After weeks of being bombarded with ads, speeches, and propaganda from both sides, Ontario voters faced two questions when they went to the polls on October 23, 1924, to cast their ballots in a plebiscite on the Ontario Temperance Act:
- Are you in favour of the Ontario Temperance Act?
- Are you in favour of the sale as a beverage of beer and spirituous liquor in sealed packages under Government control?
The results would reveal how divided the province was on the effectiveness of Prohibition — and leave Premier Howard Ferguson’s government in a tricky position as he tried to cater to the “wets” (those who wanted change) and the “drys” (those who favoured strict prohibition).
The public vote was the third involving the OTA since its implementation in 1916. When a repeal referendum was held in 1919, it was retained by a large majority: 772,161 were against repeal and 369,434 for it. During the United Farmers of Ontario’s administration, Attorney General W.E. Raney, a zealous Prohibitionist, had toughened the OTA by establishing a special liquor squad that acted independently of local licence inspectors and other law-enforcement officers, especially in border areas like Windsor, where taverns openly flouted the law. The killing of a Windsor tavern owner by a squad member during a raid brought out the worst among dry zealots; groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union indicated that the killing of anyone could be justified if it were in support of the OTA. Prominent activists like Dominion Alliance secretary Ben Spence placed intense pressure on the provincial government to implement complete Prohibition.
Premier E.C. Drury believed that the OTA could not be properly enforced so long as interprovincial trade of alcohol remained legal. In an April 1921 referendum, a majority voted to stop importing liquor from other provinces, but, as some observers noted, the spread was closer than it had been in 1919. The UFOs continued to introduce amendments to further toughen the OTA — raising fines, giving a board the power to refuse to honour medical prescriptions, and making anyone who assisted in any transgression of the act as guilty as the person who’d committed the original offence.
Ella and Howard Ferguson at the opening of the provincial legislative session on February 10, 1925. (City of Toronto Archives/ Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 4601)
But there was plenty of middle-class hypocrisy regarding Prohibition. Many who supported it were happy to see bars close, yet wanted to keep being able to order large quantities of alcohol to stock their liquor cabinets — and they hadn’t counted on supply drying up. (Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had voted against allowing interprovincial trade in alcohol, noted in his diary that he’d been happy to receive two boxes of whiskey he’d ordered from Montreal.)
Each move gave the opposition Conservatives more opportunities for criticism. In 1922, Ferguson told the legislature that he knew of a case of a prostitute who’d been hired to enforce OTA convictions on her clients. When the Tories won the 1923 provincial election, wets hoped that the OTA restrictions would loosen. Fergusion was initially content to watch both sides battle it out; Attorney General W.F. Nickle amended the act to increase the powers of police, giving them the right to arrest those suspected of alcohol-related offences without a warrant and to confiscate vehicles involved in bootlegging.
Tory backbenchers were upset that one of the reasons people had voted for them was a desire to amend the OTA. There was also growing fatigue with the increasing lawlessness and hypocrisy surrounding the OTA, especially among urban voters who viewed local control of alcohol policy as a solution and did not appreciate being subject to the whims of rural voters. While the concept of government control through methods such as provincially run liquor stores appealed to Ferguson, he feared acting on it would cause a split between the rural and urban members of his caucus. He also worried that drys would drift to the Liberals or the UFOs/Progressives.
Pressure increased on Ferguson to do something as other provinces began rejecting Prohibition. British Columbia and Quebec were flush with tax revenue on legal alcohol and tourist dollars from Americans — a state of affairs that irritated Ontario businessmen. Manitoba and Saskatchewan introduced or voted for government control in 1923. (In a plebiscite held in November, Albertans voted in favour of government stores.)
Pro-government control ad from the October 20, 1924, edition of the Kingston Standard (left): Pro-OTA ad from the October 11, 1924, edition of the Mail and Empire.
In an attempt to pacify both sides within the party, Ferguson announced at the Conservatives’ annual meeting in November 1923 that a plebiscite would be held as soon as there was sufficient public support for such a vote. The result of the plebiscite, unlike that of a referendum, would not be binding on the government. When the Ontario Temperance Act Plebiscite Enabling Bill was introduced in March 1924, the galleries in the legislature were so packed, people had to be turned away. Raney was irritated that the bill did not include a ballot question and felt Ferguson was betraying the public, as he’d promised not to repeal the OTA. “When do we come to the end of referenda?” he asked the legislature. Ferguson promised questions that “will be such that they will be intelligible, they will be fair, they will be couched in language that will be an honest effort to get a straightforward answer from the people upon this question.”
