July 11, 1896: Wilfrid Laurier is sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada. After 29 years of a partial independence, 8 elections, and 6 previous Prime Ministers, this country founded by a coalition of British citizens and Frenchmen has elected a head of government of French ancestry, raised speaking French before he spoke English.
Sir John A. Macdonald, serving 1867 to 1873, and again from 1878 until his death in 1891, was born and raised in Scotland. So was Alexander Mackenzie, who served between Macdonald's defeat and his next victory. Sir John Abbott, who succeeded Macdonald and served for a year and a half, was from the Quebec side of the Ottawa area. Sir John Thompson, who served for 2 years until dying in office in 1894, was from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mackenzie Bowell, who served for the next year and a half, was from Suffolk in England. And Sir Charles Tupper was also from Nova Scotia.
Tupper only served 3 months, the shortest tenure in the office's history, because his government failed over the Manitoba Schools Question, which was triggered by the government of the Province of Manitoba eliminating funding for Catholic schools. Although the Conservative Party, with Tupper as Leader, got more popular votes than Laurier's Liberal Party, and a larger share of the popular vote, the Liberals gained a net 29 seats in the House of Commons, enough to take control, and make Laurier the Prime Minister -- premier ministre.
Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier was born on November 20, 1841 in Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Quebec, 30 miles north of Montreal. At age 11, he was sent by his father, a Justice of the Peace and a former Mayor, to a boarding school in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. "Nova Scotia" is Latin for "New Scotland," so it's not surprising that it has a city named New Glasgow. And it was populated largely by people of Scottish descent. Not only did young Wilfrid learn English there, but he developed an appreciation for the British way of doing things, which would serve him well in his dual-culture country.
He studied law at Montreal's Anglophone McGill University, and married Zoé Lafontaine. To his regret, they had no children. Stepping aside from the practice of law to run a newspaper, he opposed Confederation, Canada's original version of independence from Britain, because he felt it would favor Anglophones and hurt Francophones.
He was first elected to office in 1871, to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. In 1874, he was elected to the national Parliament. He would serve in the House of Commons for 45 years, which remains a record. On June 2, 1887, he was elected Leader of the Liberal Party, and would hold that post for nearly 32 years, another record. Although he lost the 1891 election to Macdonald, he led his Party to gain 10 seats. Macdonald's death led to disarray in the Conservatives, and Laurier was able to lead the Liberals to victory on June 23, 1896, taking office 18 days later.
He solved the Manitoba Schools Question by allowing Catholic students to have a Catholic education on a school-by-school basis. Despite his controversial handling of the dispute and criticism from some French Canadians who believed that the resolution was insufficient, he was nicknamed "the Great Conciliator" for offering a compromise between French and English Canada.
Two issues, the United Kingdom demanding Canadian military support to fight in the Second Boer War (1899-1902), and the United Kingdom asking Canada to send money for the Royal Navy, divided the country: Canadians of English and Scottish descent supported Britain's requests; whereas those of Irish and French descent did not.
Laurier's government sought a middle ground between the two groups, deciding to send a volunteer force to fight in the Boer War, and passing the 1910 Naval Service Act, which created the Royal Canadian Navy, putting the country's sailors and naval officers under direct control from Ottawa, not London.
In addition, his government dramatically increased immigration, oversaw the dual entry of Alberta and Saskatchewan as Provinces in Confederation in 1905, constructed the Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental Railways, and took other efforts into establishing Canada as an autonomous country within the British Empire.
He wanted a reciprocity agreement with the United States, and the Conservatives went into the 1911 election saying that it would lead to an American takeover of Canada. The fearmongering worked, as the "Tories" ended the 4-election, 15-year winning streak of the "Grits." Robert Borden became the new Prime Minister, and would be the 1st Conservative one other than Macdonald to win more than 1 national election. Still, Laurier's 15-year unbroken governance remains a record, although, when their separate terms are counted, he served less total time than Macdonald, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Pierre Trudeau.
