Kinnear, Margaret McWilliams: An Interwar Feminist (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991); Frank Tough, 'As Their Natural Resources Fail': Native Peoples and the Economic History of Northern Manitoba, 1870-1930 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1996); James H. Gray, The Boy From Winnipeg (Toronto: Macmillan, 1970), The Winter Years (Toronto: Macmillan, 1966), and Troublemaker! A Personal History (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978); W.L. Morton, Manitoba: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967); Lloyd Stinson, Political Warriors, Recollections of a Social Democrat (Winnipeg: Queenston House, 1975); Nelson Wiseman, Social Democracy in Manitoba: A History of the CCF/NDP (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1983); Susan Mann Trofimenkoff, Stanley Knowles: The Man from Winnipeg North Centre (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1982); James Mochoruk, The People's Co-op: The Life and Times of a North End Institution (Winnipeg: Fernwood, 2000), and Formidable Heritage: Manitoba's North and the Cost of Development, 1810-1930 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2004). 12. The only article of any length about Garson is Mark Vacjner, "Stuart Garson and the Manitoba Progressive Coalition," Manitoba History 26 (Autumn 1993): 29-35. It is based on his thesis, "The Public Career of Stuart Garson: The Manitoba Years" (University of Manitoba, MA thesis, 1993). 13. The best source on the Bracken era is Kendle, Bracken. The coalition also included the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1940 to 1942. 14. Douglas L. Campbell, "My Three R's: Reminiscences, Recollections, Reflections," 84. Unpublished ms, based on recorded interviews 264

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conducted at the University of Manitoba in the early 1980s; I am indebted to Ian MacPherson for a copy of this document. I participated with a half-dozen or more of my colleagues in the first few of these interviews but I do not know who continued them. The manuscript is nearly 200 typed pages. 15. Kendle, Bracken, 159-160; the best recent study is Barry Ferguson and Robert Wardhaugh, '"Impossible Conditions of Inequality': John W. Dafoe, the Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission, and the Interpretation of Canadian Federalism," Canadian Historical Review 84, 4 (2003): 551-583. 16. "Our Twelfth Premier," Winnipeg Free Press editorial, 15 January 1943. 17. J.H. Ellis, "Manitoba Agriculture and Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Activities," Report to the PFRA 1943, 16, quoted in "Post-War Planning Report 1946," Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G124, file 16. 18. Anonymous, "The Manitoba Economy—From Earliest Times to the Present," First Draft August 1945, Premiers' Papers, Advisory Committee on Post-War Reconstruction, File Q25304, entitled "General: Manitoba Economy Background: Draft." It is noteworthy that a major review of the prairie regional economy prepared by the Economic Council of Canada in 1984 concluded that fluctuations in prairie provincial income had, indeed, been larger than elsewhere in Canada during the first four decades of the twentieth century (Economic Council of Canada, Western Transition [Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1984]). 19. The Advisory Committee was gazetted on 29 April 1944 (Manitoba Gazette 73, no. 18) but did not meet until September. Garson addressed the committee members on 19 September 1944: "Summary of Remarks of Premier Stuart Garson at the First Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Coordination of Post-War Planning," in Premiers' Papers, "Post-War Committee (Reconstruction)," G-124, file 16; the Advisory Committee's papers are filed in A 0064 /GR1650, boxes Q2 5 3 00-2 5 3 04, Archives of Manitoba. 20. Stuart Garson, "Remarks in introducing discussion of postwar estimates," typescript dated 2 April 1945, Premiers' Papers, Post-War Committee (Reconstruction), EC0016/GR43/G-125, file 16 (PostWar Planning Committee). 21. "Manitoba Debt Cut $37 Millions in Eight Years," Winnipeg Tribune 8 November 1948 (University of Manitoba Archives [UMA], Tribune Personality Files: Garson).

