Smallwood, Joseph Roberts

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1958
JOSEPH ROBERTS SMALLWOOD
to be Doctor of Laws

Your Honour, Master President, to waive
Time-honoured diction special leave we crave.
This JOSEPH with prophetic visions stored,
So versatile, aggressive - and adored,
This sea-plane orator, this mike-magician,
This print-boy, newsman, author, politician,
This Liberal lark, once lowly, now sublime,
Transcends pedestrian Prose, and merits Rime.

Historic SMALLWOOD, you now share our toasts
To Tupper's, Tilley's and Macdonald's ghosts,
As last in time, but in the flesh, we view
A Father of Confederation - you!

Labour oppressed his social conscience woke;
And brotherhoods sprang up where "Joey" spoke.
With Rights for Section hands his youthful goal,
He tramped the railroad - till he lost his Sole.
No friend of Privilege, when war began
He proved a statesman, not a partisan;
And sinking his, to serve his People's cause,
Made Pigs not Propaganda fill their maws.

Thrice, since, a Premier - and the end not yet,
Until the seal on his great task be set.
Not charity, not alms, but aid he needs,
To clear th' Atlantic garden of its weeds.
Our latest Maritimer, hot he comes
T' impeach a Nation for its rural slums,
And offering Canada a bridal hand,
To make a paradise of Newfoundland.

Hic losephus adest, nova cui provincia plaudit.
Adscripsit decimam: sed decumanus homo.

From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.