top of page
Tom Monto

My interview with Elmer Roper, CCF MLA and Edm. mayor

Elmer Roper interview at age of 97

Victoria, BC October 1990


[Personal life]

[born in 1893 , born and raised in Nova Scotia]


Roper's mother was active in the WCLC [likely he meant the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)] so he never started to drink. During Prohibition, there was alot of bootlegging. And the abolition of prohibition [in Alberta in 1923] did not improve things.

------------------


Elmer Roper moved to Calgary in 1907.


Roper was active in Pressmen’s Union.


[WWI]

17 June 1914 he married and very soon had a baby on the way. (Elmer's son Lyall was also on city council. He had bad accident and in 1990 was not well.)

Elmer's wife was 97 on December 24, 1990.


Roper's brother enlisted [in WWI] and the family thought that one person fighting was enough of a contribution.


In 1917, he came to Edmonton.

Bulletin bought a press from Calgary Herald and Elmer came with it.


[Then] Roper owned and operated a printing company, Commercial Printing, and published Edmonton's labour newspaper.

The MacMillan girls were hired for Edmonton Free Press and worked with Roper for a combined 90 years. Isabel MacMillan did editing (died several years prior to 1990); Sadie took over accounting after assisting accountant several years. (She lives in Richmond). [in 2020 she is likely already passed on.]


Commercial Printing did Teachers’ magazine, nurses' magazine, yearbooks for schools and universities, and the miners' magazine.

The latter came about after Roper sold the idea to UMW. It covered all of Alberta, called the Canadian Mineworker, published about the 1930s.


Alberta Labour News, predecessor to the Edmonton Free Press, was endorsed by AFL but given no subsidy.

It was not just a propaganda sheet, it was a newspaper

It was distributed all over Canada, to subscribers, people active in CCF across Canada. Many subscribers were in rural areas of Alberta. some news-stand sales.


radio programs People’s Weekly for years every week. Money for that purpose was donated by listeners.


Edmonton Free Press

Roche, an advertizing man, started Edmonton Free Press. A schoolteacher in Edmonton (name unknown) wrote editorials. Newspaper was endorsed by Edmonton Trades & Labour Council, but they were dissatisfied with the editorials so Roche said they would appoint their own editorialist and Roper took it on.

The Edmonton Bulletin was not paying wages on regular basis then (because it could not afford to) and Roper suggested that he and Roche print it themselves with endorsement of the Alberta Federation of Labour, and in 1920 it took on the new name Alberta Labour News.

Roche provided capital under name Henry Roche Printing Company until 1932 when Roper took it on as Commercial Printers Limited.

The ALN Later re-named the People’s Weekly) lasted until 1971 when it was sold to Winnipeg Free Press, then taken over by a Montreal firm.

-----------------

1917 Edmonton Labour Party (association?) was founded.

[I think he means the Labour Representation League, which later became the Edmonton wing of the Dominion Labour Party. The Alberta wing was basically the whole Dominion Labour Party (The Manitoba Labour movement had the Independent Labour Party; BC Labour had the Socialist Party of Canada). The Edmonton group was later re-named the Canadian Labour Party while southern Alberta stayed with the DLP name. Both the CLP and the DLP helped found the CCF in 1932.]

He was opposed to the One Big Union, founded in 1919. He thought that the OBU was a dream beyond realization promoted by the radical BC people.


1919 - Winnipeg General Strike. Roper was sent to Winnipeg as representative of the international union, the Print Pressmen's Union, to tell the union members there not to go on strike. The pressmen had a contract so joining in the Winnipeg General Strike would be breaking their contract. He gave them the message and came back to Edmonton directly. The union did not go on strike.


1925-9 Roper was on Edmonton public school board with Frank Crang and S.A.G. Barnes who were the other labour trustees. Barnes used labour label because labour was strong civically. [Barnes later was elected as SC MLA and a short time later was thrown out of the SC party. He then sat in the Legislature as an Independent SC-er.]