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22. On the determination to serve the returning soldiers, see a very effective letter from Mrs. W.H. (Anna) Hicks to Garson, 19 May 1944, Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G-124, file 16 (Post-War Planning Committee). Garson labelled the letter "speech material" and later appointed Mrs. Hicks to the Reconstruction Committee. See also comments drawn from Pool meetings in the valuable document "Post-War Planning," Manitoba Pool summary of field meetings, in Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G-97, file 83, "Post-War: Miscellaneous." 2 3. Advisory Committee on Post-War Reconstruction, Papers of the Manitoba Select Committee on Education "Proceedings" 1942-44, A0064/GR1650/Q 025302, Archives of Manitoba; Report of the Special Select Committee of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly on Education (Winnipeg: King's Printer, 1945); the special Select Committee was appointed on 10 March 1944. 24. RCAE Report, 8; also footnote in Report, 62, to H.S. Fry article on rural educational attainment, a comment based on the census of 1941, and published in Country Guide, December 1945. This impression seemed to be widely held in the mid-1940s. The statement on university students by place of residence was made by President Trueman to a meeting of the Royal Commission, Minutes of Meeting, 27-29 December 1945, RCAE Papers. The statistics on grade 8 completion are cited in the Manitoba Teachers' Society brief to the Royal Commission (RCAE Papers). The 1944 Select Committee's conclusion is worth noting: "The Committee realizes that we are passing through one of the great transition periods of history. Once more, in the words of Jan Smuts, mankind has struck its tents and once more is on the march..." (Manitoba Report of the Special Select Committee ... on Education), 63. 25. The very existence of the Select Committee (five Cabinet ministers and ten other MLAs) was evidence both of returning prosperity in Manitoba and of the ambition of Premier Stuart Garson's administration. Garson wanted a review of education because he saw it as "an integral part of reconstruction for peace." He probably also saw the immense shortcomings of the school system as it then existed. See Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, "Report of the Special Select Committee of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly on Education" (Winnipeg: King's Printer, 1945), 3 and 49. The committee said that a social studies course should be introduced to better emphasize "the duties and responsibilities of the citizen." It also favoured "extra-curricular or class group activities involving cooperation amongst groups and individuals" and "an extension of the principle of student self-government." 26. University of Manitoba/'Brief," 1946, RCAE Papers. 266

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27. The Winnipeg Tribune, for example, criticized the Garson government for its failure to meet the educational needs of the wider adult population. See "Newspaper Clippings" file, RCAE Papers; University of Manitoba "Brief," 1946, RCAE Papers; A.W. Trueman statement to a meeting of the Royal Commission, Minutes of Meeting, 27-29 December 1945, RCAE Papers. 28. RCAE Report, 6; Garson emphasized the need for efficiency in his announcement of the commission: "the government wished to eliminate overlapping, duplication and conflict of different jurisdictions." See Winnipeg Tribune, 15 August 1945, "Newspaper Clippings" file, RCAE Papers. 29. Manitoba Thirtieth General Election 1973: Report of the Chief Electoral Officer, 20-21. 30. Untitled five-page memo, carefully underlined and marked up, with the initials HCG at the top, in a file with other documents signed by H.C. Grant, located in the Premiers' Papers, EC 0016/GR43/G66/83, file entitled "Post War." 31. A.W. Trueman, A Second View of Things: A Memoir (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982); Garson to Trueman, 7 June and 19 July, 1945, Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G11, file 1: Adult Education. 32. James H. Gray, "The Pragmatism of Johnny Deutsch," Winnipeg Free Press, 1 October 1963; also Peter Dempson, "For Dr Deutsch, life begins at the age of 50," Winnipeg Tribune, 7 October 1963. Deutsch, the eldest of seventeen children in a Quinton, Saskatchewan, family, left home at an early age to become a mechanic and worked his way through university in Regina and Saskatoon before receiving a scholarship to attend graduate school at Queen's University. Ronald Watts, a later principal at Queen's, wrote of Deutsch's "vast knowledge. . . . guided by indomitable common sense. . . . In a world of increasing and often excessive specialization, he stood out as one who saw society as a working, living whole. He was one of the rare people who sensed enough about our society and the people in it to have an understanding of what was both needed and workable." See David C. Smith, ed., Economic Policy Advising in Canada: Essays in Honour of John Deutsch (Montreal: C.D. Howe Institute, 1981), vii. 33. "Adult Education," Free Press editorial, 16 August 1945; Harold Innis to Mary Innis (nd, spring 1946), Innis Papers, B-72-003/box 005, file 10, University of Toronto Archives. Innis acknowledged that Frances McKay was valuable because she was "the only one" on the Royal Commission "who knows the country backwards and forwards and everyone in it."

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34. Frances McKay also served with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in Baghdad, teaching nutrition at Queen Aliya College for Women (1955-57), was head of Consumer Information for Manitoba Department of Agriculture (1957-60), Chief of Adult Education in Canada's Department of Northern Affairs (1960-69), and head of that department's Social Education Program (1969-72). She died in 1973. See Winnipeg Tribune, 5 March 1973; also Tribune, 6 August 1960, and Winnipeg Free Press, 13 August 1960. 35. Hon. J.C. Dryden to Hon Stuart Garson, 4 and 18 July 1945: "Mr.Jack Sword will be named Secretary and will take over the work on August 15th. Mr. Friesen will be named associate secretary at the time of the announcement, and will be able to give a certain amount of direction to the preliminary work from the date of the announcement until Mr. Sword takes over." Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G115, file 1: Adult Education. 36. See Dr. Andrew Moore's report for Manitoba School Inspectors' Association in Peter Sandiford, et al., Adult Education in Canada: A Survey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1935). 37. Minutes of Meeting, 21-22 September 1945, Appendix: unsigned document entitled "Background of Adult Education in Manitoba," RCAE Papers; also "Five-Man Commission Set Up to Study Adult Education," Winnipeg Free Press, 15 September 1945. 38. Manitoba Federation of Agriculture (later Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Co-operation) is discussed in Brett Fairbairn, Building a Dream: The Co-operative Retailing System in Western Canada, 1928-1988 (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1989), 84-85; John K. Friesen, "The Role of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and Its Neighborhood Councils in Rural Adult Education," Columbia University Teachers College, Doctor of Education Type C Project, 1948. On the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) programs, see Marcus Klee, "Class, Mass Media, and the State: The Making and Unmaking of National Working-Class Radio Broadcasting in Canada, 1935-1944," paper presented to Canadian Historical Association annual meeting, 1994. 39. The Library Association, university, drama leagues, festival associations, Federation of Agriculture (organizing producer and consumer cooperatives as well as credit unions), ethnic programs, community associations (Canadian Institute of International Affairs, YMCA and YWCA and YMHA, the Junior League, and Women's School for Citizenship), and CBC- and NFB-based radio forums and film networks probably attracted as many participants as there were adult Manitobans. 268

