No More Hurrahs

"Almighty God said, I think I'll raise him up to persuade Newfoundlanders to join Canada. If he persuades them, Newfoundland is going to need a Premier.' " And that, as Joey Smallwood liked to confide at political gatherings, was more or less how he came to be called, in one of his favorite phrases, "the Only Living Father of Confederation." Others prefer to describe him as the "Kwame Nkrumah of Newfoundland." Until he retired last week from the province's Liberal Party leadership after 23 years of almost absolute power, Smallwood was one of the Western Hemisphere's most benign demagogues and Canada's most entertaining politician. As he often put it: "I'm sort of a tourist attraction."

Characteristically, Smallwood until the last minute had Canada's wintry, easternmost province in an uproar over whether, at 71, he might somehow hear a call to remain in politics, or even wangle his way back into office. Narrowly defeated by his Conservative opponents last October, he had challenged the results in court and held on to the premiership until mid-January. Newfoundland's Liberals named as party leader Smallwood's former executive assistant and onetime local health minister Ed Roberts, 31. Said Smallwood: "There's no future for me whatsoever. I'm through with politics."

A little man with the face of a thoughtful, testy owl, Smallwood ran his "poor, bald rock," as he once called Newfoundland, as a personal fiefdom. Nonetheless, he was dearly loved by most of the 500,000 Newfies--"a community of Irish mystics cut adrift in the Atlantic," in the colorful phrase of Novelist Paul West--and his picture adorned the poorest living rooms in tiny fishing ports with names like Blow-me-down and Come-by-Chance. Newfoundland admired Joey simply for being his outrageous self: he would sneer at the Tories for being the "waffle-iron salesmen" of the merchant classes, and once, at a political rally, he took off his shoes and wiggled h;s toes to prove that "I don't have hooves and horns."

Salesman. The son of a lumber surveyor who died of alcoholism, Joey was a school dropout at 15. His first full-time job was as a reporter for a newspaper in St. John's. Smitten with socialism, he emigrated to New York City, where he wrote inflammatory stories for the socialist daily Call. Returning to Newfoundland in 1925, Joey became a labor leader and at one point "walked myself down to skin and grief" over 600 miles of railroad track to organize the section men.

Newfoundland was a British dependency at the time. When Britain offered the islanders the choice of independence or union with Canada after World War II, Smallwood saw opportunity, rallied the proconfederation forces to win a hard-fought referendum and took over the premiership.

Smallwood promised to bring his people the "benefits that the rest of North America takes for granted" --meaning free public education, electricity and roads in the outports. The benefits also included jobs, and Joey was an able, almost irresistible salesman for his province on his frequent trips abroad. He personally badgered Winston Churchill into approving British support for the $1 billion hydroelectric development now being built at Churchill Falls. In 1965 Smallwood visited Helsinki on an industry-scouting trip with Richard Nixon, then a corporate lawyer; Joey accompanied Nixon on a side trip to Moscow and proposed, at Moscow University, that the former Vice President and Nikita Khrushchev run for President of each other's country.

In Smallwood's time as Premier he brought to the province about 40 industrial projects worth nearly $2 billion. Trouble was, Joey often did not much care where the money came from or how it was spent. He guaranteed loans of $121 million for his crony John Doyle, a Chicago-born industrialist who once jumped bail in the U.S. rather than serve a jail term for violating Security and Exchange Commission regulations. (Joey's answer to criticism of Doyle: "Whoever became a millionaire by teaching Sunday school?") In recent years, Smallwood grew increasingly dogmatic. Once, when a minister rose in the legislature to answer an opposition question, Smallwood snapped, "Sit down--don't answer that." The minister sat.

In the end, the benefits Joey brought Newfoundland created the beginnings of a modern society--and one that no longer needed him. By last fall Tory Leader Frank Moores, who is now Premier, was able to find a ready audience for his promise to end "government by impulse." Joey, of course, left a large legacy; before giving up office he endowed friends and supporters with judgeships and other appointments and granted yet another government loan to his friend Doyle. In retirement he plans to write "an autobiography or a great history of Newfoundland." Either way, it will undoubtedly be the same book.

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