On August 31, 1912, the Hamilton Herald published an article under the headline, “Hamilton a Melting Pot For Many Races : Raw Material Is There Being Converted Into Canadian Citizenship By Steady Process.”
The Herald reporter described his experiences while visiting the northeast section of the Hamilton of 1912 to witness first hand and report on how recent immigrants were adapting to their new country.
In 1912, there were at least a dozen different ethnic groups living between Wentworth Street North and the Hamilton Jockey Club.
Gradually these immigrant groups were being assimilated into the mainstream of life in Hamilton, while, at the same time, retaining most of their native customs.
The Herald reporter was accompanied by Police Inspector David Coulter, of the East End station, on the journey around the Crown Point district.
Knowing which nationality owned which home, the members of the Hamilton police department, working out of the east end station, had an important role to play in the assimilation of new immigrants.
As described by the man from the Herald, “the east end police station is a human distributing agency. Everyday, the foreigner with not a word of English comes into the station and shoves over the dirty note with an address scribbled on it and is directed to his new home, secured by sacrifice and often a wrench of the binding ties of his home in the old land, but upheld by the glorious prospect of wealth, freedom and last, but not least, a future for the dark-eyed tots at home who will come out later. This is the first work of the policeman.”
A major part of police work in the “foreign” district was directed as much toward the prevention of crime as to the pursuit of criminal violators of the law.
The recent immigrant living in Hamilton usually was completely unaware of Canadian law and hence would just proceed to live according to the customs of his homeland. However, he would soon find out that such practices as the carrying of concealed weapons for self-protection was unacceptable. Usually one warning would be enough to cease the practice. If not, an appearance at the police court would do the trick.
Quite often, the police relied on the children of the area to act as interpreters when the police needed to get information from those who spoke no English. As well as picking up the language easily, the children of the district were quicker to absorb the main aspects of the Canadian lifestyle.
However, as the Herald reporter noted, “even with the young becoming Canadianized, there is still enough of the old blood left in them to cause them to pursue some of the lamentable customs of their homeland.”
Housing in the “foreign” section in and around the Crown Point district was of very poor quality. Virtually every house was a boarding house, with the number of residents per house running anywhere from fourteen to sixty.
Every room, except the dining room and the kitchen, would contain at least six beds. There would even be beds set up in the basement.
Every bed would be occupied at all hours of the day and night, as the boarding house residents would sleep in shifts, with as the reporter noted, as many bodies to the bed “as the temperature and temperament of the bedmates would allow.”
Most of the boarding house visited by the Herald reporter were usually in a very unsanitary condition with little or no evidence of scrubbing or sweeping. Many of the lawns were overgrown and few flower or vegetable gardens laid out.
The attitude of most recent immigrants to Hamilton at the time was that the boarding house was just a place in which to eat and sleep. The Herald reporter did observe that the younger immigrant and those who had been in Canada the longest were “beginning to learn a few secrets of at least rough home comforts.”
The Herald man reflected the general attitudes and prejudices of long-time Hamilton residents towards recent immigrants, writing that they all had “healthy booze appetites, which they proceeded to satisfy by the keg.”
“Beer,” the reporter pointed out, “was more plentiful than water in the foreign district, being second in place of tea or coffee.” The police had some success toning down the penchant for “booze festivals” among the newcomers, but did relax the rules somewhat for wedding celebrations which sometimes ran on for days, the groom being “the most generous and sociable fellow in the colony.”
The Herald reporter went on to describe in detail a man he considered to be a somewhat typical example of the recent immigrant to Hamilton in 1912. In a somewhat unfortunately demeaning description, the reporter named his character Tony, because “he is Tony by name, and ‘toney’ by nature.”
A fine-looking chap, Toney was a frequent visitor to the Beach Strip, and thus concluded hat to look like a typical Canadian, he needed to wear duck trousers and tan shoes.
So far so good, the reporter went one, but, “either his money fails, or Tony’s idea of harmony in dress is all astray,” because “while the trousers and shoes look fine, Tony completes his outfit with a flannel shirt and a heavy coat.”
The Herald reporter concluded his pen picture of recent immigrants by saying that “the rest of them are like Tony and they delight in a full array of colours, they imitate the Canadians but persist in following their traditions and getting some colour on somewhere.”
An immigrant newly arrived from Poland, Paul Gravetz, was chosen by the Herald man to illustrate the typical story of a newcomer’s experience in Hamilton.
Back in Poland, Paul had learned that Canada was a place where “a man could make money and be under no obligation to government or individual.”
Saving money for steerage passage across the Atlantic Ocean, Paul left his family back in the old country. Arriving in Quebec, he met an immigration officer “who gave him a poke in the ribs and pronounced him O.K. in health.”
After a railroad journey to Hamilton, he went to the police station with the name of an obscure street on a crumpled piece of paper, and the police provided him with specific directions to that locality.
After getting employment in an east end factory, Paul got a room with forty-five others in a boarding house located not far from his new place of employment.
After his pay increased above the bare minimum he received at the start of his employment at the factory, and after he was able to acquire at least a working knowledge of English, Paul was finally able to buy some land and erect a house, which he immediately turned into a boarding house. He also at hat point brought his wife over to act as the boarding house cook.
The Herald reporter was of the opinion that the newcomers generally lived well, but did feel that “they live too much on verandahs, between forty and fifty have been known to sit on one.” Also the police had to teach the foreigners not to block the sidewalks because they were “very fond of the streets,” and were “continually standing out on them.”
Working out of the new police station on Sherman avenue, Inspector Coulter had only two men to cover the district bounded by Wellington Street, Crown Point, the mountain and the bay. Obviously because of that situation, there were many parts of the district that received hardly any police supervision, but Inspector Coulter felt that he “understood the foreigner, and instructed his men to treat them with kindness and patience.”
A popular member of the east end police force was Old Jack, a patrol horse, who, in 1912, was in his twenty-sixth year with the police. Old Jack always seemed, in the words of the Herald man, “to feel the dignity of his position and persisted in keeping his head up like a peacock.”
After being transferred to the east end station when it opened, Old Jack eventually became quite a linguist, being able to understand “whoa” in nine different languages.
Through the investigative work and detailed descriptive powers of a Hamilton Herald reporter conditions in the far northeast section of 1912 for recent immigrants were recorded. The positive, proactive and humane work of the Hamilton police working out of then brand new Sherman avenue station helped these newcomers to the city and to Canada immensely.
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