Talk:Amor De Cosmos

message: This guy is so cool I can't believe it. He changed his name to "Lover Of The Universe" and then got elected to govern a province?!?! That rules.
*Only in BC my friend --Simon.Pole 00:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I'd been given to understand in high school that Amor De Cosmos was part African-American, but there's nothing about that in the article. Is it true?--Anchoress 10:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the first I've heard of it. If there is any evidence for this, it would be interesting to know what it is. Fishhead64 15:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know but I wonder if you might be thinking of James Douglas?  KenWalker | Talk 18:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it was definitely Amor De Cosmos that my teacher told us about, but maybe he got them mixed up?--Anchoress 22:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  African-American (mulatto?) 

message: As one historian, Joseph Morton, observed, and many others, you couldn't run for office, or win, in BC in those days if you didn't have vocal anti-Chinese policies; one of the most famous political cartoons of De Cosmos shows him beating a "coolie", driving them from BC.  It was a Central Canadian cartoon, lampooning de Cosmos, who like other BC politicians was opposed to the use of Chinese railway labour, and wanted Ottawa and/or London to engage emigrants from the British Isles - experienced railway workers and miners from Scotland, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland - to be imported; Ottawa wanted cheap labour and hired an American (Onderdonk) to do it, once BC surrendered to Ottawa's demands that Chinese labour be used.  MacDonald said something to the effect of "if you don't want the Chinese to build it, you won't have the railway", which was seen as a betrayal of British Columbian interests (and was only said after Victoria acclaimed into office as MP after his routing in the East).  Throughout the 1870s there were protests of one kind or another about "Carnarvon Terms of Separation", which was a reference to this policy, and also to the prevailing notion in BC that Victoria was to be the railhead, as the Terms had said "build a line to Vancouver" (meaning Vancouver Island).  Taht wording was in fact one of the reasons Van Horne chose the name Vancouver for what had until then been known as Granville, as it was still a hot-button issue by the 1880s.  Funding for the drydock, which was a British Navy megaproject already extant at Union, was needed to keep the province's/city's economy going - partly due to the failure/delay of Ottawa to build the railway; other spending issues and promises in the Terms were also broken; the article makes it sound like only the drydock was an issue, and it was just BC wanting money; it was BC wanting what it had been promised, along with a lot else, including obligations, underscored during Dufferin's visit, concerning British settlement of the colony with railway workers, who would then settle and also would drink enough to support excise tax revenues (one of the province's main revenues, then as now, i.e. taxes on booze, etc). This article strikes me as cribbed from maybe only teh Parliamentary website, maybe the Dictionary of Cdn Biography online, and shows some bias in choice of issues and presentation; like all early Premier article, over time it needs lots of work, as does British Columbia history in general.Skookum1 (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely there are some decent biographies of Amor de Cosmos that could be used to improve this page. One problem with only using the Parliament's official biographies is that they tend to eliminate or gloss over many topics that could be considered controversial to modern readers. Good Ol’factory (talk) 20:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-Chinese policy missing

message: I understand that Amor also brought freemasonry, for better or worse, to Victoria and B.C.  There are records such as an early newspaper ad which confirm his role in this regard.  The Victoria freemasons are also notable for laying the cornerstone to the first synagogue in Canada.  The role of the occult in Victoria history (to the present) is somewhat well-known, but rarely reported.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.156.74.2 (talk) 02:37, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  role in freemasonry and secret societies also missing