The duty continues its journey back to the sources of French America, focusing on the exploration of Quebec newspapers and archives. To broaden our horizons, we will travel from the northern confines of the Hudson to the sunny dreams of Florida, while tracing the thread of a shared history. Today, Joe Beef.
From the end of the 19thand century until the war of 1914, a hundred bear tamers landed in Montreal. They come, for the most part, from Ariège, a region located on the border of France and Spain. With their more or less trained bears, all chained together, they present various numbers to the curious who crowd in front of them. These traveling acrobats amuse passers-by all over America. The Port of Montreal is one of their gateways to the New World.
A whole popular world is fascinated by the spectacle of animals dominated and reduced to servitude by man, in the name of his omnipotence. Bears in particular attract attention. Perhaps because the bear, king of animals since the dawn of time, long before the Church replaced it with the lion in the Middle Ages, is an unequaled symbol of power and sovereignty. Its dominance suggests that its qualities can be transposed to humans.
All the peoples of the North do not experience a fascination for this animal for nothing. This is reflected in folk tales, even in mythology, as among the Native Americans. But how to explain, at the end of the XIXand century, this popular spell, in the America of still wild forests, for trained European bears? Could this not be explained, at least in part, by the fact that all the hardworking humanity of the cities, chained more and more to a hard life of labors in spite of its collective power, is also seen treated like an animal? ?
Between 1874 and 1879, a serious economic crisis shook Quebec. The working world refuses to be eaten whole. The abolition of child labor under the age of ten is one of its demands. Such a request is deemed inadmissible by the union of bosses, who rail against such claims. They accuse the rebellious of wanting to assassinate economic growth by causing a shortage of labour, by increasing hourly costs, by breaking the momentum of good business calculated according to the ticking of their watches.
strike breakers
In this last quarter of the nineteenthand century, the commercial market of the “province of Quebec” was irresistibly invaded by more and more American manufactured products. The United States, in full industrial expansion, appropriates this local market. The reaction of local businesses, in Montreal and in the regions, is not to review the ways of doing things, but to lower wages even further. These reductions, depending on the trade, can reach from 25% to 60%. Of course, protests arose. And strikes break out.
In 1877, Montreal railway workers, like their American counterparts, were among those who went on strike. They storm trains that are driven by scabs. Montreal has just under 100,000 inhabitants. That same year, in July, 2,000 Lachine Canal and port workers went on strike. The contractor in charge of the construction of the canal, Henry Mason, decided to offer only two shillings to the workers, mostly Irish immigrants. With the stroke of a pen, their salary is reduced by 40%! Besides, there is no question of paying them in hard cash. His workers, Mason intends rather to remunerate them in credit notes which they can exchange, at the store of his company, against goods. In other words, the employer pays himself twice rather than once on the backs of this exploited workforce, forced to live in miserable shacks, where there are often ten or twelve of us crammed together. A resistance is organized. But the bosses are not shy about hiring scabs.
The army willingly comes to the rescue. It does not defend the workers, but their employers. In 1843, at the great construction site of the Lachine Canal, where the workers mostly eat misery, the cavalry and the militia did not hesitate to charge. These frontal attacks resulted in dozens of injuries and five deaths. In 1877, the army was again employed in the port of Montreal. The following year, Her Majesty’s soldiers fired in the streets of Quebec to disperse workers who were revolting against their exploitation during the construction of the Parliament. A worker is killed. Several are injured. In 1880, the army was sent again, this time to crush other workers on strike, those of Montreal Cotton, a large spinning mill. A worker is killed. The list of these interventions could be extended.
A cheerful Irishman
The port strikers, those of the Hudon spinning mill and many other unfortunates in Montreal could at least count on an innkeeper who became a huge popular symbol: Joe Beef. At his own expense, this jovial curly haired man distributes food to workers and cripples alike. The strong personality of this man quickly made him an almost legendary character. Colourful, satirical, healthy, his jaw always ready to move to speak, Charles McKiernan, known as Joe Beef, was born in 1835 in Ireland. He attended an artillery school in England before finding himself at war with his unit in the Crimea in the mid-1850s. The British and colonial volunteers, allied with France and the Ottoman Empire, clashed there in terrible clashes the Russians in Ukraine.
Coming to America with his regiment, Charles McKiernan obtains to be demobilized. He will found with his children and his wife, Margaret McRae, the mythical Irish-Montreal tavern Joe Beef, first located on rue Saint-Claude, in Montreal, not far from the Bonsecours market. Widower of Margaret, he marries his sister and continues his activities with a vengeance. His tavern is a meeting place for local factory workers, sailors, stevedores, travellers, the penniless. It also represents a place of mutual aid for the less fortunate. In 1875, Joe Beef’s tavern moved following the widening of rue Saint-Claude, but also because of its popularity: more space was needed. It was established at the corner of rue des Commissaires, today rue de la Commune, and rue de Callière. The establishment welcomes hundreds of people every day. It takes 200 pounds of beef and 300 pounds of bread every day to satisfy its customers.
In December 1877, Joe Beef distributes food, soup and bread, to the longshoremen on strike. In every important conflict, he is on the side of the low-income earners. With great generosity, he not only provides food for the less fortunate, but he also collects money for Montreal hospitals. Charles McKiernan’s Tavern is known to offer help to all. McKiernan’s word, collected by the newspaper The homeland, reveals its true character. “I never refuse a meal to a poor person,” he says. The same newspaper quotes him again: “Anyone, whether English, French, Irish, Negro, savage, whether he belongs to any religion, is sure to have a free meal at my house, if he can’t afford to pay it. Only alcohol, which flows in profusion in this establishment, will never be free.
Even more than a simple place where you can refuel, sleep and have fun, the Joe Beef establishment constitutes a real pole for a whole popular world. In the basement, the tavern has a menagerie. It is there, in particular, monkeys and especially bears, a singular attraction for its customers. This attraction is likely to attract a popular clientele. Do the bears remind visitors that this country is not out of the woods?
On January 15, 1889, Joe Beef succumbed to a heart attack. He is 54 years old. Thousands of people gather around his remains. Activists from more than fifty unions are represented at his funeral. A long procession accompanies his coffin, in a final tribute. The newspaper The Minerva says it is the largest funeral ever seen in Montreal since that of D’Arcy McGee, a major figure in local politics, who was shot dead in Ottawa for being considered a traitor to the Irish cause .