Product Description

Forty-six years later those words still ring true: there has since been no book that has brought to life early Calgary the way that Eye Opener Bob does. Perhaps more importantly, it's the closest we'll ever get to Robert Chambers Edwards-Eye Opener Bob -the irrepressible editor of Calgary's most singular newspaper, and the city's most singular denizen.

Bob Edwards was a true Canadian original, the prototypical hard-drinking, pull-no-punches editor of the Calgary Eye Opener-at the time the largest paper between Vancouver and Toronto, with a circulation of over 30,000 copies. A paper with the power to elect or dethrone governments, to bring the mighty CPR to reform its ways, and to skewer the pretensions of society like few before or since. Eye Opener Bob brings this fascinating character to life in all his glorious self-contradictions.

MacEwan arrived in the city at just the right time to write Eye Opener Bob-the old Sandstone City hadn't yet been whitewashed over by the new money from the Leduc gusher, and there were still living people who had known Edwards. MacEwan ferreted out their stories as only he could do, combined the interviews with hard research, and the result is Grant MacEwan's best book by a country mile.

Eye Opener Bob can be enjoyed on its own or as a companion piece to the new compilation of Edwards's writing, Irresponsible Freaks, Highball Guzzlers, and Unabashed Grafters: A Bob Edwards Chrestomathy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #515601 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Books in Canada
Who was Bob Edwards? Two new books from Brindle & Glass inform us that Robert Chambers “Bob” Edwards was “a Canadian original,” a “singular man,” a “maverick of the Alberta country,” and the “spiritual forefather of The Onion.” Edwards was a journalist and satirist of the highest order, publishing his one-man paper, the Eye Opener, with consistent irregularity in turn-of-the-century Calgary. He was an agitator for change, a progressive thinker, an alcoholic, and a figure of controversy. He was always one step away from the poorhouse, “[but] during those years in which western people were reading his columns, he furnished a million dollars’ worth of entertainment, and that was not all; while amusing the many and annoying the few, he exerted a public influence which probably surpassed that of any western editorial or political figure of his time.” He was scandalous, unapologetic, intelligent, and brave. And he was quintessentially Canadian.
Edwards’s life-and the life of his newspaper-are definitively explored in Eye Opener Bob and Irresponsible Freaks, Highball Guzzlers and Unabashed Grafters: A Bob Edwards Chrestomathy. Eye Opener Bob is a straight-up biography, originally written in 1957 by Grant MacEwan, and published here in a new, annotated edition. The chrestomathy-a fancy word for a collection of literary passages by a single author-gathers the primary source material from Edwards’s newspapers, letters, pamphlets, speeches, and testimonies. The two should not be looked at separately; they are companion pieces, through and through. In fact, the most enjoyable way to read them is side by side. Flip through the chrestomathy until some bit of scandal or history or politics really gets your attention, then pick up the biography and get the rest of the story. These two volumes reference each other frequently and suggest cross-over items of interest. Woe to the reader who has made the mistake of buying only one.
Edwards’s life began in Edinburgh, Scotland, although cagily he never said exactly when-and that’s why the footnotes should be read. Edwards always claimed his birthday was 12 September, 1864. It’s the date MacEwan uses in the original text. However, a footnote reveals that Edwards’s birth certificate reads 17 September, 1860. It’s possible that MacEwan was simply taking advice from his subject, who said, “Some men spoil a good story by sticking to the facts.” Despite such advice, James Martin points out the various factoids MacEwan got wrong the first time around, like a list of errata from a newspaper. Throughout the biography, the footnotes add a fascinating layer to the book, as well as providing corrections, commentary, and bibliographic information. This second story creates a frame outside the text which keeps readers aware of the fallibility of what they are reading, and of the many incarnations Edwards’s life story has been granted.
Edwards was raised and educated in private schools and at Glasgow University, where he was something of a class clown: “When the professor couldn’t find his spectacles, or when the pages of his textbook were glued together at a crucial point, angry glances were cast toward Bob Edwards.” Despite this penchant for mischief and a love of extracurricular activities, Edwards graduated as a gold medalist and travelled to Paris, Berlin, and Rome. It seems he made some early attempts at producing a paper, but this is another case where history is unclear: Edwards and MacEwan claim it was a gossipy newspaper in France Edwards dubbed The Traveller; Martin can find no evidence of this and posits that it must have been either a tourist rag entitled The Channel in France, or a paper called The Traveller put out in Milan. In any case, after a year or two abroad, Edwards made the strange choice to attempt the life of a Texas cattle rancher with his brother Jack, and the two boys ended up working as hired hands on a ranch in Crazy Woman Creek, Wyoming. When Bob Edwards witnessed the distasteful lynching of a suspected cattle rustler, he moved to a quiet farm in Iowa, and when the farming life didn’t agree with him, he moved to Canada.
He arrived in Winnipeg in 1894. “‘So this is Winnipeg,’ Bob Edwards murmured as he stepped of the train from the south after two days of travel, ‘I can tell it’s not Paris.’” This speculative bit of inner monologue is a characteristic and fascinating stylistic quirk of MacEwan’s, which Martin dubs “proto-New Journalism.” Edwards may or may not have made the comparison between Winnipeg and Paris. Regardless, he quickly headed for Alberta on the advice of some of the patrons of a local bar. Apart from the one year spent in the Eastern part of Canada, Edwards lived in Alberta for the rest of his life, announcing in 1911, “Alberta would be ‘Home’ until he was ‘getting his mail in Heaven.’”
What makes Bob Edwards relevant to readers is not how he came to Canada, or the fact that he lived here for a long time. What makes him distinctive-in his own time and in the present-and makes his story and his oeuvre worth reading about, is his biting satire and political commentary. The back cover of the Chrestomathy warns readers: “This isn’t your grandfather’s satire. Actually, it is-and it’s about g-d damned time.”
Satire is the highest form of humour, and in the current climate of culture wars, bumbling world leaders, and an increasing awareness of the media’s role in shaping how events are perceived, people are turning more often to sources which satirise the news media for both entertainment and the truth. This is essentially what Bob Edwards was about; what Bob Edwards did with newspaper in early 20th century Calgary is analogous to what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do on television in America today. What might be surprising is that many of today’s 'hot' issues were equally contentious in Bob Edwards’s time. Take, for example, this passage from the Eye Opener, dated April 20, 1912, on the subject of censorship:

