London Evening Advertiser
- CITY VOTES ON STREET RAILWAY, DECEMBER 6
- 5 RAIDS IN LUCAN; GODERICH HIT ALSO
- Brantford Man Attacks Spence
The London Evening Advertiser of 6 November 1926 led local readers with the end of a year-long council fight over London's street railway: the question had left the City Council's hands, and voters would decide on 6 December between a new franchise agreement and municipal ownership. From Lucan came a vivid crime report of two young bandits who blew two firms' safes early in the morning, held a proprietor at gunpoint, entered a hardware store, broke into two gasoline pumps and escaped with $160 and a full tank, while the headline added that Goderich was hit too. From Brantford, the paper reported that the local Conservative Association president attacked the prohibitionist Rev. Ben Spence at the convention that nominated Rev. W. G. Martin, weeks before Ontario's December 1926 'temperance election'.
This is a partial reading of three front-page items. The street railway excerpt begins mid-sentence, and the Lucan excerpt covers only the opening paragraph, so the Goderich raid named in the headline is not included. Creases and faded patches hide words in the Lucan continuation, a garrison parade item and the left column of one tile, and several stories are cut off at tile edges. The supplied OCR was badly garbled, so the excerpts were transcribed from the page images. The background pages consulted do not give the December 1926 street railway result or say whether the Lucan bandits were caught.
Translation
CITY VOTES ON STREET RAILWAY, DECEMBER 6
[?] after the culmination yesterday of their year's effort in solving London's contentious transportation problem. The whole question is now out of the hands of the City Council, and it remains for the voters to decide on Dec. 6 whether or not the railway shall be operated under a new franchise agreement or municipal ownership.
5 RAIDS IN LUCAN; GODERICH HIT ALSO
Lucan, Nov. 6. - Two youthful bandits made a raid on the village of Lucan at an early hour this morning, blew the safes of two business firms here, held up the proprietor of one at the point of a gun, entered a hardware store and broke into two gasoline supply pumps, and then decamped with $160 in cash and a tankful of gasoline for their car.
Brantford Man Attacks Spence
Brantford, Nov. 6. - An attack upon Rev. Ben Spence by President Frank Sterne of the Brantford Conservative Association, was one of the features of the convention last night, at which Rev. W. G. Martin of Pilgrim United Church was selected as candidate.
Context
Who owned London's street railway, and how long did private operation last?
The Advertiser presents the 6 December 1926 vote as a choice between renewing a private franchise and municipal ownership. The system in question belonged to the privately owned London Street Railway Company, incorporated in 1873 and running from 1875. By 1926 it was no longer a purely streetcar operation: the first gasoline bus had been put on the Quebec Street route in 1923, beginning a gradual shift that ended streetcar service in 1940. The London Public Library's history of the system records that the city acquired it from the London Street Railway only in 1950, for $1,000,000. Whatever ratepayers decided in December 1926, therefore, the company remained the operator for more than two decades afterwards. That history does not state the 1926 result itself, so the article's framing of a decisive choice should be read alongside that long delay.
Why the 1926 Ontario election was called the temperance election
The Brantford nomination took place in the run-up to the Ontario general election of 1 December 1926, a contest fought mainly over Premier Howard Ferguson's proposal to replace prohibition under the Ontario Temperance Act with government-run liquor sales. The dry side organized against him through the Ontario Prohibition Union, which worked to ensure that a single strong candidate pledged to the dry cause stood in each district and ran straight prohibitionist candidates in twenty-seven of them. Ferguson's Conservatives were nonetheless returned with 72 seats, and in 1927 the government introduced legislation creating the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. A Conservative convention that featured an attack on a leading prohibitionist therefore fits the polarized campaign in which the governing party faced a coordinated dry opposition.
Who Ben Spence was and why a Conservative official targeted him
Rev. Ben Spence was a leading organizer of Ontario's prohibition movement. In 1907 he succeeded his brother Francis Spence as secretary of the Ontario branch of the Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic, a largely Protestant prohibition lobby. In 1924 that Ontario branch was renamed the Ontario Prohibition Union, the body that in 1926 acted more like a political party, brokering dry candidacies across the province. The Advertiser's excerpt reports only that Frank Sterne, president of the Brantford Conservative Association, attacked Spence and that the attack was a highlight of the convention; it does not give the substance. Spence's long association with the organized dry movement explains why he was a natural target for a party running on repeal of prohibition.
What became of the Brantford candidate W. G. Martin
The clergyman nominated at the Brantford convention went on to win. William George Martin was elected for Brantford in December 1926 and is listed among the notable new members of the 17th Parliament of Ontario, where he is described as a Methodist Church minister; the Advertiser identifies him with Pilgrim United Church. His career continued well beyond the temperance election: he later served as Minister of Welfare and Minister of Public Works in the Henry ministry and afterwards sat as a member of the Manitoba legislature. The nomination reported in this short item thus launched a significant provincial career.
Original
CITY VOTES ON STREET RAILWAY, DECEMBER 6
[?] after the culmination yesterday of their year's effort in solving London's contentious transportation problem. The whole question is now out of the hands of the City Council, and it remains for the voters to decide on Dec. 6 whether or not the railway shall be operated under a new franchise agreement or municipal ownership.
5 RAIDS IN LUCAN; GODERICH HIT ALSO
Lucan, Nov. 6. - Two youthful bandits made a raid on the village of Lucan at an early hour this morning, blew the safes of two business firms here, held up the proprietro of one at the point of a gun, entered a hardware store and broke into two gasoline supply pumps, and then decamped with $ 160 in cash and a tankful of gasoline for their car.
Brantford Man Attacks Spence
Brantford, Nov. 6. - An attack upon Rev. Ben Spence by President Frank Sterne of the Brantford Conservative Association, was one of the features of the convention last night, at which Rev. W. G. Martin of Pilgrim United Church was selected as candidate.
Source: Holding institution