“The race is open to all. Any man may come to this land who is willing to work. It matters not who his father was or from what land he came, or at what altar he bows, he can aspire to the best and the highest this land has to offer. Whatever a Briton-born can claim he may claim. British institutions know no difference whatever.” * * * * * He had great differences to reconcile, and he had more especially to meet and overcome the presumptions which would naturally bar the way to leadership and popularity in the case of a public man whose native tongue was French, but who aspired to rule a community predominantly English in blood and speech. It is a tribute to the greatness of his character and to his memory to reflect that even in Opposition he was the great outstanding figure in the political life of the country. He did not need office to clothe himself with the dignity that came to a public man. And he was equally a political force in or out of office. There was a glamor that hung over him that attracted men to him. He was the very incarnation of the political aspirations of thousands of men and women, who never saw him in the flesh. To his own immediate followers and political friends he was the proverbial guide, philosopher and friend. * * * * * It was with great misgivings that Sir Wilfrid accepted the leadership of the Liberal Party, when Edward Blake gave it up. He realized that for a young man of French-Canadian extraction and a Roman Catholic in religion, the road would be difficult for him to traverse. And truth to say, not a few of the Liberals felt dismayed at the prospect. But Sir Wilfrid was not long in showing the people of Canada that they had in him a leader who was guided solely by a desire to do his best for his country no matter who would suffer. When he took office in 1896, Canada was in a state of business stagnation. Factories were closed, thousands of men were walking the streets for lack of work, and thousands more were fleeing to the United States as from a pestilence. Soup kitchens were kept busy doling out food to those who could pay for none, and it is a fact that idle men in some cities, had to stay in the house for fear of being arrested as vagrants. This was the condition of affairs when Sir Wilfrid took the reins of office.