This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on April 5, 1941.
I wonder if any of my readers have ever been haunted by what we once called a “sense of sin”?
Now, in these days of advanced psychology, such a stark combination of words has been diluted and dehorned and explained away as a “taboo of childhood,” resulting from a puritanical training. None of the desiccated forms of expression convey the exact meaning of a sense of sin.
I have been getting it from many sources these past few weeks. The first came from an unexpected source — an editorial in the Radio Guide, respecting moving pictures and their improvement.
Last April, Will Hays told us, the motion-picture producers, whom he represents, became aware of the great number of drinking scenes in movies. At that time, they took their first steps to reduce them. Since then, at subsequent meetings, the problem has been discussed, and a petition with 4,500 names was presented through the Radio Guide opposed to unnecessary drinking on the screen.
“Now good intentions are being supplemented by action. We hear through Hollywood that the Hays office has sent an order through to all studios that there must be no more drinking scenes. Pictures will not allow liquor-drinking or drunks to create atmosphere or amusement.”
That came as a surprise and seems almost too good to be true. The moving-picture producers are evidently more concerned about public welfare than some of us believed them to be.
To keep drinking scenes and drinking songs off the radio has proven a difficult task. The CBC has a clear regulation dealing with it, but quite frequently someone breaks out with Pink Elephants, and nothing is more irrevocable than a spent radio program.
Drinking has become so much a part of our social life that even tough old campaigners like myself sometimes let things pass rather than incur the criticism that a real fight would bring, and it is in these omissions that I feel a sense of sin that is uncomfortable and humiliating. Many a time I have fought a gallant battle with this enemy of the people, and I recall these without regret, even though I lost; but when a woman told me a few days ago that she always admired me for my broad-mindedness on this matter, I was sorely convicted by her words.
People can be so broad-minded that all other dimensions of the mind are lost. The “broad-minded” people are usually those who do not care.
Now I am thinking particularly of the Canadian women and their part in this present struggle. I know the women of Canada and love them. For many years, I have been talking with them, and writing for them, and their friendship is dear to me.
Today we are facing the crisis of our lives, and the angel of God has come down to trouble the waters of our complacency. I know many women are feeling just as I am. “We have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin,” but if we are ever going to make the supreme effort, now is the time.
And the women of Canada in one week’s time, if they go all out in earnest, can make a demonstration that will strengthen this country. I do not mean anything spectacular, anything that calls for mass meetings, flags, parades, slogans or speeches. They have their place, but are disappointing in their effect.
Canada is spending $130 million a year on intoxicating liquors — and make no mistake about it, the thinking people of Canada are worried about this. Not only over the money, but over the secondary effect, the byproducts, the accidents, loss of labour and efficiency, the family quarrels that follow. There is not a problem in Canada that is not intensified by the drink traffic.
We cannot afford to waste a cent in Canada, or one ounce of energy, or one hour of time. I am not advocating any legislation — we have been too prone to lean on legislation for all our needs. I am telling the women of Canada that in one week they can reduce Canada’s drink bills if they stop buying or using anything in the way of an intoxicant. Not only that, but they can reduce accidents.
The women of Canada can make it smart to serve coffee instead of cocktails; smart to be sober; smart to be thrifty. They can create a new fashion in hospitality.
That great airman, Ernest MacNab, told us on the radio recently that airmen have too serious a job to drink. A split second divides life and death.
“Never once,” he said, “have I had to tell my men not to drink, or to stop drinking.”
A new love of our country is rising in the hearts of people everywhere as the grim battle quickens its pace. The time for argument is over. We want action. Even the isolationists across the line are running down like neglected gramophones.
The die is cast and the decisive phase of the war has begun. Force or Freedom — this precious Freedom which we have taken as casually as we take air, fresh water and sunshine; or the reign of Force in which we get what Poland got. That’s a choice before us today.
The German women do as they are told and dare not express an opinion. They have been denied the necessities of life to buy the weapons of destruction. They have had to hand over their children to the Hitler Youth camps; their homes are invaded by spies; their whole lives regimented. Surely we, the free women of Canada, are willing to make any sacrifice that will help the war effort. It seems to be merely a matter of backbone. We either have it or we haven’t.
Every day, we hear of individuals who love their country more than their own pleasure — the 12-year-old boy who had saved $40 for a bicycle and bought 10 War Saving Certificates instead; likewise the family who were saving for a trip back to the prairies next summer; the proud old Scotch woman who had saved $50 for her funeral expenses.
While I have been thinking about the still greater part women can have in strengthening the forces of freedom, I came across a well-written article published in a Pacific Coast newspaper, as a public service by the Vancouver Breweries, and from it it is evident that the brewers are thinking of this matter of public duty, too. Listen to the closing paragraph quoted from Hugh Walpole:
“We perceive that we are called to help in the making of a new world … a world in which the British people will have to give up possessions, trade, wealth and much luxury for the good of him whom they have not seen and may never see. A world which may in truth begin to move slowly toward the city of God.”
The brewers have given us a good lead. Now let us consider these facts:
The athlete in training does not drink, neither does the engineer or the bus driver. Intent upon doing something that requires all their facilities, these
men cannot afford to dim their eyes or cloud their judgment. Neither can we. We have serious work to do.
When President Roosevelt spoke to the newspapermen on the passing of the Lend-Lease Bill, he mentioned the matter of strikes, expressing his conviction that there would be a cessation of all such interruption to American aid to Britain, and no part of his address received so much applause.
Strikes are under the ban now, because there is serious work to do. Interruptions, loss of efficiency, complications are not to be tolerated at a time like this. We have serious work to do, too, we who keep the homes of Canada.
Some of McClung’s columns from the 1930s and 1940s have been collected in a book, The Valiant Nellie McClung: Selected Writings by Canada’s Most Famous Suffragist, by Barbara Smith.
