William Lyon Mackenzie King
Not to be confused with William Lyon Mackenzie, Mackenzie King's grandfather.William Lyon Mackenzie King, OM,
PC,
LL.B,
Ph.D,
MA,
BA (
December 17,
1874 â€"
July 22,
1950) was the tenth
Prime Minister of
Canada from
December 29,
1921, to
June 28,
1926;
September 25,
1926, to
August 7,
1930; and
October 23,
1935, to
November 15,
1948. With over 21 years in the office, he had the longest combined time in the Prime Minister position in
British Commonwealth history. In 1999 King was ranked by historians to be the greatest of Canada's Prime Ministers. (Granatstein & Hillmer,
Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders).
He is commonly known either by his full name or as
Mackenzie King. (Mackenzie was one of his given names, not part of his surname.) In his public career he was never referred to as simply "William King". To personal friends and family, he was usually known by the nickname "Rex".
King was born in
Berlin, Ontario (now
Kitchener) to John King and Isabel Grace Mackenzie. He had a younger sister named Jennie, who later was considering marrying King's friend
Bert Harper at the time Harper drowned in the Ottawa River. A grandson of
William Lyon Mackenzie, leader of the
Upper Canada Rebellion in
1837, King held five
university degrees. He obtained three from the
University of Toronto: B.A.
1895, LL.B.
1896, and M.A.
1897. After studying at the
University of Chicago, Mackenzie King proceeded to
Harvard University, receiving an M.A. in political economy
1898 and a Ph.D.
1909. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to have earned a doctorate.
King worked as a newspaper reporter for the Toronto
Globe while studying at the University of Toronto. He was first elected to
Parliament as a
Liberal in a 1908
by-election, and was re-elected in a 1909 by-election following his appointment as Canada's first
Minister of Labour. He lost his seat in the
1911 general election, which saw the
Conservatives defeat his Liberals.
Following his defeat, he went to the
United States to work for the
Rockefeller family, assisting them in labour relations. He returned to Canada to run in the
1917 election, which focused almost entirely on the
conscription issue, and lost again, due to his opposition to conscription, which was supported by the majority of English Canadians.
|
King, in court dress, speaking on Parliament Hill during a ceremony celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, July 1, 1927 |
In
1919, he was elected leader at the first
Liberal leadership convention, and soon returned to parliament in a
by-election. King remained leader until 1948. In the
1921 election, his party defeated
Arthur Meighen and the
Conservatives, and he became
Prime Minister.
In his first term as Prime Minister, he was opposed by the
Progressive Party, which did not support trade
tariffs. King called an
election in 1925, in which the
Conservatives won the most seats, but not a majority in the
House of Commons. King held onto power with the support of the
Progressives. Soon into his term, however, a bribery scandal in the Department of Customs was revealed, which led to more support for the Conservatives and Progressives, and the possibility that King would be forced to resign. King asked
Governor General Lord Byng to dissolve Parliament and call another election, but Byng refused, the only time in
Canadian history that the Governor General has exercised such a power. King resigned, and Byng asked Meighen to form a new government. When Meighen's government was defeated in the House of Commons a short time later, however, Byng called a new
election in 1926.
In his second term, King introduced old-age
pensions. In February 1930, he appointed
Cairine Wilson, whom he knew personally, as the first female
senator in Canadian history.
His government was in power during the beginning of the
Great Depression, but lost the
election of 1930 to the Conservative Party, now led by
Richard Bedford Bennett.
King's Liberals were returned to power once more in the
1935 election. The worst of the Depression had passed, and King implemented relief programs such as the National Housing Act and National Employment Commission. His government also created the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in
1936, Trans-Canada Airlines (the precursor to
Air Canada) in
1937, and the
National Film Board of Canada in
1939.
