Lögberg-Heimskringla - 24.09.1969, Blaðsíða 2

LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, MIÐVIKUDAGINN 24. SEPTEMBER 1969
History of fhe lcelandic Settlements
at The Narrows, Manitoba
by
Geirfinnur Peterson
XXXIV.
Banks were closing their
doors: Eriksdale, Lundar, and
Teulon. This wave swept all
over, biggest in U.S. where 40
banks closed in the northem
staites, and shortly after the
great New York Stock ex-
change crash where thousands
lost everything they had. Some
took suicide as a way out —
o t h e r s endured. The same
thing applied to all parts of
Canada: there was no work to
be had; there was so much
drought in Saskatchewan, and
the westem provinces that
hardly any grain was raised;
thousands of men rode the
freight trains east and west;
riots, with nothing to eat and
no plaee to stay; soup kitchens
in all major cities; govemment
offered relief men to farmers
if they’d take them and gave
the farmer $5 a month for
keeping them and these men
would work for nothing, just
to be fed. But most farmers
had their hands full simply
feeding their own familias
with what they could supply
from their farms.
Into the picture, in 1930,
stepped a federal election won
by the conservative govern-
ment, and R. B. Bennett came
to be Prime Minister of Can-
ada in 1930. He saved the li-
berals from meeting the same
fate as he had the conserva-
tives met — that of cleaning
up the mess, quite a tough job.
Bennett started by putting
through an order in council
for 20 million dollars for relief
purposes and that I think more
than a n y t h i n g else, saved
many a man, especially vag-
rants f r o m starvation and
probably many a family from
going without who’d just ar-
rived on the homestead before
the dark curtain fell.
The first warning that some-
thing was wrong was with the
street railway strike in Winni-
peg. The city was full of men
who had been drifting in from
the prairies where total unem-
ployment existed. That was in
June, 1919. I was coming from
the stockyards where I had
shipped some cattle and was
coming across the bridge
across the river when we
heard an awful racket and
smoke was blanketing great
portions of Main Street. The
#ailway strike had started
about a week before but there
had been no wire lines before.
Consequently t h e r e was a
jittney service. These cars
were running on all streets
picking up anybody they wan-
ted to get anywhere, and they
charged a nickel for the ride.
It was all but a comfortable
ride and they would pack in
as many as could get into the
cars. You were sometimes on
the bottom with two and three
on top of you. When the driv-
er noticed the commotion on
Main Street with the fires, he
doubled back and got across
the river on the Louise Bridge
in the north part of the city.
When we got to the subway
by the CPR hotel, we got a
full blast of what was going
on. There was this car of the
street railway cars which had
been dumped over and set on
fire by a frenzied crowd, and
any jittney that happened to
come on Main Street was
stopped and the people let out
and fhpped upside down and
put on fire.
The police couldn’t control
the crowd at all so they called
out the horse artillery and
they rode down Main Street
with whips and lashes and in
a reasonably short time dis-
persed the crowd in all direc-
tions. Needless to say, the fire
brigade was out in full force.
In a couple of hours they had
extinguished t h e fires and
cleared up most of the burn-
ing wrecks and the garbage
off the street. This is the very
first time I can recollect when
any disturbance of that nature
had taken place in the city of
Winnipeg. It was quite evident
that this disturbance had part-
ly been fanned by a milhng
crowd of hundreds of unem-
ployed people that were in a
state of frenzy over the situa-
tion that existed.
The s e c o n d incident that
same summer happened on the
19th of August, which had a
very far reaching effect not
only on Manitoba but all of
Canada, and it also reached
the great markets of the
United States.
There had been terribly
heavy shipping of cattle going
on in big markets both in the
United States and Canada, and
a total embargo was declared
by all stock yards, a major
importance on both sides of
the intemational line. Cattle
shipments had backed up from
the western markets, such as
Winnipeg and Montreal and
all the way down to the big
markets in the United States,
such as Chicago and Omaha.
I speak with some knowl-
edge on this situation as I was
one of the many with a big
cattle drive that I had bought
on the way to shipment point
at Ashern. In fact, I had 365
head of cattle in that drive
and what met me when I camé
into Ashem was a telegram
from my commission firm in
Winnipeg that all markets
were plugged with cattle and
which in liklihood, would last
anywhere from a week to ten
days.
I also went further by seeing
the station agent at Ashern,
Fred O’Connell who informed
me that he got the order from
the Railway ‘Company not to
accept any cattle for shipment
anywhere. That meant keep-
ing the cattle there for the ex-
pected time where there was
no accomodation for them and
poor pasture. We just crowded
them into the stock yard at
nights where there only was
standing room and had to
herd them in the day time.
