Police Chief McKinnon's Absence (Part 6) - January 1895

Finally !

A word from Police Chief McKinnon in reference to how he came to be in the predicament he found himself in.

His explanation did not come personally at a meeting of the Police Commissioners, but in the form of a letter that he sent to them.

The Board of Police Commissioners met on Tuesday, January 15, 1895 in full anticipation that McKinnon would make an appearance but, yet again, the chief did not present himself.

The chief’s lawyer was present and he presented certificates from Drs. Rennie and Griffin stating that while the chief’s health had improved somewhat, he was still too ill to attend any meetings.

Lawyer Nesbitt also presented the following letter, signed by Chief McKinnon :

“I take the liberty of asking your kind indulgence, when, instead of appearing personally before you at a public meeting of the board, I ask you to hear me by this written communication.

“It is not a light matter to appear before a public body, surrounded by a public audience, charged as I am now charged, and by certain persons, practically condemned without a hearing, of an offense of which I am absolutely guiltless.

“I am charged with grossly immoral conduct with two women in a public hotel in Toronto. I beg the Board to believe that no immorality between those two women and myself ever occurred. My present painful and deeply humiliating position, and my physical prostration, are owing to wine, not women.

“With the deepest sorrow and humiliation, I fully avow my neglect of duty during the recent holiday season, but I absolutely deny that during my absence from the city I was guilty of the immoral conduct which is assumed to have been proven against me.

“Your honorable Board cannot condemn me more than I condemn myself for breach of duty, but I urge you to give me a fair opportunity of gathering together evidence sufficient to convince you, as well as the public, that so far as the degrading charges of immorality so freely circulated are concerned, they are utterly untrue as a fact.

“I assure your Board that I would now unhesitatingly place my resignation in your hands, conscious as I am that my recent neglect of duty warrants your want of confidence in me for the future, but I beg of you that you will not make my punishment greater than I can bear.

“Should I resign now, or were I discharged now, nothing I could do hereafter would free me publicly from the charges of immorality so freely circulated. If I have an opportunity to collect evidence, not only direct but circumstantial, as I know I can, to free my character from that stigma, I will save for my wife and family that part of my reputation which is to them the most sacred.

“I humbly ask your Board to suspend your judgment and enable me as a free man, not as one prejudiced and condemned, to clear myself. If I fail, which I can only do by the wickedness of others, I will at once place my resignation in your hands, to deal with as your sense of duty to the public and your humanity direct.

“If your Board feels harshly towards me, which would not be surprising under the circumstances, perhaps you will for a moment consider the fate of others, pure enough and innocent enough, God knows, which would be involved in my downfall.

“I am not a young man, with many years ahead, in which to rehabilitate myself after a public dismissal from office by a long course of patient effort. I have an honorable parentage and family connection. I am virtually a Hamilton Boy, having been raised and educated here. I plead guilty to natural instinct for sports and pastimes, which are perhaps not favorable to over-studiousness or stern application to official duty. I am no adventurer, however, but on the contrary have been consistently before the eyes of the public, and the citizens of Hamilton, as a public official, for the past thirty years. I am not now fighting with you for myself, but for others, whose future is indissolubly intertwined with me own.

“Pray suspend your final determination. Leave me a few weeks, not under a cloud, but as a free man, to acquit or condemn myself. If the latter is the result, your own duty will be less painful, I am sure. If otherwise, I am equally certain that you will not regret acceding to my request.”¹

¹ “Says He is Innocent : Chief McKinnon Defends Himself at Last”

Hamilton Herald.   January 16, 1895.

Lawyer Nesbitt, who had read the chief’s letter aloud to the Board, then himself presented many of the same arguments in favor of the Board delaying its decision on the chief’s future with the Hamilton Police department.

The lawyer insisted that he was only asking for a few days delay so that his client could collect evidence:

“ Judge Jelfs – ‘If Chief McKinnon is guiltless, he can clear himself, by himself – by his own evidence. It will not be necessary for him to collect evidence. I do not wish to say that the chief should be brought from his sick bed, but we did expect that, long before this, he would put in some explanation. After hearing the chief’s statement, it may necessary to ask him some questions arising out of his statement, or out of what the commissioners may know, and on his answers to these questions will depend whether an investigation will be held, at which the board would seek for evidence.”1

At this point, yet another delay in making a decision as to the chief’s future with the police force was made. Two more days were allowed to the chief to get better physically.

As the board rose to depart, Judge Jelfs facetiously remarked that it may be necessary to cross-examine the doctors on the veracity of their certificates if the chief did not appear two days hence.

The Herald immediately dismissed McKinnon’s letter as pathetic :

“Chief McKinnon has at last broken the profound silence in which he has wrapped himself since his return from Toronto, not with his voice but with his typewriter – one of those plinkety-plunk things.”²

² “Wine Not Women”

Hamilton Herald January 16, 1895.

The dismissive, sarcastic tone of the Herald editorial continued with its reference to the “wine, not women” portion of the chief’s statement :

“As to the kind of wine, we are left in harrowing doubt. Was it fizzing, foaming champagne with a laugh and a tear in every golden bubble? Was it smooth old port, with a fine bouquet and a reminder of gout in every glass? Was It claret or Tokay or Burgundy or the pure, unfermented juice of the juice of the grape of which we have been hearing so much of late?

“On this point, the chief is coldly, even cruelly silent and disappointing. The Chief admits the Wine, but as to the quality and style of it, never a word is said. We submit that it is a rather lowdown game of the chief to keep this important information from the public, when the public is simply falling all over itself in the eager desire to find out.”²

(To be continued)