WHEN TORONTO WENT JOY CRAZY
Automobiles were at a premium and all horns were honking as strangers hopped aboard.
Just before 3 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, a telegraph came over the wire, triggering a race to break the news that the Great War was over. When Germany surrendered, Torontonians gave up their inhibitions. This is an hour-by-hour account of what happened next
The newspapers said that Nov. 11, 1918, was the longest day in Toronto’s history. It had been 1,567 days since the war began, and more than 4,900 heartbreaking telegrams for the families of local men and women killed overseas. While the city was sleeping, the slaughter had ended on the Western Front and everywhere else. It was a typical November day. Most of the leaves had fallen from the trees, there was no snow on the ground, but the early morning streets were slick with rain. The city forgot forgot the sombre autumn chill and the anxiety that had lingered like a four-year weather system. Nov. 11, 1918, would be a day of unrestrained joy.
ARMISTICE from IN1 2 a.m.
The end of the war wasn’t a surprise, but the timing was. For days, telegraph operators had been waiting for the clicks like the birth of a child. They had spent the war translating the sterile Morse code into death tolls. As Canadian soldiers advanced out of northern France and into Belgium, pushing the Germans eastward, they waited for the sound of peace to cross the lines buried under the Atlantic Ocean. It had already happened a few days ago. An unconfirmed “flash” from United Press on Nov. 7 made cities like Toronto erupt in premature celebrations, but it had been a mistake.
2:30 a.m.
The Associated Press sent its usual sign-off “GN” for good night. Nothing was expected overnight, so the newspaper telegraph men went to eat together, as was their custom. They picked McConkey’s, a popular restaurant that had fed Torontonians since the 1840s, often hosting fundraising luncheons and banquets. It was one of the places that stayed open late during the war because of late shifts at the nearby munitions factories. Not too long before that, it had been raided when the Dominion Police were looking for men who had skipped on conscription, blocking off the doors and arresting “defaulters.”
2:50 a.m.
“F-L-A-S-H F-L-A-S-H / ARMISTICE SIGNED.” The Toronto Telegram’s operator was still in the office when his machine began to click. Many operators had gone to war, where their skills were needed for strategy and communication. In the labour shortage, the industry “had found a way to convert the Morse signal into characters that would print out on the tape,” says Shirley Tillotson, a labour historian and professor emerita at Dalhousie and University of King’s College. The automated technology was already in use in brokerages, banks and telegraph offices — where predominantly female operators monitored the ticker tape for mistakes — but newsrooms were still using the key-and-sounder technology. The operator was eating his late-night lunch when he stopped mid-bite and jumped to the wire. “It’s amazing what those guys and the women who also worked in this trade could hear,” Tillotson says. “It’s just a blur to anyone who is not trained in it. It’s fascinating evidence of the range of human perceptual abilities.”
2:50 a.m.
Back at the restaurant, the newspaper operators — all men, as the labour divide tended to go — were digging into their meals when a messenger burst in and told them the armistice had been signed. They scrambled for the door like the stars of a silent film. “One man who was just making headway into a beautiful cream puff saw it split in many parts before his eyes.” They all got stuck in the swinging door, but the Star man was out first, running for the office around the corner. “Toronto was call- ing for news, and Toronto had to have it.” He arrived “breathless with exertion ... and in a flash the news was being printed for the public.” Words like flash and spark peppered news coverage of the day, a metaphor for the transmission of the news, Tillotson notes.
3 a.m.
Premier William Hearst and Mayor Tommy Church both lived in Rosedale neighbourhood, where they were awoken by phone calls. The news was spreading by word of mouth, telegraph, telephone, and noise. The “dull roar” of the city’s factories, where many people were still working, erupted with horns and whistles. Two hundred employees of a munitions plant on Adelaide St. — where workers pulled overnight shifts — marched to city hall singing hymns, “Rule Britannia” and “Soldiers of the King.” Not long after, the first issues of the Toronto Telegram hits the streets in a satisfying thump: “Germany Surrenders.”
3:30 a.m.
Nobody could sleep at the downtown hotels amid the whistles, bells and clatter. “Was this some kind of dream — or had the midnight gone mad?” the Globe asked. The noise hit the quieter residential streets, too. Bleary-eyed men and women opened their windows, and some rushed to the telephone, to try to get an operator on the line. How do you know this is true, they asked the operators. Is this really peace? They laughed and shouted, the phone operators and strangers. Not long after, the Star special edition hits the streets, with VICTORY on the front page.
5 a.m.
Edith Burke, who lived near Dundas and Bloor Sts., woke up to “every kind of noise you could imagine.” It was a cacophony of horns, factory whistles, church bells, pots and pans, musical instruments, and shouting and singing. It was a new soundscape, repeated across Ontario, says Sara Karn, who wrote about the subject for ActiveHistory.ca in “‘The town’s gone wild: Sounds of Victory in Toronto.’ ” At a recent talk on her research, Karn was asked if it was possible to recreate the soundscape for the 100th anniversary. But Toronto has changed too much. Many noises were sounds of industry that don’t exist anymore downtown. “Just the regular sounds of today would probably already be louder in many ways,” she says.