Roper thought Margaret Crang [who was elected to city council in 1933] was not honest, not a good daughter to her father. [He did not go into detail. But when Margaret was coaxed to run in the 1937 by-election, it happened that Ainlay as the CCF candidate put in his name to run against her. She did not withdraw. Both she and her father were kicked out of the CCF for this.]

[UFA elected government in 1921]

Brownlee trial: pretty solid evidence. Bulletin had people follow him and accumulated alot of evidence proving the truth of the allegations.


Alex Ross, Minister of Public Works in UFA government, helped bring in a number of important labour legislation. The Alberta Labour News is source of information on the progressive legislation he saw passed.


UFA Premier Reid was good but pretty ordinary.


During the UFA regime (1921-1935), Roper was member of Press Gallery, representing the Labour News, and wrote “Looking Down from the Press Gallery - Caught between the Lion and the Unicorn" referring to the coat of arms above the Speaker's Chair and just in front of the Press Gallery.

He was good friends with all the reporters.

Depression stories

men shipping cattle to Winnipeg and not getting enough to pay for it. Some families had gopher meat for food.

The UFA government could not have done enough to fight Aberhart. If you said anything against Aberhart, you were shouted down - could not even get started to question anything about Aberhart.

Aberhart's religious broadcasts laid the basis for the people's respect. People said they did not understand what he was saying but believed that Aberhart was a good man.


Irvine supported the theory of Social Credit but thought Aberhart was a fake — that he had his own interpretation of SC. Irvine was torn between the theory of SC and socialism.

[Aberhart's SC party elected government in 1935]


Aberhart was desperate to do something as premier

Treasury Branches established.

Roper does not remember any strong opposition from banks.

===============================

Commercial Printing Limited lost government work after 1935 and lost the Edmonton telephone book contract that same year. The telephone job cost about $10,000 and Roper’s bid was only $75 higher than a competitor, so the City gave the job to the low bidder. Roper had put in a very low estimate because he did not have to do it all fresh; he just had to replace the names by throwing out some of the old typecast and putting together new lines of type.

The company that won the contract came to collect materials for the job. and Roper gave them a telephone book and sheets showing the changes. The company expected to get the lead type that had been laid for the old telephone book, but Roper said that that belonged to him. It went to court and he proved that he had paid out of pocket to compose the sheets and they belonged to his company.

The competition almost went bankrupt trying to fill the contract.

The next year the city again contacted Roper, but he said “no,” not liking the treatment they had given him.


The Social Credit government cut Roper's company Commercial Printing off from government contracts. Roper put in tenders for a while then found that they were asking competitors to lower their bid to just below the Commercial Printing bid.

=====================================

In 1940, about 20 Independents [anti SC Unity League Conservative/Liberal coalition candidates] were elected.


[Roper MLA 1942-1955]


Roper was elected later in the 1940-1944 term. Roper said he got along ok with the Independents but often opposed them.


1942 by-election

William Irvine [former UFA and CCF MP] was Roper's campaign manager, got out one piece of campaign literature. On one side was Roper's bio, saying he was active in the Red Cross and other voluntary organizations and on the other side was the platform (the standard CCF platform). This was distributed to every home.

was by transferable ballot, Alternative Voting.

Candidates:

SC candidate

soldier candidate

Lymburn ran as an Independent Unity League, an Conservative-Liberal Lymburn anti-SC coalition)

Liberal Gillis

and Roper.


Manning and Aberhart asked SC voters to use second choice for anyone else but Roper.

The Liberal was eliminated on the second round, His votes were distributed and brought Lymburn almost to victory,

Then the Soldier's candidate was eliminated and most of his votes went to Roper.

The SC candidate was then eliminated and Roper thought that this meant defeat for him, but surprisingly Roper received the second choices of the SC supporters at a ratio of 2-1 over Lymburn.


"Personal Stuff" was the name for Roper's column in the Labour newspaper while he was MLA.


The first Legislative session Roper attended was in 1943 so he was in the Legislature one session with Aberhart. There was dissatisfaction within the Socred caucus and party. A split was developing between Aberhart and his party's radicals, who opposed Aberhart’s economic orthodoxy.


