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STAND AMONG LEADERS! The Famous 5, Heroes for Today Readers' Theatre for Grades 4,5 & 6 by Nancy Millar The Famous 5 hear that 75 years after they celebrated their victory of the ‘Persons' Case in 1929, Canadians have commemorated them by placing their images on their new $50 bill. The five women agree to meet back on earth, exactly where they met for their first celebration – at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary . When they arrive, they discover to their astonishment that a party is being held in their honour! Cast of Characters: Henrietta Muir Edwards Louise McKinney Emily Murphy Irene Parlby Nellie McClung Modern day activists and leaders Production Notes: Henrietta Muir Edwards, being a short lady some five feet tall, stood on a chair at the ‘Persons' Case celebration at the Palliser Hotel back in 1930, the better to be heard. The newspaper account of the event mentioned that particularly, so you might have the five women standing on chairs throughout the room, acting and reacting with one another. That way each area of the room will have some part of the performance. The guests at the party (the rest of your students) are just as passionate about modern day social justice issues that concern the 21st century, and they have created placards to carry throughout the room promoting their causes. They shout slogans that reflect the most up-to-date struggles and the need for change. Groups of students – of four or five students - weave their way through the actors, one shouting out a slogan, the others taking it up, until another is shouted. (You can allow about three minutes for each ‘demonstration'). HENRIETTA MUIR EDWARDS (The first to stand on her chair. She shouts,) My friends, my friends, ladies and gentlemen! I can't keep silent any longer. I'm Henrietta Muir Edwards and my heart is so full, I must speak, just as I spoke here at the Palliser 75 years ago when we five met to celebrate being persons. I had to stand on a chair then too. I'm too short and my daughters tell me I'm too tubby, but my heart is so full tonight, I can't worry about that now. To think that you're here, with us, 75 years later and you've put our faces on the $50 bill. In my lifetime, I never even had a $50 bill, but now I'm on one. I can hardly believe it. Don't you agree, Emily? Are you here, Emily?
EMILY (Stands on her chair.) Of course I'm here Henrietta. You know me. I never could resist a good party or a meeting or a tea - anywhere where I could bring up important issues and get some changes made. And certainly I wouldn't miss this one for the world. We're looking pretty good on the bill, wouldn't you say, Henrietta?
HENRIETTA Oh, you know me. I never cared much about my looks.
EMILY I know! The clerks at the library up in Edmonton used to run when they saw you coming. You always lectured them about corsets, remember? How they were bad for their organs? You said they shouldn't wear them, remember?
HENRIETTA Well, I was right about that, and by the looks of the women here tonight, they agree with me. Not a corset in the room, as far as I can tell. Smart women!
EMILY Even if you did look like a sack of potatoes tied in the middle, you were ahead of your time, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA We all were! I know that now. Being here tonight makes me realize what we did. Imagine, the first persons - PERSONS, mind you, to be on the $50 bill. By the way, you aren't wearing a hat in the picture. Why ever not? You were good in hats.
EMILY Well, I'll tell you a secret. I did like hats, the bigger the better, because I knew they were a powerful symbol. Strong hat, strong woman, you know. I needed everything in my power some days to get through the meetings and the work we had to do. There were so many things needing change. Remember Henrietta, we women didn't even have the vote until 1916 here in Alberta . That took a lot of meetings and petitions and several big hats along the way.
NELLIE (Scrambles to her chair) Did someone say, the vote? Wasn't that a grand fight? They called me Windy Nell and made fun of me, but by golly, we got the thing done. That was my motto, remember? “Nellie McClung, she got things done and let them howl.” It was a grand time to be alive!
LOUISE MCKINNEY (Mounts her chair) Well not so fast, Nellie. We lost some battles too! You and I worked so hard for prohibition but we lost that. Even when I became the first woman to sit in a provincial legislature in the British colonies, “Louise McKinney lone woman in the Alberta Legislature,” the headlines read. But even then I couldn't stop the drift to the use of alcoholic beverages. Have you noticed, by the way, all these wine glasses?
IRENE PARLBY (Joins the rest on a chair.) Now, cut it out, you two. You may have lost that battle but we won the war. We're here today among persons of a new generation and it's so thrilling, I can barely speak.
NELLIE Of course you can speak, Irene! That was your strength. I remember being in the Alberta Legislature with you, and when you rose to speak with your lovely British accent and your very logical mind, everyone listened. Irene Parlby, you were magic with words!
IRENE That might be exaggerating the situation, but thank you Nellie. I did have an advantage over many in our rural community. I had a good British education and wasn't afraid to speak my mind, so that's how I ended up in the Alberta Legislature. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, but those of us with advantages have a duty to do our part. Remember duty? I wonder if duty still rules the world?
