“Gordon Must Go”

(from The Great Scot:
A Bipgraphy of Donald Gordon by Joseph Schul)

D R A F T – A few words on the fly, go get the book!

‘boo-boo’ in the committee represented ‘another example of his arrogance and brutality of expression’. He had discovered that ‘You’ve got to be most courtly when speaking to French Canadians … I think indirectly because of their supersensitivity and the fact that the chip is on their shoulders.'” Quebec trade unionism was beginning to enter the fray, the new Rassemblement pour I’independance Nationale was seizing its opportunity and the uncourtly president of the railway was the cause and centre of the storm.

It broke over him with full force on December n, 196a, his sixty-first birthday. About mid-afternoon five chartered buses, a flotilla of automobiles and a truck carrying a pig-faced Gordon effigy disgorged some thousand students on the plaza at Ville-Marie. Most of them were from the University of Montreal, identified by blue lapel cards and were part of a demonstration that included a deputation. The leaders were to see Gordon while the mass waited on the plaza, making their views clear. But the headquarters building was locked, with railway police in the lobby, and the president was ensconced in his eyrie seventeen floors above. By the time the four chosen spokesmen were inside the thousand outside were restless and hordes of unwelcomcd newcomers were trebling the size of the crowd.

All that, however, was a distant rumble below as the four went up in the elevator, entered the outer office and were greeted by Lloyd Morgan. They identified themselves as Bernard Landry, president of the students’ association of the University of Montreal; Guy Trottier, administrative secretary; Pierre Marois, chairman of the education committee, and Louis Duval,

ment pour I’lndependance Nationale was seizing its opportunity and the uncourtly president of the railway was the cause and centre of the storm.
It broke over him with full force on December II, 1962, his sixty-first birthday. About mid-afternoon five chartered buses, a flotilla of automobiles and a truck carrying a pig-faced Gordon effigy disgorged some thousand students on the plaza at Ville-Marie. Most of them were from the University of Montreal, identified by blue lapel cards and were part of a demonstration that included a deputation. The leaders were to see Gordon while the mass waited on the plaza, making their views clear. But the headquarters building was locked, with railway police in the lobby, and the president was ensconced in his eyrie seventeen floors above. By the time the four chosen spokesmen were inside the thousand outside were restless and hordes of unwelcomed newcomers were trebling the size of the crowd.
All that, however, was a distant rumble below as the four went up in the elevator, entered the outer office and were greeted by Lloyd Morgan. They identified themselves as Bernard Landry, president of the students’ association of the University of Montreal; Guy Trottier, administrative secretary; Pierre Marois, chairman of the education committee, and Louis Duval, secretary. They were clean-shaven, well turned-out and formidably self-possessed. Shown in to the president, they made it clear that they intended to speak in French and he was prepared for that. Lionel Cote, the railway’s general counsel, was on hand to act as interpreter.

‘He wasn’t needed for long, though,’ Norma Gordon records. ‘Since the students were all bilingual they soon got bored with the translating and started to speak in English. They got on beautifully with Donnie. What they had .iiMi.’is! him was what thev thought he was like, not what he reallv was.’*7