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Updated: June 18, 2025
Mid-Toronto shouted itself black in the face that night, and went about its own business for the next seven days in a manner that one eminent alienist would have described had he been giving expert evidence for the defence at fifty dollars per hour as "between a state of hysterical mania and senile decay, but not close enough to the one to necessitate confinement in an asylum, or to the other as to require the attention of a trained nurse."
"What's this I hear about a fight in Mid-Toronto, Tommy?" he asked. "Meaning that the news has been gently broken to you by one William Adolphus Turnpike?" "Yes." "Well, put your money on Jimmy Duggan, coal and woodyard man, defender of the rights of the common people, candidate of the People's Party, the valiant David that's going to knock the stuffing out of the false Goliar "
And this was the man that Mid-Toronto was asked to return again because his own party was afraid to antagonise him, and the opposition felt that they hadn't a ghost of show to carry a riding that for twenty years had beaten their candidates by large majorities. It looked indeed as though "The Big Wind" might be elected by acclamation.
Jimmy Duggan was the least affected of any of the People's Party. He made fifty-five brief speeches of thanks in various sections of Mid-Toronto, and made his last to Tommy Watson, Tony Gaston, and Pa Turnpike, who escorted him to his home. "I owe most to you three," he said earnestly, "and you'll have to help me think up some kind of legislation to press for.
"You live in Mid-Toronto, William," said Whimple, jocularly, "and you ought to know what's going on there!" "Well, I know a few things," said William, smilingly. "Such as " and Whimple paused. "Politics," said William, grinning. "Yes!" "A fight a fight, and it'll be a loller-palluselar." "A what?" "That's just a word my Pa uses, Mister Whimple honest, I couldn't say it more'n once a day."
"I was about to say this fair province of Toronto, rising in their might, will go to the polls, well knowing that under the freedom and liberty which is theirs by right of the grand old flag " "Tommy, shut up!" "I was about to say, they can vote as they darned well please, and the same will be mostly the way they've voted every election the last fifteen years except in Mid-Toronto."
"Isn't it Goliath?" suggested Whimple, mildly. "Well, maybe you're right, but, any way, there'll be an awful explosion in Mid-Toronto on August tenth, duly fixed by royal proclamation as the day on which the manhood of this fair province " "Oh, drop it, Tommy " "If the gentleman has any questions to ask I'll be pleased to answer them at the close of my address," Tommy went on.
"Because that is the case," proceeded Jimmy, calmly. "In fact, the Howilton companies that got the contract are owned by the Toronto ring, anyway." The Provincial Secretary rose hastily, and as hastily expressed the opinion that the honorable member for Mid-Toronto was mistaken. "It is a grave charge he makes," he said, "and I do not think it has any real foundation."
Two weeks before the official nomination, Whimple, himself a dabbler in politics and a supporter of the government, heard, with other rumours, that an independent candidate would be in the field in Mid-Toronto, and the next morning the rumours were declared, by no less a personage than William Adolphus Turnpike, to have truth as their foundation.
But if there were no really great issues in a general sense, there was a big one in Mid-Toronto, and stripped of all party rhetoric and verbiage it was this: "Shall 'The Big Wind' continue to represent us?" The people were tired of "The Big Wind." So was the government.
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