King hoped an outbreak of war in the
1930s could be avoided, and he supported the
appeasement policies of the British. He met with
Adolf Hitler who, he remarked in his journal, came across as "a reasonable and caring man ... who might be thought of as one of the saviors of the world." Telling a Jewish delegtion that "
Kristallnact" might turn out to be a blessing," he refused to allow Jewish refugees who were attempting to leave Nazi Germany, entry into Canada.
Despite pledges of support from Canada's Jewish community, in June 1939 King also refused to allow a boatload of 900 desperate Jewish refugees (aboard the passenger ship
St. Louis), refuge in Canada. When asked how many Jews would be allowed to immigrate immediately after World War II, one of his civil servants famously quipped, "None is too many".
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, King's government oversaw the forcible internment of all Japanese-Canadians from Canada's west coast, giving 22,000 B.C. residents 24 hours to pack. While they were incarcerated, the Canadian government confiscated and sold their property and belongings at public auction. After the war, King offered Japanese-Canadians the option of "repatriation" to a war-ravaged Japan, and Canadians of Japanese origin were not allowed to move back to coastal areas until his government fell several years later.
King realized the necessity of
World War II before Hitler invaded
Poland in
1939, and actually began
mobilizing on 25 Aug 1939, with full mobilization on 1 September. Unlike
World War I, however, when Canada was automatically at war as soon as Britain joined, King asserted Canadian autonomy by waiting until
September 10, when a vote in the House of Commons took place, to support the government's decision to declare war. During this time Canada was able to acquire weapons from the United States. Upon declaring war Canada would not be able to purchase weapons from the US, under the US policy then in force of not arming belligerents. This issue soon became a moot point as the American
embargo was repealed in November 1939.
King's promise not to impose conscription contributed to the defeat of
Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale Quebec provincial government in 1939 and Liberals' re-election in the
1940 election. But after the fall of
France in
1940, Canada introduced conscription for home service. Still, only volunteers were to be sent overseas. King wanted to avoid a repeat of the
Conscription Crisis of 1917. By
1942, the military was pressing King hard to send conscripts to Europe. In 1942, King held a national
plebiscite on the issue asking the nation to relieve him of the commitment he had made during the election campaign. He said that his policy was "conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription."
French Canadians voted overwhelmingly against conscription, but a majority of English Canadians supported it. French and English conscripts were sent to fight in the Aleutian Islands in 1943 - technically North American soil and therefore not "overseas" - but the mix of Canadian volunteers and draftees found the Japanese had fled before their arrival. Otherwise, King continued with a campaign to recruit volunteers, hoping to address the problem with the shortage of troops caused by heavy losses in the
Dieppe Raid in 1942, in
Italy in
1943, and after the
Battle of Normandy in
1944. In November 1944, the Government decided it was necessary to send conscripts to Europe. This led to a brief political crisis (see
Conscription Crisis of 1944), but the war ended a few months later. Over 15,000 conscripts went to Europe, though only a few hundred saw combat.
King was extremely unpopular among Canadian servicemen and women during the war, who were pro conscription. His appearances at
Canadian Army installations in Britain (and, after
6 June 1944, in Europe) were invariably greeted with boos and catcalls. When he was defeated after the war in his Prince Albert riding, the servicemen's vote was considered instrumental, and a sign was placed outside the town, similar to those that had been erected in The Netherlands, reading, "This Town Liberated by the Canadian Army."
Throughout his tenure, King led Canada from a colony with responsible government to an autonomous nation within the British Commonwealth. During the
Chanak Crisis of
1922, King refused to support the British without first consulting Parliament, while the Conservative leader,
Arthur Meighen, supported Britain. The British were disappointed with King's response. After the King-Byng Affair, King went to the
Imperial Conference of
1926 and argued for greater autonomy of the
Dominions. This resulted in the
Balfour Declaration 1926, which announced the equal status of all members of the
British Commonwealth (as it was known then), including Britain. This eventually led to the
Statute of Westminster 1931.