Britain's entry into World War I in 1914 meant that Canada had to enter as well. The need for more soldiers led to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, in which French-Canadians and Irish-Canadians did not want to be drafted to fight for the British Empire. Laurier, still Leader of the Liberal Party and thus Leader of the Opposition, stood opposed to the draft. Borden and the Conservatives appealed to patriotism, and, while the Liberals dominated in Quebec, they were nearly wiped out in the other Provinces. The war ended less than a year after the election: Over 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served, more than 66,000 of them died, and more than 172,000 were wounded.
In spite of his resistance to British demands, he did his duty to the Mother Country. In 1897, he attended the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and she knighted him. He took part in the 1902 Colonial Conference and the 1907 and 1911 Imperial Conferences, and attended the Coronation of King Edward VII in 1902.
The election and the war took its toll on Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and he died of a stroke on February 17, 1919, in Ottawa, at the age of 77. He was buried in Notre-Dame Cemetery in Ottawa, in a tomb showing a coffin supported by 9 women, 1 for each Province then in Confederation. (Newfoundland and Labrador remained a British Dominion until it became the 10th Province in 1949.) Zoé, known as Lady Laurier, joined him in 1921.
Maclean's, the national newsmagazine of Canada, occasionally polls historians to rank the country's Prime Ministers. In 1997, Laurier was ranked 3rd, behind Mackenzie King and Macdonald. In 2011, he was ranked 1st. (Another poll that year backed up the 1997 rankings: Mackenzie King, then Macdonald, then Laurier.) In 2016, the Maclean's poll put Laurier 2nd behind Mackenzie King.
(Mackenzie King was clearly helped by the facts of not just his longevity, and his dramatic comebacks in 1926 and 1935 after losing the office, but by the fact that he was Prime Minister during World War II. In contrast, Borden doesn't get the same credit for serving during World War I, never getting above 7th.)
In 1973, Waterloo Lutheran University in Waterloo, Ontario, renamed itself Wilfrid Laurier University. Montreal erected a statue of him in Dorchester Square, and named a station on its subway system, the Metro, for him.
Since 1972, his portrait has appeared on Canada's $5 bill. At some point, someone decided that this portrait bore a resemblance to the Star Trek character Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, and people began defacing the bills, using pen ink to make Laurier look like a Vulcan. The Bank of Canada issued an official objection in 2002, since it led to wear and tear on the bills and reduced their lifespans, and the practice declined. In 2013, a new series of bills was released, with a different, less Nimoy-resembling portrait. When Nimoy died in 2015, this practice of "Spocking" the previous series of bills picked up again.
Up until the 1970s, the bills usually had the British monarch on them, but now, this is only true for the $20 bill. The $1 and $2 bills have been retired in favor of coins. The $10 had Macdonald from 1971 to 2018, when he was replaced by Viola Desmond, "the Rosa Parks of Canada." Since 1975, the $50 has had Mackenzie King, and the $100 has had Borden.
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July 11, 1896 was a Saturday. The only professional sports league then operating in North America was baseball's National League, and these games were played:
* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Colts, 3-2 at West Side Park in Chicago. The Colts, named for the relative youth of their players, would, in 1903, adopt another youthful name: The Chicago Cubs.
* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. The Brooklyn team got the name when several of their players got married in a single off-season. In 1911, they became the Dodgers.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Spiders, 10-1 at League Park in Cleveland.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators, 9-5 at League Park in Cincinnati.
* The Louisville Colonels beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-1 at Eclipse Park in Louisville.
* And a doubleheader was split at one of the earlier versions of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Boston Beaneaters won the opener, 12-5. The St. Louis Browns won the nightcap, 12-7. This Browns team is not the one that was formed in the American League and became the new Baltimore Orioles in 1954. This one became the Cardinals in 1900. It would take 3 name changes and until 1912 for the Beaneaters to take the name by which the franchise has been known since: The Braves.
The Orioles, the Senators, the Spiders and the Colonels would be dismissed from the NL after the 1899 season.
