Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry, and today we're doing a listener request.
Speaker 1: We've had a lot of request for Canadian history, but
Speaker 1: I have to credit listener alien for this one for
Speaker 1: the specific request. And it is also a two parter.
Speaker 1: We had one recently on Rosa Parks, uh because holy cheese,
Speaker 1: oh man, there's a lot of info on this one,
Speaker 1: even after we cut an edit for time, there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Uh So here in the US,
Speaker 1: I will be the first to say we do not
Speaker 1: get enough history regarding Canada. I pretty much feel like
Speaker 1: our Canadian history is mostly about trading beaver pelts during
Speaker 1: the like colonial days. Yeah. And I even lived in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest when I was elementary school age and
Speaker 1: we got a little more than I was getting when
Speaker 1: I moved. I moved to fourth grade to Florida and
Speaker 1: there was none there. But even so it wasn't a
Speaker 1: significant amount. And in a kind of mia culpa moment,
Speaker 1: I think I can think of two times we have
Speaker 1: even mentioned Canada when we've been on the podcast, and
Speaker 1: like one is that the chief Seattle saw Vancouver arrive.
Speaker 1: And then the other one was that Sarah Emma Edmonds
Speaker 1: had been in Canada. Like, yeah, that's it, so we're sorry,
Speaker 1: which is a pity because Canada's lovely. That was not
Speaker 1: on purpose. Uh yeah, I mean I'm betting that other
Speaker 1: countries probably also skim at best through a lot of
Speaker 1: Canadian history. Uh So, as I said, this one's from
Speaker 1: a listener request. It features a man who remains pretty
Speaker 1: polarizing and controversial even decades after his death. His career
Speaker 1: as a politician was one of extreme contrast, and there
Speaker 1: is ongoing debate over whether he was a hero or
Speaker 1: a villain, depending on the perspective of the person involved. Uh.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about the controversy surround him,
Speaker 1: which make him look very villainous, but there are still
Speaker 1: people that are kind of re examining his history and
Speaker 1: trying to put it in context and uh, trying to
Speaker 1: make it not so one sided. It's hard to do,
Speaker 1: I think, depending on your kind of worldview, it's sometimes
Speaker 1: hard to see him as anything but a little bit unsettling.
Speaker 1: But we're talking about more uh duclassie who I have
Speaker 1: also heard him referred to as Duplessi by more sort
Speaker 1: of americanized English. I'm gonna try to go a little
Speaker 1: more French because that's just my inclination. Uh. He has
Speaker 1: often described as having something of a ruthless administration. Uh. However,
Speaker 1: he's also characterized when you see interviews with people in
Speaker 1: very disparate words, even though it's the same person talking
Speaker 1: about him. They'll talk about how ruthless and aggressive he
Speaker 1: was as a politician, but then they'll also call him
Speaker 1: sort of a lovable rogue. Uh. And there's even an
Speaker 1: instance that we'll talk about in the second part of
Speaker 1: a man that was in a legal battle with him
Speaker 1: that was sort of crazy, but he even sort of
Speaker 1: talks about him as a nice man at the same
Speaker 1: time they were really in this very lockhorn situation. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's very very interesting. But he is, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: often described as something of a political beast. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: people credit him with uniting the people of uh Quebec
Speaker 1: and really bolstering French Canadian nationalism when he was in
Speaker 1: in office, and he served as Premiere of Quebec for
Speaker 1: longer than any other politician in the twentieth century. He
Speaker 1: came to be called by some lu chef and to
Speaker 1: some Uh the time he held as the seat of
Speaker 1: Premier and quip Quebec is also known as the Great Darkness.
Speaker 1: So even just in this brief intro you can see
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of desparate language used to
Speaker 1: discuss him. There's definitely two sides. He was born on
Speaker 1: April and this was in Tois Riviere or Three Rivers,
Speaker 1: which is the second oldest city in what was once
Speaker 1: New France, founded in sixteen thirty four. Yeah, the city
Speaker 1: was found in in sixteen thirty four. He was the
Speaker 1: son of nare Le Noble Duplicy and Marie Catherine camu
Speaker 1: Built Jenney. His father, nere Uh, was an attorney and
Speaker 1: a conservative politician. He served in provincial political offices until
Speaker 1: he became the mayor of Toiriviere in nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: and after leaving politics, Maurice's father became a superior court judge.
