ink up the
end of the regime with its heroic beginnings and to reinvest the
party with some of its lost glamor.

LAURIER: DEFEAT AND ANTI-CLIMAX

THE defeat of the Liberals in September, 1911, raised sharply the
question of the party's future and the leadership under which it
would face that future. Speaking at St. Jerome toward the close of
the campaign Sir Wilfrid had stated positively that if defeated he
would retire. This declaration of intention--no doubt at the moment
sincerely made--was designed to check the falling away from
Laurier's leadership in Quebec, which was becoming more noticeable
as election day drew near. But the appeal was ineffective.. The
effective opposition to Laurier in Quebec came not from Borden or
from Monk, the official leader of the French Conservatives, but from
Bourassa. Laurier and his lieutenants fought desperately, but in
vain, to break the strengthening hold of the younger man on the
sympathies of the French electors. In Quebec the custom of the joint
open air political meeting is still popular, and at such a concourse
in St. Hyacinthe, an old Liberal stronghold, Sir Wilfrid's
colleagues, Lemieux and Beland, met a notable defeat at the hands of
Bourassa--an incident which clearly revealed how the winds were
blowing. Bourassa, fanatically "nationalist" in his convictions and
free from any political necessity to consider the reactions
elsewhere of his doctrines, was outbidding Sir Wilfrid in the
latter's own field. Laurier received the news of the electoral
result in a hall in Quebec East, surrounded by the electors of the
constituency which had been faithful to him for 40 years. He
accepted the blow with the tranquil fortitude which was his most
notable personal characteristic; but the feature in the disaster
which must have made the greatest demand upon his stoicism was this
indication that his old surbordinate and one time friend
was--apparently--about to supplant him in the leadership of his own
people. The election figures showed that whereas Laurier had carried
49 seats in Quebec in 1896, 58 in 1900, 54 in 1904 and again in
1908, he had been successful in only 38 constituencies against 27
for the Conservatives and Nationalists combined. Laurier, at the
moment of his defeat, was within two months of entering upon his
70th year. He had been 40 years in public life; for 24 years leader
of his party; for 15 years prime minister. He had had a long and
distinguished career; and he