1.0Unbreakable: The Spirit of the Strikehttps://1919strike.lib.umanitoba.carich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="On0WMfP4qB"><a href="https://1919strike.lib.umanitoba.ca/index.php/who-government-politicians/">Government & Politicians</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://1919strike.lib.umanitoba.ca/index.php/who-government-politicians/embed/#?secret=On0WMfP4qB" width="600" height="338" title="“Government & Politicians” — Unbreakable: The Spirit of the Strike" data-secret="On0WMfP4qB" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(c,d){"use strict";var e=!1,o=!1;if(d.querySelector)if(c.addEventListener)e=!0;if(c.wp=c.wp||{},c.wp.receiveEmbedMessage);else if(c.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if(!t);else if(!(t.secret||t.message||t.value));else if(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret));else{for(var r,s,a,i=d.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),n=d.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),l=0;l<n.length;l++)n[l].style.display="none";for(l=0;l<i.length;l++)if(r=i[l],e.source!==r.contentWindow);else{if(r.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message){if(1e3<(s=parseInt(t.value,10)))s=1e3;else if(~~s<200)s=200;r.height=s}if("link"===t.message)if(s=d.createElement("a"),a=d.createElement("a"),s.href=r.getAttribute("src"),a.href=t.value,!o.test(a.protocol));else if(a.host===s.host)if(d.activeElement===r)c.top.location.href=t.value}}},e)c.addEventListener("message",c.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),d.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",t,!1),c.addEventListener("load",t,!1);function t(){if(o);else{o=!0;for(var e,t,r,s=-1!==navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE 10"),a=!!navigator.userAgent.match(/Trident.*rv:11\./),i=d.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),n=0;n<i.length;n++){if(!(r=(t=i[n]).getAttribute("data-secret")))r=Math.random().toString(36).substr(2,10),t.src+="#?secret="+r,t.setAttribute("data-secret",r);if(s||a)(e=t.cloneNode(!0)).removeAttribute("security"),t.parentNode.replaceChild(e,t);t.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:r},"*")}}}}(window,document); </script> Civic Government During the General Strike, Winnipeg’s municipal government was divided. City Councilors were at odds with one another, some for and some against the strike; most City employees had walked off the job; and City departments were just trying stay operational with the few employees who remained. Original City of Winnipeg crest. COWA. City Council was an ideological battleground at this time, as it had been during the 1918 civic employees strike. Two Aldermen, A.A. Heaps and John Queen, were strike leaders arrested on June 17, one, E. Robinson, was Secretary of the Trades and Labour Council that organized the strike, and two others, W.B. Simpson and J.L. Wiginton, generally voted on the side of labour. On the other side, Aldermen such as J.K. Sparling and F.O. Fowler had ties to the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand and, along with seven other anti-strike Aldermen, generally outvoted the five who were pro-strike. While he initially tried to bring both the strikers and the Citizens’ Committee to the table for negotiations, Mayor Charles Gray became less sympathetic to the strikers as time went on. Gray was not necessarily enamoured with everything the Citizens’ Committee did, but both he and some of the anti-strike Aldermen consorted with them on a number of occasions and provided testimony during the trials of the strike leaders. City departments were primarily concerned with returning to business as usual. Department managers had less staff than was required to perform their duties and struggled with keeping City services running. While not all departments lost a significant number of employees – some lost none – others were forced to rely on volunteers and extra work from those employees who remained. The volunteers were acquired through various means. In some cases, volunteers were organized by the Citizens’ Committee. On June 4, when bakery and creamery workers were called out on strike, the City took it upon itself to fill the gap. A Special Food Committee was organized to oversee the distribution of milk, ice, and food to schools around the city where people who had lost their usual delivery services could purchase what they needed. When the strike ended, volunteers and those who didn’t go on strike were often rewarded or requested compensation themselves for services rendered. In some cases, new employees were hired to fill the positions of those who went on strike. Both new employees and those who didn’t go on strike were forced to sign what was called the Slave Pact, a pledge of loyalty to the City that forbade City employees from