EDMUNDS 



1928 



EDOM 



Oblate Fathers' colleges. The public schools 

 are well housed and equipped; such buildings 

 as the Victoria High School and the John A. 

 McDougall School might well be the pride of 

 cities many times as large. The Edmonton 

 Technical School deserves special mention. Of 

 the many public structures the most conspic- 

 uous is the beautiful .provincial Parliament 

 building (for illustration, see ALBERTA, page 

 157), but also worthy of notice are the new 

 Government House (Glenora) ; the Chateau 

 Macdonald, a magnificent hotel completed in 

 1914 at a cost of $2,000,000; the courthouse; 

 the civic block, which houses all the adminis- 

 trative offices of the city, and the McLeod 

 building. 



Edmonton is conspicuous among Canadian 

 cities as one of the leaders in governmental 

 reforms. It owns and operates all of its public 

 utilities, including street railways, water works 

 and telephone, electric light and power sys- 

 tems. It raises its public funds by a "single 

 tax"; with the exception of a few license 

 fees and special taxes for local improvements 

 the only tax levied is on land. It has a modi- 

 fied commission government, the mayor being 

 assisted by one city commissioner. One of 

 the latest innovations, established in 1916, is 

 a special court, presided over by a woman 

 judge, to hear cases in which women and chil- 

 dren are the culprits. 



History. Fort Edmonton, a trading post of 

 the Northwest Company, was established about 

 1795, and a few years later the Hudson's Bay 

 Company established a station near-by. A 

 small settlement grew up, but gave few indi- 

 cations of its future greatness. In 1876 the 

 telegraph reached Edmonton, and in 1880 the 

 first newspaper, the Edmonton Bulletin, was 

 established. The small hand press, on which 

 this first paper was printed, was brought across 

 the plains from Winnipeg in a Red River cart, 

 a vehicle usually made entirely of wood, drawn 

 by an ox or an Indian pony and creaking hor- 

 ribly as its wooden wheels turned on its 

 wooden axles after the rough trails had worn 

 away the grease. The completion of the rail- 

 way from Calgary in 1891 was of great im- 

 portance, but is overshadowed by the fame 

 Edmonton won in 1897 and later years as an 

 outfitting point for the goldseekers who 

 thronged to the Yukon and Alaska. In 1905 

 the city became the capital of the new province 

 of Alberta. J.MCC. 



ED'MUNDS, GEORGE FRANKLIN (1828- ), 

 an American statesman and great constitu- 



tional lawyer, was born at Richmond, Vt. He 

 began the practice of law in 1849 and in 1851 

 removed to Burlington. From 1854 to 1860 

 he was a member of the Vermont legislature, 

 being for the last three years the speaker of 

 the house. In 1866 he took his seat in the 

 United States Senate as a Republican from 

 Vermont and was returned to that body for 

 four successive terms, succeeding Vice-Presi- 

 dent Arthur as president pro tempore of the 

 Senate after Arthur was elevated to the Presi- 

 dency by the death of President Garfield, in 

 September, 1881. 



During his long term in the Senate he served 

 on the most important committees, taking high 

 rank as a statesman. He came into unusual 

 prominence as the champion of a bill passed 

 in March, 1882, for the suppression of polygamy 

 in Utah. In 1880 and 1884 he was an unsuccess- 

 ful candidate for the Republican Presidential 

 nomination. He was the author of the anti- 

 trust law, known as the Sherman Act, which 

 was passed in 1890 and became one of the 

 most important Congressional measures of the 

 last half of the nineteenth century. 



ED'MUNDSTON, the county town of Mada- 

 waska County, New Brunswick, in the north- 

 west part of the province, at the confluence 

 of the Madawaska and Saint John rivers, the 

 latter being at this point the boundary between 

 Maine and New Brunswick. The town is 

 served by the Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk 

 Pacific and Temiscouata railways, and on the 

 American side of the river is the Bangor & 

 Aroostook Railway. The river valleys north 

 and west of Edmundston are lumbering regions, 

 and the town's chief industrial establishments 

 are saw mills. There is also a large repair shop 

 maintained by the Grand Trunk Pacific Rail- 

 way. Mixed farming is carried on in the 

 neighborhood, and good fishing and hunting 

 abound. French-Canadians predominate in the 

 town and vicinity. Population, in 1911, 1,821: 

 in 1916, about 2,600. J.A.B. 



EDOM, e'dum, a mountainous region men- 

 tioned in the Old Testament, located in mod- 

 ern Syria, lying on both sides of the River 

 Arabah and extending from the southern part 

 of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah. The 

 country was called Mount Seir until the Edom- 

 ites,- the descendants of Esau, drove out the 

 Horites and occupied the land themselves. It 

 is noted for its red sandstone cliffs, and some 

 have thought that the name Edom, which 

 means red, was given to the country because 

 of the color of the cliffs. 



