July 1, 1935: The Regina Riot

July 1, 1935: A confrontation between Canadian troops and unemployed demonstrators results in 2 deaths. It becomes known as the Regina Riot.

The Great Depression that began with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 led to the Canadian federal election of July 28, 1930, and the defeat of the Liberal Party. William Lyon Mackenzie King was out as Prime Minister, and Richard Bedford Bennett, Leader of the Conservative Party, was in.

Installed in the national capital at Ottawa, Ontario, R.B. Bennett had sought to stimulate the economy during his first few years through a policy of high tariffs and trade within the British Empire. This didn't work, and voters turned against the Tories.

Bennett had not been in charge when the Depression began, but, like American President Herbert Hoover, he was seen as doing nothing, or at least too little, to alleviate the dire economic conditions. Hitching a horse up to your car, because you couldn't afford gasoline but you didn't dare sell your car, earned the vehicles the nickname Hoover wagons in America. In Canada, they were known as Bennett buggies.

The Bennett government ordered the Department of National Defence to organize work camps where single unemployed men were used to construct roads and other public works at a rate of 20 cents per day. After the 1932 U.S. Presidential election, new President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted similar programs, including the Works Project Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

But the men in the Canada relief camps were living in poor conditions with very low wages. They decided to unite and, in 1933, led by Arthur "Slim" Evans, created the Workers' United League. The WUL helped the men organize the Relief Camp Workers' Union. As Bennett stalled as much as he could, refusing to call an election sooner than he legally had to on October 14, 1935, the RCWU called for a strike on April 4, 1935.

The strikers' demands were: “(1) that work with wages be instituted at a minimum of 50 cents per hour for unskilled workers and trade union rates for skilled labour on the basis of a six-hour day, a five-day week with a minimum of twenty work days per month; (2) that all workers in the camps be covered by the Workmen's Compensation Act and that adequate first aid supplies be carried on the jobs at all times; (3) that the National Defence and all military control with the system of blacklisting be abolished; (4) that democratically elected committees be recognized in every camp; (5) that there be instituted a system of noncontributory unemployment insurance; (6) that all workers be given their democratic right to vote; (7) that Section 98 of the Criminal Code, Sections 41 and 42 of the Immigration Act and all vagrancy laws and anti-working class laws be repealed."

With no action taken, they decided to take their grievances to the federal government. On June 3, 1935, hundreds of men began boarding boxcars headed east in what became known as the "On-to-Ottawa Trek." The protesters reached Regina (that's "REJ-ih-nah," not "Reh-JEE-nah"), Saskatchewan on June 14.

Three days later, they met with 2 federal cabinet ministers: Robert Manion, Minister of Railways and Canals; and Robert Weir, Minister of Agriculture. They invited 8 elected representatives of the protest, including Slim Evans, to Ottawa to meet Bennett, on the condition the rest of the protesters stay in Regina, where a large contingent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was stationed. The remaining trekkers stayed in the stadium located on Regina Exhibition Grounds, with food and shelter supplied by townspeople and the Saskatchewan Provincial government.

The meeting was held on June 22, and it was a disaster. Bennett called Evans an "embezzler." Evans called Bennett "a liar." The delegation was escorted out, and arrived back in Regina on June 26. Attempts of the Trekkers to travel east by car or truck or train were thwarted by RCMP. A public meeting was called for July 1, in Market Square in Germantown to update the public on the progress of the movement. It was attended by 1,500 to 2,000 people, of whom only 300 were Trekkers. Most Trekkers decided to stay at the exhibition grounds.

At 8:17 PM on July 1 -- the 68th Anniversary of Canadian independence -- the police, unprovoked, charged the crowd with batons from all 4 sides. The attack caught the people off guard before their anger took over. They fought back with sticks, stones, and anything at hand. Mounted RCMP officers then started to use tear gas and fired guns. Driven from the Square, and with the RCMP blocking the roadway back to the Stadium grounds, the battle continued in the surrounding streets for 6 hours.

