4
Joey Smallwood, father of three, celebrated broadcaster, writer of note, stood by the side of Kenmount Road, a ragged gravel route that ran along what was then the northern outskirts of St. John’s. Scanning the partly forested property in front of him, his eyes settled on the old frame house and a barn of more recent vintage that stood not far from the road. It was September 1939, and these forty acres, bought by Joey at the bargain price of three thousand dollars, were just what he needed to hatch his newest scheme — literally.
Joey’s two years of writing and broadcasting as The Barrelman had left him moderately well off. He’d bought a pleasant two-storey house on LeMarchant Road and tooled around the countryside in a second-hand car, looking for stories. Remembering his boyhood days, he always had a desire to get into farming. Clara was uncertain whether she wanted to give up the comforts of their in-town home, but as always, she went along with Joey. She put in a large garden and picked the plentiful crops of berries that grew on the hillside while the children romped through the fields. Soon, Joey had them carrying out small duties in his new venture, chicken farming.
By the end of the winter, Joey had a flock of 1,500 chickens and was selling eggs at the bargain price of a dollar a dozen. With the Second World War on, food prices were rising, and eggs imported from Canada were becoming expensive. One of his best customers was the Newfoundland Hotel, where he went every day to do his broadcasts from the radio station on its top floor. He might have kept on raising chickens indefinitely, but disaster struck his flock. The lack of a steady feed supply forced Joey to give his chickens whatever he could get his hands on. The hens promptly stopped laying. Desperate, he sold his flock, and despite his dislike for fresh pork, decided to try pig farming. He fed them swill, barrels of food remnants from the mess at the U.S. Air Force base at Fort Pepperrell, on the edge of St. John’s. That went well until the hogs came down with necrotic enteritis, wiping out most of his herd.
It is likely that Smallwood would have given up farming but for the arrival at Kenmount Road of Group Captain David Anderson of the Royal Air Force. He was in charge of Transport Command at Gander, where a huge air base was being built to serve the British, Canadian, and American air forces that were dispatching planes to Britain and patrolling the Atlantic to defend convoys from German submarines.[1] Anderson, a colorful character who had survived a plane crash and married a wealthy American woman, invited Joey to go to Gander and take over the operation of the base piggery. His proposition: a fifty-fifty share with the RAF Welfare Fund of the profits from a herd of perhaps a thousand pigs, all fed on the waste swill from the base. Joey found that Gander, once just a small bush community, had overnight become one of the liveliest towns in Newfoundland, filled with daredevil young men who were determined to have a good time before the fates of wartime flying caught up with them. He saw a profitable business opportunity. With money borrowed from his reliable backer, Ches Crosbie, he oversaw the construction of a new piggery and began to entertain a stream of prominent visitors who passed through Gander, now a sort of crossroads of the world.
The new venture meant the end of Joey’s days as The Barrelman. He turned over the broadcast over to a young writer, Michael Harrington, and threw himself completely into raising hogs. It was only at slaughter time that Joey didn’t like to be around the piggery. This led the workers there, including Joey’s brother Reg, to employ an artful diversion whenever they felt like taking a break to enjoy a shot of whisky, a practice Joey disapproved of during working hours. They’d get out their butchering knives and start sharpening them. Joey would soon disappear, and the boys would enjoy a half-hour break, partaking of liquid refreshment.
While Joey never ate fresh pork, he had no objection to processed pork, and this got him to thinking that instead of selling off surplus hog carcasses the base should be making its own hams, bacon, and chops. He turned again to books and read everything he could on the subject but decided he needed practical advice. Off Joey went to Guelph, Ontario, to learn everything he could from the former superintendent of Canada Packers, Tom Olsen. In a week, Olsen showed Joey how to set up a smoke house and turn out hams, bacon, sausages, and other pork products.
The piggery was making a profit, and Joey had spare time to indulge in other pursuits. He organized three separate unions, hosted debate nights among the workers, and started a consumers’ co-op. When the air forces pulled out at the end of the war, he saw to it that their facilities became civilian property; the RCAF library became the Gander Public Library. Joey also managed to get his hands on three thousand surplus army blankets, which he and a partner, Tony Mullowney, bought for three thousand dollars — again, with help from Ches Crosbie — and sold to the Bowaters lumber camps for twice the price. “Any time you want a bit of profitable trading done, call on me,” Joey would recall telling Crosbie.
Joey’s days in farming made him realize how much Newfoundland lacked in all that was needed to be more self-sufficient, especially when it came to food. Practically everything except fish had to be imported — an expensive and often unreliable practice. In December 1945, Joey hitched a ride on one of the few RAF Transport Command planes still flying between Gander and Montreal. From there he took a train to Toronto, where he met with people in the livestock feed trade, since he was thinking of opening a feed mill in Newfoundland. His business done, he took the overnight train back to Montreal, checked into the Ford Hotel on Dorchester Street (today Rene Lévesque Blvd.), picked up a newspaper, and went into the dining room for breakfast. He placed his order with the waitress and then opened his copy of the Montreal Gazette. What he was about to read would change his life.
