Sure there are games, books, chores, chatting, and intellectually stunting websites. We could all apathetically toss this bonus downtime into those bottomless pits. And I've done some time wasting, who hasn't? But I have found something that I think is going to keep me busy in an educational way for a good chunk of my Coronacation. I'll give you the beginning of what I've discovered but let me caution, I haven't read all that I'd like to yet. I think I've just scratched the surface. And be forewarned, it's Canadian politics. I won't blame you if you stop reading right here. "How," you might say, "can Canadian politics be anything interesting? I've got some YouTube vids of guys getting hit in the balls to watch." But honestly, no kidding, this stuff IS interesting! And, much like a couple of things I've recently posted about, it's stuff that I think a lot of Canadians don't know much about. In fact I wouldn't be going out on a limb, I don't reckon, to say the majority of us think of William Lyon Mackenzie King as one of, or possibly THE greatest politician ever in Canada, not a friggin' weirdo. How many of us know that our longest serving Prime Minister (22 years - a record that'll never be broken) was called "Weird Willie" by many? And from early indications, deservingly so!
Most of the following has been taken from the novel, "King: William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Life Guided By the Hand of Destiny written by Allan Gerald Levine. I just found the book online FOR FREE and started reading. Not the whole book, but it has been enough to dominate my Sunday, and although the pages 120-518 aren't online, I think I'm gonna buy them. I also might invest in "A Very Double Life: The Private World of Mackenzie King" by Charles Stacey. Stacey was a military man who hated King for his indecisiveness during WWII in the matter of conscription among other things. And it's a book about King's weirdness particularly in the sexual arena. Though, it wasn't anything so large as an arena from all accounts. Maybe an arena NOW during these sportless times. But let's not just dive in at the sex part. That's NEVER a good thing to do, right? There is plenty of background needed here.
As the title of this post implies, WLMK is the face on the Canadian fifty.
Looks Prime Ministerial enough, no? The word "specimen" across the pic so nobody prints this out and gets away with spending it. That's something this guy would have loved! From what I've read. Though he was a rich man he was a miser. I read that he would cut pencils into three and make sure everyone in government would use them down to the nubs before they were allowed another pencil. Or another third of a pencil. An eccentricity of veritably pedestrian nature for this man.
There can be no mistaking his intelligence. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1895 then studied economics at Chicago and Harvard. He became Canada's first deputy minister of labour in 1900. Until 1919 he was involved mostly in resolving labour disputes. He became so good at it he wrote a book. In 1919 he replaced his mentor, Wilfred Laurier as the leader of the Liberal party of Canada. A couple years later he became PM. This was the time of the second industrial revolution in Canada. A time, just after the end of WWI, of mass automation, urbanization and large scale factory mass production. Boom times in Canada when almost everybody had jobs! It was a good time to be PM so King was popular. He was re-elected in 1925 with the support of Progressives. This was one of the ways the War Tax survived. The Progressives really liked it and wanted to use it. He contributed to the Balfour Report, which established autonomous Commonwealth nations. So things were going smoothly. Then, despite his background in economics, he did not believe Canada would be affected by the stock market crash of '29. He didn't even make mention of it in his diary. We'll get to his diary. Oh we'll get to his diary!
Conservative R.B. Bennett beat out WLMK because of this political gaffe. 1930-35 were the Bennett years in Canada. The Dirty Thirties. The Great Depression. Did the times cause the leader or did the leader cause the times? Bennett burst onto the scene with promises to deliver Canada from the hard times caused by the stock market crash. Of course that's what he said! Canadians weren't much concerned with anything else. The average Canadian was at the bottom of Maslow's Pyramid. Almost 1/4 of Canada were jobless. People needed food and shelter. While King was saying, "We'll be fine," Bennett was saying, "I'll get you jobs!" But as soon as he was elected it was obvious that Bennett had no concrete ideas as to how he was going to do what he'd promised. Sounds familiar.
He was rich and fat and had no idea what life was like for the majority of Canadians. Also sounds familiar. He had the now cliché conservative faith in free enterprise/free market and hatred of government regulation/interference. By 1932, things were desperate in Canada. People were protesting and threatening revolt. You can actually see pictures of Canadians doing this in the national archives! Canadian civil disobedience! People stopped paying income tax! And nobody went to jail for not paying it! Those must have been the days! And after characteristically weak efforts by Canadians to get rid of the damn War Tax (except for Newfoundland who actually DID in 1924!... for a while), governments actually ramped up the income tax.
If you'll note in the above link, a few years after WWII, what do ya know! Income tax not repealed, but increased! Okay, I'll get off this.
