One hundred years ago, The Manitoulin Expositor staff was back to work after the traditional one-week summer holiday shutdown of the paper and printing business. Manitoulin Island readers could be caught up on news of the early days of the First World War that Canada had been officially involved in since Great Britain’s August 4 declaration of war against Germany. (At that time, Canada was a part of the old British Empire and, as such, was obliged to go to war at the same time as the Mother Country.)
The Expositor had told Manitoulin in its Thursday, August 4, 1914 edition of Canada’s involvement but, as England and her allies believed at that time, predicted that the war would soon be over.
And the next week, no paper for a staff summer week off as was the custom in the industry at that time (and one that some rural papers continue to observe in modern times).
Nearly three weeks later, in its August 20 paper, editor and proprietor J.F. Snowden had a great deal to report, including the disturbing news that, “An attempt to destroy the wireless stations at the Soo and Port Arthur has failed,” implying but not directly calling this an act of wartime espionage. War news was reported in a series of tightly written paragraphs under the large single word, all caps headline WAR.
Manitoulin readers learned general details, although the article begins with the disclaimer, “News continues to filter through slowly from headquarters where the lid is kept on very tight. The result is that people of each country hear more of what the enemy is doing than their own army.”
The article does report that, “Russia appears to have mobilized her troops and is invading both Austria and Germany,” observing that, “This is the most encouraging feature of the week.”
The next paragraph hints at bravado: “Germany apparently is not measuring up to her expectations in mobilization and her hurried rush toward France is at a standstill.”
“Japan has ordered Germany on pain of war to withdraw from China and has her fleet ready to enforce her demands.”
The business of war was also reported. “The Canadian Parliament met yesterday to vote on money for the war. It is expected that a vote of thirty million will be placed at the disposal of the government. Action will also be taken to prevent ghouls from enriching themselves by cornering the market during the war.”
The editor’s opinion of the parliamentary debate on the topic was that, “it is expected the session will be a short one, not over 10 days.”
But the editor’s political biases also crept into the paper, under Mr. Snowden’s “General Observations” column, which passed in those days as the place readers could expect to find the paper’s own editorial position on events. That week, Mr. Snowden took a mild round out of Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden. He wrote that, “At a time like the present when Canada should show nothing but a united front, Sir Robert Borden may well say, ‘save one from my friends.’ The Montreal Star and the Mail and Empire are wasting much effort in trying to prove that Sir Robert Borden foretold this two years ago.”
And then comes editor Snowden’s Liberal jab: “The only answer to this is that he was grossly careless of his duty (if he knew war was coming) in not keeping the men on the Niobe and Rainbow (Canada’s two warships at that time) and procuring other cruisers and manning them to their full strength. If he knew war was coming, why was there not a single man on the Niobe?”