Joey Smallwood was a few days from his forty-fifth birthday. After years of financial failure, journalistic adventures, and small successes, he’d at last become a man of property with the place on Kenmount Road and a half-share in what had been a profitable piggery in Gander, where he was now living full-time. But he was not wealthy by any means, and with his family growing up he had to make sure he could continue to support them and, as he earnestly wished, send his children to university. That was why he’d gone to Toronto to investigate feed mills: he knew business at the piggery would dry up once the last of the airmen left Gander.
Turning to the newspaper before him, Joey read what for him was earth-shaking news. SELF-RULE IS PLAN FOR NEWFOUNDLAND, the headline told him. The headline didn’t have it quite right, but after twenty years of unelected commission government, Newfoundland was to be given a chance to decide its democratic future. Britain’s new Labour government of Clement Atlee had announced that Newfoundlanders would be given the opportunity to elect members to the National Convention. Its task would be to study the country’s economic condition and recommend possible future forms of government. The choices would be put to the voters in a referendum; if there were more than two and no choice received a majority, a second referendum would decide between the two with the most votes.
Joey’s appetite suddenly deserted him. He raced through the story, then read it over again, more carefully. This was what he had wondered about for years. How was Newfoundland ever to regain self-rule? This decision put it in the hands of the people. All of Joey’s old dream of a life in politics, maybe even becoming the prime minister of Newfoundland, rose again in his mind. He was going to be in it, he told himself. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t keep him out of it. But what scheme would be the best for Newfoundland? What side would he come down on? Certainly not on the side of more commission government. He knew the perils of responsible government and the mess that irresponsible politicians had made of things in the past. And he remembered the words of an old friend, Gordon Bradley, one of the few Newfoundland politicians that Joey respected: “Mark my words,” he had told Joey on one of their many walks around Quidi Vidi Lake, “Confederation with Canada is our only hope, our only salvation!”
Joey spent the day wandering the streets of Montreal, thinking about what he should do. Late that afternoon, he decided to phone an old Newfoundland friend, Ewart Young, who ran a small monthly magazine, the Atlantic Guardian, from his Montreal apartment. Young invited him over, and when Joey arrived, proofs of the next issue lay about. The magazine was usually filled with articles like one Young had just edited, “Where the Cod is King,” telling readers that “from a single codfish the thrifty Newfoundland housewife can serve up a dozen different delicacies.” Joey helped Young put together a story he’d been asked to write for the next day’s Christian Science Monitor, published in Boston. “London’s decision to restore responsible government to Britain’s oldest colony has delighted most Newfoundlanders but finds them almost totally unprepared to meet its implications,” they wrote. Perhaps Joey was reflecting his own uncertainty. They talked until 3:00 a.m., by which time Young had given Joey a thorough indoctrination in the mysteries of Canada’s federal system, based on what he’d learned living in the country’s largest city. By the time Joey Smallwood left Young’s apartment, he was a convinced advocate of Confederation.
Joey slept until noon in his room at the Ford Hotel, when he awoke with a start. All that he had talked and thought about with Ewart Young tumbled through his mind. Dressing quickly, he hurried to the airport and was able to catch an RAF bomber that was returning to Gander that night. Clara and the children were asleep when he got home. He lay awake for a long time considering his next step. It was then he realized he needed to know more about Canada if he was to be an effective advocate — and a winning candidate — on the side of Confederation.
The next morning, after finishing a quick breakfast, Joey pushed aside a pile of papers and magazines on the table where he worked and put paper in his typewriter. He wrote ten letters, one to the prime minister of Canada and to each of the nine provincial premiers. He told them he had decided to offer himself as a candidate for election to the National Convention: “I wish to make a careful study of what effect would be had upon Newfoundland and her people if Newfoundland were to become a Province of Canada. Would you be kind enough to assist me in this study?” Joey asked to receive budget speeches, annual reports, or anything “that would throw light on the subject.”
While he waited to hear back, Joey worried about where he would get the money to finance his campaign. The rules laid down by London required that a candidate for the National Convention run in the place where they were “ordinarily resident.” That meant Joey would stand for the district of Bonavista Centre which included Gander. He had next to no money. The fifteen hundred dollars he had earned from the blanket caper — what was left after giving Ches Crosbie and his partner, Tom Mullowney, their cuts — had gone to pay off debts. What rescued him was Tom’s decision to give his share to Joey for the campaign. “Take it, Joey,” he said, “and get yourself elected.”
Joey Smallwood knew very well that his fellow Newfound-landers possessed little understanding of the democratic process. The only elections in Newfoundland in the past decade had been for the local council in St. John’s, where no one but property owners had voted. And most people, Joey also realized, knew almost nothing of Canada. He would have to educate them on both counts.