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However, the overlap was considerable and many citizens in rural and northern areas would never have been contacted. When the Royal Commission surveyed adult education activities, it asked no fewer than seventy-four groups, and through them hundreds of branches, to outline their programs and constituencies. The National Film Board alone, between September 1945 and March 1946, presented 550 film events each month to 46,000 people (NFB brief, "Special information to be added, 22 April 1946," appendix, RCAE Papers). And the CBC Radio Forum met weekly in the same period, twenty-six meetings in all, having distributed booklets in advance of radio broadcasts that were listened to by discussion groups. Their views were then summarized by a recording secretary and submitted to the provincial coordinator of the program ("Citizens' Forum brief, 1945-46," RCAE Papers). The Women's Institutes claimed to have offered 744 courses in "homemaking" during the fourteen years from 1929 to 1943, to 3879 groups whose 19,000 meetings were attended by 45,000 people ("Women's Institute brief," RCAE Papers). In French-speaking Manitoba districts, an American foundation seems to have provided a multi-year grant that hired a full-time worker in drama projects, and that in turn sustained the preparation of three plays on the centenary of the arrival of the Grey Nuns in the West. See appendix "Background" contained in Fr. A. D'Eschambault to John Marshall, copy to President Sidney Smith, 20 April 1944, in UMA, President's Papers, Box 61, Fd 1; also University of Manitoba Adult Education Office, Report, 1943-44, President's Papers, Box 61,Fd2. For a brief survey of the main province-wide institutions in adult education, see Giffen's original manuscript, pp.12-29. 40. Manitoba Pool Elevators, "Brief," RCAE Papers. 41. "Say Pamphlets Door to Adult Education," Free Press, 22 April 1946. 42. La Societe d'Enseignement Postscolaire, Section Frangaise du Manitoba, "Brief," RCAE Papers. The society was founded in 1938. 43. The commissioners were told, probably by Jim Giffen, that the Franco-Manitoban group "does not consider itself a minority group subject to assimilation" (See Minutes of Meeting, 17-24 April 1946, RCAE Papers, for a discussion on ethnic issues.) 44. Roblin Handicraft Society, "Brief (Mrs. Charles Brydon, Roblin), RCAE Papers. 45. Minutes of Meeting, 17-24 April 1946, discussion arising from reports submitted by P.J. Giffen after his stay in Rossburn (RCAE Papers).

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46. The Pas Northern Mail, 11 June 1946, quoting brief by Bignell and Councillor J.W. Harris representing 500 Cree, "Newspaper Clippings" file, RCAE Papers. 47. "An Unsatisfactory Record," unidentified editorial (Winnipeg Free Press or Tribune), "Newspaper Clippings" file, nd ca. 1946, RCAE Papers. The editorial calls for more investment in public libraries and compliments the Legislative Library on its service. 48. Morton, Manitoba, 466. 49. Garson to W.A. Mackintosh and reply, 13, 16, 22 February 1943, Department of Finance Papers, RG19/E-3(j), vol 3567, G-OOA, National Archives of Canada. 50. "Adult Education Must Keep Pace, Enquiry Hears," Winnipeg Tribune, 23 April 1946. 51. Minutes of Meeting, 30 November-3 December 1946, Appendix A, Harold Innis, "Role of existing school system," RCAE Papers. 52. John Grierson, "Education and Total Effort," address to Rockcliffe Home and School Club, 3 November 1941, in Department of Finance Papers, RG 19/E-3 (j), vol 3567, G-00. W.A. Mackintosh thanked Grierson in neutral terms for this copy of the speech, though he said that "On the whole, I agree with your thesis " 53. E.L. Bushnell, Director General of Programs to General Manager, CBC, "Report on Winnipeg Conference 28 to 31 May 1945," appended to Bushnell to Garson, 12 July 1945, Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G115, file 1: Adult Education. 54. Gordon L. Smith. "Is It Adult Education or Plain Propaganda Saskatchewan Asking," Financial Post, 29 December 1945, "Newspaper Clippings" file, RCAE Papers. 55. Editorial, Ottawa Journal, 12 June 1946 in RCAE Papers, The Pas file. Rather than add a comment of his own, Rev. Alcide J.B. Cossette appended to the clipping a page of his letterhead stationery. He did not sign the missive. 56. W.A. Mackintosh to C.H. Herbert, 6 August 1942, Department of Finance Papers, Senior Officials, W.A. Mackintosh RG 19 E-3(j), vol 3567, File HOO, National Archives of Canada. 57. The commission agreed at its December 1945 meeting that John Deutsch would draft "a statement of general principles for democratic organization of a provincial Adult Education Council and local community councils." Thus, its basic recommendation emerged early and as a result of Deutsch's observations on his American tour. Minutes of Meeting, 27-29 December 1945, RCAE Papers. 270

