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POLITICS

I feel quite safe in saving that in no other part of the universe was polit:tics: taken more seriously than in Prince Edward Island of the Second half of the 1800's and the early yeurs of the present century. And nowhere in Prince Edwerd Island was it taken more seriously than in the New Haven polling area. To the erent majority of the people .-it was a matter of. honor and principle to follow undeviatingly in the footsteps of their progenitors, with respect to their political adherence. To change one's political affiliation was as unthinkable and reprehensible as to change one's religion. No doubt, many members of both parties privately questioned the sense and logic of this attitude, but seldom to the extent of abandoning the time-honored tradition. For a change in party meant not only incurring the disapproval and resentment of former affiliates; in some cases, it led to rifts in family relations. |

Such a split took place in my own family, sometime in the !1800!'s, '- when my grand-uncle, William Devereux, went over to the opposite political group because of his dissatisfaction with/policy espoused by the Consrra- tive party. His action resulted in a definite break with his father and his brotners -~ a break that was never repaired. He left home shortly afterward and settled in Frince County where he married and raised a family. While his father lived, he made an occasional brief visit to his old home, but, after his father's death, all contact with the family ceased. During Iny years at home, I observed several instances when a neighbor changed his political allegiance and, although it did not lead to a break such as I have described, it did give rise to a coolness that never completely | disappeared.

My earliest recollection of politics, election campaigns, and candidates

was probably about 1903. Our home, which might well have been termed the