“The license department in Winnipeg is a funny outfit. They have a department to censor moving picture films. Every now and again in Winnipeg some picture gets in that needs clipping. It is clipped. The clipping goes on for a year, and all the clippings are kept.
Then what happens?
The city hall sanctions a private view of the pictures. Now, the fun lies in the fact that the people who have been railing against improper pictures are the very ones who attend these private exhibitions! When the private show was pulled off recently in Winnipeg at the Bijou Theatre, the place was hammed to overflowing with the moral lights of the city. Representatives of the best-known charitable organizations were also present, gloating over pictures of the hootchee-kootchee and all the rest of it. They are a bunch of libidinous hypocrites. That’s what they are.”

Despite the differences in style and diction, and the content of what was considered in need of cutting at that time, the exact same article could run in an editorial today. This is what makes the Eye Opener and its creator relevant reading.
Bob Edwards was fearless, never afraid to take the piss out of anyone he thought deserved it. But what makes him all the more trustworthy as a satirist is that he was never afraid to turn his critical eye back at himself and his paper. He consistently made fun of himself for his drinking and his poverty, and for the paper’s unreliable production schedule. On October 6th, 1906, he even made a facetious comment about the amount of advertising and where the money might go:

“Our readers will pardon us this week for having such a devil of a lot of ads, but we want to make a little dough out of the paper just for once to see what it feels like. That fat ad on the fourth page simply had to go in. Moreover, our artist, George Fraser, is off on the coast, so that the Eye Opener is not so profusely illustrated as usual. Another saving. We are going to make a killing this turn out of the box and, altogether, stand a darned good show of getting that overcoat.”

