Well, as I write my story, Milk and Water, about Montreal in 1927, I found a bit from a Senate Hearing on Prohibition in 1926, where my own grandpapa is accused of controlling the Chief of Police - and of penalizing constables who try to close down movie theatres and clubs that have broken the by-laws.
This bit, I just figured, out was from the report Coderre Inquiry into Police Corruption in 1925.
The focus was disorderly houses, not alcohol.
Under a chapter entitled TOO MANY MASTERS it is written:
There is still more. Not only must the superintendent of police submit to the constant and narrow direction of the executive, but he is also placed under the jurisdiction of another functionary whose positions and powers are ill-explained to me, so that I can find nothing regarding them in the charter.
I am referring to the Director of Services, placed there as an intermediary, I have been led to understand, between the different departments and between people outside and any one department.
The superintendent of police tells me that Mr. Crepeau is over him, and what proves it beyond doubt is the liberty the latter takes in ordering the suspension and even the withdrawal of proceedings taken against theatres that were based on cases made and instituted by the superintendent of police.
What proves it betters still is the liberty, too great, that he took during the inquiry for suspending Constable Trudeau for reasons entirely foreign to the accomplishment of his duties and just at the point where Mr. Trudeau had revealed in this testimony, the strange actions of Mr. Crepeau.
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There's a lot more of course, that was repeated to the Americans in 1926, by W.E. Raney, a former attorney general of Ontario (described to the Senators as "attorney general of Canada".. and reprinted in a couple of Pro Temperance Volumes in the early thirties. Raney was anti drink and anti gambling. He told the Senators that crime bosses worked out of Montreal, controlling their American operations from there.
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My grandfather had a vague job description. Oddly, in 1925, the City Clerk died, and it was reported that the job would be given to Jules, in addition to this position. That did not happen and I wonder if this report had anything to do with it. In 1924 and 25, Charles Duquette was Mayor of Montreal and not Mederic Martin, who was Mayor before and after that time.
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Jules was forced to retire in 1930, supposedly over his part in the Montreal Water and Power Scandal, Michele Dagenais, an historian who studies the Montreal Administration, says that his successor, Honore Parent, had even more powers than he.
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It sounds very much that Jules was acting on behalf of others on the Council. Certain Alderman were extremely upset when he was forced to retire, under Camillien Houde, and they were likely his friends.
But with respect to the theatre business, well, his brother, Isadore, was Vice President of a Motion Picture Company, United Amusements. He fell out of his office window in 1932. That company lobbied in the mid twenties to keep motion picture houses open on Sunday, despite the Lord's Day Act.
.......
This happens after the time of my play, which is September 2, 1927. That's when David, the Prince of Wales, returns to Montreal after a month long trip to Canada, to decompress and recreate.
My this time the Laurier Theater fire would have happened, and it already has been recommended that theatres close to children under 16.
My grandfather will comment on this.
Also that year, the opening of a fancy art deco public bath, (that is now an eco-museum.) In early August someone suggests that the baths of Montreal stay open on Sunday, regardless of the law.
Public baths, yet another angle to my Milk and Water story. Laurentian had the first swimming pool (or bath) in Montreal, opened 1882. It was not seen as a public service for the welfare of poorer citizens. Just a business.
I have to figure out what Thomas Wells would have said to Mr. Crepeau on this subject. It's all very complicated.