Returned soldiers
Soldiers already had a big street presence in Toronto because of the city’s hospitals, orthopedic clinics and artificial-limb makers, notes Nathan Smith, a historian at Seneca College who wrote about returned soldiers in Toronto for his PhD thesis. Because antibiotics had not been developed, recovery meant a very long convalescence. On Armistice Day, many of these veterans flagged down cars. “Whenever there was time to celebrate everybody piled into cars, because cars were the new things,” Smith says. “It was often a way that returned soldiers got around … people would offer them car rides, maybe as a way of assuaging their own guilt. People would volunteer their automobiles to hospitals.” 8 a.m.
Only 100 of the 1,500 employees of the Toronto Street Railway Co. showed up for work. One driver arrived early to the Dundas car yard with his bagpipes and began marching over the bridge, “bursting with music till even the heath on the hillsides woke.” The few drivers who did show up ferried a few loads of the “joy crazed populace” downtown, but many riders tried to entice them into quitting early — accusing them of being pro-German for staying behind the wheel.
9 a.m.
Stores with British flags and noisemakers were doing a “roaring trade” by the early hours. Streetcar drivers soon succumbed to the “contagious enthusiasm.” That, combined with the crowded streets, meant the transit network was essentially offline. Everybody walked. Cars were at a premium. “How could the street car men along with all the populace of Toronto stay at their posts and miss the greatest celebrations in British history?” the Star asked. The Toronto Stock Exchange, banks and factories had also shut down. “Work on the most momentous day in the history of the world was unthinkable.” Business was paralyzed. “No one toiled but newspapermen, Victory Loan salesmen, police, and those taking part in the great parade,” the Globe wrote.
Not everyone celebrated
Some families stayed indoors. Of the 424,000 Canadians who served overseas, close to 60,000 were killed, and another 138,000 were wounded in battle, according to the Canadian War Museum. “I am not celebrating today,” said Sam Hughes, the former minister of militia, who had been so zealous at the outset of the war. “I am thinking too much of the boys who have gone down. That is all.” Paul Bilkey, who had been a rookie reporter when Toronto celebrated the end of Boer War, later wrote in his memoir that the end of the First World War came with a grief that felt deeper and more profound: “The stupendous tragedy had bitten too deeply into the homes and hearts of the Canadian people.”
9:30 a.m.
At police court, Magistrate Kingsford cleared his throat: “This is not a day for punishment. It is a day for amnesty and pardon. I see many men are here for drunkenness … They are free. I hope they won’t abuse this leniency … And this order also applies to all men charged with speeding, gambling and similar offences.” There were no cheers, but one man, well known to the court, shook hands with a police officer from the morality squad on his way out the door. The men left “the sombre shadows of the Temple of Justice into the radiant
fires of unrestrained joy,” the Telegram wrote. The headline was more to the point: “Drunks happy as larks.”
Women
The war had disrupted traditional gender roles. By 1916, there were 2,500 women in Toronto who worked in the munitions industry. One of them was Mrs. R. Gurr, who was happily celebrating downtown. Her son had been fighting in France and she wanted to feel like she was doing something “real” for the war: “They say I have done a man’s part as I was the first woman to don the pants and start making shrapnel shells at FairbanksMorse. I also worked on 200 pound and the French 75 pound Victory shells. After hours I made shirts for the boys. But now ’tis all over and the day has come when you can do as you like and go as you please and we are off to start our jollification.” She had been awake since 4:30 a.m. and had draped a Union Jack around her. “Here’s a cheer for you boys,” she shouted at soldiers who walked by. “This is England’s day and I am going to have a time of it. My spirit knows no bounds now my boy is coming home.”
11 a.m.
The crowd downtown had now reached “stupendous proportions.” Young women were “especially vociferous and freely sprinkled all and sundry with talcum powder and corn starch,” the Telegram wrote. Nobody knew why, but the powder kept coming and the reporters were fascinated by it. “In a short time the girls of Toronto presented ghostly faces in the semi darkness of the late afternoon as the powder got in its deadly work,” the Star wrote. “By evening the air was thick with it. It penetrated the eyes and nostrils with its pungent odor, and minute particle.”
Noon
Mayor Tommy Church, going on a few hours’ sleep, stood on the steps of city hall. “Toronto has longed for such a day as this to come,” he said. “Mad militarism has been destroyed for evermore, and all the allies fought for has been won … I want to thank all the women of the city especially for their co-operation and help in the war. It was largely owing to their efforts that Toronto made the showing it did.” Meanwhile, many of those women were still at it. The city’s phone network was deluged. Dozens of telephone operators volunteered to help out. They had to walk to work since streetcars weren’t operating.
