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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 Booze, Temperance and Soldiers on the Home Front: The Unravelling of the Image of the Ideal Soldier: 1915-1916 Wilson, Fay Wilson, F. (2016). Booze, Temperance and Soldiers on the Home Front: The Unravelling of the Image of the Ideal Soldier: 1915-1916 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25154 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3031 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Booze, Temperance and Soldiers on the Home Front: The Unraveling of the Image of the Idealized Soldier in Canada: 1915- 1916. by Fay M. Wilson A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA MAY, 2016 © Fay Wilson 2016 Abstract During the Great War, Canadians were swept up in the rhetoric of a Holy War. Leading theologians presented the First World War as the purifying agent that would cleanse Canada and the world from evil influences. All hope was put upon the citizen soldier, who became the embodiment of Christ in the ultimate fight between good and evil. In the collective psyche of Canadians, the soldier was cast as the mirror reflecting the moral character and aspirations of purity. The lived experiences of soldiers stationed in Calgary and Winnipeg are examined under the pressure of being publically scrutinized with respect to their patterns of alcohol use. Alcohol became the central issue that galvanized various groups in solidarity to move towards Prohibition as the ultimate war measure. However, these efforts directly affected military recruitment. This dichotomy served to alienate the soldier and the reality of his experiences from the home front. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. David Marshall for his unwavering support, wisdom, and encouragement while I researched and wrote this thesis. I would like to acknowledge the University of Calgary and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for providing the generous scholarships required to finish this work. I must also acknowledge and thank Dr. Joe Pavelka for the long nights of listening and the discussions that spanned several continents and many glasses of wine. I could not have achieved this without your support. Thank you to my daughters, Jillian, Genevieve and Moriah Tate, for your constant encouragement to finish and achieve my goals. I love you all beyond measure. And finally, Barry Tate, thank you, for being the first to believe I could, and allowing me to begin and finish. iii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my mother, Elsie Wilson, who always believed in me and knew what I was capable of, when others, including myself, did not. I love you Mom. Finally, I would like to dedicate this to the memory of my brother Neil Wilson (1966- 2014), who will be dearly missed forever. iv Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………….iii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………………….…................v Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………......1 1.1 Setting the Context………………………………………………………………………..5 Chapter One: An Overview of the Prohibition Movement in Canada……………………..….24 Chapter Two: Manitoba Must Clean Her Skirts!.…………………………………………..…34 Chapter Three: The Lived Experience of Soldiers in Training in Winnipeg..…………..…….47 3.1 The Soldiers’ Vote………………………………………………………………....…….62 Chapter Four: Come to Calgary. The Aquarium City, Full of Sharks! Boozorium Park!..........71 4.1 How many men do you know who let their religion interfere with their business? ….…81 4.2 Time to Crack Down…………………………………………………………………….89 4.3 Gallons of Trouble Can Come Out of a Pint Flask……………………………………...92 4.4 If Everyone Minded Their Own Business, What a Happier, Brighter World It Would Be………………………………………95 4.5 John Barleycorn is Down and Out……………………………………………………..109 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….….….112 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….…...122 v vi Introduction In 1916, Calgary was the centre of several cases of severe unrest amongst the soldiers in training. Within the span of eight months, there were four violent outbursts, resulting in the complete destruction of property of three restaurants suspected of being owned or employing enemy-aliens, and in the last case, the barracks of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP) were destroyed. There were several injuries and one man was shot. Whitney P. Lackenbauer analyzed the riots concluding, “Calgary, in both frequency and severity, was one of the main centres of discontent.” 1 The attack on the barracks was the culmination of several violent conflicts involving soldiers and alcohol in the city. In Winnipeg, increasing animosity between the soldiers and civilians culminated in a violent exchange with city police in early April of 1916. Jim Blanchard’s assessment concludes that the disturbances were largely a result of the lack of military management.2 Lackenbauer extends Blanchard’s conclusion, by arguing that the riots were a “product of miscommunication and military management.” 3 He also accurately identifies boredom, a nativist mentality, and predominantly, the lack of discipline on the part of military administration.4 However, he does not factor in the social reform movement’s targeting of the behaviour of the men, nor does he explain the reason for the lack of military discipline, although he does acknowledge that by October of 1916, the soldiers saw themselves as an easy and unfair target of the Temperance 1 P.Whitney Lackenbauer, “Under Siege: The CEF Attack on the RNWMP Barracks in Calgary, October 1916,” Alberta History 49.3 (2001): 2. 2 Jim Blanchard, "Winnipeg’s Great War: A City Comes of Age” (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2010), 196. 3 P.Whitney Lackenbauer, “Soldiers Behaving Badly: CEF Soldier ‘Rioting' in Canada During the First World War,” in Mantle, Craig (ed.), The Apathetic and the Defiant: Case Studies of Canadian Mutiny and Disobedience, 1812-1919 (Toronto: Dundurn Group: 2007), 195. 4 Ibid., 217. 1 forces. 5 This thesis differs from previous analyses by examining the days leading up to the instigation of prohibition that had an absolute effect on the public perception of the soldiers, and also by arguing that it was far more nuanced; the military authorities were well aware of what was happening, but their hands were effectively tied. They were not able to discipline their soldiers in an efficient manner without disobeying orders that had been established before the First World War. They had to choose between threatening recruitment numbers and losing able- bodied volunteers for an unreasonable protocol that no longer served the needs of the military in 1914. This protocol was born out of a middle-class desire to reform Canada according to British Protestant values, as will be shown. Alcohol was the target of social reformers and they succeeded in their social agenda by focusing on the soldiers’ behaviour. In early April of 1915, a group of social reformists publically called out the behaviour of the soldiers based in Calgary’s training camp. This created an unexpected backlash from the community, largely in support of the soldiers. An exploration of the explosive public discourse highlights a thinly veiled animosity between the soldiers and social reformists, despite sharing a mutual support of the war effort. In Winnipeg, the soldiers’ unrest was also a contentious issue that deserves examination based on the theory that Prohibitionists used the First World War to convince Canadians to declare their allegiance in simplistic terms that aligned alcohol with debauchery and ultimately with the German enemy. Under these black and white terms, patriotic citizens could show their support for a righteous war by supporting the Prohibition Act. This precipitated a collision of values with the reform-minded middle class focused on purity and the military’s focus on training the young men to be fighters. The soldiers were caught in the middle. The following pages examine the months leading up to complete prohibition, by noting how the interactions between 5 Lackenbauer, “Soldiers Behaving Badly,” 217. 2 soldiers and civilians contributed to the drive toward adopting the Prohibition Act, despite government and military efforts to downplay the soldiers’ conduct. As Western Canada’s largest training camp during the Great War, Winnipeg is examined as a broader example of what was happening across Canada. Calgary is analyzed as a microcosm of very similar events taking place in Winnipeg and across the nation. The experiences in Winnipeg parallel Calgary, and similar reports in Regina, Toronto, and Niagara-On-the- Lake, indicate these were common issues which raised the concerns of the same powerful group of people, that is, the White-Anglo-middle-class. The spring of 1915 to the fall of 1916 has been chosen to study as the critical time leading up to a nationwide adoption of prohibition and the subsequent

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