engaging in sympathetic strikes or being part of larger scale unions. This pact remained in effect until 1930. After the strike ended, most City employees attempted to return to their positions, but many were not welcomed back or found their positions had been filled. Some moved on, while others fought to reacquire their jobs, often appealing to City Council, Council Committees, or the Mayor’s Office. Older employees in particular were affected by this, as it was no simple task for them to start their lives over. Even those that were taken back had to deal with an uncertain future as, in terms of their pensions, they were considered new employees. This was remedied in 1922 when an amendment to the pension by-law gave those who went on strike credit for their service prior to the strike. Advertisement for milk depot. COWA. Special Food Committee (A1249, file 9) F.O. Fowler (1861-1945) Frank Oliver Fowler was born on December 14, 1861, in Wingham, Ontario, where he worked in a saw mill until moving to Brandon in 1881 to farm. Prior to moving to Winnipeg in 1902, Fowler had a successful political career: he was a Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Oakland from 1892 to 1894, and was elected to the Provincial Legislature as a Liberal in 1899. After coming to Winnipeg, he worked as the Secretary-Treasurer of the North West Grain Dealers’ Association and managed the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Clearing Association. Fowler was elected to City Council in 1908, representing the fairly wealthy Ward 2. As a member of the Manitoba Club, a founding member of the St. Charles Country Club, and a member of other associations of Winnipeg’s economic elite, Fowler used his position as Alderman to support the interests of business and limit the powers of collective bargaining. During the 1918 civic employees strike, Fowler convinced a slim majority of Council to amend a tentative agreement with the strikers that forbade them from taking any strike action in the future. The “Fowler Amendment” enraged the strikers, leading to further walkouts. The amendment was repealed as part of the strike settlement. Fowler was decidedly against the General Strike and conferred with the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand on more than one occasion, often siding with their viewpoints. On May 26, he seconded a motion that required firemen to sign the Slave Pact. On June 9, Fowler put forward a motion that extended the Slave Pact to all Civic employees. After the strike had ended, Fowler continued on as Alderman for Ward 2 and became Mayor by acclamation for a short time in 1922 after the death of Mayor Parnell. Fowler passed away on February 18, 1945, and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery.  Charles Frederick Gray (1879-1954) Charles Frederick Gray was born in London, England in 1879. In 1894, Gray left his home to apprentice as a midshipman and, in 1897 he came to Canada, settling in Nelson, British Columbia, where he worked as a smelter and studied electrical engineering. He began working at various engineering firms that took him all over North American and Britain, eventually bringing him to Winnipeg in 1911 to work on a project in Point du Bois, Manitoba. Gray stayed in Winnipeg to open his own consulting firm and became involved in civic politics, being elected to the Board of Control in 1917 and 1918. During the Winnipeg civic employees strike in 1918, Gray’s stance towards the strikers vacillated. He initially worked with the strikers towards a negotiated settlement, but when the settlement was presented in Council, he voted in favour of an amendment proposed by Alderman F.O. Fowler that forbade civic employees from striking in the future, calling Fowler’s speech “the strongest speech I have heard in this council, bar none”, and that he believed “firemen should not strike, nor the police – they should not have the power” (Johnson 1978, 117).  Gray similarly vacillated in his response towards the 1919 strike. On the one hand, though he was never in favour of the strike, he attempted on multiple occasions to negotiate a settlement between the City, the strikers, the Iron Masters, and the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand. On the other hand, he publicly critiqued the strike as undermining the City’s – and his – constituted authority.The Citizens’ Committee was involved in undermining his authority as well, however. Gray was initially asked to join the Citizens’ Committee, but declined, stating that he was supposed to represent all of Winnipeg (Kramer and Mitchell 2010, 269). As a result, the Citizens frequently went behind his back and over his head to achieve their goals. When Acting Federal Minister of Justice Arthur Meighen and Minister of Labor Gideon Robertson arrived in Winnipeg to assess the strike, they met with the Citizens immediately, but only met with Gray two days later; as well, Gray wasn’t invited to the meeting on June 16, at which the Citizens, the Province, the Federal Government, and even Gray’s Acting Chief of Police discussed which of the strike leaders should be arrested.  