In the lead up to World War II, King played two roles. On the one hand, he told English Canadians that Canada would no doubt enter war if Britain did. On the other hand, he and his
Quebec lieutenant Ernest Lapointe told French Canadians that Canada would only go to war if it was in the country's best interests. With the dual messages, King slowly led Canada toward war without causing strife between Canada's two main linguistic communities. As his final step in asserting Canada's autonomy, King ensured that the Canadian Parliament made its own declaration of war one week after Britain.
Mackenzie King was not charismatic and did not have a large personal following. Only 8 Canadians in 100 picked him when the Canadian Gallup (CIPO) poll asked in September, 1946, "What person living in any part of the world today do you admire?" Nevertheless, his Liberal Party was re-elected in the
election of 1945. King had been considered a minor player in the war by both
United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. King did act as a link between the two countries between September 1939 and December 1941, but after the U.S. entered the war his position was largely redundant. King's most important contribution to wartime diplomacy was his crafting of a plan in June 1940 to host a British government in exile and to aid in the transfer of the British fleet to Canadian ports. He also hosted a major conference in
Quebec City in 1943. King helped found the
United Nations in 1945.
After the war, King quickly dismantled wartime controls. Unlike World War I, press censorship ended with the hostilities. He began an ambitious program of social programs and laid the groundwork for Newfoundland and Labrador's entry into Canada. King also had to deal with the deepening Cold War and the fallout from espionage revelations of Russian cipher clerk
Igor Gouzenko, who defected in Ottawa in 1946.
In 1948, he retired after 22 years as prime minister, and was succeeded as Liberal Party leader, and Prime Minister of Canada, by his
Justice Minister,
Louis St. Laurent.
Mackenzie King was a cautious politician who tailored his policies to prevailing opinions. "Parliament will decide," he liked to say when pressed to act.
Privately, he was highly eccentric with his preference for communing with spirits, including those of
Leonardo da Vinci,
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, his dead mother, and several of his dogs, all named Pat. He sought personal reassurance from the spirit world, rather than seeking political advice. Indeed, after his death, one of his mediums said that she had not realized that he was a politician. King asked whether his party would win the 1935 election, one of the few times politics came up during his
seances. His occult interests were not widely known during his years in office, and only became publicized after his death by biographers using the extensive
diaries he kept during most of his life.
King never married, but had several close female friends, including
Joan Patteson, a married woman with whom he spent some of his leisure time. Part of his country retreat, now called
Mackenzie King Estate, at
Kingsmere in the
Gatineau Park, near
Ottawa, is open to the public. The house King died in, called "The Farm", is the official residence of the
Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons and is not part of the park.
Mackenzie King died on
July 22,
1950, at Kingsmere. He is buried in
Mount Pleasant Cemetery,
Toronto. He is pictured on the
Canadian fifty-dollar bill.
In
1998, there was controversy over King's exclusion from a memorial to the
Quebec Conference of 1943, which was attended by King, Roosevelt, and Churchill. The monument was built by the
sovereigntist Parti Québécois government of
Quebec, which justified the decision on the basis that King was not important enough. Canadian federalists, however, accused the government of Quebec of trying to advance their own political agenda.
King appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of Canada:
*
Arthur Cyrille Albert Malouin - (
January 30,
1924 -
October 1,
1924)
*
Francis Alexander Anglin (
Chief Justice) - (
September 16,
1924 â€"
February 28,
1933) (appointed a
Puisne Justice by
Wilfrid Laurier in
1909)
*
Edmund Leslie Newcombe - (
September 16,
1924 -
December 9,
1931)
*
Thibaudeau Rinfret - (
October 1,
1924 -
June 22,
1954 (appointed
Chief Justice by King in
1944)
*
John Henderson Lamont - (
April 2,
1927 -
March 10,
1936)
*
Robert Smith - (
May 18,
1927 -
December 7,
1933)
*
Lawrence Arthur Dumoulin Cannon - (
January 14,
1930 -
December 25,
1939)
*
Albert Blellock Hudson - (
March 24,
1936 -
January 6,
1947)
*
Robert Taschereau - (
February 9,
1940 -
September 1,
1967)
*
Ivan Rand - (
April 22,
1943 -
April 27,
1959)
*
Roy Lindsay Kellock - (
October 3,
1944 -
January 15,
1958)
*
James Wilfred Estey - (
October 6,
1944 -
January 22,
1956)
*
Charles Holland Locke - (
June 3,
1947 -
September 16,
1962)
We had no shape
Because he never took sides;
And no sides
Because he never allowed them to take shape.:from F.R. Scott, "W.L.M.K." | William Lyon Mackenzie King
Sat in a corner and played with string,
Loved his mother like anything,
William Lyon Mackenzie King.:Dennis Lee, "William Lyon Mackenzie King" |
"Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription."