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58. RCAE Report, 45. 59. Ibid., 51. 60. Ibid., 14-16. 61. The Royal Commission on Adult Education draft digests dated 24 February and 14 March 1947, EC0016/GR43/G129: Adult Education; also the Report itself, "Recommendations," 10-17. The commissioners also recommended measures concerning libraries, films, handicrafts, and disabled groups, as well as roles for university, government, and voluntary agencies. 62. Dryden to Garson, 11 May 1946, Premiers' Papers, EC 00167 GR43/G115/1: Adult Education. 63. Trueman to Innis, 1 May 1947, in Innis Papers, 672-0025/011(21). 64. Helen Watson to Stuart Garson, 15 July 1947, Premiers' Papers, EC 0016/GR43/G129: Adult Education; author interviews with Helen Watson Gordon and John K. Friesen. 65. Free Press, 25 April 1946, in "Newspaper Clippings" file, RCAE Papers. 66. Garson to W.C. McGuffin, Keystone Agricultural Group, 28 April 1945; Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G115/file 1: Adult Education. The most explicit defence of liberal democracy during the commission hearings was contained in the brief presented by W.C. Graham, Principal of United College, who insisted that, in the conduct of adult education, there was "one necessary condition: freedom from any control that is not rooted in the search for truth." Graham acknowledged that obstacles might arise "out of the passing scene of politics" or in some other source that was not disinterested: "The fate of education in Germany is a grim object lesson in this regard. Whenever liberal education depends upon forces other than its own zeal for learning, its life is precarious. Therefore, the ideal condition is one in which it depends upon the voluntary effort of those who recognize its value, and are willing to pay for it." The United College brief endorsed three fundamental principles: first, state financial support for adult education should be free of "any political control or consideration other than the most general concern for 'peace, order, and good government' in the accepted meaning of that term"; second, no state or quasi-state organization in the field should be anything more than a clearing house; and third, no fixed pattern or exclusive function in adult education should be created that would limit participation then or later. "Submission of United College to Royal Commission on Adult Education," 1946, RCAE Papers. 271

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67. Trueman tells the story in Trueman, A Second View, 79-80.1 would like to thank John Kendle for this reference. The letter is Trueman to Garson, 11 September 1945, Premiers' Papers, EC0016/GR43/G 113, File 109, Archives of Manitoba. There survives in the Premiers' Papers a student petition complaining about the unsatisfactory conditions on the "Broadway campus," signed by such later luminaries as Jim Daly, Harold Buchwald, Fred McGuinness, and Kathleen Richardson, a reminder of how close-knit Manitoba society has been for over a half-century; EC0016/GR43/G113/file 109. 68. RCAE Report, 7-8. 69. Ibid., 7-8, 10. The quotation is cited as coming from "Cornford." The full citation, F.M. Cornford, Microcosmographia Academical Being a Guide for the Young Academic Politician (Cambridge, 1933), 141-148, is given in "Adult Education and Universities," a paper based on some of Innis's contributions to the Royal Commission Report. The paper appears in Harold A. Innis, The Bias of Communication (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1951, 1964), 203-214. When the commission first designed its research agenda in September 1945, the subject of propaganda had aroused little interest. Grierson thought there was more information emanating from both governments and corporations in recent years, and that both had exercised "a broad general responsibility on social questions." Innis commented that "the main question was to create and maintain a critical public opinion in view of the fact that the public is bombarded with so much interesting but slanted material." And though Grierson proposed that the "achievements and part played by the newspapers in public education in Manitoba" might fall under the rubric of propaganda, and proposed a special newspaper study by a graduate student, the project was not pursued. Minutes of Meeting, September 1945, RCAE Papers. 70. Harold Innis wrote the section on propaganda that appeared on pp. 10-11 of the RCAE Report; it was discussed and approved in December 1946. For the evidence that Innis drafted these paragraphs, see the minutes of the commission meeting of 30 November-3 December 1946, and especially the attachment listed as Appendix B, "Propaganda," Minutes of Meeting, 30 November-3 December 1946, Appendix B, RCAE Papers. 71. Grierson to Trueman, 3 November 1946, copy in Minutes of Meeting, 30 November-3 December 1946, RCAE Papers. The letter began: I am much obliged to you for your letter and wholly appreciative of your correctness in asking me to be decisive about my relationship with the Commission. I shall only say that if 272

