George H. Ham

“ Down in Washington Washington, the capital of the great United States, is one of the finest cities in the Union. It is well laid out, has fine residential and business sections, and the Capitol itself occupies a commanding position. The city is the great political centre of the Republic and a swell social centre as well. It is a pleasant place to visit, especially if one has lots of friends like I have—the boys of the press gallery and some who are just ordinary, and a few who are not ordinary statesmen. ”

“ Whatever he may have thought, this iron horse actually meant that the wild, free, unrestrained life of the Indian was nearing its end, and that the buffalo, with its life-giving gifts and its trails and wallows, would disappear, to be replaced by immense tracts of golden grain fields which would, in years to come, make this fair land the granary of the world. Buffalo and agriculture are an impossibility together, and the law of the survival of the fittest is unfailing. And so it was in this case, when the first locomotive was the avant courier of thousands to come. ”

“ As I neared him, he a little gruffly wanted to know if I was Alderman Ham. Imagining he was one of the free and independent electors of Fort Rouge, which ward I was chosen to represent, I pulled down my vest, puffed out by bosom like a pouter pigeon, and courteously acknowledged that I was—in the blessed hope of securing an additional vote at the approaching election. But it’s the unexpected that always happens. He leered at me and shouted, so that everybody in the car could hear:
“You are, eh? Well, you are a damned old stinker.” ”

“ My seat-mate on the train from Duluth to Moorhead was Billy Bell—now Col. William G. Bell, a prominent citizen of Winnipeg. There were no sleeping cars then. At Aitken, Minnesota, a lumbering centre, one of those wild-eyed lumber-jacks with his red shirt sleeves rolled up and his trousers stuck in his top boots, leaped on the car, and, furiously brandishing a revolver, swaggered down the aisle.
“Who am I?” was his constant cry to the half-scared occupants of the coach. “Say, who am I? blankety, blankety, blank my blankety blank eyes, who am I?” ”

“ When in Ottawa or visiting other cities or towns, the Duke, frequently accompanied by the Princess Pat, had the happy knack of saluting those he met in the early morning strolls, and entering into conversation with them—generally about the town or city or village and its affairs and prospects. He always evinced deep interest in the average citizen who on many occasions was not conscious of the identity of his illustrious companion. ”

“ To be the youngest president of the greatest transportation company in the world is something to be proud of. But Edward Wentworth Beatty would be the very last one to boast of that or any of the other high honors that have been showered upon him. Why his head wasn’t turned at the overwhelming, fulsome flattery and never-ending high compliments and congratulations and beautiful bouquets that were lavishly thrown at him by voice and pen, is a wonder to those who do not know the man. ”

“ These were sacred even to these hardened sinners. Then why should the illusions of these poor unfortunate kids be ruthlessly destroyed? Why not let them, in their dire poverty and distress, have one little ray of sunshine in their belief in the existence of Santa Claus?
The day before one Christmas in Winnipeg, I was endeavouring to convince my children that there was a real sure-enough bona fide Santa Claus. The house had been put in apple-pie order for Christmas Day, when later in the afternoon, it was discovered to be in a deplorable condition. ”

“ To him it might be the dread thought of the passing of the old life of his race, the alienation of the stamping grounds of his forefathers, the early extinction of their great God-given provider, the buffalo, which for generations past had furnished the red man with all the necessities of life—shelter, food, clothing, shaganappy—a necessity for his cart or travois—and even fuel. The untutored mind may have dimly pictured the paleface usurping his rights to an hitherto unquestioned freedom of the plains, and the driving back of the red man by the overwhelming march of civilization. ”

“ There are many others that I cannot recall, scattered all over the inhabited globe. Some have gone to the Great Beyond, and of those living the bright eyes by this time have grown dim and the various shades of hair have turned gray, but in my heart of hearts, I believe that if we could only turn back the universe and regain us our youth, there would be general rejoicing amongst us could we gather together. ”

“ Taking it all in all, life in Winnipeg was as safe as it is in Westmount to-day—but a dashed sight more exciting.
Down at Fisher’s Landing in Minnesota, immigrants who there transferred from train to boat were unmercifully fleeced by Farmer Brown, who, driving a sorry looking yoke of oxen and wearing a bucolic make-up, victimized the immigrants with sad, sad tales of sorrow and misfortune, and when their sympathies were aroused through his unfailing flow of tears, he would trim them to a standstill at three card monte, at which he was an adept. ”

“ With free one-way transportation to the Great Beyond, and a full consciousness of all our good deeds and misdeeds, of the things we should have done and have not done, and of the things we should not have done but did, with no pretensions to having been too good, nor apprehensions of having been too bad, and with a solemn belief that if we were unable always to be right, we sought to be as nearly right as we could, we shall fearlessly face the great overshadowing problem: “Where do we go from here?” ”

“ The trip was a huge success in every way, and not only was the Fair taken in, but a visit was paid to Chicago, where the party was entertained by the well-known Jane Addams, at Hull House. On the way home, by a happy inspiration, a woman’s press club was formed with Kit, of the Toronto Mail, as president, and somehow or other—guess for lack of better material—was I made honorary president, and have been the only male member of a female press club in the world ever since. Some are born great, you know, others achieve greatness, and others still have greatness thrust upon them. ”

