Politics 41

about much at home, but I recall hearing him relate the event while throwing off a load of hay on the barn loft one hot summer day in the 40s. The punch line of the story was how much he would have cherished a drink of something stronger than water before hitting the stage that night, but none was available. A short time after our house burned in 1950, he received a modest personal cheque and letter from Dunning who was then in private business in Montreal.

Lester Douglas, the lone Liberal MP for Queens during most of the 40s, was a close personal friend of Dad. Although this gentle politician resided in Charlottetown, he was very much the plain country boy. In the summer of 1950 as our new house was being boarded in, Douglas visited our place and said he was going to send Dad one of his better suits as gift. A few days later the kindly MP was dead and his promise was left unfulfilled. Cecil Miller, who tried unsuccessfully for election in the riding of Queens, was another very close friend of Dad and made numerous visits to our place in the 405 and 50s.

On the provincial scene in 4th Queens, the political heavies for a long time were Walter Jones of Bunbury and Dougald MacKinnon of Mt. Buchanan. Both were elected to the legisla- ture in 1935 and remained our MLAs until well into the 50s. After he became premier in 1943, Jones continued to visit our place from time to time and our dad was certainly his great admirer and close friend. MacKinnon was a grass-roots politi- cian who was frequently at our home where we all got to know him quite well. We much enjoyed his rich Scottish accent and his rousing homespun speeches at meetings. Issues of the day were homey ones like cutting back bushes along the highway, grading and gravelling certain roads, highway fencing and other 9dd jobs. Getting a few days’ work on the road for neighbors was Important. Of greater moment, of course, was landing longer- term jobs which usually were few and far between. Political patronage was in vogue, on a small scale one might say, with Liberal supporters clearly having the inside track.

Although ours was such a Liberal household, election day voting never took place there. Instead, a couple of nearby houses Were the usual sites for the Iona poll. Election days were always e"Citing, particularly since for us biased youngsters it was usually clear that the Grits would be the winners which they Ordinarily were back then. A pint of rum to the faithful voter Was for years a fact of life. It was handled very discreetly, however, in a way well known to Island people. On some occa-