The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) has been familiar to Ontarians for almost a century. The force undertakes the bulk of policing in the province, and virtually all of it in places that do not operate a municipal police force.
The formation of the force in 1909 marked the beginning of modern policing in Ontario.
Prior to that, Ontario employed a single detective to investigate major crime. That officer eventually had two assistants. Some municipalities employed a constable, but most were part time, and many were incompetent men who were virtually unemployable in other occupations.
The result was that the odds weighed heavily in favour of the criminal class. It is a wonder that crime rates were so low, given that the odds of capture were so low. The alert eyes of civilians were as important as anything in keeping crime rates low.
The increasing popularity of the motor car in the first decade of the 20th century gave an even stronger boost to the odds of criminals in evading detection.
Police forces, and especially the one-man local forces, often regarded other officers as some sort of competition, and they were reluctant to co-operate. As well, they were slow to adopt new technology such as the telephone in conducting manhunts and exchanging information.
The passing of the Ontario Temperance Act in 1915 put new strains on police forces in the province. Initially, the OPP tried to become involved as little as possible. Enforcement of the liquor legislation consumed countless hours of police time that the officers would rather spend on highway incidents and major crimes.
As well, the law was unpopular with a large section of the population. Those people were reluctant to cooperate with police in liquor matters, and the officers did not want to antagonize members of the public with ruthless enforcement of the Temperance Law.
Matters came to a head under the government formed by the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO), elected in 1919. That government was determined to enforce the prohibition on booze.
The most vehement member of the provincial cabinet was W.E. Raney, who was recruited by the government to serve as Attorney General.
The election of the UFO was itself something of a fluke – they won office in a three-way race. None of the new members was a lawyer. Premier Drury recruited Raney, a former Liberal, and had him stand for office in the riding of East Wellington. He took the seat by acclamation. The other parties thought it best that the Attorney General’s office should be filled quickly.
Once in office, Raney made clear that the enforcement of prohibition would be his major priority. He ordered the reluctant OPP to step up enforcement, reassigning officers from other duties. A fresh onslaught and new policies took place in 1921, including cooperative measures undertaken with licence inspectors and federal inland revenue officers.
Many magistrates were willing to cooperate with Raney and his enforcement efforts. Fines for liquor offence rose to levels previously unheard of. Raney, it seems, was happier to collect a large fine than to send men to jail.
Two leading members of the anti-liquor squad were Licence Inspector Grant and Provincial Constable Melville. Working with other officers and a carefully nurtured network of informants, the two usually concentrated on a specific area in their attempts to eliminate the illicit liquor industry.
In June of 1924 the two men moved their show to Wellington County, and carefully pieced together fragments of information and leads from various sources.
A wave of arrests began in the latter part of July. The first man raided was a fellow named Bob Williamson, who lived in Puslinch Township. Williamson’s second piece of bad luck was to come up in front of hard-nosed Magistrate Watt in a Guelph courtroom.
The officers dragged some of Williamson’s equipment into the courtroom to add to the show value of the trial. They also seized a five-gallon can of molasses and a ten gallon can of mash, which was fermenting at the time of the raid. There were also a number of cans of mash, already fermented and ready for distillation. The still itself was complete and in good condition, a piece of equipment that would win the admiration of any metal worker.
As the trial neared its end, one of the cans of mash sitting on a table at the front of the courtroom exploded. Or rather, the cork blew off, but the pressure inside was so great that the mash flew all over the courtroom. A few spectators found the incident amusing, and began to titter. Their suppressed laughter became contagious, and soon most of those present were roaring with laughter.
A few people did not find the incident amusing. Among them was Magistrate Watt. He quickly restored order by shouting and pounding his gavel. Then he gave his verdict: guilty, of course, and a fine of $500, or an alternative of six months in jail. In 1924, $500 was the better part of a year’s wages for a working man.
The odour of booze still lingered in the courtroom when Magistrate Watt dismissed the session for the day.
A few days after the raid on the Williamson farm Grant and Melville moved their operations north. This time their prey was the Murphy House a hotel on the east side of St. David Street and north of St. Andrew, the main street of Fergus. Under the influence of the Beatty family and others, Fergus was the leading town in the anti-liquor campaigning of the period, and violators had come up with many ingenious methods to keep their supply of booze flowing more or less uninterrupted.
Grant and Melville had heard a number of reports that the Murphy House proprietor, Henry McDermott, was serving his regular customers all the liquor they could drink. However, Grant and Melville could see no sign of booze whenever they visited the hotel.
Convinced that McDermott was selling liquor, on July 24 of 1924 they organized a full-scale raid on the property. They found a half-dozen full bottles of liquor hidden around the mail floor of the building, and a quart of gin under a loose floorboard in the stable. Undoubtedly there was much more that remained hidden.
Grant and McDermott packed up their haul and took it to Guelph for safekeeping. As for McDermott, he had a short wait of 24 hours before appearing before Fergus Police Magistrate Hellyer. Determined to show that he was every bit as tough as Magistrate Watt, Hellyer levied a fine of $800 against McDermott. His alternative, though, was only three months in jail.
By 1924, though, the temperance movement was on the way out. In 1924 the UFO government went down to defeat, and the new administration of Howard Ferguson took a more lenient though cautious approach to liquor.
Slowly, and with tight regulations and control, beer and liquor returned to Ontario. But those steps were too late to do any good to the pockebooks of Henry McDermott, Bob Williamson, and the other men swept up in Wellington County’s liquor raids during the summer of 1924.
And as well, the OPP was happy to concentrate on traffic issues and serious crime rather than chase after bootleggers.