2 p.m.
There was a Victory Loan parade already scheduled for Nov. 11, featuring John Philip Sousa’s United States Naval Band. Victory Loans were a way for citizens to support the war effort, and even with the fighting over, the government still needed money — that’s what the papers said. Edith Burke, who had been up since 5 a.m., watched as 14 “aeroplanes” flew above the city during the parade, buzzing low before they darted straight up in the sky. The planes dropped pieces of white paper with the words “LEND” in red ink. They drifted to the ground like snow. Burke picked one up and put it in her pocket. She wrote later that night: “Dropped from Aeroplane in the great Victory Loan Parade. Peace declared today Monday Nov. 111918.”
4 p.m.
At their King St. office, Star reporters finished their stories. The paper decided to publish one evening edition instead of the regular three, so staff could celebrate. The 5 o’clock paper made special notice of the children running around on the streets. “They will grow up in a new world, with Europe delivered from the fear and bondage of centuries, and with vast possibilities of development for every nation in the world. It will be a time of reconstruction — for a new international order … such an opportunity has never before in history been offered to the children of men.”
Blowing off steam
Firefighters responded to 55 calls. There were bonfires that blazed on the streetcar tracks, burning wagons, and the flaming effigies of the Kaiser. Historian Nathan Smith sees an undercurrent to the pandemonium, a desperate need to be carefree. Toronto had been through hell and it wasn’t just the war. The Spanish flu epidemic that killed millions around the world had killed more than 1,750 Torontonians. The worst seemed to be over by November, but the city’s medical authorities feared a second wave amid the celebrating crowds. “I sometimes get the impression that people are really taking this as a reason to blow off a lot of steam, because they’re worried about what it’s going to be over the next few weeks and months,” Smith says.
6 p.m.
The theatre and restaurants siphoned some people off the streets, but crowds still gathered in front of the Star’s King St. office for updates. The Star projected pictures from Europe, and “the great news of the day” on a white screen set up on a building opposite the office. Newspaper offices were a popular hangout on election nights and historic days. “It was a common place to go to get news quickly,” Smith says. “They would broadcast it out the front door or they might have a balcony set up, and they’d flash news headlines out there.”
Night
When the war began, British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey famously said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” He was talking about a way of life, and not electricity, but the war had been dark on both counts. In 1917, a hydro shortage meant that every second street light had been turned off in Toronto, according to Ontario and the First
World War. In 1918, shops, theatres, offices, homes and streets all had lighting restictions. The mayor telegraphed the hydroelectric authorities to ask that wartime restrictions be lifted. He wanted to turn “night into day.” At city hall, just before 10 p.m., a“strong voiced tenor” led the “seething, surging mass” in an impromptu concert as two searchlights washed over the scene. “Horseplay there was aplenty but it stopped short at anything unseemly or dangerous,” the Star wrote.
Hurt
But that wasn’t quite true. Peter Skorofsky was hit on the head while celebrating, and taken to hospital. Patrick Dineen, 30, was knocked down by a car, and broke his leg. Annie McColl collapsed on the street. Little Morris Kosky fell off a car fender. Many drunk adults stumbled, “tripped up by their treacherous companion ... John Barleycorn.” Eileen McElhinney, 8, was run over and killed by a car at Northumberland St. and Delaware Ave. in the west end. She and her schoolmates were waving flags as they marched to “help and the hurrah and noise of the neighbourhood.” When a car drove down the street, the children moved to the sidewalk. “It is thought Eileen became confused as she ran back and then out again directly in front of the car.” She died on the scene, but the driver carried her into her home and called the police, “who after hearing his story, which was corroborated by eye witnesses, allowed him to go.”
Aftermath
The next day, Toronto tallied the cost of the party: the lost revenue to the streetcar company, the injuries, the death, the 22 “apprehended inebriates” who found themselves in police court. It was Day 2 of peace, but the cloud of anxiety that had momentarily lifted for Armistice Day celebrations had returned. What would happen to all the munition plants? Would there suddenly be a rise in unemployment? Would women take the men’s jobs? How would the soldiers do back home? Would communism spread?
In England, Prime Minister David Lloyd George read the terms of the armistice in the House of Commons: “Thus comes to an end the most terrible and the most cruel war that has ever scourged mankind,” he said. “I hope we may say on this fateful morning that thus came to an end all wars.”
The politicians cheered. Additional Sources: Star, Globe and Telegram newspapers, Toronto
Does Her ‘Bit’: The Home Front in the Great War exhibit at Market Gallery in 2014. Armistice photos by William James and Edith Burke letter held by Toronto Archives, Allen Edward Cuthbertson photos at Ontario Archives. Other photo sources include Toronto Reference Library and Western Union Archives.