United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS By R. J. Leighton “Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee; she is a fen Of stagnant waters;” A NY perusal of Canadian history cannot but reveal the fact that during two of its most dynamic periods, the eras of struggle for responsible government, and of confederation, the part played by the press and its representatives in both the political and social life of Canada, was outstanding. No little of both the political and social history of those days may be effectively summed up in the works and careers of their newspaper editors. Howe and Brown, Mackenzie and Hincks, to mention but the more prominent, are still symbols of fascinating interest. Their careers and personalities spell out much of what is really significant for us as students of those remote and shadowy ages, and their importance to the daily life of their contemporary readers, whom they delighted or antagonized, was greater still. When one glances at the daily press of the present generation, no such impression is gained. Very little of the leadership of the community on local, national, or international questions, comes from that once honored profession and institution. One does not live one’s life today, as did so many grand old Ontario-ans, under the guidance of the “Bible and the Globe.” The only Canadian spiritual descend¬ ed of those early “Knights of the pen,” the respected editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, despite his many contributions to the life of his times, makes a rather insignificant figure in comparison. And he is but one, whereas they were almost legion. This change in affairs journalistic cannot be accounted for, as some would have us believe, by saying that the press of today has become too partisan and hence ineffective. Our publications are not partisan—they are propagandist. Editors in these enlightened times are but shadows of their earlier prototypes. Those journalists of an earlier age really knew what wormwood and bitter aloes meant, and beside them the present crop seem purveyors of insipid fancy rather than the dispensers of satiric but terse truth. In spite of what some would call their partiality, or partisanship, or prejudice, those earlier journalists of Canada did somehow manage to tell the truth, and at the same time continue to be read and have their opin¬ ions sincerely considered and accounted something. They spoke continuously and fervently over a period of years in which great events were taking place; yet they managed consistently to say [21]

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world created by charity and crammed with erudition. As agronoms, she and her husband were sent back to Manitoba, where weed prob¬ lems similar to that on their collective farm had been studied for several years. As she sat up in the night, she thought over the privi¬ leges she had lost. The right to have her bundles carried. The right to be escorted home after dark. And the gain? The right not to be pampered. The right to work as she pleased without exciting wonder. REVERY (Translated from the French of Victor Hugo) By Margaret McCulloch O H leave me! ’Tis the hour when ’neath encircling mist Th’ horizon bows its heavy brows, temples smoke kiss’d; The hour when blushes red and sinks the giant star. The vasty yellowing wood alone gildeth the hill. It seems these days, as autumn lingereth still, That forest leaves with wind and rain now rusted are. Oh who will bring to birth, will sudden cause to gleam Yonder—while I alone by my window dream, And while at the end of the passage the shadow unfold— Some dazzling Moorish city radiant bright, Which, e’en as a full sheaf of arrows loos’d in flight, Will rend this curtain fog with spear-like spires of gold. O genii, send that city t’inspire and set aflame My songs dull-dyed like autumn skies with brown- hued stain! Oh may its magic beauty be reflected in my eye And may its long, soft crooning a muffled melody Deep scarfed in mist, and thousand towered, with palaces faery, Be etched in lacy pattern ’gainst the violet of the sky. 120]

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WHEN YOU CALL TO SEE YOUR GIRL AND YOU FIND SOME CHAP HAS BEAT YOU TO IT - . .