Ferguson suspected the wets would win, especially as the dry forces were in disarray thanks to a split between two of its most prominent leaders, Rev. A.S. Grant and Spence, who’d been removed from his post as secretary of the Dominion Alliance. A new organization, the Ontario Prohibition Union, was formed to promote unity, but divisions remained. The drys also disagreed on strategy: some wanted to focus on increasing the urban vote, while others thought shoring up rural support should be the priority. The confusion was such that a person who’d been named campaign treasurer in late September learned about his appointment via a press item and decided to decline it.
Among the standard claims of the dry side: allowing any greater access to alcohol would increase the number of drunks roaming the province, harm families, cause more road accidents, and cost businesses sales because customers would be inclined to spend more money on booze. Ads and speeches made appeals to traditional values and nativist sentiments, often referring to an “Old Ontario” that might be slipping away. During a talk at a Presbyterian church in Toronto, Drury declared that he didn’t want to see Ontario attract so many thirsty Americans that it became “the Mexico of the North.”
"Birdseye Corner" cartoon by Jimmy Frise commenting on the plebiscite. (Toronto Star Weekly, October 18, 1924)
Extremists hurt the dry cause. Among the worst loose cannons was Raney, who unleashed a series of “open letters” depicting Ferguson as a puppet of liquor interests. He believed voters should have been given just a single ballot question, one asking whether they favoured Prohibition. He also alleged that beer had been sold openly in Toronto saloons all year and that the government knew this and was doing nothing about it.
Leading drys feared that their past victories had induced complacency and that the public might easily forget the horrors of alcohol if they were fooled into believing a government-controlled distribution system could work. “People will never stand again the blear-eyed, ragged, filthy wrecks of men that were once a familiar loafing around saloons, the brutal and bloody fights that closed the day when men gathered in crowds with the bars open, men sick at banquets, making fools of themselves in public meetings and balls,” Reverend Salem Bland observed in the Toronto Star Weekly.
The wets were well-organized and promised that government control would produce better social and economic conditions. The Moderation League targeted groups, such as immigrants and Franco-Ontarians, that often faced prejudice from dry zealots. In one ad, it billed itself as standing for “temperance, moderation and reason in consumption, sale and distribution of beverage liquors under a law that will have the respect and co-operation of the majority of the public” and said that “no law, however honestly conceived or however worthy the motives underlying its adoption, can be properly enforced unless it had behind it the solid backing of a preponderating majority of public opinion.” Other supporters of government control insisted that the OTA promoted bootlegging, diverted potential government revenue to criminals, and deprived working men of the pleasure of enjoying a decent legal glass of beer.
Ad from the pro-OTA Ontario Plebiscite Committee. (Aurora Banner, October 17, 1924)
To give the appearance of neutrality and show that the plebiscite was above petty politics, Ferguson asked his cabinet and caucus to abstain from campaigning. Yet some drys felt Ferguson sabotaged their campaign when, after their campaign director privately asked Nickle what would happen if the OTA were repealed, the premier issued a press release indicating that government control would mean “no return to the bar or sale by glass in any form.”
The press was almost entirely in the dry camp. Editorial pages scolded anyone who dared imagine dismantling the OTA. An October 9 Durham Review editorial warned that voting for government control “would be putting back the clock of progress, would be flouting the church and every uplift movement, [and] would be putting a new burden and blight on many homes.” The Globe said terms like “control” and “moderation” were “weasel words” and that, while not all Ontarians would drink to excess, “there is no road to excess except through ‘moderate’ drinking.” The Globe also urged those who favoured some form of moderation in alcohol policy to “practice a little self-denial for the sake of their weaker brethren.”
Among the exceptions was the North Bay Nugget, which recognized that the OTA was effectively unenforceable and criticized its assumption that anyone arrested was automatically guilty. “Liquor will continue to be consumed as long as it is made and it will be far better to have a properly controlled distribution of liquor than the present bootlegging methods,” states an October 17 Nugget editorial. The paper also reported that prominent clergymen in northern Ontario who had campaigned for temperance had decided to sit out the campaign or support government control.
Some Ontarians were unable to vote or encountered great difficulty when trying to do so. Many university students were required to cast ballots in their home ridings. An editorial in the University of Toronto newspaper the Varsity stated that, since it was a plebiscite and not a general election, students had every right to be heard — though it also declared, somewhat snootily, that “it is a well-known fact thousands of illiterate men and women in this very city are given the right of expressing their opinions on an issue of major importance to the life of this community. Let us have justice!”
Portion of a Moderation League ad from the October 18, 1924, edition of the Brantford Expositor.
