A PM’S EMOTIONAL DAY
Lord Elgin Hotel book excerpt
On the day, 75 years ago this week, that Mackenzie King officially opened the Lord Elgin Hotel, a new symbol of the stately capital he had long dreamed of building, Canada’s most successful — and peculiar — prime minister was an emotional mess over the death of his dog.
The official opening of The Lord Elgin Hotel on July 19, 1941, marked a milestone in the modern evolution of Canada’s capital — the successful collaboration of a private company, the local municipality and the national government in bringing both a vitally important public service and a stunningly attractive piece of architecture to Ottawa’s urban core.
Another story unfolded that day, too, one that hasn’t been told before in connection with the hotel’s christening, but which encompasses not only the auspicious public occasion but also the deep personal anguish of Canada’s most successful — and most peculiar — prime minister.
In so many ways, The Lord Elgin was already Mackenzie King’s hotel. It was King who had tapped the vision of French urban planner Jacques Gréber to begin transforming Ottawa into a more orderly, picturesque city worthy of its stature as a national capital.
It was King who had pushed for the widening of Elgin Street and the federal acquisition of properties to develop a stately ceremonial boulevard approaching the new National War Memorial and Parliament Hill.
And it was King who had cleared the way for the Lord Elgin to front the new boulevard between Laurier and Slater streets, and who had insisted it be a grand, stone-faced structure — not the boxy brick building Ford Hotels originally had in mind — with a steeply sloped copper roof to complement the nearby Château Laurier and the Parliament Buildings themselves.
But King ’s front-and-centre participation in the July 19 ceremony that formally launched The Lord Elgin on that midsummer Saturday 75 years ago would create an enduring bond between the politician and the place. It’s a connection symbolized not only by the shape and elegance of the structure itself, and by the two gleaming works of art — marble busts of the 19th century Lord and Lady Elgin — that he arranged to unveil upon the hotel’s inauguration; the link is evident, as well, in the preserved, private thoughts of a man who was compelled by duty that day to perform on a public stage while gripped by grief over the loss of his closest companion: Pat the dog, the “great noble soul” so central to King ’s life.
His pet since 1924, the little Irish terrier was referenced in King ’s diary almost every day for the next 17 years. Known for accompanying King to the voting booth on election days, the pooch and the PM had even been photographed by Yousuf Karsh, Canada’s most famous portraitist.
But on July 15, 1941 — after many months of failing health, and just days before the planned opening of The Lord Elgin — the aged dog finally died.
King, who had rushed home from a meeting of the war cabinet to be with Pat at the end, was deluged with telegrams, telephone calls and handwritten condolences from across the country. The passing of the prime minister’s dog even earned front-page news coverage in Ottawa, where King’s beloved “little man” was a familiar sight.
But even amid his evident anguish over the dog’s death, King gamely prepared for The Lord Elgin’s grand opening.
On the morning of the ribboncutting ceremony, King visited Pat’s burial place at Moorside, the prime minister’s cottage property north of Ottawa.
Touchingly, King plucked some pink flowers from the animal’s gravesite to adorn his suit for the hotel’s official launch party. “I had dressed in my grey flannel suit, put on (a) black tie — for my own feelings re Pat — When I saw the flowers I took the brightest ... and put them in the button hole of my coat, to wear while I spoke in the city. To me they spoke of ‘the life that shall ever be’ — of resurrection, joy of eternal life — they expressed my real feelings re little Pat.”
Sporting his dark tie and bright blossoms, the dual signs of King’s conflicted emotions on that day, the prime minister was driven to Ottawa before noon.
He took special notice, while crossing the bridge from Hull, of an optical illusion in which the old Château Laurier, the new Lord Elgin and the East Block of Parliament all appeared to be sitting side by side — “a true relationship,” in the mind’s eye of the prime minister, between the private and public architecture of the burgeoning capital.
The July 19 hotel opening attracted a who’s who of elite Ottawa — much of the federal cabinet, leading opposition members, U.S. and British diplomats, top federal public servants, municipal politicians, business leaders and journalists.
The crowd gathered around King for his formal announcement that the busts of Lord and Lady Elgin had been given by the present Earl of Elgin to the government of Canada on the understanding that they would remain indefinitely on display in the lobby of the new hotel.
In giving his blessing to the hotel named for his grandfather, the 10th Earl had urged the The Lord Elgin’s management to adhere to the sentiment that his viceregal ancestor had voiced upon leaving Government House in Quebec at the end of his term in Canada in 1854: “I trust,” Lord Elgin had said, “that this house continues to be, what I have ever sought to render it, a neutral territory, on which persons of opposite opinions, political and religious, may meet together in harmony and forget their differences for a season.”
King, who repeated the words to the assembled crowd, was almost moved to tears by this expression of “the common good,” as he later recounted in his diary.
“As I concluded, I almost broke down in reference to Lord Elgin’s quotation,” wrote King, who appears to have endured the ceremony on the brink of an emotional unravelling, ever-conscious of the reminders of the departed Pat that he’d worn to the hotel.
“I thought of dear little Pat at this point — indeed, all the way thro’ my voice might have betrayed my feelings, which it was difficult to control. But when I referred to the ‘common good’ my thoughts were of ‘our mission’ — he and I & our brotherhood — to be worked for together. I got over it all right, but it was like a last leap and I could not have uttered another word.”
King, naturally, was granted the honour of registering as the first guest of The Lord Elgin. Photographs of the signing show the prime minister pen-in-hand and peering through his trademark pince-nez spectacles, black ribbon dangling and the wilting blooms still there in his buttonhole, the whole scene sharply reflected in the gleaming surface of the hotel’s front desk.
When I saw the flowers I took the brightest ... to wear while I spoke in the city. To me they spoke of ‘the life that shall ever be’ — of resurrection, joy.