"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile... Once a nation parts with the control of its credit, it matters not who makes the laws....Usury once in control will wreck the nation."
"If some countries have too much history, we have too much geography."
"When it comes to politics, one has to do as one [does] at sea with a sailing ship... reach one's course having regard to prevailing winds."
"It is what we prevent, rather than what we do that counts most in Government."
"Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government."
"...I believed the people had a true instinct in most matters of government when left alone. That they were not swayed, as specially favoured individuals were, by personal interest, but rather by a sense of what best served the common good. That they recognized the truth when it was put before them, and that a leader can guide so long as he kept to the right lines. I did not think it was a mark of leadership to try to make the people do what one wanted them to do...."
"This town liberated by the Canadian Army." When King was defeated in his Prince Albert riding, this sign is alleged to have been erected there, in reference to the military vote.
Secondary sources
*
Dawson, Robert Macgregor. William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography 1874-1923 (1958) standard biography
* Granatstein, J. L.
Canada's War: The politics of the Mackenzie King government, 1939-1945 (1975)
*
McGregor, F. A. The Fall & Rise of Mackenzie King, 1911-1919 (1962)*
Neatby, H. Blair. William Lyon Mackenzie King, 1924-1932: The Lonely Heights (1963) standard biography
*
Neatby, H. Blair William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1932-1939: the Prism of Unity (1976) standard biography
*
Neatby, H. Blair. "King, William Lyon Mackenzie" Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (2006), best pace to start
* Stacey, C. P.
Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939-1945 (1970)
Popular books
*
Bliss, Michael.
Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Mulroney (1994), pp. 123-184
* Hutchison, Bruce
The Incredible Canadian: A Candid Portrait of Mackenzie King: His Works, His Times, and His Nation (1953), popular bio
Television series
* Brittain, Donald
The King Chronicles National Film Board, 1988
Primary sources
*
The Mackenzie King Record - Vol. 1 ed by J. W. Pickersgill (1960)*
The Mackenzie King Record - Vol. 3 ed by J. W. Pickersgill and D. F. Forster (1960)*
The Mackenzie King Record - Vol. 4 ed by J. W. Pickersgill and D. F. Forster (1960)*
Hadley Cantril and Mildred Strunk, eds. Public Opinion, 1935-1946'' (1951) reports many CIPO polls from Canadian Institute of Public Opinion.
*
William Lyon Mackenzie King's Diary online*
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online*
Canadian Newspapers and the Second World War - William Lyon Mackenzie King*
Mackenzie King declares war against Nazi Germany (.rm file)*
Federal Political Experience from the Library of Parliament*
William Lyon Mackenzie King Poem by F.R. Scott*
William Lyon MacKenzie King At Find A Grave*
CBC Digital Archives â€" Mackenzie King: Public Life, Private Man*
Ontario Plaques - William Lyon Mackenzie King 1874-1950{{Persondata
NAME=King, William Lyon Mackenzie | ALTERNATIVE NAMES= | SHORT DESCRIPTION=10th Prime Minister of Canada (1926-1930,1935-1948) | DATE OF BIRTH=December 17, 1874 | PLACE OF BIRTH=Berlin, Ontario | DATE OF DEATH=July 22, 1950 | PLACE OF DEATH=Ottawa
|
