The Story of a Dark Plot Part 8

Smith was often absent from the office during the day, frequently remaining there only half an hour.

"You will remember also that Mr. J. O'Regan, the operator at Sutton Junction, stated in writing that he had at the request of Mr. Smith, who desired to absent himself from duty, worked in the latter's place on the afternoon and evening previous to the a.s.sault, and that on several occasions he had been left in charge of the station during Mr. Smith's absence. In this connection you will remember that I informed you that on the occasion first referred to, and that on some, if not all, of the previous occasions, Mr. Smith had absented himself from duty without permission. I believe that it was admitted by Mr. Smith himself, at the trial, that when he was a.s.saulted he was asleep, although at that time he should have been on duty as operator.

"You will also recollect that Mr. Smith, having applied through Detective Carpenter to Mr. Brady for leave of absence to go to New Marlboro, Ma.s.s., for the purpose of identifying one of his a.s.sailants, and having obtained such leave of absence, and a pa.s.s to Newport and return, remained absent from duty for ten days after his return from New Marlboro, without communicating with Mr. Brady, and that it was while he was so absent without leave that he delivered a temperance lecture at Richford.

"It is not customary with this Company to discuss with persons not directly interested the reasons for discharging, punis.h.i.+ng, rewarding or otherwise dealing with its men, but you will recollect that in this case an exception was made, and that I offered you every facility, including free transportation over our line, if you would, by visiting localities in which Messrs.

Smith and Brady were known, satisfy yourself as to the propriety of Mr. Smith's discharge, and it will also be within your memory that I offered to arrange a meeting between yourself and Mr.

Brady, or, if it was desired, to meet your committee myself to discuss the matter. None of these offers was taken advantage of, and, so far as I know, none of the suggestions made were followed.

"It is not, however, as I have said, necessary to go into these details in order to support the conclusion that Mr. Smith's usefulness as agent for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company is over. The Company is carrying on the business of a railway company, and its objects do not extend beyond the promotion of that business. Its success depends upon the favor and patronage of the community at large, and if one of its officers or employees so conducts himself as to antagonize a section of the community, or even in a manner which is likely to bring about that result, the Company's interests are injuriously affected, and the Company will naturally do, what every business man would do, namely, protect its interests by his removal.

"Yours truly, THOS. TAIT, "a.s.sistant General Manager.

"_Montreal, Dec. 6th, 1894._"

It will be noticed that in this letter Mr. Tait, referring to the acts of officials, "who are every day insisting on the practice of temperance," says: "But this is done in respect of matters which are entirely within their jurisdiction as officers of the Company." The implication plainly is that, while officers of the Canadian Pacific Railway have a right to insist upon sobriety among the employees of the Company, they have not a right to engage in any other form of temperance work. That all Mr. Smith's work for the cause was within his jurisdiction as an officer of the Alliance, and a free citizen is not taken into consideration, and it appears that no employee of the Canadian Pacific Railway is supposed to have a right to accept any offices or perform any duties outside the Company's services.

Mr. Tait does not condemn the position taken by his a.s.sistant Superintendent, on the contrary he very plainly takes the same position himself, and simply disapproves of some of Mr. Brady's expressions. This reminds us of what is told of some parents who are said to punish their children, not for evil doing but for getting found out. If Mr. Brady had concealed the motive for his act so as to prevent any complaints from the public, the Company, according to Mr.

Tait's letter, would have had no objection to the dismissal of an employee simply for temperance activity.

To the above letter Mr. Carson made the following reply, which was published in the same issue of the _Witness_:

"December 21st, 1894.

"T. Tait, Esq., a.s.st. General Manager, C. P. R.:

"DEAR SIR,--Your letter of December 6th has had the attention of the Alliance Committee, which takes great pleasure in hearing of the stand taken by your Company in various ways in behalf of temperance, the wisdom of which will commend itself to all. When, however, you say Mr. Smith was not dismissed for the reason a.s.signed in my letter to you, namely, his activity as a temperance man, you deny what seems to be admitted in the whole of the rest of your letter. This was, as the correspondence shows, the only reason conveyed to Mr. Smith as the cause of his dismissal. My letter did not allege, nor was it intended to convey the impression, that the Company's action was due to its objection to the principles held by Mr. Smith, but that it was due to his activity in advocating those principles.