LOUISE I've been listening to the young women here, and I think maybe the word duty isn't used so much anymore. But they're certainly a hard working, educated, and aware group. Have you noticed the same thing?
IRENE Yes, indeed I have. Such energy, such spunk!
LOUISE Such tight clothing!
IRENE There you go again, Louise. We can't all be as ladylike as you are. Although I have to admit I could never do my gardening in some of the outfits I see here! They were the best, you know, my gardens. I loved them. As soon as I was done with politics, I rolled up my sleeves and gardened, and do you know, some of the plants I started in that Alix farm yard, they're still blooming.
HENRIETTA It's like the work we did. It's still blooming. The work that we started is still here.
MODERN-DAY STUDENTS ENTER CARRYING PLACARDS, SHOUTING Give us Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value! Give Peace a Chance! Embrace Our Diversity! Justice for All and All for Justice! Women's Hockey Rocks! Bloom Where you Grow! (They weave through the tables, one person shouting a slogan, the others repeating it, etc. Then they leave.)
HENRIETTA I take it back. We didn't start that work surely. Playing hockey, and shouting in a public place! It's unthinkable!
EMILY Now, Henrietta, you just admitted that you wouldn't wear a corset. Times have changed and young people want new changes! What's the difference?
HENRIETTA Shouting in a public place – it just isn't seemly.
NELLIE Did you notice the sign about women playing hockey? Imagine! That reminds me of the time I was on the Board of Governors for the CBC in the 1930s. I suggested that the programming should reflect women's lives more and what's more, the corporation should hire more women. Do you know what they told me? Quote, “We'd like to hear a woman handle a hockey broadcast this winter.” End of quote. As if being a hockey announcer was a skill just for men. So, if there's a woman's league now, as those signs seem to suggest, I say splendid! I wonder if a women are hockey announcers yet?
EMILY I noticed they're asking for equal pay for equal work. Does that mean they've got a decent Dower Act? You and I worked on that for so many years, Henrietta. Remember our first victory? We got the legislators in Edmonton to pass a law that a wife had to be informed about a sale of the family property. That's all. Informed. The husband could still sell it but he had to tell his wife first, and he still didn't have to give her any of the proceeds. He could just leave his wife and their children with nothing at all!
HENRIETTA Oh, there were so many injustices.
IRENE So many! So many meetings. So many letters to write. So many causes to research. I get tired just thinking about it now.
NELLIE I know, but look at our accomplishments. Five old biddies! Us! We're on the $50 bill.
NELLIE Do you realize that even though we were able to vote by 1916, Quebec women didn't get the right to vote until 1940? We had had the vote for women in Alberta for 24 years by then.
IRENE You saw what one of those placards said: “Bloom Where You Grow”. Well, that's what we did, and we made such a difference to our own province.
EMILY But there's always more to be done. Can you meet at my house next Tuesday? I have a petition I'd like you to sign.
NELLIE Oh, Emily, not today! Today is a celebration. If truth be known, I have petition fatigue.
LOUISE I never thought I'd hear you say that, Nellie. And even though I know that the Christian religion teaches us that pride goeth before a fall, I was proud of our work together. You were always so willing to change the world!
STUDENTS ENTER CARRYING PLACARDS AGAIN New students with new slogans march through the Famous 5! ‘Recycle Your Bottles and Cans!' ‘Stop Smoking!' ‘Wear Your Helmet and Save Your Skull!', ‘March for the Cure!'
LOUISE They're a noisy lot, aren't they? Whacking people like that and shouting. Now, if it were a hymn, that would be different.
IRENE I respect their right to carry on, you understand, but it wasn't my way. I got things done because I was a lady and behaved that way.
EMILY Well, I wasn't always ladylike, I suppose. Sometimes the men I was dealing with were so stupid I couldn't believe they could find their hats in a windstorm.
NELLIE That reminds me. Remember how we'd make a presentation, get up a petition, or whatever, and when we delivered it after months of work, the men - whether legislators, church leaders, politicians, they'd tip their hats to us! We were there asking for plain common justice, and all we got was hat tipping. Personally, I used to wish they'd keep their hats on, pull them down over their faces maybe. Oh, there were times when it was so frustrating!
HENRIETTA If we're to judge by those signs, there must still be some parts of our world that need changing. It's too bad. I had hoped our work would end the struggles.
NELLIE Which means we have to keep up the good work from our new location. For example, last week, I haunted Prime Minister Martin about the number of women in the Senate.
