Trouble at Drummondville

In Montreal, last Wednesday, the raids began. Squads of Mounties and provost officers (military policemen) hunting for Army deserters and draft dodgers swooped about the city in convoys. At dance halls and cabarets they blocked exits, herded all men together, examined their papers.

On Thursday they branched out, raiding in the suburbs and questioning ice-cutting crews on the St. Lawrence River. At first the people considered it all good fun. But as the raids went on, the temper of the people changed.

At 10:30 p.m. Saturday, five sedans carrying a dozen Mounties and 22 canopied Army trucks, carrying no specially sworn Army "constables," roared into Drummondville, a French Canadian tex tile center (pop. 16,000) some 70 miles northeast of Montreal. Quickly the raiders fanned out, swept into crowded hotels and taverns. Word of what was happening spread through the city. Crowds began to gather.

Toward midnight 20 Mounties and constables went to the Capitol Theater on Lindsay Street, which was featuring Boris Karloff and Susanna Foster in The Climax.

The police blocked the doors, began to question every draft-age man who came out. There were boos. Suddenly someone tossed a Coca-Cola bottle at a Mountie and scored a clean hit.

A barrage of bottles from inside the theater followed. An officer clubbed a youth who tried to break away while being questioned. Between 1,500 and 2,000 townspeople closed in, wielding brooms and sticks and throwing bottles, lumps of ice, tin cans, anything they could lay their hands on. Women shrieked: "Don't let them take our young men!" Drummondville city police stood by, watching.

When the officers managed, after a half hour's fighting, to reach Mountie headquarters in Heriot Street, the mob followed and besieged them. Every win dow in the building was smashed with ice chunks. Two, possibly three of the blue Chevrolets belonging to the Mounties were overturned and badly damaged. All the glass in another car was shattered.

It was nearly 1:30 a.m. before Drummondville's police thought things had gone far enough and began to disperse the mob. As quickly as they could, the Mounties and constables headed out of town. They took nine suspected draft dodgers or deserters with them. Conscription-hating Drummondvillians had freed the rest.

About 20 Mounties and constables and about 40 civilians were injured. Scores of other townspeople had superficial aches and bruises. The worst injury done was to Canada's reputation. Brawls like this one were obscuring the Dominion's superb war effort.

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