"You have at considerable length set forth that what the Company objects to is, that an employee of the Company should actively take sides on a question on which the community is divided, even 'although he do so only during the hours of the day when he is not supposed to be in the active service of his employer,' and you add that 'no official of our Company, one of whose duties is to solicit and secure traffic for the Company, could take sides on any of these questions at public meetings and lectures without impairing his usefulness to the Company.' This is precisely the position taken by Mr. Brady in his correspondence with Mr. Smith, and it is against this position, to which the Company through you pleads guilty, that we, in the name of the temperance people of Canada, protest, implying as it does a condition of servitude to the liquor interest on the part of a national inst.i.tution dependent upon the public patronage for support, which insults all that is best in our public opinion, and insisting as it does on a condition of ign.o.ble slavery on the part of the employees of the Company. You refer to the matter in which Mr. Smith was regarded as over-active as a moot question.

"Whether men should be required to observe the law of the land, or be punished for violating it, is, we submit, not a moot question. On the contrary, we hold it the duty of every loyal citizen to uphold law, and render such a.s.sistance as lies in his power to secure its enforcement.

"With regard to the later charges against Mr. Smith, parenthetically enumerated in your letter, you say they are insignificant, and that, therefore, 'it was not necessary or proper to discuss them further with Mr. Smith.' If so, we may also be excused from discussing them. We have given Mr. Smith communication of your letter, that he may reply to these if he sees best.

"Referring to your kind offer of free transportation over your line, to visit the localities in which Messrs. Smith and Brady were known, and satisfy myself as to the propriety of Mr. Smith's discharge, I might say that I did visit those localities without accepting the offer of free transportation, which accounts for your not knowing of my visit to Brome County. As the result of that visit I was still better informed as to the operation of the occult influence which had brought about Mr. Smith's dismissal.

"Your offer to meet our committee and discuss the question was rendered nugatory by the dismissal of Mr. Smith.

"In the management of your Company it is not our part to interfere, but when an employee of your Company is dismissed, as alleged by the a.s.sistant Superintendent, and now confirmed by yourself, for publicly advocating those principles which this Alliance is organized to promote, and for promoting the observance of the laws of his country, it is right for us to express to you the protest of a very large portion of the people of Canada, and their indignation at seeing one of their number thus suffer for conscience sake. It is, of course, for the Company to judge how best to promote its own business, but when so large a portion of the public as those who support temperance laws and seeks their enforcement is openly snubbed in the interests, and it would seem at the instance, of illicit and murderous dealers in a contraband article, from the transport of which your Company seeks profit, we may fairly ask the question whether the Company is acting even the part of worldly wisdom.

Your declaration that if one of the Company's officers or employees so conducts himself as to antagonize a section of the community, or even in a manner which is likely to bring about that result, the Company's interests are injuriously affected, and the Company will naturally do what every business man would do, namely, 'protect its interests by his removal,' is definite and distinct, and seems to apply to the definite att.i.tude a.s.sumed towards the advocates of temperance by your a.s.sistant Superintendent. His conduct is certain to be remembered with resentment all over Canada, so long as his continuance in office and the endors.e.m.e.nt of his act are the index of the policy of your Company.

"I remain, dear sir, "Very respectfully yours, "J. H. CARSON, Secretary."

As stated by Mr. Carson, Mr. Tait's letter was forwarded to Mr. Smith, that he might reply to its accusations if he saw fit. Accordingly, he wrote to the Editor of the _Witness_ as follows:

"SIR,--I desire, in replying to the complaints made against me in Mr. Tait's letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Dominion Alliance, to say that, so far as these complaints are concerned, this is the first time I have seen them, and I have never been asked by the Canadian Pacific Railway to offer any explanation, nor have I been given an opportunity to deny the correctness of the charges made against me.