EMILY Oh, I'm still mad about that, you know. Women's groups across Canada sent in petition after petition suggesting that I be named the first woman to sit in the Senate. I would have loved that.
NELLIE The pomp, the ceremony, the big hats you could have worn!
EMILY But no. I wasn't a ‘person' according to the BNA Act, and therefore I couldn't sit in the Senate. Did you ever hear such stupidity? What was I if I wasn't a person, I ask you?
HENRIETTA It was a legal definition, Emily, you know that. It didn't mean you weren't a person in the ordinary sense of the word. Blame the British common law that said “women are persons in matters of pain and penalty under the law, but not in matters of rights and privileges”. That's the meaning that came down to us when our legislators wrote the British North America Act. They based it on British law and we were stuck with it. I should know. I found echoes of it again and again when I did my research for the Council of Women.
EMILY Oh, I know that, but I had to hear the tired old “You're not a person” argument in my courtroom as well. It was a poor lawyer who couldn't come up with some new version of, “Madame, you can't judge my client because, according to the laws of Canada , you're not a person. Blah, blah, blah.” Made me mad every time I heard it and it didn't help that our Canadian parliamentarians didn't try very hard to change it. “Can't do anything”, they'd say. “It's the law.” Then they'd tip their hats, Nellie, just as you said.
HENRIETTA Thank God you found that clause in the Supreme Court of Canada Act.
EMILY As soon as I read it, I knew it might work. “Five persons acting as a unit”, the clause said, “can ask the Supreme Court of Canada for an interpretation of any part of the BNA Act”. At last, I had a legal way to shut those guys up about ‘persons'.
IRENE “Guys?” Emily? “Shut up?” We still use the King's English up here.
EMILY Too bad. That piece of the King's English didn't deserve my respect. I was a person and nobody could deny that, king or otherwise.
NELLIE Don't get angry all over again, Emily. The law is often an ass, you know that, and don't purse your lips at me, Louise. You know I am a decent woman but in this case, I am supporting Emily who didn't get a lot of support at the time.
LOUISE Well, that's true. In fact I knew nothing about the ‘persons' controversy until you, Emily, invited us to your house in the fall of 1927 and asked us to sign the petition. You had done all the research, got a lawyer, arranged financing. Everything. All I had to do was sign my name...which I did gladly and said a little prayer to send it on its way.
NELLIE I said, God bless our cause and confound the enemy! It was a grand day.
HENRIETTA I knew my law. I knew this appeal was just and legally sound.
IRENE It wasn't just the foolish legal definition, you know, it was a matter of attitude. If we weren't persons, how could I, for example, be a cabinet minister? I wasn't even a person. Or how could a woman start a business or write a book or even vote intelligently? I didn't understand all that at the time I signed the petition either, but I see it now. It mattered enormously! PLACARD WAVERS AGAIN The next group of protesting student activists march in with their placards! ‘Support Solar Energy!' ‘Stop Animal Experimentation!' ‘Vote for Somebody!!'
NELLIE (Reacting to the protesters) It occurs to me, my friends, that there's still a fair amount of anger out there. More anger than I remember from our days.
HENRIETTA There was anger in our day too, Nellie, but it was underground. Women didn't talk to one another about these kinds of things. Recipes, yes, social action, no. This may be noisy but at least, it's out there in your face, Nellie, whether you like it or not!
NELLIE It's better that way, I think. We were so polite. Remember when the Supreme Court of Canada turned us down? We sent them the petition asking whether or not Canadian women were ‘persons' and they said, “NO. Canadian women are not persons!”
EMILY I just couldn't believe that decision. That our own government would chicken out and say, “No, you're not a person because the British law says so.” What about our own laws? Couldn't we make some of our own? But no, they turned us down. They just hid behind British common law. The day that decision reached me was a bad one. I got out two of our old kitchen chairs and painted them so fiercely they almost came apart. I finally ran out of paint! Painting usually calmed me down but it didn't work that day. That my government, my country, could say I was not a person!
IRENE Mary Ellen Smith, our great friend in the fight for equality, was right when she wrote, “The iron dropped into the souls of Canadian women when we heard that it took a man to decree that his mother was not a person.”
HENRIETTA Ah, but not all was lost. You sat right down and wrote to all of us, and sent us a new petition in the mail. You asked us to sign it. We did, and off it went to the Privy Council of England. Thank goodness we still had one more Court to appeal our case to.
LOUISE Amen.
IRENE Don't get me wrong, I loved Canada . Seeing a country in the making is a privilege not given to everyone, and I was lucky to be here. But I was once again proud of my first country, since the Privy Council of England had the good sense to declare that Canadian women were, of course, persons. They said that the BNA Act should be interpreted in a more modern light.