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I have been all too insufficient in service to the Commission, my own problems here have been of the most complex sort. I have simply not been able to think sensibly of matters outside. More than my interest in the work of the Commission has had to go by the board, as I have tried here to discover a pattern under which the work which film can do for international understanding can be organized and financed on a scale commensurate with the size of the problem— 72. Undated, unnamed clipping that announces the formation of International Film Associates, and the recruitment to its ranks of Stuart Legg (NFB), Robert Flaherty (maker of Nanook of the North), Raymond Spottiswoode (maker of documentaries in England and Canada), and Ann Bjornson, "formerly of Winnipeg, a research expert, also of the Film Board." "John Grierson" file and "Newspaper Clippings" file, RCAE Papers. Grierson then turned for help to international agencies. He did not win the position of assistant to the secretary-general in charge of press relations for the United Nations, probably due to American and FBI lobbying, but eventually was appointed as media advisor to Sir Julian Huxley, director-general of UNESCO. He was hounded from that position by a Canadian and American whisper campaign, then moved to Great Britain where yet another spy scandal, this time American, "buried the last of what was left of his public reputation in North America." The problem was indeed complex, as he had told his Manitoba colleagues. The story is told in Gary Evans, John Grierson and the National Film Board: The Politics of Wartime Propaganda (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 267 and 224-268. Norman Robertson offered shrewd assessments of the Grierson conundrum. In a letter to Lester Pearson, he said that Grierson "really has some messianic illusions about what he can do through the medium of the film and the agency of UNESCO to achieve mutual understanding between Eastern and Western countries. I think he is mistaken in this, and the results of his efforts may be mischievous rather than helpful, but I think his objectives are honest if inflated. To my mind it is a great pity that the United States ever refused him an immigration visa, and it would be a mistake to make an issue over his appointment to UNESCO. He may do much good there, just as he did in the Film Board, but he will need a strong advisory committee to keep him on the rails." Two months later, Robertson had another conversation with Grierson and came away feeling less sympathetic to him. Grierson blamed his troubles on US film interests who feared his presence in

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New York would undercut their own documentary film industry and feared, too, that he might act as a catalyst for left-wing American documentary filmmakers and their "mischief-making activities." As Robertson added: "All together it was a rather queer and not very illuminating conversation. Certainly it did not leave me with any clearer impression than I had before of where Grierson really stood. In fact, I thought I detected some disingenuous overtones in the whole conversation that made me wonder if I had not gone too far on several previous occasions in going bail for his bona fides." Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1915-1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 240-241. 73. For details, see Whitaker and Marcuse, Cold War Canada. The chapter entitled "'Freda to the Professor through Grierson': The Persecution of a Film Maker" offers the most thorough discussion of Grierson's travails. In addition to the connection with E.K. Williams, a University of Manitoba law professor, Cold War Canada also explains the bizarre mistake that tarred Harry Ferns, a United College professor and activist in 1946—note the coincidence—and formerly an employee of the Department of External Affairs, with connections to Soviet espionage activities. Also relevant is Merrily Weisbord, The Strangest Dream: Canadian Communists, The Spy Trials, and the Cold War (Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1983, 1994), 178-179; she uses quotation marks for several of the Hoover phrases quoted above but does not provide notes. According to Weisbord, the Washington Times-Herald described Grierson as having been "questioned in the Russian spy case" but, by the time this reached the New York World Telegram, he was the "Canadian Atom Spy Case Figure." 74. RCAEReport, lO-ll. 75. Ibid., 55. 76. "Adult Education Must Keep Pace, Enquiry Hears," Winnipeg Tribune, 23 April 1946 (Legislative Library Scrapbook). 77. Two recent extended treatments of these themes are Philip Massolin, Canadian Intellectuals, The Tory Tradition, and the Challenge of Modernity, 1939-1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), and L.B. Kuffert, A Great Duty: Canadian Responses to Modern Life and Mass Culture, 1939-1961 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003). 78. RCAE Report, 137. 79. Minutes of Meeting, 30 November-3 December 1946, Appendix A, 274

