Alberta History 1931-1936

What can I do in Jasper Alberta?

Jasper Alberta's Historic View

1931

Edmonton's population is 79,197 of which 14,573 are on welfare. Calgary's population at this time is 83,761.

The depression had firmly griped the prairies but drought was even more devastating. Some areas lost all their top soil. One farmer Dan Christmas said: "Thrash? Me thrash? Hell, man even a jack rabbit wouldn't dare start across my farm without packing a lunch." Another said: "Its been so dry, we're afraid to touch the land. If we stir it up, it will drift with the least wind."

Prime Minister, Richard Bedford Vincount Bennett (1870-1947) lectured the Board of Trade on the "morose and solemn way some men walk the streets of Calgary."

June 1: The population of the west is: Alberta 731,605, B.C. 694,263, Manitoba 700,139, Saskatchewan 921,785, N.W.T. 9,316, Yukon 4,230.



1932

This year was a good crop year for the farmers but the price was only 17¢ a bushel.

General Andy McNaughton persuaded the R.B. Bennett Government to institute work camps to employ the young men at twenty-five cents per day. These camps would become known as Canadian Slave Camps. Others suggest 20,000 men were in these camps, under military discipline, and only received 20¢ per day. Bennett told the farmers to have courage and tighten their belts. The farmers took his advice and called it the 'Bennett breakfast'. Some men learned to pan gold and took from fifty cents to two dollars a day out of the gravel of the Saskatchewan River. They built shelters, cutting caves into the banks of the river.

It is estimated that seventy to one hundred thousand men are riding the rails this year in search of work. The Federal Government ordered the practice to be stopped this summer even though the railways are not complaining; in fact they are assisting the marchers. Four thousand people are in prison, many are political prisoners and being subjected to physical torture as a means of discipline and brutal revenge. Major General D.M. Ormond is the infamous Superintendent of Penitentiaries at this time.

Many farmers in Saskatchewan burned wheat in their stoves, as it is cheaper than regular fuel. The United Farmers of Alberta are considering joining the new CCF (Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation) movement that is looking for a new social order where domination and exploitation of one class by another would be eliminated. R. B. Bennett would request that every man and woman put the iron heel of ruthlessness against the CCF movement and other socialistic thinking. He felt confident in his stance because the Roman Church is a strong opponent of the CCF. The Church held that socialism is a subversive political theory and therefore dangerous to the Church. The Church would save Quebec from this subversion but not the rest of the country. Sweden would embark on a very successful Socialist trail for the next sixty years with social justice, full employment and capital development. Yet the Church would sermonize about those evil lost souls.

December 20: In Edmonton, thirteen thousand hunger marchers assemble at the Market Square. The men said that if there is to be violence, let the police be the ones to start it and they did.

1933

One million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand, two hundred and sixty two Canadians are on some form of relief. Seven jobless men went to jail in Edmonton for taking part in a hunger strike.

Malcalm Groat married Fort Edmonton Marguerite Christe (b-1851) a Metis daughter William J. Christie b-1825, and Mary Anal.

This year the grasshoppers ate up to $30 million worth of wheat in the west.

A Garneau recollection of the times is expressed by their friend, Tom Walter's, who said the new married couple had two chairs and a mirror to watch themselves slowly starve to death. This was a standing joke during this period of the Great Depression.

The Nazi Government is being formed in Germany and at the other end of the scale the Banff School of Fine Arts started this year.

The Alberta Metis Association had 1,200 members in 41 locals.



1934

Pioneering Socialist Tommy Douglas wrote: "Those least fitted to propagate have done so and have filled our jails and mental hospitals at an alarming rate". Tommy Douglas held a supporting view of compulsory sexual sterilization. He was not alone. Alexander Graham Bell, physician Sir William Osler and Judge Emily Murphy also supported this infamous violation of basic human rights. It is noteworthy that Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Louise McKinney, three-fifths of the so-called 'Famous Five' who pioneered the women's movement in Canada, supported compulsory sexual sterilization. The infamous Judge Murphy wrote that Canada needs human thoroughbreds but is burdened with lunatics. The United Farm Women of Alberta declared themselves in support of compulsory sterilization and said that democracy was never intended for degenerates.