"With regard to the letter of Mr. Stewart, of the Dominion Express Company, I have this to say: This complaint, in the first place, was only made three weeks after Mr. Brady had requested me to tender my resignation, for the specific reason given in his letter, so that it could not have had any connection with the real cause of my dismissal.

"When I was a.s.saulted on July 8th, I wired Mr. Stewart that I was unable to work, and asked him if I should give the combination of the inside door of the safe to the man in charge.

I received no reply. Mr. Stewart knew perfectly well that I was sick in bed, and that it was his duty to send a man to change the combination, which he did not do, after being wired of my disability. Now Mr. Stewart, after paying not the slightest attention to the notice of my illness, censures me for not notifying him when I went to the United States to identify the man who a.s.saulted me. Regarding my carrying off the revolver, this is true; but, as the Company demanded the whole of my time off duty, as well as on, and as I was expected to resume work any day, I do not see why I should not be regarded as their property, and as much ent.i.tled to protection as any other until I was dismissed.

"Mr. Selby's statements are also misleading. It was months after he entered my office before I allowed him to have the combination of the safe (outside door), and this was with the knowledge and consent of Route Agent Bowen, or he would never have had even the combination of the outer door. Mr. Bowen checked up my office with Mr. Selby two or three times, and was satisfied. Mr. Selby's statement that the inner door of the safe was not used from October, 1893, to June, 1894, is not true, and cannot be substantiated, as he was away from my office for weeks during that time.

"As to my changing work with Mr. O'Regan, I did, and such things are quite customary with agents and operators, as well as a.s.sistant Superintendents; and this custom prevails at the present time all along the line. I may add that there was a distinct understanding between Mr. Brady and myself that I could drive out or walk out whenever I saw fit, without communicating with him.

"Some explanation ought to be made concerning the manner in which these complaints from Mr. Selby and Mr. O'Regan were secured by Mr. Brady, when it was found necessary to produce before Mr. Tait other evidence against me. I have seen both Mr. Selby and Mr.

O'Regan in company with a witness I took with me, and questioned them as to how they came to make such charges. I found that Mr.

Brady had taken the fast express from Farnham, which does not stop at Sutton Junction; it, however, slowed up enough to allow him to jump off. He walked to the station and remained nearly three hours endeavoring to obtain incriminating evidence against me. Mr. Selby informed me he did not think his letters would come to light, as Mr. Brady told him it would be personal, and he thought as I was dismissed from the Company's service, the statements would not hurt me, and it might help him to a situation at some future time. He said the statements were first drawn from him by adroit questioning, and he was then asked to put them in writing.

"When Mr. Brady arrived at Sutton Junction, the night operator, O'Regan, was asleep, but he did not hesitate to call him up, and deprive him of two or three hours' rest, notwithstanding the fact that on the first of July, when he refused to allow the night operator, Ireland, to work for me so as to permit of my going to Montreal to attend the National Prohibition Convention, the reason he gave was that night operators required their days to rest to insure efficient service during the night. But in this case he breaks up the rest of a night operator in order to secure this statement from O'Regan.

"Mr. Tait says I was asleep when a.s.saulted. This I do not deny, but he knows his operators all sleep more or less during the night, when they understand the position of their trains. Every railway man knows this. But why are these matters brought before the public now? Why was I not allowed a hearing by the officers of the Company? If a collision occurs on the line, or other serious things occur, the parties concerned are given a chance to clear themselves. If men get drunk and damage the Company's property, they are given a hearing, and in many cases they resume work. But all this was denied me. There must have been a reason for this; it must be because Mr. Tait really understood the whole matter thoroughly, as he says in his letter, 'This correspondence' (referring to these later charges) 'is insignificant,' and especially as he has said to a _Witness_ reporter, and published in the _Witness_ of July 11th: 'I have no proof that Mr. Smith has violated the confidence of the Company.'

No, my serious offence was, as Mr. Tait states, 'the taking in public an active part on either side of such moot questions as I have referred to.'

