Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics | Page 3

efforts. Sir John Thompson, in his reply to Blake,
revealed himself to parliament and the country as one worthy of
crossing swords with the great Liberal tribune. But they and all the
other "big guns" of the Commons were thrown into complete eclipse by
Laurier's performance. It is easy to recall after the lapse of thirty-six
years the extraordinary impression which that speech made upon the
great audience which heard it--a crowded House of Commons and the
public galleries packed to the roof.
In the early winter of 1886-7 Laurier went boldly into Ontario where,
addressing great audiences in Toronto, London and other points, he
defended his position and preferred his indictment against the
government. This was Laurier's first introduction to Ontario, under
circumstances which, while actually threatening, were in reality

auspicious. It was at once an exhibition of moral and physical courage
and a manifestation of Laurier's remarkable qualities as a public
speaker. Within a few months Laurier passed from the comparative
obscurity to which he had condemned himself by his apparent
indifference to politics to a position in public life where he divided
public attention and interest with Edward Blake and Sir John
Macdonald. When a few months later Blake, in a rare fit of the sulks,
retired to his tent, refusing to play any longer with people who did not
appreciate his abilities, Laurier succeeded to the leadership--apparently
upon the nomination of Blake, actually at the imperious call of those
inescapable forces and interests which men call Destiny.
LEADERSHIP AND THE ROAD TO IT.
Laurier, then in his 46th year, became leader of the Liberal party in
June, 1887. It was supposedly a tentative experimental choice; but the
leadership thus begun ended only with his death in February, 1919,
nearly thirty-two years later. Laurier was a French Canadian of the
ninth generation. His first Canadian ancestor, Augustin Hebert, was one
of the little band of soldier colonists who, under the leadership of
Maisonneuve founded Montreal in 1641. Hebert's granddaughter
married a soldier of the regiment Carignan-Salieres, Francois Cotineau
dit Champlaurier. The Heberts were from Normandy, Cotineau from
Savoy. From this merging of northern and southern French strains the
Canadian family of Laurier resulted; this name was first assumed by
the grandson of the soldier ancestor. The record of the first thirty years
of Wilfrid Laurier's life was indistinguishable from that of scores of
other French-Canadian professional men. Born in the country (St. Lin,
Nov. 20, 1841) of parents in moderate circumstances; educated at one
of the numerous little country colleges; a student at law in Montreal; a
young and struggling lawyer, interested in politics and addicted upon
occasion to political journalism.--French-Canadians by the hundreds
have travelled that road. A fortunate combination of circumstances took
him out of the struggle for a place at the Montreal bar and gave him a
practice in the country combined with the editorship of a Liberal
weekly, a position which made him at once a figure of some local
prominence. Laurier's personal charm and obvious capacity for politics
marked him at once for local leadership. At the age of 30 he was sent to
the Quebec legislature as representative of the constituency of

Drummond and Arthabaska; and three years later he went to Ottawa.
The rapid retirement of the Rouge leaders, Dorion and Fournier to the
bench and Letellier to the lieutenant-governorship of Quebec, opened
the way for early promotion, and in 1877 he entered the cabinet of Alex.
Mackenzie and assumed at the same time the leadership of the French
Liberals. Defeated in Drummond-Arthabaska upon seeking re-election
he was taken to its heart by Quebec East and continued to represent that
constituency for an unbroken period of forty years. He went out of
office with Mackenzie in 1878, and thereafter his career which had
begun so promisingly dwindled almost to extinction until the events
already noted called him back to the lists and opened for him the doors
of opportunity.
When Wilfrid Laurier went to Montreal in 1861 he began the study of
law in the office of Rodolphe Laflamme, a leading figure in the Rouge
political group; and he joined L'Institut Canadien already far advanced
in the struggle with the church which was later to result in open warfare.
Those two acts revealed his political affiliations and fixed the
environment in which he was to move during the plastic twenties. Ten
years had passed since a group of ardent young men, infected with the
principles and enthusiasm of 1848, of which Papineau returning from
exile in Paris was the apostle, had stormed the constituencies of Lower
Canada and had appeared in the parliament of Canada as a radical,
free-thinking, ultra-Democratic party, bearing proudly the badge of
"Rouge"; and the passage of time was beginning to temper their views
with a tinge of