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Not to be confused with William Lyon Mackenzie, Mackenzie King's grandfather.

William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, LL.B, Ph.D, MA, BA (December 17, 1874 – 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".

Early life

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.

Liberal Leader

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.

Depression and Appeasement

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 policy of the British. He had met with Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler, whom he said was a reasonable man who cared for his fellow men, working to improve his country in the midst of the Depression. He confided in his diary that he thought Hitler "might come to be thought of as one of the saviours of the world" and told a Jewish delegation that "Kristallnacht might turn out to be a blessing."

The King government, on the strong advice of director of the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources, Frederick Charles Blair, refused to allow significant Jewish immigration regardless the deteriorating situation for the Jews in Germany. King's government turned away the Jewish refugee ship St. Louis in 1939, despite pledges of support from Canada's Jewish community and its supporters. During the later stages of the war, when the government had the chance to rescue Jews from the Holocaust, King's government did not soften its stand. It was an attitude epitomized by Blair's comment just after World War II when asked how many Jews were allowed to immigrate to Canada: "None is too many."

Second World War

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 had been considered instrumental and a sign was placed outside the town, similar to those that had been erected in The Netherlands - "This Town Liberated by the Canadian Army."

King's treatment of Japanese Canadians during the war would also be criticized afterwards. After Pearl Harbor, thousands of Japanese Canadians were moved from their homes on the Pacific coast to internment camps and shantytowns farther east, due to fears that spies might be charting the Pacific Coast of Canada for the Japanese Navy. Similar precautions were not taken against the bulk of German and Italian Canadians. The United States government had a similar plan in effect during the war years. However, unlike ethnic Japanese Americans, the internees in Canada were unable to return to their homes after the war ended. As well, the property of Japanese Canadians was sold at public auctions during their exile, leaving them with little reason to stay in Canada. As a result, Japanese Canadians were offered the option of "repatriation" to Japan at the expense of the King government. Very few wanted to try to settle in the post-war ruins of Japan.

Canadian autonomy

Throughout his term, 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 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 towards 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.

Post-war Canada

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 in 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 to Canada. King also had to deal with the deepening Cold War and the fallout from the 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.

Personal life

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 consulting spirits, including those of Leonardo da Vinci, Louis Pasteur, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, his dead mother and several of his dogs, all named Pat. He sought personal reassurance from the spirits, rather than political advice. Indeed, after his death, one of the mediums said that she had not realized that he was a politician. King did ask 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 term in office, however, and only became publicized by biographers after his death who used the extensive diaries that he kept most of his life.

He never married, but had several close female friends, including Joan Patteson, a married woman, with whom he spent much 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 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.

Supreme Court appointments

King appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of Canada:

Quotations

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 * 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.

References

Secondary sources

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

External links

Prime Ministers of Canada | World War II political leaders | Leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada | Liberal Party of Canada MPs | Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Ontario | Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Saskatchewan | Members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada | Kitchenerites | Canadian lawyers | Canadian diarists | Harvard University alumni | University of Toronto alumni | Members of the Order of Merit | Presbyterian Canadians | Scottish Canadians | Companions of St Michael and St George | 1874 births | 1950 deaths

William Lyon Mackenzie King | William Lyon Mackenzie King | William Lyon Mackenzie King | Mackenzie King | William Lyon Mackenzie King | 威廉·莱昂·麦肯齐·金

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "William Lyon Mackenzie King".

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