Birthday Parly

To match the razzle-dazzle politicking of Premier Maurice Duplessis, Quebec's Liberals had to set off some pre-election fireworks of their own. Last week they had the occasion: the soth anniversary of Montreal's Reform Club, bastion of the Liberal Party.

From all over the province, Liberals had come to celebrate the anniversary and to talk politics. They trooped into the grey stone clubhouse on Sherbrooke Street, settled into the leather chairs in the lounges or sat down beneath the portrait of Prime Minister King in the dining room. In the 50 years since Sir Wilfrid Laurier founded the club, many a Liberal policy has been thrashed out within the walls of the Reform Club. Though its membership (1,000) is predominantly French, most are bilingual, and the club alternates a French president with an English one.

The main anniversary event was a banquet too big for the club to handle: two dining rooms were taken at the Windsor Hotel. Quebec's party hierarchy was on hand. So were 13 members of the federal Cabinet, and at the last minute Prime Minister Mackenzie King showed up.

King stole the show. When Defense Minister Brooke Claxton, club president, proposed a toast to "the King," the banquet pianist thought he could mean no other King but the Prime Minister, and burst into For He's a Jolly Good Fellow. Grinning happily as the Reformers almost brought down the Blue Room ceiling with their cheers, King spoke vigorously for 45 minutes on the theme of the great Liberals Quebec has produced. To the list of "giants" headed by Laurier, King tactfully added the name of Quebec Liberal Leader Adelard Godbout, with whom he had "shared so many years ... in the pursuit of Liberal ideals."

At evening's end, Liberals were sure they knew what was up. King's visit and the support of federal bigwigs for God-bout indicated that Ottawa's Liberal big guns would move to Quebec for the provincial elections. If the whole federal battery was going to work on Duplessis, that swashbuckling politico might be in for some rough times, even if the Tories came to the support of his Union Nationale.

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