a party was either a concourse of knights in shining armor, or it was a 
     
     part of the hosts of Satan. All was black or white; there were no shades — 
     
     of gray. Actually, by far the greater part of the denunciatory material 
     
     came from the Tories; the Liberals were too busy pointing with pride to 
     
     their achievements to indulge in any extensive name-calling. | 
     
    

    
     By the time the 1911 election campaign began, I had reached an age when 
     
     I had an enthusiastic interest, in everything that concerned tho political 
     
     world. Whether I had anything resembling an intelligent rr: of the issues 
     
     or the philosophies of either party, is a matter of extreme doubt. Looking 
     
     back, I can see that I accepted as gospel every statement of the party 
     
     sachems who, night after night, sat around our kitchen table, planning 
     
     strategy, revising polling lists, and roundly denouncing everything 
     
     Liberal. They always expressed boundless confidence, but 3 omehow I sensed 
     
     that it was mostly whistling in the dark. The victory that would be won at 
     
     the polls was , I am sure, as great a surprise to the triumphant Tories as 
     
     it was to the defeated Grits. 
     
    

    
     of major interest to Islanders in this campaign was the Conservative 
     
     pledge to provide daily all-year contact with the mainland. At the start, 
     
     there seems to have been very little discussion of the main issue -- 
     
     whether or to enter into a lieciprocity Treaty with the United States. 
     
     Since the Grits were sponsoring the proposal, the Tories naturally opposed 
     
     it, but the subject drew little real fire until Champ Clark, a former 
     
     Speaker of the American House of Representatives made a speech in which 
     
     he referred to Canada becoming an "annex to the United States." The Tories 
     
     leaped upon this remark, and turned it into the major issue of the 
     
     campaign. Dismal stories were told, and weird pictures painted, of the 
     
     sorry plight of farmers in many parts of the States. Canadians were 
     
     solemly warned that they could expect even more distressing conditions in 
     
    
   
   
    
     Canada, if the country should fall under Uncle Sam's control. The call for