Speaker 1: So he definitely was raised in a conservative and political family.
Speaker 1: They also had four daughters, Marguerite, jean Etiennette and Gabrielle.
Speaker 1: Maurice was the only son and in eighteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: Maurice attended boarding school at the College Notre Dame in Montreal,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with the American University or the
Speaker 1: cathedral right many things take that name. He excelled as
Speaker 1: a student, particularly in the area of debate, and that
Speaker 1: was a skill that served him his entire life. In
Speaker 1: nineteen o two, he attended Seminary Devier to continue his studies.
Speaker 1: He enrolled in the University Laval in Montreal studied law
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten, following in his father's footsteps, and even
Speaker 1: when he was still a law student, he allegedly told
Speaker 1: friends that one day he would run the province and
Speaker 1: dupless He graduated law school in nineteen thirteen, and shortly
Speaker 1: after he partnered with a former fellow student at war
Speaker 1: Landois to open a law practice. As an attorney, Duplessi
Speaker 1: focused more on civil law instead of criminal and he
Speaker 1: generally represented average citizens. He did, however, make some really
Speaker 1: important connections while representing specific companies like the show Wannigan
Speaker 1: Water and Power Company, and so as his practice got bigger,
Speaker 1: his network did as well. But law was not enough
Speaker 1: for him for very long, because in nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: so ten years after he had graduated law school, dupless
Speaker 1: He ran for political office for the first time time
Speaker 1: as a Conservative Party candidate intoi Riviere. He did not
Speaker 1: win the election. He was defeated by a margin of
Speaker 1: two and eighty four votes. In nine seven, he made
Speaker 1: another run at public office, this time successfully and he
Speaker 1: was elected to the Quebec Assembly. He spent the years
Speaker 1: between his first campaign and the second one just really
Speaker 1: meticulously planning following his opponent, working on kind of a
Speaker 1: grassroots pre campaign, and seating a reputation as being the
Speaker 1: voice of the average person. And his election was significant
Speaker 1: because it broke a long line of Liberal Party wins
Speaker 1: for the electoral district. He was the first Conservative to
Speaker 1: win an election there in Toi Riviere in twenty seven years,
Speaker 1: and the initial victory of the Liberal Party inti Riviere
Speaker 1: had actually been what ended his father's Conservative political career,
Speaker 1: so now it was like the son sort of regained
Speaker 1: the ground that his parent had lost so allegedly. When
Speaker 1: do Plessy went to introduce himself to the rest of
Speaker 1: the Assembly, which was largely liberal at the time, making
Speaker 1: him this Conservative Party outlier, he introduced himself as the
Speaker 1: future Premier of Quebec YEA his first speech before the
Speaker 1: Legislative Assembly. Uh was by all accounts quite impressive and
Speaker 1: it made a very strong impression on everyone who was there,
Speaker 1: including the Premier of Quebec at the time, Louis Alexander
Speaker 1: de Tesssirou. During these early years as a member of
Speaker 1: the Legislative Assembly, do Plusy was also uh. He started
Speaker 1: this rivalry that would go on for years. In July,
Speaker 1: Conservative leader Author Savey resigned and he was replaced by
Speaker 1: Kelmy Chamillion Hood from the electoral district of Montreal Sambre.
Speaker 1: While who was much celebrated by party members, do Plusy
Speaker 1: believed him to be kind of a short timer and
Speaker 1: he plans to kind of bide his time and wait
Speaker 1: for this guy to fall out of favor. He was
Speaker 1: re elected to his office when elections have ine and
Speaker 1: in that same series of elections, who had lost his seat.
Speaker 1: Who'd and several other Conservatives had wanted to contest the elections,
Speaker 1: particularly those that were won by Liberal Party politicians, but
Speaker 1: du Plessy found himself on the opposite side of many
Speaker 1: of his Conservative Party members. He, along with a handful
Speaker 1: of like minded Conservatives, did not want the elections re examined.
Speaker 1: They feared for the potential of having their own wins overturned.
