THE GLOBE AND MAIL AND TELY CAPPED their coverage of the Royal Tour in Toronto by exchanging editorial broadsides immediately after Her Royal Highness left town. Almost two more weeks of RT stories from as far east as Halifax weren't given nearly the prominence of those filed before and during her day in southern Ontario; the souvenir binge had ended.
Friday, August 1, 1958 Globe and Mail p.6
On the Lunatic Fringe
Well, they did it again. Princess Margaret came to Toronto on a Royal Visit, and the evening newspapers, true to form, turned it into a circus, with all the gaucheries and vulgarities that cling to such travelling spectacles.
And they threw in a promotion campaign with the dollar sign hung high. They had the Princess standing on a $1,750 rug; they had her presented with an $1,800 gift. They had her, with flaring headlines, on a "Secret Tour", as though an evening ride through Toronto were something illicit. The Toronto Star with its own special genius had to descend to calling her a "tourist", who "grinned", "cracked her biggest smile", "seemed thirsty and kept licking her lips".
But if the Queen's sister found the Queen City had its own lunatic fringe, she also found the deep and loyal affection of a great community, of a people who took her to their hearts. The dignity and sincerity of that feeling will, let's be thankful, live and be remembered long after the juvenile journalistic antics have been forgotten.
The Tely responded on August 2 with an editorial on its own page 6:
How Vulgar Everyone (Else) Is
For a moment The Globe and Mail has put aside its dish of sunflower seeds -- a favorite nut in Peking -- to issue one of its reverberating pronouncements, like the classic assertion that there is no difference between U.S. policy and Soviet policy, apart, that is, from bloodshed and brutality.
This time it says that The Telegram was terribly, terribly vulgar about Princess Margaret's visit to Toronto. The Globe and Mail, naturally, was a model of restraint -- wouldn't descend to decorating its building to recognize the event. Too occupied recognizing self-righteousness.
For its part, The Telegram enjoyed the visit tremendously. We enjoyed dressing up the old building on Melinda with flags and bunting, and broadcasting music on Bay street, and taking old people to the CNE grandstand to see the Princess, and helping with the huge floral tribute to her.
If all this is a circus, as the G&M bemoans, we're not the least apologetic for it. And the people who joined us and the thousands and thousands -- all of them no doubt terribly vulgar like us -- who crowded into the CNE on Thursday night to see the flowers apparently are no sorrier than we are about it.
The air has been perfumed with roses and the city bright and smiling, but The Globe and Mail draws up its robes, sniffs and says: All the world is queer but Thee and Me; and sometimes I think Thee is just a little queer. And don't be surprised if it adds, like the pompous preacher in the New Yorker magazine: "And the Lord said, and I quote..."
Also on August 2, it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32C) in Ottawa when Prime Minister J.G. Diefenbaker gave Margaret, on behalf of all Canadians, a coat made of 93 perfectly matched brown mink pelts from Labrador. The Capital's mayor added a chinchilla cape.
In Toronto, the first negative letters to editors appeared: royal motorcades drove too fast, all of Margaret's time was taken up by politicians, a lovely young woman should have met people her own age, royal visits cost too much. Bean-counters figured Torontonians paid $1,000 per hour for her 18 hrs. here, and the value of all gifts she received in Canada was about $200,000 [about $1.65 million today].
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