If Aberhart had not died when he did [1943], the next election would have defeated government or at least elected more opposition but Manning took over. That change and the war prosperity ensured the re-election of the government in 1944.

Roper was elected again in the 1948 election. The election would have been rougher on Manning’s Socreds but Leduc oil was struck.


Lisemer was elected in 1948, which meant that Roper’s motions could get seconded. Some of them had been seconded earlier, often by (Angus Morrison), a secretary of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), elected in Edson who was elected without any affiliation. He sat in the chair beside Roper's. [Other motions were seconded by C.A. Reynolds, a SC MLA who crossed the floor, according to Alvin Finkel's book SC].


Manning made accusations linking Roper with Communists, after the CCF did not run any candidates in the Edmonton East by-election.


[Roper wanted to tarnish Manning's SC with the same brush.] Edith Rogers [SC MLA 1935-1940] was appointed librarian at the Legislature, after not being re-elected in 1940. Roper wanted the files of the Edmonton papers for a certain date and Rogers said they were all stored away. Roper demanded them and they were all there on his desk when they were needed. Roper used the articles to show the connection between the SC and the Communist Party.


[The articles concerned the 1938 federal by-election and how Communists had been visible in the SC election celebration. ]


Leslie Morris, national secretary of CP, and Jan Lakeman, secretary of the Alberta CP, attached themselves to SC, probably not at request of Socreds but just attached themselves to the SC campaign in a federal by-election.

At the victory parade, Lakeman and Morris were holding on to on each side of the candidate’s car and then were on the speakers’ list at the victory celebration, which also included Manning and the attorney-general.


These facts were presented in the papers that Roper asked for.


Roper read the record back to the Socreds and ended by saying that he could not think of anything better to say than that “people who live in glass houses should only undress in the dark”. There was a class of children in the gallery and they let out a yowl when he said this. And Roper saw the gendarme walking back and forth calling for “order in the gallery”.


The Socred caucus just sat there with scowls on their faces, then Manning just laughed, and then they all laughed.


1955 general election [This was to be the last election held in Alberta using STV in Edmonton and Calgary]

Percy Page, a close friend of Roper’s and one of his oldest friends, beat Roper out by a few votes in 1955. And Roper said he could not have wished for a better result.

In the election, the CCF took the position that it was dangerous for its members to use their second choices. [As a student of STV, I don't know why they took this position]


In the event, Roper got many of the first choices and if he had received the second choices of the other CCF candidates, he would have won. But instead everyone took it for granted that Roper would win on the first round.


STV was cancelled after 1955 to prevent Roper being elected again. [In 1959 under FPTP, Social Credit candidates took all the Edmonton seats. And Roper was never elected again to the Alberta Legislature.]

[Other CCF-ers he remembered:]

Betty Frost is ardent CCFer, now a member of review board for WCB. worked at NAIT from its start.


Nellie Peterson was active right from beginning. lived at Woodsworth House. She led the campaign for the purchase of the Woodsworth House.

The CCF appealed for donations to make down payment on a headquarters and got enough to pay for the house freehold with some left over. They needed to buy their own place because it was not easy to find some place suitable to use as an office.


Clifford E. Lee started drugstore but did not stay with it for long. got involved in oil business and made alot of money. Wife is involved with the Clifford E. Lee foundation.

Bill Irvine ran in farming area in B.C. when he was elected.


1921 federal election Rice Sheppard ran as UFA-labour but was not elected.


Dr. W.H. Alexander was professor and columnist for ALN. ["Doc Alik"]


Parsons was very active in labour unions. During his mayoralty, there were good relations between the city and its employees.


Ainlay - During his mayoralty, there were good relations between the city and its employees.


Although Tony Mardiros in his bio of William Irvine wrote that Irvine was mad at Roper, Roper was a chosen speaker at Irvine's funeral.