Speaker 1: But in this instance, du Plesss win was a very
Speaker 1: tight race. He had won by only forty one votes,
Speaker 1: so it does make sense that he wanted to let
Speaker 1: things stand as they were and kind of keep a
Speaker 1: recount out of the situation. And who'd openly criticized Duplessy
Speaker 1: for this position. His recount effort was struck down, and
Speaker 1: when who lost the Montreal mayoral race in two he
Speaker 1: resigned as head of the Conservative Party. Who had hand
Speaker 1: picked his preferred successor, who was Charles Ernest Galts, but
Speaker 1: Gold was not to be party leader. That position went
Speaker 1: to du Plessy. Yeah. Du Pleusy officially became the leader
Speaker 1: of the Conservative Party in October of nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: and he was backed largely by party members who favored
Speaker 1: provincial autonomy. As his political career grew, do Plessy dialed
Speaker 1: back his work as an attorney. He did his last
Speaker 1: case on January fourth, nineteen thirty four, arguing on behalf
Speaker 1: of the Showannigan Water and Power Company. Yep, that was
Speaker 1: the end of his work as a lawyer, sort of.
Speaker 1: It gets called up a little bit later, uh. Part
Speaker 1: of the reason that Conservatives were gaining ground again in
Speaker 1: politics in Quebec at the time was that the Liberal Party,
Speaker 1: which had been in power for a long time, had
Speaker 1: developed some problems. There was a very serious economic crisis
Speaker 1: going on in Canada at this time and it had
Speaker 1: really taken its toll on the party. The Tesherro government
Speaker 1: was mired in criticisms of ineffectual nous and some pretty
Speaker 1: serious accusations of corruption. In late nineteen thirty three, several
Speaker 1: French Canadian nationalists had published a document which was called
Speaker 1: the Program to Restaurant Socio. It was a call to
Speaker 1: reform uh that was informed largely by religious and specifically
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic social teachings, and it supported the bolstering of
Speaker 1: local industry and family farming rather than big business. And
Speaker 1: it really gained ground not only in the Conservative Party
Speaker 1: but also with members of the Liberal government that had
Speaker 1: grown a little disillusioned with some of the corruption and
Speaker 1: ineffectual nous that we talked about a little while ago,
Speaker 1: and they really just felt like change needed to happen.
Speaker 1: So rallying around this idea of reform, the group formed
Speaker 1: the Action Live around Nationale, offering labor reform, agricultural credits,
Speaker 1: a Ministry of Industry and a promise to eradicate political corruption,
Speaker 1: and this, uh is a very interesting move on du
Speaker 1: Plessy's part that is precipitated by this. So, just eighteen
Speaker 1: days before the n election, Duplessi, who had been with
Speaker 1: the Conservative Party up to this point, made an alliance
Speaker 1: with the Action Live around Nationale and they formed a
Speaker 1: larger group, the Union Nationale Duplessi Guin, which the Duplessi
Speaker 1: Guin was named after Duplessi obviously and Sir Lomerguin, who
Speaker 1: had been the leader of the a L N. And
Speaker 1: they were now in partnership with one another. So just
Speaker 1: for context, imagine, if you know, in any other election
Speaker 1: situation across the globe, two and a half weeks before
Speaker 1: the actual election, a politician said, by the way I'm
Speaker 1: changing parties, it's almost unheard of. It's kind of wacky.
Speaker 1: I feel like I might have heard of something similar
Speaker 1: like once, but it was it was after the election.
Speaker 1: It's pretty unusual, uh, and it's kind of brazen. He
Speaker 1: had been a little worried that this sort of new
Speaker 1: movement was going to appeal to some voters that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe didn't really agree with what was going on,
Speaker 1: but also weren't sure that they wanted to go Conservative
Speaker 1: Party like, so he basically was like, I'm throwing in
Speaker 1: my lot with these guys. Yeah. So on election night,
Speaker 1: this newly formed party took twenty six seats in the
Speaker 1: elections for the Legislative Assembly. Liberal Party candidates took forty
Speaker 1: eight and Conservative Party candidates took sixteen. So we had
Speaker 1: this brand new party that took a significant chunk of seats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, more seats than one of the established
Speaker 1: parties from before. Yeah. And the Liberal Party, while they
Speaker 1: still took more, many more seats, that was still a
Speaker 1: big reduction for them, and it um it was a
Speaker 1: pretty significant change in how things were going. But of
Speaker 1: course du Plessy, being the man he was, who was
Speaker 1: pretty assertive, quickly took the role of leader in the
Speaker 1: Union Nacionale from Guin, and Guen took a back seat.