NELLIE And Emily danced around in her nightie when the phone call came in the middle of the night. I know you did. You told me so. I wish I could have been there, you old dear. You like to sound so tough but you're just a pile of mush. I know you.
EMILY I did do a bit of a jig. It had been so long in coming, and it never was a sure thing. But.......
ALL But….
HENRIETTA But you never got the call. They never appointed you to the Senate. That was cruel.
LOUISE This word has never passed my lips before but here I go Nellie. The government was an ass not to make you the first female Senator. So there! I was so hurt for you. You deserved it so.
ALL (Murmuring about Louise's choice of language) I can't believe....Is this our good friend who never says anything stronger than shucks? Please, Louise! (and then they clap.)
NELLIE You're right, old friend. Emily should have had it, but we all know that it takes more than a disappointment to keep a good woman down. No use crying about it. And look at it this way, other women got to be Senators. And our statues are in Ottawa now, just a spitting distance from the Senate! And I don't know about you but occasionally, I spit a bit in remembrance of what they did to Emily!
LOUISE You don't, surely not. NELLIE No, I'm a lady to the end, but I feel like spitting sometimes. It reminds me of one of my favorite jokes. I used to say that in light of all the crazy things that happen here on earth, I think other planets must be using our planet as an insane asylum! Well, all joking aside, you know what we did with that ‘Persons' Case! We cleaned up one insane piece of legislation on this earth. Good for us! And we made Canadian women the first in the British empire to have the right to sit in the upper chamber of government. British women couldn't be in the House of Lords in 1929 when it became possible for us to do, so I say bully for us!
IRENE You're right, Nellie. Bully for us! Although I'm not fond of that slang expression. How about, “A jolly good show”?
LOUISE How about, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant?”
HENRIETTA How about, “Justice was done!”
EMILY How about a toast, my friends? Look at these splendid persons, girls and boys, women and men, all of them capable, strong, supportive of one another!
LOUISE All using words that make me blush....
EMILY Not now, Louise. Think instead of the work that went into this accomplishment. The $50 bill with five tough old women on it. Women, mind you! The statues in Calgary and Ottawa ! Think of the meetings, the proposals, the financial support, the whole rigmarole that goes with any major accomplishment. This is what is being celebrated here today, and that is what we're going to toast. Louise, Henrietta and Nellie, get yourselves a glass of sparkling water. Water never goes amiss in a toast. Irene and I can have a sip of wine. Together we will salute the men and women of Canada who have made this day happen!
STUDENTS TOAST THE FAMOUS 5 To Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards! You were equal to high and splendid braveries! And you inspire us to be leaders, too! We are equal to high and splendid braveries!
THE END WORD LIST! PROHIBITION: A hundred years ago, some people thought that if we could rid the world of alcoholic drinks, we could rid the world of all kinds of misery! They believed that many people became mean and irresponsible when they drank liquor. They believed that when some men drank alcohol, they beat up their wives and children, or they spent all their money on liquor leaving their families in poverty. In those days there were no safeguards to protect women and children from this kind of treatment, so women like Nellie McClung and Louise McKinney, (from the Women's Christian Temperance Union – WCTU), worked very hard to make prohibition a law throughout Canada. They wanted a law that would stop the manufacture, transportation and the sale of all alcoholic beverages. This law went into effect for a short period of time in Alberta and in the United States , but after World War I the law was repealed (overturned) because most people wanted to have the right to drink liquor if they chose to. And slowly, through the work of women like the Famous 5, new laws were passed to safeguard women and children. CORSET Women used to wear corsets under their dresses to squish their bodies into unnatural shapes according to the fashion of the day. Corsets covered their bodies from their chests all the way down to their hips and squeezed their waists so tight that it was hard for them to breathe, much less eat! LEGISLATORS People who have been elected to serve in government and who create new laws as they are needed. Louise McKinney was the first woman elected to the Alberta Legislature – in 1917. Later, both Nellie McClung and Irene Parlby were elected to the Alberta Legislature and they created many laws that helped the women and children of Alberta . DOWER ACT A hundred years ago when there were many farm families living on the prairie, everyone in the family had to work very hard to grow enough food and raise enough cattle to sustain them. Women worked alongside their husbands and everyone – including the children – pitched in. However, if the man who owned the farm got tired of farming, he could sell it without even talking to his wife and children about his decision. And, if he decided just to leave without them, his wife and children had no right to continue living on the farm. Irene Parlby, Emily Murphy and Henrietta Muir Edwards worked very hard to reform laws like this one that were so unfair to women and children. Although in their lifetimes they were unsuccessful in changing the ‘dower' law to the extent it needed to be changed, other people took up their cause and today women have the right to keep half the family's assets if they are divorced, and children have the right to be financially