Lionel Gibbs (CCF MLA 1926-1934)

Roper corrected me and said I was to use Lionel, not Charles as first name for Gibbs's father. [Lionel Gibbs was Labour alderman and MLA for many years, but he is little remembered now. In this regard, I have made what changes I could to the Wikipedia article to emphasize the Lionel name. Lionel's son was friend of Margaret Crang.]


Carl Berg probably did not do the money thing Margaret Crang accuses him of. [I don't actually recall what Margaret had told me that Berg had done. There was definitely bad feeling between Margaret and the trade union leadership, Roper and Berg included.]

Edmonton Free Press

In 1935, Roper changed the paper to People’s Weekly and Bill Irvine became assistant editor and wrote every week.

George Latham wrote in ALN, a good friend of Bill Irvine. very active in Edmonton Trades and Labour Council.


Roper did not know who "The Field Mouse" was. [He could not identify the person who wrote an Alberta Labour News column under that pen-name].


Roper was at Regina 1933 convention [the first convention of the CCF after its founding in Calgary in 1932]


Roper wrote foreword for the book by Art Evans and Yardley Jones. [Art Evans was long-time columnist with the Edmonton Journal. His wife was city councillor in the 1960s. His daughter is CBC foreign correspondent. Yardley's son Spider is a cult figure for the youngish crowd in Edmonton.]


---------------------------------------------------

Roper, Edmonton mayor 1959-63


He stepped in after Hawrelak's resignation.


The president of the SC League, J. Percy Page (the leader of the PCs), and Johnny MacIntyre (president of the Liberals) wanted someone who would represent all the parties.

They came and asked him to run for mayor. They said he would fill in very nicely. He was 66 years old, but they kept pressuring him to accept the position.

Elmer talked it over with his wife and then finally on the Monday prior to the Wednesday nomination meeting, she said if you want to go for it, go for it.

Roper said he would unless Fred Mitchell would stay on. Fred said no, because he wanted to be an MLA.


Harper Prowse (Harper Prowse was kicked out as Liberal leader after he kept coming into the Legislature drunk) also ran. He had lots of money so bought lots of TV advertizing. He was an eloquent speaker, youthful and good looks. He said, “in this critical time, we need someone who will carry out a program.”

Roper replied in his speeches and advertisement, “In this time in Edmonton's history, we need a man with maturity,” getting a murmur of laughter.

[Roper won the election.]


During his mayoralty,

Wabinits [?] Developers [the contractors Rush and Tompkins?] built the new civic centre. The firm and the CPR were very close.

The v.p. of the CPR asked if Roper would have anything against Webanitz (?) people looking over the possibilities. Then they asked if they could formulate a plan that would cost $100,000 which they would pay for as long as they were given some of the construction of the new building. The plan called for the tearing down of the city hall and courthouse and construction of a new city hall and a new wing for Woodward's store and the construction of the 25-story CN building. The city approved the plan. CN built its tower and Webanits was given some of the business for the city's construction. [The 1912 city hall was not demolished until the 1990s or later, so perhaps he mis-remembered some of this or perhaps there was a different city hall in the 1950s.]


no real hassles while he was mayor

good council

varied opinions, but hardly a case where after a reasonable discussion they couldn’t come to a conclusion.

As mayor, Roper had not run under the auspices of any group.

Mrs. Ethel Wilson, labour, was on council (later a SC cabinet minister)


Roper was active in CCF while mayor but did not bring that into city hall.

Attended CCF meetings, but made no public stand for the CCF.

He made introductory speech when Tommy Douglas came to Edmonton.

Roper was non-partisan civically but active in CCF federally and provincially. There were no elections during his mayoralty, he said, so this dichotomy was not a problem.

---------------------------------------------

ran federally (in 1930?) before the CCF was formed.


The King’s Printer (now the Queen’s Printer) just bought from printing companies. did not do any of the work itself.


[And then we were both tired and called it a night.]

=================================================


Thanks for reading.

=====================================


33 views

Recent Posts

See All

Early Labour culture

Clarissa Mackie "Elizabeth's Pride A Labor Day story"    Bellevue Times Dec. 5, 1913

Comments


bottom of page