William Lyon Mackenzie King

* Secretary of State fo External Affairs (1921 - 1925, 1925 - 1930, 1935 - 1943)
* Leader of the Liberal Party (1919 - 1948)
* Minister of Labour (1909 - 1911)
* Member of the House of Commons of Canada (1908 - 1911, 1919 - 1948)

## Biographical information

### Place of death

Chelsea, Quebec, Canada

**William Lyon Mackenzie King** OM CMG PC (17 December, 1874 – 22 July, 1950) was a Canadian statesman and politician who served as the 10th Prime Minister of Canada for two non-consecutive terms from 1925 to 1930, and 1935 to 1943. A Liberal, he was the dominant politician in Canada from the early 1920s to the late 1940s. King is best known for his leadership of Canada during the British Revolution, the Great Depression, and the Second American Civil War. He played a major role in laying the foundations of the Canadian welfare state and established Canada's international reputation as a great power fully committed to world order. At thirteen years in office, he remains the longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history.

Born in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, King studied law and political economy in the 1890s and became concerned with issues of social welfare. He later obtained a PhD – the only Canadian prime minister to have done so. In 1900, he became deputy minister of the Canadian government's new Department of Labour. He entered the House of Commons in 1908 before becoming the federal minister of labour in 1909, serving under Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. After losing his seat in the 1911 federal election, King worked for the Rockefeller Foundation before briefly working as an industrial consultant. Following the death of Laurier in 1919, King acceded to the leadership of the Liberal Party and won a by-election to re-enter the Commons shortly after. Taking the helm of a party bitterly torn apart during the First Weltkrieg due to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, he unified both the pro-conscription and anti-conscription factions of the party, leading it to victory in the 1925 federal election.

By the time King had taken office as prime minister, the British Revolution had begun, causing the collapse of the British Empire and a sudden influx of British refugees fleeing to Canada. King failed to take an active approach to the revolutions until it was to late and was widely blamed for having lost the Empire. He refused to allow the British government to take over the Dominion government. King engaged in fierce crackdowns against socialists and unions and in 1926 saw the Dominion of Newfoundland incorporated as a province of Canada. King was defeated in the 1930 election over accusations that he was taking too soft an approach to the Union of Britain. Briefly serving as Leader of the Official Opposition, King would again lead the Liberals to victory in the 1935 federal election. During his second term, he negotiated a free trade treaty with U.S. President Herbert Hoover, which proved to be a popular decision. Upon the outbreak of the Second American Civil War, King initially aligned his country with the Acting President Douglas MacArthur and his federal military junta. The Canadian military would intervene in the conflict, notably doing battle against the Combined Syndicates of America. King would later distance himself from MacArthur, and support the Provisional Pacific Coalition. King was instrumental in the drafting of the Rocky Mountain Armisitice, while officially brought an end to the war.

Upon the end of the war, King would direct his government to annex the form U.S. states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, as well as the U.S. territory of Alaska, transforming them into new Canadian provinces. In the 1943 snap election, King and the Liberals were defeated by the resurgent Conservative Party, led by Lord Beaverbrook. He would again serve as the Leader of the Opposition until retiring from politics in 1948. He died of pneumonia in mid-1950.

King's legacy is complex and highly disputed. He lacked the charisma of such contemporaries as Lord Beaverbrook, Jack Reed, Huey Long, or Henri Mordacq. Cold and tactless in human relations, he lacked oratorical skill and his personality did not resonate with the electorate. He had many political allies but very few close personal friends. He kept secret his beliefs in spiritualism and use of mediums to stay in contact with departed associates and particularly with his mother. In his time, he was blamed for failing to prevent the eventual formation of the Socialist Commonwealth of America, and was often accused of harbording pro-syndicalist sympathies by right-wing newspapers. Despite all this, King is often ranked as one of the greatest Canadian prime ministers.

