"Late in 1926 Ernest Victor Sterry had found himself out of work. At loose ends, he decided to write and publish a newspaper to spread rationalist ideas among his fellow Torontonians. He gave it a slightly misleading title: The Christian Inquirer: A Publication Directed to Furthering the Modernist Movement. The first number was alliteratively described as “A Pithy, Popular Presentation of Profound Problems Perplexing the People.” Sterry intended to follow it up with more issues, but that was not to be. The purpose of the paper, he wrote, was to further the populist mission of rationalist education:
to provide in the cheapest form the reviews and arguments and demonstrable facts usually kept more or less concealed from the mass of the people by the aristocracy of intellect.
Sterry began distributing the first issue of his paper free of charge that December, in time for Christmas. He made a point of giving copies to members of Toronto’s elite in person. He wandered the halls of the provincial parliament and handed copies directly to G. Howard Ferguson (the premier), W.H. Price (the attorney-general), and Charles McRea (the minister of mines.) He visited the office of crown attorney Eric Armour to give him a copy, and left papers at every other office he could. Sterry also visited Toronto’s city hall and delivered copies personally to each of its various departments. He then distributed the paper to students at McMaster University, a Baptist institution then in Toronto. He later estimated that he had given out at least five hundred copies of the Inquirer. He asked each person he met while distributing the paper to read and critique it. While everyone seemed friendly enough, he was disappointed by the lack of thoughtful responses.
There were only two advertisments in the first issue of the Inquirer, both from fellow unbelievers and members of the local rationalist organization. These were A. Newton, who offered “general house repairs,” and Ethelbert Lionel Cross, a barrister [and the first practicing Black Canadian lawyer in Toronto.] It was in fact fortunate that Sterry knew a lawyer. On 10 January 1927 he was visited at his office by three police officers and arrested. Accompanied by Cross (whose office was in the same building), he was taken to Inspector McKinney of the Morality Department and charged with blasphemous libel.
The defence of freedom of speech as a principle attracted a mysterious group of potential benefactors. On 14 January the [Toronto] Evening Telegram reported that “a sympathetic source” had offered Sterry the services of “one of the most eminent criminal advocates in this province.” [Lionel] Cross’s insistence on acting as senior counsel had, however, scuttled the deal. The next day Cross told the Star he wished to set the record straight. Certain local parties had indeed approached Sterry. They had told him that “they did not approve of his views yet they were wholly out of sympathy with what they regarded as a form of persecution and … were prepared to finance his defense.” They also offered legal counsel who would “collaborate” with Cross. But Cross felt that this collaboration amounted to a takeover of the case by others, which would have put him in the position of betraying the cause.
Just who were these potential benefactors? Neither Cross nor the Toronto newspapers specified. An article in the Winnipeg Tribune of 13 January, however, may shed light on the question. Entitled “Communists to Fight for Free Speech,” it reported that “the Communist Party of Canada is prepared to assist Victor Sterry … although it has no interest directly or indirectly in the Rationalist movement.” John MacDonald, party secretary, stated: “We are ready to take part in a fight for free speech and a free press if the police press the charge.” Thus it is possible that it was the Communist Party that had offered assistance and been rebuffed by Cross. It is also possible that the sympathetic group represented other religious minorities such as Unitarians or Jews, or that they were liberalminded Christians who disliked the blasphemy law. In any case, Cross seems to have felt that their lawyer would have misrepresented Sterry’s position, while he as a fellow rationalist could handle the case more appropriately.
There were also rumours of help from further afield. On 12 January, the Evening Telegram suggested that a coalition of Chicago freethinkers had discussed enlisting Clarence Darrow in Sterry’s defence. The next day Cross told the Star that he had received a telegram from New York offering $10,000 and Darrow’s assistance. Ten days later William Styles of the RSC [Rationalist Society of Canada] was asked if the famous American was coming. He responded that “the story was largely a newspaper concoction,” continuing, “if Darrow does come, he will come as junior counsel to our own Lionel Cross.” But he added that it was a possibility, since there was an organization in the United States that had paid Darrow’s expenses when he fought similar cases across North America. (This was likely a reference to the American Civil Liberties Union.) It is hard to imagine the limelight-loving Darrow playing the role of junior counsel, however. Unsurprisingly, a few days before the trial Cross told the press that the famed lawyer would be “unable to attend the proceedings on account of illness.”
This setback may not have been unexpected, but it was still unfortunate for Sterry and his fellow rationalists. They needed all the help they could get; a lot was riding on the case. Col. W.W. Denison, solicitor to Ontario’s Department of the Provincial Secretary, had within hours of Sterry’s initial arrest stated that if the rationalist was found guilty, the government should cancel the Rationalist Society’s charter. He believed that, by “propagating atheism,” the society had “exceeded the powers granted them.” Clubs and societies that had been found to promote gambling had had their charters revoked, Denison explained; similarly, organizations that broke the law by blaspheming should be disbanded. He stated that he would personally recommend such a move to Provincial Secretary Lincoln Goldie, should Sterry be convicted.
