Mayor Howland: The Citizens’ Candidate by Desmond Morton (review)

HUMANITIES 409 rather too often. On a few occasions a Dutch idiom is literally translated into what is not really an English equivalent. Thus the phrase 'hear, hear!' (p 167) is misleading; in an examination Perk had to translate a 'passage' rather than a 'fragment' from the Iliad (p 48), and neither the phrase nor the concept of a 'copper wedding anniversary' (pp 20, 44) exists in English. Still, I am grateful to Professor Breugelmans for reminding me of a good Dutch custom and I now intend to celebrate my own in September . (H.B. DE GROOT) Desmond Morton, Mayor Howland: The Citizens' Candidate. Toronto: Hakkert 1973, viii, 120, illus., paper $1.95 Little has been written about the history of municipal politics in Canada. Historians have almost completely ignored the subject; even local histories usually contain only dreary lists of elected and appointed officials, with scanty information about how and why they got their positions, what they thought, and what they did. Professor Morton's short book is therefore a pioneer effort. It is also a first in making the intricacies of parish pump politics fascinating. Eminently readable, his book presents a lively and entertaining picture of Toronto's government during the city's burgeoning years. William H. Howland was elected mayor of Toronto on a moral reform platform in 1886 and was re-elected in 1887. He was perhaps typical ofhis time in his emphasis on the evils of liquor, his evangelical Christianity, his philanthropy, and his belief that personal morality can be legislated. Unlike other Toronto municipal politicians, he was neither an Orangeman nor a true blue Conservative - he supported Sir John A. Macdonald's government federally but the Liberal government of Sir Oliver Mowat provincially. During his two years as mayor there were scandals, strikes, and riots, with Howland contending against the old guard and waging his personal war against sin, as represented by the groggeries and brothels of the booming city. Despite all the rhetoric and bombast, not much was actually accomplished. In the 1888 election the reform candidate for mayor was defeated, as were two of Howland's most cherished reforms. Morton, himself an activist in municipal reform, describes the events of the Howland years with zest and anecdote. He has, however, weakened his book as serious historical research by restricting rigidly the period he covers to less than two-and-a-halfyears, and the sources he consulted, with few exceptions, to the five Toronto newspapers and the City Council minutes. It is impossible to evaluate the significance and importance of two years of government without knowing something about what preceded 410 LETTERS IN CANADA and what followed it. Even on the purely narrative levet the book often leaves the reader in limbo; having aroused his interest in the proposed trunk sewer (in itself no mean feat), Morton does not continue its story after Howland's term of office. In 1886 the reformers' slogan was 'the strings hang loose'; this book is full of loose strings. More important, however, is the lack of perspective that results from such a myopic approach to history. This weakness is accentuated by Morton's reliance upon contemporary newspapers. In the newspapers, particularly in the nineteenth century , the detailed narrative of events unfolds day by day, accompanied by rumour and innuendo (why did a Howland supporter call Mayor Manning's wife a Jezebel?), but there is little background of personality, ideas, prevailing conditions, and circumstance. Often a cast of cardboard characters act on a stage without scenery. Broader issues are lost in the pressure of the daily deadline. This immediacy gives Morton's book itsappeal , but at the same time limits its value as interpretative history. (EDITH G. FIRTH) George Woodcock, Gabriel Dumont: The Mitis ChiefandHis Lost World. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers 1975, 256, $8.95 There are not many firmly established facts about Gabriel Dumont's first -thirty -five years, but George Woodcock has examined the available rec- ords with care and constructed a convincing narrative of Dumont's boyhood , youth, and young manhood in the semi-nomadic Metis 'nation ' of the western prairies in the middle of the nineteenth century. Legends there are - of the Buffalo Bill variety...