## Early Life and Education

King was born in a frame house rented by his parents at 43 Benton Street in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario to John King and Isabel Grace Mackenzie. His maternal grandfather was William Lyon Mackenzie, first mayor of Toronto and leader of the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837. His father was a lawyer and later a lecturer at Osgoode Hall Law School. King had three siblings.

King's father was a lawyer with a struggling practice in a small city, and never enjoyed financial security. His parents lived a life of shabby gentility, employing servants and tutors they could scarcely afford, although their financial situation improved somewhat following a move to Toronto around 1890, where King lived with them for several years in a duplex located on Beverley Street while studying at the University of Toronto.

King became a lifelong practising Presbyterian with a dedication to social reform based on his Christian duty. He never favoured socialism.

King enrolled at the University of Toronto in 1891. He obtained a BA degree in 1895, an LLB degree in 1896, and an MA in 1897, all from the university. While studying in Toronto he met a wide circle of friends, many of whom became prominent. He was an early member and officer of the Kappa Alpha Society, which included a number of these individuals (two future Ontario Supreme Court Justices and the future chairman of the university itself). It encouraged debate on political ideas. He also met Arthur Meighen, a future political rival; the two men did not get on especially well from the start.

King was especially concerned with issues of social welfare and was influenced by the settlement house movement pioneered by Toynbee Hall in London, England. He played a central role in fomenting a students' strike at the university in 1895. He was in close touch, behind the scenes, with Vice-Chancellor William Mulock, for whom the strike provided a chance to embarrass his rivals Chancellor Edward Blake and President James Loudon. King failed to gain his immediate objective, a teaching position at the university but earned political credit with Mulock, the man who would invite him to Ottawa and make him a deputy minister only five years later. While studying at the University of Toronto, King also contributed to the campus newspaper, *The Varsity.* King subsequently wrote for *The Globe*, *The Mail and Empire*, and the *Toronto News*. Fellow journalist W. A. Hewitt recalled that, the city editor of the *Toronto News* left him in charge one afternoon with instructions to fire King if he showed up. When Hewitt sat at the editor's desk, King showed up a few minutes later and resigned before Hewitt could tell him he was fired.

After studying at the University of Chicago and working with Jane Addams at her settlement house, Hull House, King proceeded to Harvard University. He earned an MA in political economy from Harvard in 1898. In 1909, Harvard granted him a PhD degree for a dissertation titled "Publicity and Public Opinion as Factors in the Solution of Industrial Problems in Canada." He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to have earned a PhD.

## Early career

In 1900, King became editor of the federal government-owned *Labour Gazette*, a publication that explored complex labour issues. Later that year, he was appointed as deputy minister of the Canadian government's new Department of Labour, and became active in policy domains from Japanese immigration to railways, notably the *Industrial Disputes Investigations Act* (1907) which sought to avert labour strikes by prior conciliation.

In 1901, King's roommate and best friend, Henry Albert Harper, died heroically during a skating party when a young woman fell through the ice of the partly frozen Ottawa River. Harper dove into the water to try to save her, and perished in the attempt. King led the effort to raise a memorial to Harper, which resulted in the erection of the Sir Galahad statue on Parliament Hill in 1905. In 1906, King published a memoir of Harper, entitled *The Secret of Heroism*.

While deputy minister of labour, King was appointed to investigate the causes of and claims for compensation resulting from the 1907 anti-Oriental riots in Vancouver's Chinatown and Japantown. One of the claims for damages came from Chinese opium dealers, which led King to investigate narcotics use in Vancouver, British Columbia. Following the investigation King reported that white women were also opium users, not just Chinese men, and the federal government used the report to justify the first legislation outlawing narcotics in Canada.

## Minister of Labour

King was first elected to Parliament as a Liberal in the 1908 federal election, representing Waterloo North. In 1909, King was appointed as the first-ever minister of labour by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier.