Bennett was a bust! People couldn't afford gas so pulled cars by horse or mule. These were given the name, "Bennett buggies." People hated him. They were hungry and broke.And there was criticism from within Bennett's own Cabinet that the Conservative government's policies were creating easy profits for big business and hardship for others. Need I say, "sounds familiar" again? So in his final year of office, he got the idea to emulate FDR's New Deal. Not, I think, because he gave a shit about Canadians, but because he was desperate to get re-elected in '35. Bennett's reforms promised a more progressive taxation system, a maximum work week, a minimum wage, closer regulation of working conditions, unemployment insurance, health and accident insurance, a revised old-age pension and agricultural support programs. They called for MORE government control and LESS free enterprise. A total departure for Bennett. Whether he would, or even could have delivered, we'll never know. The majority of Canadian voters thought he was just lying like he did to get elected the first time. He probably was. So back forged ALMK.
You know what I find fascinating? Canada's Supreme Court of the time, called the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, actually declared the most important parts of Bennett's New Canadian Deal unconstitutional when King referred the legislation to them. Unconstitutional! This sort of stuff is what saved the U.S. The programs were similar in many ways. Both were based on Keynesian economics, enriching people who would spend, not save creating an infusion of capital that would invigorate a struggling economy. Both also included social programs to protect the same people. Look at this list. In that article it is suggested that if FDR had spent as much on the New Deal as was spent on WWII, the war may not have happened. Or at least it would have been shortened. What do you think? And what do you think might have happened if Bennett had been re-elected and he actually DID implement his New Deal in Canada? We'll never know of course. But it's intriguing to speculate, no? FDR is widely regarded as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, but the guy who proposed a very similar New Deal in Canada is at the bottom of our list. I guess because FDR actually DID it.
In 1997, 25 Canadian political scholars ranked all Canadian PM's in order of greatness. William Lyon Mackenzie King came out number one. In a more recent list in 2011, he was ranked third behind Wilfred Laurier and John A. Macdonald by Maclean's magazine. In 2016, King regained the top spot in the rankings by the same magazine. So he IS the guy who Canadians probably consider our greatest PM ever. I've given you all this background and told you all of this to set you up for the absolutely bizarre personal life of the roundly accepted top of the heap in Canadian politicians.
Before we get into the really interesting stuff, you may be interested to know that Bennett was at the bottom of the list, ranked 13th greatest. This was a list that only included long-term PM's. Justin Trudeau is ranked number one on our list of short-term PM's which I'd agree with. Harper is ranked number 10 on the long term list and I think he should be at the bottom, but I didn't live through the Bennett years. Pierre Trudeau, Justin's dad, is #4 on the long term list. I wonder if the son will surpass the father. Anyway, this guy is number one:
Yup, that's him on the left. Despite invigorating trade with the US and UK, in '35 and '38, WLMK had no real coherent response to the depression. Then in '39 Britain and right after, Canada, went to war. He called a snap election in '40 and won because Canada was united in the war cause. Unemployment disappeared due to wartime industrial production, and of course, jobs as soldiers. But Canadians feared the return of the depression when they got back from the war. So King too introduced some Keynesian ideas like unemployment insurance. He also started family allowance programs and proposed health insurance. Three of the huge reasons he's considered our greatest politician. He won in '45 yet again but resigned in '48 and died in '50. Here he is during WWII with Roosevelt and Churchill. Look at the mug on Churchill. I wonder if Weird Willie was laying some spiritualism on them. Or telling them what his dog told him that morning. Heh heh heh. I'm milking this for all its worth ain't I?
Okay, let's get into the good stuff. Remember, all the things I'm going to tell you are about Canada's greatest political leader ever. The last thing I read in Levine's book was, "...and that wasn't even the half of it!" so there's much more to learn. Okay, away we go: We'll start with a few excerpts from Canadian literature: In the 1972 Robertson Davies book "The Manticore," protagonist and lawyer David Staunton expresses his love for King. Dunston Ramsay disagrees and says, "... because he himself is the embodiment of Canada - cold and cautious on the outside, dowdy and pussy in every overt action, but inside a mass of intuition and dark intimations." He continued to say, "He will always do the right thing for the wrong reasons."
Another of Canada's best, Mordecai Richler described him as "mean-spirited, cunning, somewhat demented, and a hypocrite on a grand scale."
Frank Scott, a constitutional lawyer said in a bitingly satirical poem that, "He skillfully avoided what was wrong without saying what was right," and "He never let his 'on the one hand' know what his 'on the other hand' was doing."
Paul Roazen, a political scientist who interviewed almost everyone who had worked with King was quoted as saying, "I am not sure I met anyone who seemed to like him; on the whole I found it painful to have to interview some of these people, since they found him so easy to hate."
I include the next one for all my Castlegarian friends and family: Hugh Keenleyside said, "He was selfish and inconsiderate." (There is a dam named after Hugh near Castlegar)
Leonard Brockington, the very first head of the CBC was King's special advisor during WWII. He hated it and decided to resign. He said, when King needed you, he could be obnoxiously charming. King, upon hearing of Brockington's resignation, invited him and his wife to Kingsmere, one of his properties, for tea. There WLMK told LB's wife what a gem her hubby was and how he was needed. LB commented, "He covered me with whipped cream and bullshit."