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"Role of existing school system" by Harold Innis, RCAE Papers. The reference to "incompatibility between those who like to think and those who do not" was shifted in Innis's later draft from a CanadianAmerican difference to one that was "characteristic of the Western world" (Bias, 213); the sentences distinguishing "those who like to think" were removed entirely from the Royal Commission Report; the rest of the paragraph from which they were excised appeared on pp. 147-148. 80. RCAE Report, 142-143; in The Bias of Communication, Innis cites Harrison, Autobiographic Memoirs, //(London, 1911), 322-323, and W.R. Inge, Diary of a Dean, St Paul's 1911-1934 (London, 1950), 222-223. 81. RCAE Report, 143. 82. Ibid., 145; "The teacher can link books to conversation and oral education— He can provide the link between a written and an oral tradition" (148). 83. Minutes of Meeting, 27-29 December 1945, RCAE Papers. 84. Economic considerations played an important part in the thinking of the commissioners but, as Innis's writing suggested, they were also aware of the political and spiritual dimensions of the adult education question. At a private meeting they noted that, in Wisconsin, "extension services have always been regarded as important. There has been a social and economic emphasis deliberately made in order to develop the social consciousness of the people, based on the principle that citizens must be informed about national and international affairs." The Wisconsin model intrigued them, despite its interventionism. Its strength lay in mobilizing people to consider all manner of questions about the universe and the community. See Minutes of Meeting, 27-29 December 1945, RCAE Papers. 85. M.S. Donnelly, The Government of Manitoba (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963),103-105, 66-67. 86. Not that any provincial politician always agreed with a federal counterpart. An illustration of the inevitability of federal-provincial disputes is Garson's speech to the Dominion-Provincial conference, plenary session, 26 January 1946, 324-325, cited in Doug Owram, The Government Generation: Canadian Intellectuals and the State, 1900-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 324. The very nature of federal-provincial relations pushed Garson into partisan political commitments. The party political context is addressed in Robert A. Wardhaugh, Mackenzie King and the Prairie West (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), especially 249-263.

275

AFTERWORD

87. Stuart Garson script of radio broadcast on CKY, 14 March 1945, cited in Donnelly, Government of Manitoba, 104. Garson enunciated the same principle when he formed government in 1943. 88. "No Federal Partisanship in Coalition, Says Garson," Winnipeg Tribune, 25 November 1943, Tribune Personality Files, "Hon Stuart Garson," UMA. 89. For such an endorsement, see the editorial,"Our Twelfth Premier," Winnipeg Free Press, 15 January 1943. 90. "Socialists Must Know History, Says Garson," Winnipeg Tribune, 19 November 1947, Tribune Personality Files, UMA. At the opening of the first Liberal summer school in Rock Lake, Manitoba, in 1947, Garson said: "the struggle of the modern world was between the totalitarian principles of socialism on the one side and principles of liberalism on the other." He suggested that Russia was really socialistic but that the United Kingdon, Scandinavia, and the CCF in Canada were "not socialistic in the exact sense." He argued that Russia had "yet to prove that... genuine socialism could be made to work over a long period." He also referred to the freedom theme: "It also remained to be proven by social democrats in the UK whether socialism in the real sense could be put into effective operation at all under any political system which recognizes democratic freedom of the press ... freedom to own and control property." See "True Socialism 'Dictatorship' Says Garson," Winnipeg Tribune, 24 June 1947, Tribune Personality Files, UMA. In 1943, when the capitalism-socialism debate took on greater importance in Canadian public life, Garson forwarded a draft speech to one of Canada's leading economists, W.A. Mackintosh. Garson intended to sketch in layperson's terms some flaws in socialist arguments about economic justice. He explained to Mackintosh: "You can no doubt see my purpose is to counter the political arguments of the radical groups when they say that they propose to raise every person's prices without increasing anyone's production or living costs and that they propose to do this by appropriating the profits of big business. The only way that a person can permanently explode fallacies of this sort is by a thoroughly sound argument. I want to make sure that mine is sound. That is my reason for bothering you." Note that social democrats belonged to "radical groups." Note that they indulged in "fallacies." These terms were not accidental but were to recur consistently in Garson's speeches during the next five years. 91. Eric Hobsbawm, "Notes on Class Consciousness," in Worlds of Labour: Further Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984), 25-26, originally published in I. Meszaros, ed., 276

Adult Education in Manitoba

History and Class Consciousness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971). 92. RCAE Report, 130. 93. Stuart Garson, "Remarks in introducing discussion of postwar estimates," typescript dated 2 April 1945, Premiers' Papers, Post-War Committee (Reconstruction), EC0016/GR43/G-125, file 16 (PostWar Planning Committee). 94. G.R. Rowe to Garson, 10 April 1944, Premiers' Papers, EC0016/ GR43/G-124, file 16 (Post-War Planning Committee). 95. Manitoba Co-operator, 1 May 1947. 96. Raymond Aron, The Century of Total War (London, 1954), 325, cited in Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (London: Penguin Books, 1998), xv. 97. J.B. Brebner review of report of the RCAE in Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science xiv, 1 (February 1948): 113-114. 98. See the following: David E. Smith, "Celebrations and History on the Prairies," Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 3 (Fall 1982): 45-57; J.F.C. Wright, Saskatchewan: The History of a Province (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1955); John H. Archer, Saskatchewan: A History (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1980); Margaret MeWilliams, Manitoba Milestones (Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1928); Frances Kaye, Hiding the Audience: Viewing Arts & Arts Institutions on the Prairies (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2003); Morton, Manitoba: A History; Howard Palmer with Tamara Palmer, Alberta: A New History (Edmonton: Hurtig, Publishers 1990); Gerald Friesen, The West: Regional Ambitions, National Debates, Global Age (Toronto: Penguin/McGill Institute, 1999). 99. Jean Burnet, Next-Year Country: A Study of Rural Social Organization in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1951), 151.