King's term as minister of labour was marked by two significant achievements. He led the passage of the *Industrial Disputes Investigation Act* and the *Combines Investigation Act*, which he had shaped during his civil and parliamentary service. The legislation significantly improved the financial situation for millions of Canadian workers. In 1910 Mackenzie King introduced a bill aimed at establishing an 8-hour day on public works but it was killed in the Senate. He lost his seat in the 1911 general election, which saw the Conservatives defeat the Liberals and form government.

## Out of Politics

After his defeat, King went on the lecture circuit on behalf of the Liberal Party. In June 1914 John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired him at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, to head its new Department of Industrial Research. It paid $12,000 per year, compared to the meagre $2,500 per year the Liberal Party was paying. He worked for the Foundation until 1918, forming a close working association and friendship with Rockefeller, advising him through the turbulent period of the 1913–1914 Strike and Ludlow Massacre–in what is known as the Colorado Coalfield War–at a family-owned coal company in Colorado, which subsequently set the stage for a new era in labour management in America. King became one of the earliest expert practitioners in the emerging field of industrial relations.

King was not a pacifist, but he showed little enthusiasm for the Great War; he faced criticism for not serving in Canada's military and instead working for the Rockefellers. But he was nearly 40 years old when the war began, and was not in good physical condition. He never gave up his Ottawa home, and travelled to the United States on an as-needed basis, performing service to the war effort by helping to keep war-related industries running smoothly.

In 1918, King, assisted by his friend F. A. McGregor, published *Industry and Humanity: A Study in the Principles Underlying Industrial Reconstruction*, a dense, abstract book he wrote in response to the Ludlow massacre. It went over the heads of most readers, but revealed the practical idealism behind King's political thinking. He argued that capital and labour were natural allies, not foes, and that the community at large (represented by the government) should be the third and decisive party in industrial disputes. He expressed derision for syndicates and trades unions, chastising them for aiming at the "destruction by force of existing organization, and the transfer of industrial capital from the present possessors" to themselves. Quitting the Rockefeller Foundation in February 1918, King became an independent consultant on labour issues for the next two years, earning $1,000 per week from leading American corporations. Even so, he kept his official residence in Ottawa, hoping for a call to duty.

In 1917, Canada was in crisis; King supported Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier in his opposition to conscription, which was violently opposed in the province of Quebec. The Liberal party became deeply split, with several Anglophones joining the pro-conscription Union government, a coalition controlled by the Conservatives under Prime Minister Robert Borden. King returned to Canada to run in the 1917 election, which focused almost entirely on the conscription issue. Unable to overcome a landslide against Laurier, King lost in the constituency of York North, which his grandfather had once represented.

## First time as Leader of the Opposition

When Laurier died in 1919, Mackenzie King was elected leader thanks to the critical support of the Quebec bloc, organized by his long-time lieutenant in Quebec, Ernest Lapointe. Mackenzie King could not speak French and had minimal interest in Quebec, but in the 1925 and 1935 elections, Lapointe produced the critical seats to give the Liberals a majority in Commons. Once he became the Liberal leader in 1919 he paid attention to the Prairies. With a highly romanticized view he envisioned the pioneers as morally sound, hardworking individuals who lived close to nature and to God. The reform ferment in the region meshed with his self-image as a social reformer and fighter for the "people" against the "interests." Viewing a glorious sunrise in Alberta in 1920, he wrote in his diary, "I thought of the New Day, the New Social Order. It seems like Heaven's prophecy of the dawn of a new era, revealed to me." Realism played a role too, since his party depended for its survival on the votes of Progressive party members of parliament who represented farmers in Ontario and the Prairies. He convinced many Progressives to return to the Liberal fold.