In Canada’s Criminal Code, blasphemous libel, the offense with which Sterry had been charged, did not apply to all attacks on Christianity or disbelief in God. Its precise stipulation was that:
no one is guilty of a blasphemous libel for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by arguments used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, any opinion whatever upon any religious subject.
The problem was not with the opinion but with the libelous way it was expressed. In a lengthy discussion of the law, the Evening Telegram explained to its readers that
It is the choice of language that is involved in Mr. Sterry’s case … Vulgar or profane language can transform a legitimate philosophical argument into a blasphemous libel.
If Sterry’s rhetoric outraged the religious feelings of Christian Canadians, he was guilty. There was little doubt that he had written most of the content of the Christian Inquirer, and no question that he had personally distributed it. Thus the case quickly came down to the highly subjective issue of whether the Christians of Toronto should feel offended by his words. The outcome of the case would depend upon the attitude of those tasked with defining what was offensive: the jury and the judicial authorities.
Early indications were not promising. Crown attorney Eric Armour, who had initiated Sterry’s prosecution, promptly showed a copy of the offending material to Inspector McKinney of the Morality Department; he agreed that it was blasphemous. Subsequently authorities always stressed the gravity of the offense in their public statements. Magistrate R.J. Browne, when committing Sterry to jury trial, called the Inquirer article not only blasphemous but also “a most indecent and offensive attack on Christianity and the scriptures, couched in the most scurrilous and opprobrious language.” It was clearly Sterry’s intention, he said, to “asperse and vilify Almighty God, in composing and publishing these scandalous, impious, blasphemous and profane libels of God." When a date for the case was initially listed, the presiding judge, Emerson Coatsworth, emphasized its importance, explaining to reporters that blasphemy consisted of an “indecent or offensive” attack on God or the scriptures, “attacks which are calculated to enrage the feelings of the community.”
Behind the scenes, matters were not as clear-cut. Only two days after Sterry was charged, W.H. Price, Ontario’s attorney general, received a letter condemning the case. It was from a retired minister, one J.C. Hodgins, a man Price considered a “very high type” who had “done a great deal of speechmaking throughout the Province.” Perturbed by the minister’s letter, Price asked his deputy why charges had been laid in this case “more than in many others that seem just as bad.” The deputy in turn asked Armour, the crown attorney, for a report, particularly on “whether the defendant was warned to discontinue and if not, why this was not done.” Armour downplayed his own involvement and commented that it was true that editors who published objectionable material were usually given a warning first. He added:
This publication, however, is not a newspaper or a periodical but a propagandist sheet … I have no doubts about getting a conviction but as a charge of theft has also been laid against the above, if he is sent to jail on that charge, the libel charge could be dropped. The local religious organizations here have been raising much ado about the publication in question, and it perhaps would be better to go on to a finish now [that] a prosecution has been commenced.
Furthermore, he commented, “I do not think this charge should ever have been laid and would suggest that after a true bill is found by the Grand Jury a Stay of Proceedings be entered.” Price responded, “I am not sure that I would have entered this case at the beginning. Now that it has been entered I rather think it would be inadvisable to have it withdrawn.” Price kept his reservations mostly quiet and allowed the case to continue.
There were, however, people willing to take the rationalist’s side publicly. The Toronto Star provided a sympathetic platform for Sterry and Cross to put forward their views, though the paper never editorialized directly on the case. Support was to be found among the clergy as well. Not long after Sterry’s arrest, Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman of Holy Blossom Synagogue agreed to speak at a rally in his support. Although the rabbi had to cancel at the last minute for family health reasons, he wrote a lengthy two-part article for the Canadian Jewish Review entitled “A Religious Teacher’s View of Blasphemy.” In the first half Isserman blended rabbinical commentary with a highercritical interpretation of Jewish religious history, and examined changing conceptions of God and offenses against God. Isserman’s statement that “the war-God of Israel, called by some the cruel Jehovah” had been abandoned in favour of a more merciful deity was, in essence if not in tone, reminiscent of Sterry’s “touchy Jehovah” critique. In the second half of the article, published the following week, Isserman wrote that, while he believed a liberal religious outlook was superior to the rationalist view, he knew that unbelievers could be decent and sincere people. Their questions and challenges should be dealt with honestly and charitably, rather than punitively. “Religion does not need courts to defend it,” Isserman argued. In fact, he concluded, the violence and oppression meted out by supposed defenders of religion were more blasphemous in the eyes of God than verbal insults."
- Elliot Hanowski, Towards A Godless Dominion: Unbelief in Interwar Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024. p. 98-99, 104-106.
