"Our Own Royal Family"

For a man to beget quintuplets seems to Father Ovila Dionne a private and personal achievement whose profits properly belong to him. On the contrary, thinks Ontario's Liberal Government, it is a public achievement of Society, as represented by Dr. Allan Dafoe who delivered and reared them, the U. S. newspapers that sent a hot-water incubator* and saved their lives, the Northern Ontario businessmen who built the modern Dionne nursery heated against Northern Ontario's --30DEG winter weather.

On that theory Ontario's loud New Dealish Premier Mitchell ("Mitch") Hepburn last week launched the five nine-months-old girls into Ontario politics, just when tallest Annette beat out heaviest Yvonne by one day for the honor of cutting the first tooth.

The Dionne quintuplets, lustily growing, have fulfilled every promise save one: the contract their father made with a Chicago World's Fair promoter, three days after their birth, to ship them to Chicago as a sideshow. Last week the nursery, under the administration of Dr. Dafoe and a board of guardians appointed by Ontario's Attorney General, had piled up nearly $30,000 profit, a large part from newsreel contracts. The Parent Dionnes and their other five children, in the old farmhouse 100 yards away, were living far better than in the days before Mother Dionne labored five times in three-quarters of an hour. Into this idyll crashed "Mitch" Hepburn.

His entree was a bill introduced into the Ontario Legislature in Toronto making the Dionne quintuplets "wards of the King" (Minister of Welfare David Croll to be their "special guardian") and appointing two "active guardians," the State to hold the girls' income in trust until they are 18. Cried "Mitch," cracking down: "I am going to push this bill through without dotting an i or crossing a t."

The Conservative Opposition never really got going, but its members stammered and rambled until Liberal "Mitch" accused them of "vying with each other for the leadership of the Conservative Party." "Hypocrites!" shouted a Liberal. "Liar!" responded a Conservative, and nose-punching almost ensued.

In his frozen northern home Father Dionne, shaken to the core, whimpered: "Mr. Croll told us that God never intended us to have money. He said to go back to my farm and forget about the babies until they were 18, and then I would have $1,000,000. I wonder how far north we would have to go to be free."

Gloated Minister Croll: "The quintuplets are Ontario's own royal family."

Said Mrs. Dionne: "I hope they talk to their wives before they vote."

The Legislators talked a lot about what is always an Ontario bugaboo, the menace of slick Chicago promoters. "We do not want the babies to be exhibited between some sword-swallowing act and a bearded lady on a Chicago midway," said Minister Croll. "They can obtain money in other ways--from endorsing talcum powder, castor oil--you know what I mean." After "Mitch" jammed the bill through a first and second reading, Mr. & Mrs. Dionne took the desperate measure of moving from the farmhouse into the nursery, to stand off the Government. Dr. Dafoe gently explained to them that they were endangering the babies' health and they moved back to the farmhouse.

Minister Croll explained that he would probably appoint Dr. Dafoe and Mr. Dionne "active guardians," that the bill automatically abrogated all contracts Father Dionne had made for the babies. If one of the quintuplets should die, making them only quadruplets, the state would return them to the parents. With Dr. Dafoe listening in the balcony, the Legislature passed the bill. Said Dr. Dafoe: "Very interesting. . . . The babies are so strong now they can all roll over, and that's a mighty healthy sign."

* On which Canada levied $4 customs tax.

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