Speaker 1: So as the Public Accounts Committee of the Legislative Assembly
Speaker 1: came together in nineteen thirty six, du Plessy, going back
Speaker 1: to his roots as an attorney, appointed himself as a
Speaker 1: prosecutor against the Tashera administration. And this administration had come
Speaker 1: back into power in nineteen thirty five. The hearings did
Speaker 1: not go well for Tasherou, who resigned amid the scandal,
Speaker 1: and this whole event really increased duplessy standing with the public.
Speaker 1: H he continued to build his political career as a reformer,
Speaker 1: a man of the people, a friend of agriculture, like
Speaker 1: kind of assault of the earth candidate who was going
Speaker 1: to root out the problems in government. So in ninety six,
Speaker 1: the new party headed by Duplessy took seventy six seats
Speaker 1: in the Legislative Assembly, with only fourteen going to the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party. So the Union Nationale would wind up being
Speaker 1: the dominant political party for the next eighteen years, and
Speaker 1: du Plessy was elected as the sixteenth Premier of Quebec. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll notice that the Conservative Party had kind of vanished
Speaker 1: from those numbers because it had really lumped in with
Speaker 1: Union Nationale at that point. So, which gives you a
Speaker 1: sense of what a juggernaut this man was in terms
Speaker 1: of just he's like a catemory of politics. He just
Speaker 1: keeps rolling and things go with him. So with that,
Speaker 1: we're going to pause for just a moment and take
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor. So going back to do
Speaker 1: plus C, we will talk a little bit about his
Speaker 1: first term as Premier of Quebec. It was not exactly spectacular,
Speaker 1: but the Farm Credit Bureau and Fairway Discommission were established,
Speaker 1: and a pension program was put into place, so some
Speaker 1: things did happen. Yeah. He also established during this time
Speaker 1: the so called Padlock Law which uh it prohibited the
Speaker 1: use of any house for propagation of quote Communism or
Speaker 1: Bolshevism by any means. And the Padlock Law also prohibited
Speaker 1: the printing and distribution of Communist or Bolshevik materials. Uh.
Speaker 1: This law of course suppressed free speech, and it was
Speaker 1: not written entirely clearly, so the lack of specificity that
Speaker 1: it contained made it easy to use this lot to
Speaker 1: shut down information sharing by international trade unions. So is
Speaker 1: uh not really the greatest kind of shut down a
Speaker 1: lot of free speech. Du plus East did really firm
Speaker 1: against the idea of nationalized electricity or other direct governmental
Speaker 1: intervention and economic affairs. This wound up losing him the
Speaker 1: support of some of the members of the Action Liberal Nationale,
Speaker 1: which had followed him into the Union Nationale. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: really wanted the provinces to kind of carry a lot
Speaker 1: of their own uh power in these matters. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because That's another thing that you'll here discussed in a
Speaker 1: way that is very disparate there, and I'll talk about
Speaker 1: that a little bit later. But uh, in many of
Speaker 1: his speeches that he gave during his first term D plus,
Speaker 1: he would frequently repeat the following help yourself and Heaven
Speaker 1: will help you, or help yourself and Union Nationale will
Speaker 1: help you. These two expressions are synonymous. That doesn't sound
Speaker 1: arrogant at all. He had some doozy sort of catchphrases
Speaker 1: throughout the years. In September, du Plessy made a very
Speaker 1: poor decision when he called a vote over participation in
Speaker 1: the war effort. He was really hoping to embarrass the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party, which supported participation by bringing up the idea
Speaker 1: of conscription. Yeah, and he really called this vote like
Speaker 1: in a hurry. It was like, we got a hurry
Speaker 1: and do this because he kind of wanted to catch
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party off guard. But Liberal Party pr made
Speaker 1: it very clear that no soldiers should be forced to
Speaker 1: fight in Europe if the vote to participate in the
Speaker 1: war effort passed, and as a consequence, du Plessy was
Speaker 1: kind of the one with egg on his face. He
Speaker 1: basically had saying they're gonna make you go do this.