“ The ex-president returned to Winnipeg, and became satisfied with a fairly good position in the local Government service, but he always insisted that, if he had been given a chance, the Republic of Manitoba would have been one of the greatest and most prosperous countries in the universe—at any rate it would have been larger than the Principality of Monaco, more fertile than Greenland, not so torrid as Florida nor as mountainous as Mexico, and would have had as big a navy as Switzerland. ”

“ Many can recall some of their earlier Christmases, as many experience them now-a-days, when they had need of Mark Tapley’s irrepressible disposition in order to enable them to be jolly under rather unpleasant circumstances. To those who catch the spirit of the anniversary in anything like its fullness, Christmas comes with rich rewards. It is the grand festival of the year, is one for all mankind, and for all ages to come, full of pleasant memories, of kindliest feelings and, above all, of that large hearted noble charity which blesses giver and receiver alike. ”

“ Winnipeg is a live wire city. That does not have to be proven. Almost any one of its progressive business men will admit that, if cornered, but it is doubtful if in its couple of hundred thousand or so of people it holds as many distinguished “live wires” as did the muddy, generally disreputable village that in, say, 1873, with a thousand or perhaps fifteen hundred people, straggled along Main Street from Portage Avenue to Brown’s Bridge, near the present site of the City Hall, and sprawled between Main Street and the river. ”

“ To indulge in outdoor life, the townships of Darlington and East and West Whitby were traversed by me as sub-agent for a farmers’ insurance company. There was not much difficulty in securing renewals of policies, but it was uphill work to get new business. The general excuse for refusal to insure was that Mr. Farmer had been insured before and had never made anything out of it. My throat used to get dry as a tin horn in trying to explain that the company couldn’t exactly guarantee a “blaze”, but the insurance policy was to protect the insure in case of fire. ”

“ Conspicuously Canadian. The policy of the future will be an extension of the policies of the past, namely that the company should be a good citizen of Canada, which means contributing to Canada’s advancement and its own success, and taking, as it always has, its share of the country’s burden. In this democratic age it is possible that methods may be adopted which would not be thought of in previous times. ”

“ And yet Tom, as he was familiarly called, was the first and only president of a Canadian republic that ever existed. When the authority of the Hudson’s Bay Company was nearing an end, Tom hied himself to Portage la Prairie, then little more than a hamlet, and founded the Republic of Manitoba, which was to be altogether self-supporting and to be separate and distinct from the Hudson’s Bay Company, in fact a government on its own hook. ”

“ Walsh was noted as one of outstanding courage and wisdom in dealing with white men or Indians. His word was law and he never broke his word. His cool fearlessness and his integrity gained for him the absolute confidence and the high regard of the Indian chiefs throughout the Northwest Territories, and this enviable esteem stood him in good stead upon the memorable occasion of his dealing with the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, following the Custer massacre in 1876. ”

“ A magnificent ocean service has been established on the Atlantic and the Pacific, and on the inland lakes and rivers of Canada its craft ply. It has become the “World’s Greatest Highway,” carrying the traffic of three continents. It lodges and feeds globe-trotters, so that a person may travel from Great Britain to China and Japan exclusively under its protecting care, on its trains, ships and hotels. It has developed fishing, mining, agricultural, immigration, forestry and other resources and industries. It is not a mere transportation company, as all railways were before its construction. ”

“ But Parliament during the time I was at Ottawa and was able to take observations was composed of great men—the pick of the intelligence and progressiveness of the Dominion—men of whom any country might be justly proud. Most of them have gone; but their work, the completed Canada, remains, and is their best monument. ”

“ That staunch old Westerner, Major Hayter Reed, who did splendid service during the uprising, came up with supplies and clothes, and when they arrived and the freed captives had donned their new habiliments, and washed up and eaten the first square meal for a long time, the transformation was complete. Sam Steele came too. After all their trekking through wild lands and swamps with little food, here were freedom and liberty and friends. ”

“ I knew Mark better than many others did, however, through my good friend, Ralph W. Ashcroft, now of Montreal, who for many years was his business manager; his wife, Mrs. Ashcroft, (formerly Miss Lyon) was Mark’s capable secretary. They have a thousand and one recollections of Mark, and could give the world a more realistic insight of the dead author than has ever yet been presented.
Few men who ever spoke in public could sway an audience more readily than could Mark Twain. ”

“ He looks upon earthly things with bright eyes, is light-hearted, jovial at times, and hugely appreciates a good joke. His position is no sinecure, for at the shrine he is kept busy from early morning till late into the night listening to the sad tales poured out by the sick and the maimed and the blind. So heavy has the work become, that in addition to Brother André, six priests, as secretaries, and five brothers are constantly engaged in receiving and acknowledging the never-ending stream of letters from all over the civilized world, imploring temporal and spiritual assistance. ”

“ Therefore many legitimately interesting episodes of the old days must go unrecorded rather than that the men of enterprise, energy, foresight and patriotism who put Winnipeg on the map in the years from ’71 to ’82 should be misunderstood.
The men who, so to speak, put the “Win” in Winnipeg deserve the best that those who are the heirs of their efforts and successes, or even failures, can say or think of them. The occasion was great, and they were men of the occasion.
The First Iron Horse The arrival of the first locomotive in Winnipeg was a red-letter day for the whole Canadian West. ”