supported by both parents. FEMALE SUFFRAGE: When Alberta became a province in 1905, only men were allowed to vote in elections, or to run in elections for a seat in government, or to be appointed as judges in court. Many women knew that it was very unfair to prevent half the population from having a voice in what the government decides to do, and they started protesting that fact! These women (and the men who supported their cause) were called Suffragists. In 1916, Nellie McClung was living in Winnipeg and she became a very active suffragist. Because she was such a powerful speaker, many people began coming to her public meetings when she spoke about female suffrage, and because she had such a good sense of humour, she could make people laugh at themselves for being so outdated in their opinions! One day, the Manitoba legislature met and the premier gave a very pompous speech to all the men in government about why women were ‘too delicate' to get involved in the messy work of politics. The very next day, Nellie and her women friends put on a Mock Parliament where only women were allowed to be members. They invited everyone – including the newspaper reporters – to their performance, and by the time it was over everyone was laughing at how silly it was for men to think that only they could have a say in running the government. In the very next election, women were allowed to vote in Manitoba and by 1917 they were allowed to vote in Alberta , too! In fact, Louise McKinney was the very first woman elected to the Alberta Legislature. Some years later, both Irene Parlby and Nellie McClung (who had moved to Edmonton by that time) were also elected as Members of the Alberta Legislature, and Irene was Alberta 's very first female Cabinet Minister. THE ‘PERSONS' CASE: Emily Murphy worked very hard to convince Alberta judges that it was unfair for women to be barred from courtrooms. They weren't allowed to be judges or lawyers and they weren't even allowed to sit on juries! And yet, women who were charged with crimes and found guilty were still subject to penalties and could go to jail for breaking the law. Emily kept badgering the judges to make changes, and finally they agreed to appoint her to be a judge of the Women's and Children's Court. She was the first female magistrate in the British Empire ! However, on her very first day in Court, a clever lawyer said, “Madame, you cannot judge my client because, under the law, you are not a ‘person'”. You can imagine Emily's outrage! And what made it even worse, was that he was right! At that time Canada 's constitution was the British North America Act, and it said that although women are ‘persons' in matters of pains and penalties under the law, women are not ‘persons' in matters of rights and privileges. That very clever lawyer took his case to the Appeal Court of Alberta, but fortunately our Alberta judges were smart enough to know that Emily was, of course, a person and had every right to be a judge and to pass sentence on anyone who was found guilty of breaking the law. But when Emily realized that the Supreme Court of Canada still thought women were not ‘persons', she decided that the law had to be changed for all women in Canada – and in the entire British Empire! And while she was at it, she decided that women should be permitted to be Senators as well as judges, members of legislatures, members of Parliament, Prime Ministers and anything else they chose to pursue as a career! So, one sunny afternoon she sat at her desk and wrote letters to Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Louise McKinney and asked them to come to her house for tea. On the afternoon of August 27, 1927 Emily welcomed them to her front porch, poured them each a cup of tea and said, “Here's the plan. I have found out that any five people, acting as a unit, can request the Supreme Court of Canada to explain any part of the Constitution. I need your signatures to add to mine on this question. We need to ask the Supreme Court of Canada whether the word ‘persons' includes female persons.” The judges of the Supreme Court of Canada pondered the question, and finally they answered, “No.” Luckily, there was one higher court that Emily could appeal to and that was the Privy Council of England, the highest court in the British Empire . She sent the same question to London , waited for months to hear from them, but at long last, on October 18, 1929 the Lords of the Privy Council replied, “Yes”! Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards and Louise McKinney – with that one question – had changed the law throughout the British Empire . From that day forward, women could pursue whatever career they chose. The newspapers in Canada were ecstatic! Huge headlines read, “Women are Persons!”, and the reporters started calling Emily and her friends, the Famous 5. Emily desperately wanted to be appointed to the Senate of Canada because she knew that women had to be represented at every governing body of the government. Thousands of women from all across Canada wrote petitions to the federal government asking that she be appointed. But she never was. QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT…… What did we learn about leadership from this play? Was it comfortable speaking out against social conventions? What would some of the downfalls be of trying to make change? Which issue in our school would you think worthy of changing? How would you go about it today? What about the community where you live? Are there any inequities there? What questions would you ask the Famous 5 today if they were in the room? ie: What did your neighbours say about you? What would give you the courage to make a change that might be unpopular? What are some of the leadership skills you might need to learn to do this? TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE FAMOUS 5, GO TO: www.abheritage.ca/famous5 |