## Prime Minister of Canada (1925 - 1930)

In the 1925 election King was able to win a workable majority, and said that his focus would be on defusing the various lingering labour conflicts. However the 1925 British Revolution changed all of this. King failed to take an active approach to the revolutions until it was to late and so is widely blamed for having lost the Empire. He refused to allow the British government to take over the Dominion government, instead replacing the Canadian Senate with a new House of Lords, King engaged in fierce crackdowns against socialists and unions and in 1926 saw the Dominion of Newfoundland incorporated as a province of Canada. By the late 1920s King had largely succeeded in bringing the Progressives back into the fold, although the loyalty of many of them to the Liberal party remains tenuous. King was defeated in the 1930 election over accusations that he was taking too soft an approach to the Union of Britain and his declaration that he "would not give a five-cent piece" to Tory provincial governments in attempt to alleviate the growing financial troubles emanating from the United States in the aftermath of the 1925 stock market crash. Although another contributory factor was King George V's open endorsement of Bennet. This turned into the key election issue. The Liberals lost the election of 1930 to the Conservative Party, led by Sir Richard Bedford Bennett.

## Second time as Leader of the Opposition

After his loss, Sir Mackenzie King stayed on as Opposition Leader, where it was his policy to refrain from offering advice or alternative policies; Mackenzie King's policy preferences were not much different from Bennett's and he let the Conservative government have its way. Though he gave the impression of sympathy with progressive and liberal causes, he had no enthusiasm for massive government action to alleviate economic difficulties and was not hostile to the naval skirmishes with the republicans.

Bennett's decision to have the Royal Navy engage the Republican Navy in the Atlantic Ocean backfired tremendously. When the news reached Canada that the Republican Navy had sunk the HMS Sioux, HMS Crescent, and the HMS Alonnquin, Bennett's popularity reached an all time low. Additionally, the Conservatives handling of the economic crisis in the country proved to be deeply unpopular with the people. He supported tariffs due to his belief that they would keep Canada independent from the United States and create markets for Canadian produces. The Conservative Party's pro-business and pro-banking inclinations provided little relief to the millions of increasingly desperate and agitated unemployed. King seized on this frustration, began critizing Bennett's government more strongly in parliament. In the 1935 election the Liberals used the slogan "King or Chaos" and narrowly won a majority.

## Prime Minister of Canada (1935 - 1943)

Upon his return to office in October 1935, he seemed to demonstrate a commitment to the underprivileged, speaking of a new era where "poverty and adversity, want and misery are the enemies which liberalism will seek to banish from the land". Once again, King appointed himself as secretary of state for external affairs; he held that post until 1943.

The protectionist tariffs implemented by the Conservatives were immediately repealed. Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the United States, King's government began active negotiations with President Herbert Hoover for the treaty. In December 1935, the treaty was approved, earning both men minor praise in their respective countries.

King's government introduced the National Employment Commission in 1936. As for the unemployed, King was hostile to federal relief. However, the first compulsory national unemployment insurance program was instituted in August 1940 under the King government after a constitutional amendment was agreed to by all of the Canadian provinces, to concede to the federal government legislative power over unemployment insurance. New Brunswick, Alberta and Quebec had held out against the federal government's desire to amend the constitution but ultimately acceded to its request, Alberta being the last to do so. The *British North America Act* Section 91 was amended by adding in a heading designated Number 2A simply in the words "Unemployment Insurance".

In 1936, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) became the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which was a crown corporation. The CBC had a better organizational structure, more secure funding through the use of a licence fee on receiving sets (initially set at $2.50), and less vulnerability to political pressure. When Bennett's Conservatives were governing and the Liberals were in Opposition, the Liberals accused the network of being biased towards the Conservatives. During the 1935 election campaign, the CRBC broadcast a series of 15 minutes soap operas called *Mr. Sage* which were critical of King and the Liberal Party. Decried as political propaganda, the incident was one factor in King's decision to replace the CRBC.

The latter half of King's second term as prime minister was dominated by the Second American Civil War. With several states seceding from the U.S. government, King and many other Canadian politicians began worrying that such chaos could spill over into Canada. Upon the fall of New York City to the Combined Syndicates of America, King was summoned by Edward VIII. At Rideau Hall, the young king demaned that the country intervene in the conflict to prevent further syndicalist expansion, to which King agreeded. After giving an impassioned speech to parliament in favor of intervention, the prime minister mobilized the Canadian military. A new National Government was formed, with the Liberal and Conservative Parties banding together. The Royal Navy was made to patrol the Great Lakes, and would later be used to blockade the Combined Syndicates capital of Chicago. Canadian aide was sent to the federal government, with King answering phone calls from President John Nance Garner.