But it was the loss of his authority on the streets that Gray really bristled against. When the police arrested a Dominion operative, Gray rushed to try to stop the arrest, but was hounded by a group of strikers who either assaulted the Mayor or attempted to protect the police from him, depending on which paper reported it. He issued proclamations against public assemblies on three separate occasions and each time was ignored. On June 20, Gray explicitly forbade a parade that pro-strike returned soldiers had planned for the following day – Bloody Saturday. In what could be construed as a threat of violence, Gray admonished that “any women taking part in the parade do so at their own risk” (Manitoba Free Press, June 21, 1919, page 1). Last minute negotiations took place the next morning, but there was no resolution, and the parade began in spite of Gray’s orders. As the crowd began to overturn a streetcar operated by strikebreakers, Gray read the Riot Act, after which shots were fired by the Royal Northwest Mounted Police as they charged the crowd. Gray rushed to the Osborne Barracks to call for militia support from General Ketchen. Trucks with mounted Lewis Machine Guns arrived on the scene and the crowd dispersed. In the following City Council meeting on June 23, pro-labour Aldermen E. Robinson and W.B. Simpson questioned Gray about the events on Bloody Saturday and his part in them. Mayor Charles Gray speaking at Victoria Park during the Strike. Charles F. Gray Family fonds (2017.85_03.01_029). UCASC. After the strike had ended and the preliminary hearing of the arrested strike leaders began, Gray testified that City employees had, in his view, violated their contracts by walking out, and testified against Aldermen Heaps and Queen, claiming that they had done everything in their power as Aldermen to disrupt City services. Gray was reelected mayor for another term, after which he returned to his consulting firm. He founded the Cutty Sark Club and the On-To-The-Bay Club, and was credited with developing the rail line to the Hudson’s Bay. In 1941, Gray and his family moved to Ashland, British Columbia. He died in Victoria on June 27, 1954. John Kerr Sparling (1872-1941) J.K. Sparling was born in Montreal in 1872 to Methodist Minister J.W. Sparling, who moved to Winnipeg with his family in 1888. In 1898, the younger Sparling went to the Yukon and practiced law during the Klondike Gold Rush. Returning to Winnipeg in 1906, Sparling started a law firm with his brother before becoming an Alderman for Ward 1 in 1917. Ward 1 was a particularly wealthy ward south of the Assiniboine River, and as such, Sparling was primarily representing Winnipeg’s Anglo-Saxon business elite, of which he himself was a member. In 1918, he prevented a German born chauffeur from obtaining his license due to remarks the latter had made about American involvement in the First World War. That same year, he voted in favour of Alderman Fowler’s amendment to Council’s settlement with striking civic employees that removed their right to strike. Sparling played a significant role during the General Strike. He had a close relationship with the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand, conferred with them often, and brought their motions before Council. Sparling put forward a motion on May 26 that required firefighters to sign the Slave Pact and on June 9 put forward a motion urging employers to go back to business as usual. Sparling’s most important role, however, was that of Chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners. On May 29, Sparling gave the police an ultimatum: sign the Slave Pact or be dismissed. While some did end up signing the pact, more than 200 refused and were dismissed on June 9, replaced by Special Police. Sparling was questioned as part of the preliminary hearings of the strike leaders who were arrested on June 17. More specifically, he was questioned about the role of the Special Police and about whether or not it was the Police Commission, rather than the police, who broke their contract by insisting the Slave Pact be signed. In response, he admitted that the ultimatum was issued to prevent sympathetic strikes. After the strike, Sparling ran for mayor in 1922, but was defeated by pro-labour candidate Seymour Farmer. Though his political career ended, he remained active in public life, serving on the University of Manitoba Senate, as well as the Board of...http://1919strike.lib.umanitoba.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WpgCrest.png