In some remote communities, such as Moose Factory, the plebiscite was not held, as it was suspected that not enough ballots would be cast to justify the costs involved. In Toronto, dry scrutineers questioned the naturalization status of some women on the voting list, sparking complaints to the Jewish section of the Moderation League. The local chief election officer allowed the women to vote, but their ballots were kept in a separate envelope.
Children were used as weapons by the dry side, with churches and temperance groups making them parade with pro-OTA banners. In Belleville, the rector of a local Anglican church tried to halt a parade of schoolchildren the day before the vote, asking them under whose authority they marched. They cited their parents, and, apparently, proceeded to debate with him about the vote.
“There is no reasoning save their own and no argument except that which they themselves advance,” the Kingston Standard wrote of the wets and drys in an October 18 editorial. “They have neither patience with nor tolerance for anyone who disagrees with them, and thus it is that in many instances calm discussion of the matter is impossible — thus indeed, that many people prefer not to discuss it at all rather than to arouse unnecessary antagonisms or alienate old friends who cannot see eye to eye with them on the subject. And yet if we are to get anywhere there should be free and frank discussion of the subject — discussion based not on personal prejudices or preconceived ideas but on knowledge and facts.”
Map of provincial results. (Evening Telegram, October 24, 1924)
There was a carnival atmosphere as the results rolled in across the province on October 23. In Windsor, more than 20,000 people gathered at the Windsor Armories, where, besides watching the count, they enjoyed skits, musical numbers, a blackface duo, and a clown band. Initially, the wets were in the lead by as many as 60,000 votes (at least one publication, in Buffalo, jumped the gun and went with what turned out to be an incorrect headline). As the rural returns came in, the drys pushed ahead. The final result was a squeaker: 585,676 voted to maintain the OTA, while 551,645 voted for government control. The wet vote was concentrated in cities and in northern Ontario. In LaSalle, the vote was so lopsided (264 wet, two dry) that the mayor joked the dry ballots had been marked by mistake.
Drys gloated and increased their efforts to curtail the availability of alcohol. Dry leaders such as Spence wanted to take the battle to Ottawa and demand a national ban on manufacturing and importing alcohol. Urban wets resented the power of rural drys. Reports indicated that a Guelph hotel owner decided to ban dry farmers from his establishment. In Sturgeon Falls, the local council passed a resolution telling the police chief to ignore the OTA.
The outcome was a nightmare for Ferguson. In a press statement, he noted that the OTA would remain in effect but said that the tight results “may make it more difficult to properly enforce the act, as public opinion is an essential factor in law enforcement.” He knew that supporters of government control or a local option were angry. At least one prominent dry told Ferguson that he should ignore the urban results because the wet vote there was “largely made up by Jews, Foreigners and Roman Catholics.”
Election-night crowd in Windsor. (Border Cities Star, October 24, 1924)
Analyzing the results of the plebiscite in comparison to previous votes, Ferguson concluded that Prohibition was losing support. In all but three constituencies, the dry vote dropped from 1919. There were also rumours that several cabinet ministers would resign if the OTA stayed in place. At that November’s annual party meeting, two MPPs presented a motion to support government control and a local option, but Ferguson indicated he would not “violate an obligation.”
Hoping to appease both sides, the government legalized a new beer in May 1925 whose legally allowed alcoholic content was 4.4 per cent rather than 2.5 per cent. The public promptly gave it a nickname, “Fergie’s Foam,” but was unimpressed, as the new brew cost twice as much per glass as previous formulations and didn’t taste good. Sales fell.
Ferguson finally gave up any pretense of preserving the OTA and, during the 1926 provincial election campaign, ran on repealing it. He won. And, by June 1927, the first retail branches of the LCBO had opened.
Sources: Booze Boats and Billions by C.W. Hunt (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988); G. Howard Ferguson: Ontario Tory by Peter Oliver (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977); Public & PrivatePersons by Peter Oliver (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1975); the September 30, 1924, October 13, 1924, and October 24, 1924, editions of the Border Cities Star; the September 16, 1924, edition of the Buffalo Evening Times; the October 11, 1924, edition of the Canadian Labor Press; the October 9, 1924, edition of the Durham Review; the October 23, 1924, edition of the Evening Telegram; the October 20, 1924, edition of the Globe; the March 7, 1924, March 12, 1924, and October 16, 1924, editions of the Hamilton Spectator; the October 18, 1924, October 21, 1924, and October 24, 1924, editions of the Kingston Standard; the October 7, 1924, edition of the London Free Press; the October 17, 1924, and October 21, 1924, editions of the North Bay Nugget; the August 7, 1924, and August 14, 1924, editions of the Ottawa Citizen; the October 18, 1924, edition of Toronto Star Weekly; and the October 14, 1924, edition of the Varsity.
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