Violet Markham, British socialite and long time friend to King once said, "He has little power to either relax or amuse himself."
So why was this dude so unlikeable, yet able to be the PM for 22 years? As you may have already guessed, he had all the classic symptoms of a person struggling with mental disorders that weren't as well known in his day as they are today. Let me tell you what he wrote on the initial entry to his diary: He said he was writing it to give himself shame if even one day had nothing worthy of its showing. He wanted readers of his diary to know that he was productive and didn't waste time. His diary was some 30,000 pages (7.5 million words!) and covered football fields. Nobody has read the entire thing.
Most of it survived even though he gave instructions to burn it before reading. In 1977 a few of the séance transcripts and spiritualist notebooks were burned. But the rest remains intact.
He diligently struggled to make himself a "good person," and purge vice whenever it crossed his path, punishing himself internally and in the diary when he failed. He detested card games, smoking (especially by women) time wasting and drinking. Though he was said to have allowed these things in Churchill. Sex was perhaps his most intriguing hatred. Lifelong bachelor and possibly even a virgin as speculated by one expert on the diaries, if he DID have sex, it was infrequent.
He was a devout Christian who believed he was doing the Lord's work in regards to Canada and didn't get the respect he deserved for his sacrifice. Strangely, he also believed he communicated with the dead such as, and I'm not making this up, Leonardo Da Vinci, Wilfred Laurier, Theodore Roosevelt, his mother and his Irish terriers Pat I and II. (Pat III outlived him)
I'm not sure which of the Pats this is. He believed he could talk to his dogs. In his defense, he never said they talked back to him. They only communicated with him from beyond the grave. So he had THAT goin' for him. He was said to have suspended a meeting of the cabinet War Committee to be with Pat, Pat I I think but am not sure, in the dog's dying moments.
He was a lifelong bachelor. I can't hold that against him. But he always wanted a wife who was as devoted to pledging her life to Canada as he was. Never found her. Though, I'm told in Charles Stacey's book, taken directly from the pages of the mammoth diary, there were some women. He liked to take midnight strolls in the streets of Ottawa where he was said to have kept company with hookers. HEY! Jesus kept company with hookers. Hee hee hee. See what I mean? This guy is colourful! An interview with a servant of his revealed that some sort of hair gel with an old timey name that hookers used, was found on his pants by said servant after King had been discovered in a compromising position. Clinton's DNA came to mind? I'm certain that King would have said, "I did not have sexual relations with that hooker!" if confronted about it, but he never was. Times were diff. Country was diff.
You know, in the absence of any modern technology, internet, gotcha journalism, paparazzi, etc. etc. etc. I think this dude was probably able to portray a far better image of himself than was genuine. And the diary, though it may reveal a few inconvenient truths, most likely doesn't cover it all. If I did something really REALLY bad, I certainly wouldn't tell the truth in my diary although I'd almost certainly write an alibi then leave my diary out where it might accidentally be found and read by the authorities.
And in case you think the diary was reality, this guy would have dreams, call his personal secretary, for example Howard Measures who was one, get him to write down the dream before it was forgotten, then relay the dream to his personal mystic Mrs. Rachel Blearey who was one, for analysis.
He saw magical images in tea leaves and his shaving cream.
He sought spiritual communion with his parents, John and Isabel, sister Bella, brother Max, mentor Laurier, and Pat I and II through table top "rappings." This is the olden days equivalent of Ouija boards I'm told. He had an over the top Bates Motel, even Overlook Hotel, obsession with his mother. The phrase "dear mother appears well over a hundred times in his diaries.
Nowadays any couch potato can diagnose the pathology of this highly respected Canadian hero just from watching Oprah or Dr. Phil. Michael Sherman, science writer and editor of Skeptic magazine has made a career of debunking spirituality. He asks, "Why do smart people believe in weird things?" He answers, "Because they are skilled at defending beliefs that they arrived at for non-smart reasons."
What could be King's reasons? Here is where I don't want to speculate, but he has a rebel grandfather who he thought was embarrassing and several family members who died in very close succession. These would cause problems for a normal brain, but there is no doubt his brain was not normal to begin with. He obsessed over things and was pedantic and OCD. This was a huge reason why nobody liked him or wanted to marry him, but it turned out to be the kind of mentality that may have been best suited to the governance of our country during his time.
I am not convinced of that which I just typed. I think, like many that he was boring and cautious, but there is no way of knowing if there was a better option. And like it or not, he is our greatest PM. As far as our greatest politicians, maybe Tommy Douglas or Peter Lougheed. But we never had a chance to vote for them for PM did we? THIS lunatic is the best we've had!
Sad, innit? So Americans, when you're mourning your current sitch, hey, Canada has been there. Not ME, but Canada at some time in our history. And I'm not even saying this guy is as bad as Trump, he's broken the mold! But we haven't always had normal people leading our countries. We might even be able to have a debate on the craziness quotient between Trump and King. But I think we have you beat. Because this guy was our BEST!
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