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INDEX

4-H clubs 43-4, 55, 103-4, 156-8, 169, 171,175-6, 181

A-B Agricultural Society (Carman, Elgin, Rossburn) 38, 60, 62, 91-2,94-5,119, 134,142, 156-8, 166, 171-2, 175-8, 181 Alberta 259, 261-2, 276 Board of Trade (Carman, Elgin, Rossburn) 28, 34-5, 40, 47-8, 52-3, 55, 57-60, 62, 67,84,91-4,132, 134, 142, 153, 159, 163, 178, 180 Books (see libraries)

Boy Scouts 63, 164, 179 Bracken, John 37, 212-3, 217, 251-3,255,262-3

C Campbell, Douglas L. 212, 256, 263 Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) 92, 97, 164 Canadian Legion 74, 92, 96, 98, 138, 142, 161-2, 180 Canadian Ukrainian Women's Association 100 Carman Agricultural Society 156 CBC Farm Forum 167-8, 171, 177,232 279

INDEX

Churches: Anglican 17-9, 23, 38-41, 46, 52,59,63,66,98,133, 136-8, 144-5, 164, 168, 170,179,255 Baptist 17-8, 38-9, 41, 136, 144 Church of Christ 133, 136, 141, 143-4, 162 Mennonite Brethren 141, 169 Pentecostal Assembly 91, 98, 105,133,136,141-4,171 Plymouth Brethren 171 Roman Catholic 23, 86, 98-9, 106, 133, 138, 164, 179, 232,233-4,259-60 Ukrainian (Greek) Catholic 98-9, 100, 106, 109-10 Ukrainian Orthodox (Independent) 97-9, 100, 103, 109 United Church of Canada 17-19,23,33,38-41,46, 55,60,63,66,74,90-1, 97-9,103, 105, 116,124, 133-8, 141-4, 147-9, 153, 162-5, 167-8, 170-1, 173, 178-9, 184, 196, 199 Citizens' Forum 45-6, 52, 56, 58, 63,65,137,163,165,219, 232,267 Communication (see libraries, electricity, music, newspapers, radio, railway, roads, telephone) Community Welfare Group (Carman) 137, 147-50, 179 Cooperatives 6-7, 31, 34, 36-7, 75,85,91-2,95,116,119, 127, 155, 166, 168-9, 171, 175-8, 182, 188-9, 195, 198 Cooperative Christian Youth Movement 116 280

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) (see political parties) Credit unions 168, 170-1, 178 Curling 13-4, 28, 40, 43, 53-4, 56, 61,64,74,127,133-5,142, 169, 180 D-F Department of Veterans Affairs (see veterans) Deutsch, John 223, 234-5, 261, 266, 269 District Co-operative Co-ordinating Council 155, 166, 176, 177 District Memorial Hospital Board 154 Doctors 15, 27, 35, 56, 76,94, 132-3, 145, 150, 178 DrydenJ.C. 204, 237-8,262, 266, 269 Eastern Star 41, 161 Electric power 29, 74, 127, 206 Elm Creek, MB 131,174 Ethnicity: Aboriginal (see also Indians) 71,73,75,138,229 British 4, 7-8,23, 33-4,75-7, 79-105,108,111-9,126, 129-30, 137, 141-6, 173, 176,186,204,208,231 Chinese 15, 21, 138, 140, 151, 153,159 French 4, 129-30, 138-40, 155, 208,222,227-8,231, 236-7, 250, 259-60, 267 Jewish 75, 79,94,97, 114, 148, 159

Index

Mennonite 129-30, 140-3, 150, 159, 169-70 Polish 75, 85-6, 95-7, 99, 100, 106, 112, 114, 129-30 Ukrainian 4, 7, 8, 72,75-121, 187,198,204,208,228-9, 231,236-7,250,259-60, 262 Extension Service (agricultural) 5, 18,37-8,44,55,67,94, 100,103-4,118,166,188, 195, 198, 224, 273 Foresters Lodge 161 Friesen, John K. 224, 261, 266, 267, 269