It was exactly eight days when
I got the permit to ship and
the situation was such that the
market didn’t only drop 2c or
3c but you had to beg to get
them sold at any price at all
and take what the purchasers
saw fit to pay. The shrinkage
on the weight was terrific and
it is safe to say that instead
of 2c, it was more like 3c or
4c a pound lost in the price
drop and the shrinkage alone.
Of course I am only setting
or describing this as an exam-
ple of what took place all over
the country on both sides of
the line and it is safe to say
that most, if not all shippers,
were badly bent or broke
completely after that on-
slaught. I can mention a very
human man who was a big
shipper and. who was con-
sidered very well off, Mat
Hall, whom I had known ever
since 1902 as I mentioned ear-
lier in this narrative.
He was the first man to
come up the lake to buy a few
lambs and cattle from the set-
tlers and make arrangements
with the Gypsumville Com-
pany to freight the stock on
the Petrel on to Westboum.
He had shortly before this
gone into partnership with
some big cattle buyer and they
had gone to Alberta to go after
some good cattle and boughf
up some 50-75 car loads and
had to sell the cattle to this
market, which cost them more
money than I believe anyone
ever leamed about. Mat Hall
was never the same after that;
the banks started to get nasty
and what used to be called
security, like outstanding
notes, seemed to have no value
now. Mat never got over that
as did hundreds of others t"hat
were in the cattle game in a
big way.
The unemployment situa-
tion steadily increased and
things were getting tighter
and everything off the farm
was dropping in value and that
drop in cattle had a terrible
effect on our district as it was
the chief source of income. In
effect, all the country was on
skids financially not only here
in Manitoba, but all over the
west where terrible drought
existed. The dust storms that
piled up mountains of dust,
buried fences and ditches and
it hit our municipality which
had been organized when com-
modities of the farm were of
higher value. They now could
see that they were in for
trouble to collect enough taxes
to keep going to fulfill the plan
that the municipality had or-
ganized for school and road
building. The municipal coun-
cil came to the conclusion that
they had to find some way out
or else the municipality would
go the same way as so many
municipalities had gone be-
fore. They were well aware
they had to find a way where-
by the rate payers would be
given a chance to clear for
part of the taxes that they
couldn’t pay now under exist-
ing conditions and that roads
had to be built and schools
had to be kept functioning.
They called a special meet-
ing on this question. After
discussing it from all angles,
they all agreed that there was
only one way to remove the
obstacle for doing just that.
The plan was to ask the gov-
emment to amend the muni-
cipal act which disallowed any
taxes to be worked off except
the so called statute labour,
which called for working for
2 days on each quarter section
of land or one day for the man
and team. This was motioned
and was voted all in favor but
what if the government would
not consent to grant this? Part
of the council wanted to go
a h e a d and do it any way
whether it was legal or not.
It was discussed for a length
of time and they finally all
aigreed to back up this motion
if disallowed to go ahead. The
motion was to allow the rate
payers to work off half of the
taxes they owed and by pay-
ing the other half cash, which
had to be paid before they
started work.
A delegation was appointed
to go to Winnipeg and place
this request before the Deputy
Minister of municipal affairs
who at the time was Murray
Fisher. He was a great con-
scientious man and his job
leaned very heavily on him in
these very difficult times, as
almost e v e r y municipality
that was in some trouble, or
another, did. He listened to
their requests and to his sor-
row he said that that could
not be granted. This answer
was sort of expected by the
delegation so he was advised
of the decision of them that
the council had taken to go
ahead with their idea of hav-
inig taxes worked off on a 50-
50 basis cash and work, or by
paying 50% of the taxes cash
aind the balance by working
it out. The Council felt is was
their duty to save the people
of the community from disas-
ter which had overtaken some
of the other municipalities
during the crisis. Mr. Murray,
the municipal commissioner
expressed concern over the
Framhald á bls. 3.
með Loftleiðum
Það er einmiii núna, á þessu ári, að þú æiiir að fara heim iil
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um land alli, í lilefni af lullugu og fimm ára afmæli lýð-
veldisins.
Auðviiað ferðu með Lofileiðum, en það er félagið sem um
aldarfjórðung hefir boðið fólki bezlu ferðabréfin.
Fargjaldið, báðar leiðir, er venjulega aðeins $232.00, en um
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kjör en nokkurt annað flugfélag.
• aðra leiðina á venjulegum árstíma.
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