"Gosh, That Maurice!"

Wednesday was election day in Quebec. It was also the day of Premier Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis' patron, St. Joseph. Wednesday is Duplessis' favorite day of the week: he always tries to save his important acts for that day. After Mass in the morning, he toured all 119 polling booths in his home town, Trois-Rivieres. He shook hands till his fingers cramped, greeting voters by their first names. Time & again his henchmen restrained him as he reached in his pocket for quarters for moppets: "Not on election day, Maurice." At 6:30 p.m. Bachelor Duplessis, exhausted, went home to his sister's house and tumbled into bed.

Only then did the fun begin. An excited crowd gathered before the house and grew by the minute. Half an hour after the polls closed, some of Duplessis' jubilant admirers barged in, woke him, told him that his personal election had been conceded. Said Duplessis: "What did you expect? The trouble with you is that you lack faith."

Soon the house was swarming with celebrators. Jangling telephones brought in better & better news. Hero-worshiping neighbors crowded around as Duplessis sat in a corner chain-smoking and reading telegrams of congratulations. "We goes up!" bellowed a little butcher by the name of Dollar Bacon, "Maurice is the best we ever had. For French, English, Polish and every kind of peoples, he is the best. Gosh, that Maurice!"

At 10 in the evening, Duplessis went out to Ste. Marguerite park. The crowd standing in the rain cheered and whistled. Motorists honked their horns. "This is a demonstration that we will safeguard the rights, prerogatives and liberties of the people," cried ebullient Maurice, and the crowd roared. "Our rivals have insulted us but I am willing to forgive and forget ... I thank you for this marvelous triumph."

The Marvel of It. It was a marvelous triumph--so sweeping that next day the whole of Quebec gasped. Quebec's Liberal leader, Adelard Godbout, had hoped, this time, to carry the province. The Liberals had sent in External Affairs Secretary

Louis St. Laurent, to stump against Duplessis. And what was the result?

Godbout had lost his own seat in the Quebec legislature. St. Laurent's own riding had been carried by Duplessis' Union Nationale. Union Nationale had swept all four constituencies in Quebec City, regarded as a Liberal stronghold. Before election, the Liberals held 33 seats in the legislature; now they have eight. Funny-money L'Union des Electeurs elected none of its 92 candidates, the socialist CCF's seven candidates were all defeated, and so was the lone Communist. One Nationalist and one Independent squeezed in. Union Nationale, which had 52 seats before, will now have 82 out of 92.

The popular vote was not so lopsided. The Liberals polled 36% to Union Rationale's 51% (13% more than in 1944). Even a Duplessis worker shook his head sadly: "Too big, too big." An anti-Duplessist summed it up more bitterly: "That guy's been driving around with a police motorcycle escort and sirens. Now I guess he'll call out the elite guard."

On sober second thought, many Quebeckers thought that Duplessis had won too much power. Until the next election there would be only one check on him. The Legislative Council (upper house), whose 24 members are appointed for life, has 17 Liberals.

How Did It Happen? The torrid, six-week campaign, in which razzle-dazzle obscured any real issues, had been right up the Duplessis alley. He promised bridges, schools, roads, and other local vote-catchers. He hammered away hardest of all on provincial autonomy, French Canadian nationalism, the menace of Communism.

While dignified Secretary St. Laurent bored listeners with scholarly discussions, Duplessis ranted like Huey Long. While the Liberals spent around $500,000, the Union Nationale ladled out at least $2,500,000.

Even cagey old opportunist Mayor Camillien Houde of Montreal jumped on the Duplessis bandwagon, just in time. He kissed and made up with his archenemy, then set out to top Duplessis in headline catching. Houde howled that the inclusion of. Newfoundland as the Dominion's tenth province was a foul plot to bring in 350,000 British votes to drown out French Canada, that Prime Minister King started World War II by "provoking Hitler," that Louis St. Laurent was a discredited leader of the French Canadians and should resign. When it was all over, jubilant Union Nationale supporters paraded Godbout in effigy through Quebec City streets.

The Vanquished. In Quebec's gloomy Reform Club, provincial Liberals surveyed their shattered organization, at its lowest ebb in 50 years. Duplessis' victory had pushed any hopes of dominion-provincial tax agreement off into the dim future. Along with Tory George Drew's recent victory in Ontario and Drew's open bid for national leadership, it gave the Drew-Duplessis axis a new and potent meaning.

His voice choked with emotion, softspoken, honest Adelard Godbout told a radio audience that he "bowed to the decision." He would retire from politics to his Frelighsburg farm. Almost everyone was sorry to see him go, even those who thrilled to the name-calling that Duplessis reveled in. As Adelard Godbout put it privately: "This business is too dirty for me."

The Duplessis victory threw this week's Liberal Convention in Ottawa wide open. Many a Liberal still figured that Louis St. Laurent-was the man to swing waning Quebec Liberal strength back into line. Not so Quebecker and onetime Air Minister Charles Gavan ("Chubby") Power, who had managed the Liberal campaign in Quebec, and seen St. Laurent in action. At week's end Chubby Power announced that he would be available for the Liberal leadership himself.

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