King was deeply troubled by the White House Putsch, which saw General Douglas MacArthur depose Garner and declare himself Acting President. He did not trust MacArthur in the slightest, fearing the man's unbridled ambition. The Canadian government would continue to send weapons and supplies to the federal government, with MacArthur's military junta beginning to coordinate with several Canadian generals. To avoid draft riots among French-Canadians, King's government exempted Quebec from the draft.

With the fall of Washington, D.C. and MacArthur's relocation to Denver, Colorado, King began to loss faith in the military junta. Additionally, he began to favor the Provisional Pacific Coalition, seeing them as a better bulwark against the Combined Syndicates. Gradually, Canadian aide was rescinded from MacArthur, and given to the PPC. This proved somewhat controversial in parliament, with Conservatives wishing to continue supporting MacArthur's junta. King Edward VIII also disagreeded with the decision, adding further strain to the two men's relationship.

King sent a Canadian diplomat to sign the Rocky Mountain Armistice in February 1943. The conditions of the treaty allowed for Canada's annexation of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and the Alaska territory. Northern New York was begrudgingly ceded to the Combined Syndicates.

## 1943 Federal Election

While Canada had increased the size of its borders, and had prevented the syndicalist from conquering the west coast, Conservatives and large portions of the public saw the intervention as having been a failure. King's government was blamed for letting "Reedism" permeate in North America, hurting Canadian national security. The Conservative Party broke away from the National Government, and unsuccessfully launched a no confidence motion in the House of Commons, in hopes of removing King. While it failed, King felt pressured to call for a snap election in May 1943.

King was an awkward campaigner, and seemed uncomfortable in front of crowds. In contrast, Conservative leader Lord Beaverbrook was charismatic and wooed his respective audiences. This, in tandem with Beaverbrook owned newspapers printing sensational stories about secret syndicalists in King's government, led to the Liberals losing the 1943 general election in a landslide. King had hoped to increase his small majority in the House of Commons, but was once again reduced to Opposition Leader.

## Final time as Leader of the Opposition

King and the Liberals opposed Canadian intervention in the Second Weltkrieg. On the topic of a proposed amphibious invasion of the Union of Britain, King famously said that "Until the logistics of such an operation are worked out, there can be no invasion." The Liberals lacked the seats in parliament to fundamentally alter the course of Beaverbrook's government, and thus were only able to strongly criticize it from the sidelines.

As Leader of the Opposition, King would however lay the groundwork for the Dominion of Newfoundland's later entry into Canadian Confederation, stating, "Newfoundlanders are no strangers to Canada, nor are Canadians strangers to Newfoundland." His advocacy for its entry led to it becoming a province in 1949.

King would fully retire from politics in 1948, having served in government for forty years. He was succeeded as Leader of the Liberal Party by Louis St. Laurent. He was not offered an appointment to the Senate of Canada, due in large part to the king's continued disdain for him.

## Retirement and Death

King had plans to write his memoirs. However, he did not enjoy a lengthy retirement and died on July 22, 1950, at his country estate in Kingsmere from pneumonia. He is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

## Legacy

Despite being branded as the man who "lost the British Empire" by members of the British diaspora, King is remembered fondly in contemporary Canada. Historian H. Blair Neatby wrote, "Mackenzie King has continued to intrigue Canadians. Critics argue that his political longevity was achieved by evasions and indecision, and that he failed to provide creative leadership. His defenders argue that he gradually changed Canada, a difficult country to govern, while keeping the nation united." In 2020, King was ranked as the second greatest Canadian Prime Minister by a survey of Canadian historians.