Speaker 1: They're like, no, we're not, and then he just said
Speaker 1: they're going, oh whoops. Uh. It did not look good
Speaker 1: for him at all. This feels to me like something
Speaker 1: that would go very differently today because of the prevalence
Speaker 1: of the news media and covering politics and uh, it's
Speaker 1: someone can say something that's completely not true and have
Speaker 1: that interpreted in the press as being like, that's actually
Speaker 1: how it works. So in the long, long before internet
Speaker 1: news time, I think this would have gone very differently.
Speaker 1: In a modern context, it absolutely would have. So shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: in the October election, the Union Nationale faired very poorly,
Speaker 1: and Do Plus he lost his seat is premiere and
Speaker 1: that for now is where we're actually gonna pause and
Speaker 1: in the story. But in the next part we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about how do Plus he spent his downtime
Speaker 1: out of office, uh, and a few of the major
Speaker 1: scandals that than really happened during his time as Premiere,
Speaker 1: as well as his death. UH. And I also have
Speaker 1: listener mail. Uh. These are actually first time I talk
Speaker 1: about both their too. They're both from Facebook, and they're
Speaker 1: both about our momification and embalming episode you got a
Speaker 1: lot of very interesting about we heard from a lot
Speaker 1: of people well who embalm for their jobs. Got me
Speaker 1: so excited, and one of these is from one of
Speaker 1: those people. The first is from our listener Annie, and
Speaker 1: she says, I just listened to the momification and embalming episode.
Speaker 1: As a modern day embalmer, I am obviously fascinated by
Speaker 1: the history of what we do to preserve the deceased.
Speaker 1: Even as late as one and fifty years ago, the
Speaker 1: dead were eviscerated and ebolved from the inside out before
Speaker 1: it was patented in eighty one to use the body's
Speaker 1: own fluid system to disperse chemical You could do several
Speaker 1: podcasts on post ancient slash pre modern embalming practices. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I could be an embalmer if I had
Speaker 1: to preserve each organ separately. It's absolutely amazing. Anyway, good
Speaker 1: job on the Momentification podcast. So yeah, I just little
Speaker 1: did I even think that we had embalmers that listened,
Speaker 1: but several It turns out it's really cool. And uh.
Speaker 1: We have another also from Facebook message from our listeners Cecil,
Speaker 1: about the same episode, and she says, in regards to
Speaker 1: the kidneys being left in the abdominal cavity. In the
Speaker 1: Embalming podcast, the kidneys are in the retroperitoneal space. They're
Speaker 1: separated from much of the main cavity by a membrane. Therefore,
Speaker 1: depending on how deep the initial incision, many times they
Speaker 1: would not be felt by someone just by touch through
Speaker 1: a superficial incision. This may be why they were often
Speaker 1: left in C two, which makes total sense. It totally
Speaker 1: does make sense. Yeah, they felt around and probably thought
Speaker 1: they cleared everything out because there was a membrane separating
Speaker 1: that section from the area where the kidneys were. I
Speaker 1: was reminded of when I had to study anatomy and
Speaker 1: physiology and kind of went, oh, yeah, I remember having
Speaker 1: to remember what stuff was retro paratnial. We also got
Speaker 1: a couple of news from people who pointed out that
Speaker 1: embalming as it exists right now is mostly like a
Speaker 1: primarily North American practice. Like today, embalming is not a
Speaker 1: global thing. Well, there are even movements within North America
Speaker 1: and the US to kind of do quote natural burials
Speaker 1: and skip that process so or cremate people, which yeah,
Speaker 1: I gets into a whole other area of your personal
Speaker 1: desires and belief. Yeah. Well, and there are all kinds
Speaker 1: of other burial rituals and practices really different from that,
Speaker 1: all over the world. Uh So, if you would like
Speaker 1: to write to us about embalming practices or maury stupus
Speaker 1: e or anything else, you can do so by writing
Speaker 1: us at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also connect with us at Facebook dot com slash mist
Speaker 1: in history, on Twitter at mist in History at mist
Speaker 1: in history dot tumbler dot com, or you can visit
Speaker 1: us on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash misk in history.
Speaker 1: If you would like to learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about what we talked about today, you can go to
Speaker 1: our website and type of the word Quebec and there
Speaker 1: is a whole section all about the history and the
Speaker 1: geography and all manner of aspects of about wonderful province.
Speaker 1: Uh If you would like to learn about almost anything
Speaker 1: else your mind can conjure, you should do that at
Speaker 1: our website. And that website is how stuff works dot
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