Perhaps the most complex and interesting issues of Edwards’s day were those that dealt with religious faiths-issues which Canada and the world are confronting today. Edwards walked a remarkably fine line; although he was a “drinker, cynic and denominational critic,” he was also a man of faith, one who believed that religion, “being a very personal affair, should induce people to ‘go down on their knees in the quiet of their chambers and hold communion with their God.’” Given his early scholarship, he was also familiar with church history and all the world’s great religions, which MacEwan, writing in 1957, listed as “Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Vedaism, and the Hebrew religion.” Despite his detractors, those who denounced him as a “sinner,” a “drunk”, or simply assumed he was an atheist, there were those men of the cloth who saw Edwards for the upright and moral man he was. One such man was Dr. George Kerby, a principal at Mount Royal College, formerly a minister at Central Methodist Church, who maintained a long friendship with Edwards despite their occasional differences. He respected Edwards for acts of charity, which true to form were never reported in the Eye Opener (he regularly gave an envelope of money to a blind man for more than five years). Dr. Kerby gave the following speech to Edwards, in public:

“I need not say again that your writing, at times, has offended me and I am still opposed to Sunday shooting. But I’ve come to the conclusion that when we all stand for the last judgment, you’ll have more in your favor than most of your critics. I’ve brought around this box of bullets for gophers. As for the days on which you use them, I’d quite willingly leave that to your conscience.”

Furthermore, Dr. Kerby asked Edwards for a copy of a prayer he had twice printed in the Eye Opener, and Kerby later preached it to his congregation. The prayer demonstrates beautifully Edwards’s ability to be sincere and mocking in the same instant:

“Lord, let me keep a straight way in the path of honor-and a straight face in the presence of solemn asses. Let me not truckle to the high, nor bull-doze the low; let me frolic with the jack and the joker and [sometimes] win the game. Lead me unto Truth and Beauty-and tell me her name. Keep me sane but not too sane. Let me not take the world or myself too seriously, and grant more people to laugh with and fewer to laugh at. Let me condemn no man because of his grammar and no woman on account of her morals, neither being responsible for either. Preserve my sense of humour and of values and proportions. Let me be healthy while I live, but not live too long. Which is about all for today, Lord. Amen.”

This prayer was far more popular than the one Edwards proposed when he was feuding with the churches after “perfunctory Thanksgiving services” in 1917, addressed to “Almighty Dollar.”
Edwards was also known for his dedication to women’s rights. He would write humorously about the fairer sex in his paper, but he always behaved like a gentleman. He once met a woman who had been swindled out of her life savings by con artists selling bogus lots of land, and he confronted the swindlers in person. When they failed to return the money, he wrote the entire story up in the paper, listing every detail except their names. He made it clear “that if the parties concerned did not return the money taken for the worthless lots before the next issue of the Eye Opener went to press, the names of the swindlers would be used to decorate the front page.” The money was returned. Edwards also supported granting the franchise to women, and encouraged women to enter politics, though in his usual humorous, double-edged style. After long living the life of a bachelor, he even deigned to take a wife: he married Kate Penman in 1917.
Bob Edwards never lacked for excitement in his life. When he wasn’t being taken to trial for libel, playing mayor for a day, or being elected to provincial parliament in 1921, he was creating scandal by being utterly true to himself and never giving an inch. He died on the 14th of November, 1922, eliciting comments from Alberta’s Lieutenant-Governor, Hon. R. G. Brett-“Big hearted, genial, and lovable Bob has passed”-and Rev. Robert Pearson: “We shall never see his like again.” He lived an amazing life and left an incredible legacy. You should read about it. At this point, you still don’t know the half of it.
Matthew J. Trafford (Books in Canada)

Review

"The most authoritative history of adolescent Calgary that has ever been written, [and] a full-length portrait of this city's most famous (and infamous) citizen." —The Calgary Albertan

About the Author

John Walter Grant MacEwan was born in 1902 near Brandon, Manitoba, grew up near Melfort, Saskatchewan, and was educated in Guelph, Ontario and Ames, Iowa. He served on the faculties of the Universities of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as mayor of Calgary, and as lieutenant governor of Alberta.

Renowned across Canada as a livestock judge and lecturer on agricultural topics, he became a tireless advocate of conservation and regional historical awareness, themes which drove his astonishing output of writing.

The man described as "the Western Canadian of the Twentieth Century" died on June 15, 2000.