This is the year of the first of two severe droughts on the prairies. It started with an unnatural winter with no snow, and sharp cold, followed by extreme heat in the spring and summer that set the stage for catastrophe. Some farmers had suffered 3 consecutive crop failures. A grasshopper plague invaded one thousand, six hundred square miles. The stories of their numbers are awesome and by mid May the black blizzard extended from Drumheller to Medicine Hat. The unceasing winds this year swept away the topsoil. Then, on July 12, one hail storm extending from Carstairs to Stettler pounded all that remained into mush. Thousands of turkeys, chickens, waterfowl and rabbits are battered to death. The old timers said that the real dirty thirties had begun for this area. In the southern half of the prairies, forty thousand families and a half million head of livestock struggled for survival. The summer agricultural fairs had to be abandoned; there is nothing to exhibit. Before the end of the depression a half million farmers would leave the most severely affected areas.

Richard Gavin Reid, United Farmers of Alberta, is elected Premier of Alberta 1934-1935.







1935

Alberta elected Social Credit to represent their province for the next thirty-six years, so deep ran the hatred of the Federal Government, the Police, Banks and Big Business. Even to this day the English-Ontario's philosophy is considered a blight on the rest of Canada. 'Bible Bill' (William Aberhart) became Premier 1935 to 1943 and tried to become a Socialist Dictator. He was considered a tyrant and most of his legislation including restricting freedom of the press is struck down by the courts.

The bored and disgusted inmates of Bennetts work camps walked out in their hundreds. By late spring nearly 1,000 broke camp in British Columbia and began marching East.

June 7: Upon reaching Calgary they were 1,300 strong and growing. They wanted Ottawa to remove the Army from the camps and pay the inmates 50¢ an hour. Bennett ordered the Mounted Police to stop the protest marchers in Regina as their numbers grew to 2,000 men. The Calgary Herald said "There must be no submission to unreasonable demands made by an organized mob" "Otherwise mob rule would soon become an established menace to peace in this country". These ordinary young men wanted a job, a partner, a home, a future. The infamous R.B. Bennett of Calgary said the On-to-Ottawa trek is a sinister plot. The R.C.M.P. considered this a Communist plot to bring down the Government. Their leader was Jack Cosgrove a WWI soldier who led the Go-to-Ottawa March. About 2,000 Calgary people saw them off, offering them moral support and money for their just and peaceful protest.

July 1: In Regina, a Police induced riot left one trekker and one policeman dead and several dozen police and civilians injured. Trekkers from British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, from those 'Bennett Slave Camps' as they are called, are marching to Ottawa to present their grievances. They had the support of most of the peoples on the prairies including the Canadian Pacific Railway. R. Bennett, in Ottawa, ordered the men stopped on grounds that it is a Communist plot to overthrow the Government. He is convinced in his distorted mind that a revolution is in the making. There are about two thousand trekkers in Regina this year and Emmett Hall, a future Justice of the Supreme Court, would state this was a police (RCMP) provoked encounter and that it was ordered by Ottawa (Bennett). This action spelled the end of the Bennett Conservatives as the voters would go to the polls on October 14 and the Liberals and MacKenzie King would sweep into power on an anti Bennett vote. Bennett immediately disbanded the 'Slave Camps' but it was too little too late. History records the Federal Government suppressed freedom by ordering forces to quell what was a peaceful movement. The R.C.M.P. were absolved of the guilt of murdering a trekker but research suggests there was a cover-up and whitewashing of their guilt. There is no question that Police violence was unnecessary.

August 22: William (Bible Bill) Aberhart, (1878-1943), a Social Credit is elected Premier of Alberta (1935-1943) capturing 56 of 63 ridings. 'Bible Bill' Aberhart, Presbyterian, creator of the Prophetic Bible Institute, an extreme fundamentalist movement, had attacked the United Farmers of Alberta as "Rats, sons of Satan, liars, money-changers and fornicators!." He however was never able to fulfill his election promises although he ruled Alberta for 36 years.



1936

Most city folks believed the farmers were better off because they could raise their own food. (III)-Mathias Salzl, of Edmonton, having worked both sides, would say, "That may be true, but if you return in the spring you will find a fat, naked farmer." There is poverty in the midst of plenty. Bennett buggies, automobiles being pulled by horses, are a common sight as there is no money for gasoline. Farmers are unable to pay their gasoline bills to harvest their crops. The major oil companies would write this debt off but many farmers would finally pay their 1930's bills, that are yellow with age, in the 1950's and 1960's. One million, three hundred thousand are still on relief and this would increase by eight percent by year-end.

Jasper Alberta's History