KING, WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE
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King, William Lyon Mackenzie (1874–1950) prime minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie King was born in Kitchener, Ontario, on December 17, 1874, the son of a lawyer. He was also the grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie, the great rebel of 1837 who unsuccessfully tried to overthrow oligarchic rule in Canada. King passed through the University of Toronto in 1895 and subsequently obtained advanced degrees from the University of Chicago and Harvard. In 1900 he joined the administration of WILFRID LAURIER as deputy minister of labor, and eight years later, acquired a seat in Parliament as a Liberal Party candidate. At that time Laurier appointed him Canada’s first minister of labor, and he gained a reputation for promoting reconciliation between management and unions. When he lost his seat in 1911, he worked for several years with the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, conducting labor research and publishing a book on the subject. He also helped in arbitrating a violent strike in one of Rockefeller’s coal mines in Ludlow, Colorado. After Laurier died in 1919, the liberals elected King their party head and he spent the next two years in opposition. Two years later he became prime minister through a coalition with the Progressive Party. During his first term a constitutional crisis arose from Governor General Lord Julian Byng’s refusal to dissolve Parliament for new elections, known as the “King-Byng” affair. This resulted in a shortlived administration under Conservative ARTHUR MEIGHEN, after which elections were finally scheduled and the Liberals returned to power with an increased majority. King also participated in the Imperial Conferences of 1923 and 1926, which laid the foundations of the British Commonwealth in 1931. King adroitly asserted Canada’s autonomy in both gatherings and joined the new League of Nations only after pledging “no commitments,” that is, military obligations abroad. King remained prime minister until defeated by the Conservatives under RICHARD BEDFORD BENNETT in 1930. Previously, he had made one of his few political mistakes by threatening, during an economic slump, to withhold unemployment assistance to any province with a Conservative governor. However, the ensuing Great Depression hurt the Conservatives badly, and in 1935 the Liberals were swept back into office. Over the next 13 years King waged a carefully honed campaign to introduce progressive reforms while maintaining economic growth. King generally succeeded at both, and in 1940 he introduced unemployment benefits for the first time.
Mackenzie King (Library of Congress)
The greatest challenge facing King in his second term in office was the onset of World War II. When Great Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Canada fulfilled its Commonwealth obligations by following suit. But King quickly assured Canadians that the war effort would be waged by volunteers only and not through a draft. The national polity was deeply riven by differing perceptions of military service in the English- and French-speaking communities. The English generally favored military conscription to assist England, but French-speaking Quebec did not. The nation had been bitterly divided over conscription during World War I, and King determined to keep it from becoming an issue. In 1942 a plebiscite on the draft was passed by most of Canada and rejected by Quebec, so the nation soldiered on without it. But by 1944 Canadian losses were so heavy that King was