On March 1, 1946, Joey launched his scheme for Confederation — the most daring scheme of his life. He’d had answers to all his letters and he’d made a thorough study of the mountain of material he’d received. He decided to make use of all this information by writing a series of eleven articles in which he explained how the Canadian system of Confederation worked, and the benefits to be gained if Newfoundland were a part of it. He took the articles to John S. Currie, publisher of the Daily News, who agreed to run them as letters to the editor. A friend of Joey’s but also an anti-Confederate, Currie didn’t want it to look as if he were favouring that side. The letters established Joey as an authority on Canada, and he built on that reputation with speeches to various groups throughout his district. At first, he would speak for three to four hours, often using a blackboard to explain his points. Uncertain as how to best describe Confederation, he hit on the idea of relating it to the way individual lodges or fraternal societies — to which many Newfoundlanders belonged — were part of larger organizations. The lodges looked after their local affairs, and the larger organization acted on common, broader matters. In the same way, Joey explained, provinces ran their own affairs and the central government at Ottawa acted on national matters like defence, external relations, income tax, and so on.
All that spring, Joey canvassed his district, growing ever more confident he would be elected, despite the drunks and antagonists at his meetings. “Don’t vote for me,” he would tell his listeners, “unless you want to be represented by a man who will fight to get Canada’s terms and conditions of Confederation.” One day, as he alighted from a freight train that had brought him close to the coastal settlement of Glovertown, Joey noticed that sparks from the engine had started a grass fire. An hour later, as Joey canvassed door to door for support, the fire had grown to raging proportions and was threatening the village. He began to urge people to evacuate their homes and get down to the water’s edge. In the next few hours, most of the outport was wiped out, with more than seventy houses, shops and other buildings burned to the ground. Joey put some burned-out families aboard a boat he’d chartered and caught a train to St. John’s. There, he went on the air to appeal for funds to help the destitute settlement.
If Confederation was to receive a thumping endorsement in Bonavista Centre, Joey knew, it was essential that an opponent run against him! If he were elected by acclamation, that would be no victory for his Confederation scheme. He had heard that one other man, Kitchener Pritchett, intended to contest the election. Joey would later admit in his memoirs that as the election neared and no opposing candidate had come forward, “strenuous efforts” (the nature of which have never been explained) had to be exerted to ensure Pritchett’s nomination. On election day, June 21, Joey won his required landslide victory — 2,129 votes to 277 for Pritchett. Confederation, as Joey saw it, had been endorsed by 89 percent of the voters.
The National Convention was due to open in September and Joey knew it would be at work for months, if not years. He decided it was time to cash in on everything he’d worked for and sell his interest in the Gander piggery, as well as the farm on Kenmount Road. He came away from the piggery with six thousand dollars as his share, but it was what he got for the farm that eased all of his financial worries. St. John’s was growing and property was much in demand. In addition to the three thousand dollars Joey had paid for the forty acres back in 1939, he’d put in a thousand dollars on improvements and had spent two thousand dollars on a new bungalow — a total of six thousand dollars. He got one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, free and clear of taxes.
But before the Convention opened, Joey decided, he would go to Ottawa for a personal talk with Prime Minister Mackenzie King. He sent word he was coming, and when he got there he found appointments had been made for him with various departments of government, such as agriculture, public works, and fisheries. That was fine, but Joey wanted to see the top man. Learning that Mackenzie King was away, he began to hang around the parliament buildings in hopes of seeing the acting prime minister, Louis St. Laurent.
One day, as he loitered at the entrance to a small office used by the prime minister just behind the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons, Joey encountered Mr. King’s chief assistant, Jack Pickersgill. When Pickersgill heard the visitor’s name, he recog-nized it. Joey Smallwood, he knew, had been the only publicly declared supporter of Confederation elected to Newfoundland’s National Convention. He explained to Joey that Mr. St. Laurent would be in the House for a while, but that in the meantime, he would be glad to talk to him. After an hour’s discussion, Pickersgill would remember that he “required no convincing that Canada needed Newfoundland.” Joey spent fifteen minutes with Mr. St. Laurent and left with the feeling Canada would not deny Newfoundland a chance to enter Confederation. He remembered Mr. King’s cautious words back in 1943, when he’d been asked about it. “If the people of Newfoundland should ever decide that they wish to enter the Canadian federation,” King had said, “and should they make that decision clear beyond all possibility of misunderstanding, Canada would give most sympathetic consideration to the proposal.” It was as bold a come-on, Joey thought, as Canada would ever likely give. He’d have to make sure Ottawa would have no reason to say no.
[1] After the war, Gander would become the refuelling stop for pre-jet airliners crossing the Atlantic, continuing later as an important civilian airport. The town would provide refuge to some eight thousand passengers when U.S. flights were diverted there on September 11, 2001, following the attack on the World Trade Centre.