Police fired revolvers above and into groups of people. Tear gas bombs were thrown at any groups that gathered together. Plate glass windows in stores and offices were smashed, but with one exception, these stores were not looted, they were burned. The Trekkers who had attended the meeting made their way individually or in small groups back to the exhibition stadium where the main body of Trekkers were quartered.

When it was over, 140 Trekkers and citizens had been arrested. Charles Miller, a plainclothes policeman, died. Nick Schaack, a Trekker, later died in the hospital from injuries sustained in the riot. There were hundreds of injured residents, and Trekkers were taken to hospitals or private homes. Those taken to a hospital were also arrested. The police claimed 39 injuries in addition to the dead police officer, but denied that any protesters had been killed in the melee. The hospital records were subsequently altered to conceal the actual cause of death.

The next day, a barbed-wire stockade was erected around the area. News of the police-instigated riot was front-page news across Canada. About midnight, one of the Trek leaders telephoned Premier James Gardiner of Saskatchewan (equivalent to the Governor of an American State), who agreed to meet their delegation the next morning.

Gardiner sent a wire to Bennett, accusing the police of "precipitating a riot" while he had been negotiating a settlement with the Trekkers. He also told the Prime Minister the "men should be fed where they are and sent back to camp and homes as they request," and stated his government was prepared to "undertake this work of disbanding the men." An agreement to this effect was subsequently negotiated. Bennett was satisfied that he had smashed what he believed was a Communist revolt, and Gardiner was glad to rid his Province of the strikers.

The Federal Minister of Justice, Hugh Guthrie, probably on the orders of his boss, Bennett, lied to the House of Commons on July 2, saying, "Shots were fired by the strikers, and the fire was replied to with shots from the City Police." During the lengthy trials that followed, no evidence was ever produced to show that strikers fired so much as a single shos during the riot.

For his part, Bennett characterized the On-to-Ottawa Trek as "not a mere uprising against law and order but a definite revolutionary effort on the part of a group of men to usurp authority and destroy government."

The voters Canada weren't having it. As Mackenzie King, still the Leader of the Liberal Party, promised reforms to restore economic health, and as the Liberal campaigned under the slogan "King or Chaos," Bennett finally bowed to reality, and called an election for October 14. The Liberals went from 89 seats in the House to 173; the Conservatives, from 137 to 39. It remains the greatest repudiation any sitting Prime Minister of Canada has ever received. (Brian Mulroney had already resigned before he could receive an even greater smacking in 1993, and the defeat the Progressive Conserves suffered under Kim Campbell's leadership was a repudiation of the Party and of Mulroney, not of Campbell herself.)

Bennett remained Leader of the Opposition until 1938, as Mackenzie King's reforms worked. In 1939, Bennett resigned his seat for Calgary West, left the homeland that had rejected him, and moved to England, settling at a mansion in Surrey, outside London.

In 1941, he became the first and only former Canadian Prime Minister to be elevated to the peerage, as Viscount Bennett, Mickleham in the County of Surrey and of Calgary and Hopewell in the Dominion of Canada. He served in the House of Lords until he died on June 26, 1947, just short of his 77th birthday. He is buried in Mickleham, making him the only deceased former Canadian Prime Minister not buried in Canada.

Mackenzie King held power until his retirement in 1948, and then his handpicked successor, Louis St. Laurent, until 1957. Only then, 22 years and a World War later, did the Conservative Party -- by this point renamed the Progressive Conservative Party -- win another election, as John Diefenbaker became the next Prime Minister of their party.

*

July 1, 1935 was a Monday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 8-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. The year before, Joe Cronin was the Senators' shortstop, best player, manager, and the son-in-law of team owner Clark Griffith. But with Griffith needing money, and Sox owner Tom Yawkey having lots of it, Cronin was now the Red Sox' shortstop, manager, and, for the moment, best player, before Yawkey began spending more money. He hit a home run in this game.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-1 at Navin Field in Detroit. (That ballpark was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Hank Greenberg went 0-for-4, but a 2-run triple by Marv Owen made the difference.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Billy Herman went 4-for-5, and Ken O'Dea went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs.

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.