G-K Garson, Stuart 201, 210-25, 230-1,234,236,238-42, 251-6,258,263-6,268-70, 274-5 Girl Guides 164 Grierson, John 224, 232-3, 243-6, 260, 268, 270-3 Hospitals 22, 35, 56, 76, 85, 92, 94, 100, 126-7, 132, 147, 154-5, 158-9, 180, 183, 187 Innis, Harold Adams 202, 204, 224,231,246-50,260,266, 268-71,273 L-N Ladies'Aid 89, 91, 99, 103, 105 Ladies Orange Lodge 41 Lawyers 76, 101, 108, 128, 132, 148, 178,241,245

Libraries (and books) 5, 36, 39, 45, 50, 56, 67, 100, 106, 115-6, 120, 133, 163, 187, 190-1,219,227-8,230, 235,238,267-8,269,273 Manitoba Agricultural College 44-5, 162, 167,212 Manitoba Federation of Agriculture and Co-operation (MFAQ37, 91, 118, 155, 167-8, 175,177,224,226, 251,267 Manitoba Pool Elevator Association 31, 33, 36, 43, 50, 53, 59,61,91-2,94-5, 103, 115-6,118,168-71,175-8, 181-2,209,226-7,264,268 Masonic Lodge 41, 52-3, 62, 145, 161 McKay, Frances 224, 266 Music 5, 42, 50-1,66, 71,93, 107-8,116-7,173-4,184, 187, 191, 194 National Film Board (NFB) 3, 52, 63,95, 155,166, 168, 178, 224,232-3,238,243,245, 267,271-2 Newspapers 15, 51-2, 74, 109-11, 113,127, 132,149, 151-2, 165-6,209,213,223,235, 241,263,265-9,271 0-Q Oddfellows Lodge 96, 161, 178 Orange Lodge 4, 41, 161, 169 Political parties:

Communist 109, 229, 232-3, 245-6,255,260,271-3 Conservative 33, 36-7, 61, 128, 212,217,220,255

281

INDEX

282

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) 36, 64, 108,111,115,202,217, 220,233,246,252-3,259, 263,274 Liberal (see also Progressive) 239,252,255,274 Progressive (and Liberal Progressive) 210, 212, 217-8, 220,263 Social Credit 212, 255,259 United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM; see also Progressive) 31,36-7,52-3,168,177, 212 Professions (see doctors, teachers, lawyers, librarians)

S-T Saskatchewan 57, 101, 146, 222-3, 233,246,257,259,266, 269, 275 Teachers 19, 27, 45-6, 48-9, 51, 58,62,64-5,84,88,91-3, 101,104,107-8,111-7, 120, 132-3, 144, 148, 150, 162-3, 168-9, 172-4, 178-9, 197, 209, 228, 264-5 Telephone 15, 21,73, 106, 127, 132,206 Trueman, Albert W. 203-4, 223, 227,231,237-8,241-2, 244, 262, 264, 265, 269, 270-1

R Radio 52, 109, 111, 171, 187, 206, 219,223,226-7,232-4, 238,243-4,247-8,251, 267,274 Railways 4, 8, 14-6, 21-2, 36, 72-4,77,95,103,105,111, 126, 138, 143, 145-6, 186, 206, 226 Rebekah Lodge 41, 161,179 Red Cross 38, 47-8, 62, 96, 105, 137, 147, 150, 169, 179 Roads (highways) 4, 15, 24, 35, 39,48,52,55-6,71-4,79, 90, 92, 94, 95, 106, 126, 130,131,146,159,206, 265 Roland, MB 114, 131, 167, 174, 177,181

U-V Ukrainian Canadian Committee 101,109,229 Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood (see also churches) 98 Ukrainian Self-Reliance League 100,102,109,110 United Church Guild (see also churches) 39-40, 55, 60 United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM) (see political parties) United Farm Women (UFW) 37, 50 United States (and American) 44, 49,67,159, 182,205,213, 216,220,222,225-6, 230-1,234-7, 243-8,250, 254, 260, 262, 267, 269, 271-2,273-4

Index

University of Manitoba 3-4, 45, 49-50,58,91,98,153,165, 167, 172-3, 176, 181, 184, 191,203-4,209,218-9, 223-6,230,234-5,237, 240-2, 249-50, 256-7, 264, 265, 267-8, 269, 272 Veterans (also see Canadian Legion) 26, 42, 48, 138, 154,161,218 Canada Department of Veterans' Affairs 48, 92 Rehabilitation Committee 26, 48, 96, 154 Soldiers' Aid 96 Victory Loan Committee 31, 96

W-Z Watson, Helen (Gordon) 238, 269 Winnipeg Free Press 213,223,263, 266-9 Women's Auxiliary (WA) (see also churches) 39, 150 Women's Institute (WI) 6, 37, 55, 84,96,98-100,105,171, 198,224,226-8,267 Women's Missionary Society (WMS) 39-40, 99, 103, 135, 149, 169 Young Peoples' Union (YPU) 17, 40-1, 168, 170

283