The 1930s

			McGill's postwar expansion braked in the 1930s as the effects of the stock market crash and the ensuing Depression took hold. The University's investments, which had produced income in 1927 of $700,000, by 1934 yielded only $392,000. An exhaustive review of departmental budgets by Principal Arthur Currie at the beginning of the decade resulted mostly in suggestions from professors on how, with more money, their areas could improve.

In presenting the financial report to the Board of Governors in 1931, Currie actually supported most of the claims for added funding, citing fears of a brain drain if salaries and departmental budgets were cut. He singled out Drs. Penfield and Cone, whose work in neurosurgery "has done more than anything else in the last decade to place McGill in the forefront of surgery. At present we are faced with the danger of losing them, and if Montreal and McGill cannot raise the funds to keep them here it will be a tragedy not only for McGill but for the community."

It was not surprising, then, that in 1932 when the Rockefeller Foundation awarded $1.2 million to McGill to establish the Montreal Neurological Institute with Penfield at the helm, the story was not only reported in the News, but also rated front-page coverage in the Montreal Gazette.

The University imposed whatever austerity measures it could, and hunkered down to wait out the tough times. In an effort to help alumni cope with what Chancellor Edward Beatty called the "satellite scourge of unemployment," the Graduates' Society opened the Employment Bureau in 1931. It reported in its first year that there had been "no fewer than four calls for men to fill positions with salaries from $5,000 to $10,000 or upwards." (At that time, the average annual salary in Canada was around $1,000.) Unfortunately, the Bureau became too great a drain on Graduates' Society funds, and closed at the end of 1934, having found jobs -- few of them at exalted salaries -- for 321 men and women.

In this decade work finally began on what the News called "the largest and most important project ever undertaken by McGill graduates." A group of alumni had approached Sir Arthur Currie and asked to be "brought into more intimate contact with McGill by undertaking some definite work that was needed by the University." Currie believed that McGill's most pressing need was for a gymnasium but there was no money to build it. He asked the group to take on the task of developing plans and raising the necessary funds. Campaign headquarters were set up at the Windsor Hotel and a goal of $350,000 established. Ironically, one of the ways of raising funds for the project was through the sale of McGill cigarettes. As the campaign wore on, the financial target fell short. Plans for the gym were revised and ads in the News for the cigarettes urged graduates to "do your part by smoking them." In 1939, construction began on the gymnasium -- named in honour of Sir Arthur Currie, who died in 1933 -- a project that had been called for since the late 1800s.

With the death of Currie came the end of McGill's "imperial" era. The late principal been a national, even international, figure -- albeit controversial. Charges were made in the 1920s that as head of Canada's WWI military forces, Currie had squandered soldiers' lives. Currie brought a libel suit, and although he won the day, the ordeal left him ill and exhausted. A more democratic administrative system was introduced in the mid-'30s, billed as a New Deal for McGill, but by the end of 1939, most of the power had been restored to the office of the principal, just in time for the arrival there of Cyril James. As James had a war to deal with and then proved himself a remarkably efficient administrator in all areas, there was little urgency to re-introduce democracy until the 1960s. The declaration of war had come as little surprise, although as late as Summer 1939 the magazine ran an ad for travel in Germany. "In truth," said a News editorial, "the war of 1939 is a continuation of the war of 1914," and its pages were once again filled with preparations to send staff, alumni and students into battle.