"Mr. Tait also stated that this rule applies to questions of politics. Now, if the same rule applied to temperance as applies to politics, I would still be in my position as agent of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Sutton Junction, for during the last general elections the Company would have allowed me to move heaven and earth, if possible, to elect their candidate, which we did through their wire pulling. I don't wonder people say the Canadian Pacific Railway runs the government, but they cannot run the Brome County Alliance or any of the other temperance organizations. I would like to ask Mr. Brady in connection with these charges, why he should add insult to injury by a.s.serting that the temperance people could all 'go to h----l,' and he 'does not care a G---- d----' for them all, and why was I approached in an obscure way, and inducements made to me to resign my position as President of the Brome County Alliance, and give up lecturing on temperance, and retain my position as agent of the Canadian Pacific Railway? These are some facts that more clearly reveal the real cause for my dismissal, and the source from which opposition to me really came, namely, the liquor traffic, exerted through its emissaries.

"It should be borne in mind that every sc.r.a.p of evidence against me, such as it is, has been trumped up, since my dismissal. Who before ever heard of a man being sentenced and executed and then the evidence of his guilt hunted up?

"W. W. SMITH.

"_Sutton, December 24th, 1894._"

The feelings which then animated the temperance public of Canada concerning the conduct of the Canadian Pacific Railway may be seen from the following article in the _Witness_ of December 28th:

"The meeting of representatives of the various provincial and Dominion temperance bodies, held yesterday afternoon in the Temple Building, was for the purpose of receiving reports from the executives of these grand bodies concerning the action of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, in dismissing Mr. Smith for his activity in temperance work.

"The Secretary presented a very large number of resolutions adopted by these various executives, expressing their condemnation of the Company, and endorsing heartily the action of the Alliance, in seeking to have the injustice removed. The resolutions were from British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, as well as from Maritime Provinces--from far off Victoria, B. C., to Halifax, N. S.

"The communications indicate that the whole temperance community is thoroughly aroused, and intensely interested in this matter.

The meeting adopted a strong resolution, which was referred to a committee of five, who were empowered to take such further action as they deem best to carry out the spirit of the resolutions presented to the meeting yesterday.

"The Secretary was instructed to inform Mr. Tait, a.s.sistant General Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that this committee would confer with him in regard to this matter, if we should so desire. The committee will await Mr. Tait's reply before publis.h.i.+ng the resolutions received or those adopted at yesterday's meeting."

CHAPTER VIII.

RESULTS OF THE ALLIANCE PROTEST.

In our last chapter was given a letter written by Mr. Carson on December 21st, and addressed to Mr. Tait. The reply to this was as follows:

"J. H. Carson, Esq., Secretary Quebec Provincial Branch of the Dominion Alliance, 162 St. James Street, Montreal:

"DEAR SIR,--I have acknowledged the receipt of your two communications of the 21st and 28th ult. As your letter of the 21st states that the Alliance does not allege that the reason for Mr. Smith's discharge by the Company was the nature of the principles held and advocated by him, and states that the sole objection of the Alliance to the action of the Company in this matter is the discharge of an employee from its service 'for his activity in advocating those principles,' I now desire to state briefly, and in such a way as I trust will prevent any possibility of being any longer misinterpreted, the views of the Company on that point.

"The Company does not object to its employees holding, practising and promoting temperance principles in such a manner as not to injuriously affect the Company's interests, but it does object seriously to any employee actively engaging in the advocacy and agitation of these or any other principles or views, no matter how respectable and proper in themselves, about which there is a well understood difference of opinion in the community, in such a manner as either to injuriously affect the Company's interests or to impair his usefulness as an employee, or to interfere with the proper performance of his duties to his employer, as to all of which it cannot be expected that any other than the Company should be the judge.

"There is a large portion of the population of this country who, rightly or wrongly, differ from and oppose the views which are promulgated and promoted by the Alliance, and which have been so vigorously and persistently advocated by Mr. Smith, the result being, as it was sure to be, that his usefulness as our agent was seriously impaired, owing to the Company having to bear to some extent the antagonism which logically perhaps ought to have been confined to him, though there was some ground for the public considering that the Company was taking a part in his advocacy, since in advertising public meetings to be addressed by himself, Mr. Smith described himself as 'W. W. Smith, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Temperance Lecturer.'