United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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JAMES H. ASHDOWN, Progressive Was bom in London, England, March 31st, 1844. His parents came to Canada West and settled on a farm in Etobicoke township. Later a store started in Weston failed and then at 14 years of age he went with his parents to a farm in Brant County. At Hespeler in the store of John Zryd he received his first introduction to the hardware busi¬ ness. In looking for a place which promised large developments he went first to Chicago and then to Kansas. Then he turned his attention to Red River where he arrived June 30th, 1868. After a few months investigation he purchased a hardware business in the autumn of 1869. The territory was then passing from the fur trader to the set¬ tler and private business. He saw that connection with Canada promised for Rupert’s Land development and British sovereignty. Though his support of the Canadian party caused a long imprison¬ ment under Riel in 1869-70 yet his judgment was vindicated when the ter¬ ritory finally became Canadian in May- July, 1870. He looked upon the locality as the site of the future metropolis of the West. A steady increase had brought the population in November. 1872, to 1467 persons. Police protection, city surveys, fire protection and water supply, except that obtained in barrels drawn on carts from the river, were lacking. Fort Garry, Main Street, Point Douglas and St. Johns were contending for the centre of the new urban development. Mr. Ashdown insisted that Main Street (Winnipeg) be the centre and that the incorporation be that of a city. As chairman of the committee to secure this corporation he refused the status of a village and of a town. In February, 1873, the storm broke, the speaker of the Legislature was mobbed and the bill was dead. After another attempt in 1874 incorporation as a city was secured. In 1874 the main line of the C.P.R. was projected about 20 miles north of the city. A branch line joining the C.P.R. with the Northern Pacific was planned east of the Red River. Winnipeg would not be served by even the branch line for there was no bridge. Citizens visualized the building of another city and the abandonment of much of the development of the last decade. In conjunction with others, Mr. Ashdown undertook successfully the bringing into the city of the first railway from Canada. The coming of the railway did not bring all the benefits expected. A clause in the Charter of the C.P.R. consolidated the monopoly and a clan¬ destine arrangement with the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway fastened an unbearable freight tariff on all Western Canada. The struggle began in 1883. When it was at its height in 1887 and 1888 Mr. Ashdown was chairman of the Winnipeg Board of Trade and forwarded a scathing protest to the shareholders of the C.P.R. The government of the Dominion of Canada disallowed the Acts of the Provincial Legislature providing for railways to ensure competition and lower rates. He stood with others con¬ tending that Manitoba was made to pay, by high freight rates, the loss of the C.P.R. on through freight carried in competition with United States Railways, and, “that no emigrant will locate himself, if he can help it, (Continued on page 31) [24j

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things that were, and still are, considered significant. Can any in Canada today match such a record as that, or does the future seem likely to serve us better in this connection? Partisanship will not suffice to explain the present innocuous position of the press. Neither can we ascribe the disparity noticed to the invasion of the advertiser into the realm of journalism. The writer had the opportunity of viewing an old copy of the Globe recently, and the ratio of advertising to other printed material in it was quite equal to that present in the modern dailies. The advertising has changed in form, it is true, and the present advertiser is doubtless quick to demand that due respect be paid his interests; but these earlier advertisers were also problems for editors. The advertising was there, and advertisers are a group whose characteristics are innate and similar—be they of the age of Solomon, Edward III, or George VI, the advertiser constitutes a serious challenge to editorial author¬ ity in any generation. But whereas men such as Brown, Howe and Co., were able to overcome or disregard this policy-pointing group, their descendants in the journalistic line are apparently incapable of so doing. The difference in part would seem to be with the journalists themselves. There is a failure of spirit among modern newspaper¬ men not evidenced by their predecessors. Today’s crop is in more senses than one, one of “lesser men.” And when the added mechan¬ ical advantages of the last six decades are considered, the outlook is gloomy indeed. But to describe the lost influence of the press solely in terms of the moral fibre and character of the journalists and to designate this alone as the cause of that lost prestige is, of course, ridiculous. That is not to minimize the importance of character, as revealed in the men of the press, as a factor in the present marked decline of that institution’s influence. But to look at the matter fairly, it becomes necessary to confess that the modern reader is a much poorer speci¬ men than his counterpart of the past. It is necessary to admit that to a large degree the newspaper mu st print what its readers will pay to have printed. The modern reader rarely possesses the interest in important things required to force journalists to provide such reading material. Too seldom do the readers of today get beyond the sport page and funnies, or the society column and the front page scandal sheet. When they do turn to the places which purport to deal with the serious in life, little of real value is to be found. A vicious circle has been uncovered by asking these impertinent questions in regard to modem journalism. It is a “sign of our times,” as Carlyle would have said. Democracy in this instance has evi- [23]

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denced but another realm in which its disintegrating influence is apparent. The fact that the American brand of democracy has given a greater scope to the journalist, also means that the quality of the readers, taken as a whole, has deteriorated. Greater numbers have been given the advantage of a newspaper, and as a result of this a cheaper newspaper has been created. Since democracy admits equality in each individual’s right to determine policy and content, one person’s dollar being quite as good as the next’s, policy and con¬ tent have suffered. Instead of the increased circulation of the modern newspaper providing increasing opportunities and means for a quality product, the reverse is true. It is the accepted and easy role for the student, to assume an attitude of contempt for the efforts of the world at large. The aca¬ demic easily condemns the “lesser breeds without the law,” but with what justification? When one turns the critical faculties upon academic journals, a startling realization of their own inadequacy on the same counts is manifest. These “select” publications have followed the same trend. Student journals are quite as poor in con¬ tent as those of the outside world, student journalists quite as char¬ acterless, and student readers quite as docile and inane. These pub¬ lications, bred in the atmosphere of “sweet reasonableness” are not “the intelligent man’s guide to” journalism. They do not set a standard to which the press of the real world may look for inspira¬ tion. The intelligentsia of Canada is utterly unworthy, in this re¬ gard, of the “high calling to which it is called.” The tendency to deterioration of the press in the modern student world has been so outstanding as to warrant “viewing with alarm.” Student contribu¬ tions to the local dailies of late have not been calculated to raise the quality of material to be found in those newspapers, much less to raise the opinion of the public as to the students themselves. Manitoba’s faculty magazines in recent years have, with few excep¬ tions, pandered to a lower mentality than might be expected. The type of material appreciated by University groups, as evidenced in the aforementioned publications, leave much to be desired, if not indicating a hitherto unsuspected depravity among the “future leaders of the nation!” The increase in journalistically inclined students who are willing to deal in unmitigated trash would make a sensitive person bury himself for solace in the works of the Fathers of Canadian Journalism. M00re S - fpenall night including Sunday [ 25 ]