Background
King was born on December 17, 1874, at Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, the eldest son of John King and Isabel Grace Mackenzie, daughter of William Lyon Mackenzie, political reformer and one of the leaders of the Rebellion of 1837.
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King was born on December 17, 1874, at Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, the eldest son of John King and Isabel Grace Mackenzie, daughter of William Lyon Mackenzie, political reformer and one of the leaders of the Rebellion of 1837.
King was educated at the University of Toronto (B. A. and LL. B. ), the University of Chicago (M. A. ), and Harvard University (Ph. D. ).
In 1900 King entered the Canadian Civil Service as deputy minister of the newly formed Department of Labor. The duties of this office included the editorship of the Labour Gazette. As a civil servant King played an influential role in the framing of legislation, notably the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act of 1907, which was designed to institute a system of voluntary conciliation in labor disputes. In 1909 he resigned from the Civil Service in order to embark upon a political career. He was elected to represent his native constituency of Waterloo County in the House of Commons and was then appointed minister of labor in the cabinet of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. During his term of office he initiated legislation empowering the government to investigate combines, trusts, and cartels. In the election campaign of 1911 he enthusiastically supported the Liberal government's policy of commercial reciprocity between Canada and the United States, the issue which defeated his party; it also cost him his seat in the House of Commons. From 1911 to 1921 King was employed as a political organizer, journalist, and labor relations expert. In 1914 he was engaged as a research director by the Rockefeller Foundation, in which capacity he acted as labor relations adviser to John D. Rockefeller and his son in connection with their serious labor troubles in Colorado. Following the establishment of a company union in the plants of the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, King was engaged by a number of large industrial enterprises in the United States as a labor relations adviser. King wrote a book, Industry and Humanity (1918), in which he expounded his views on the social service state, and notably on labor relations, including the idea that the nation at large was always the third and most important party in industrial disputes. King attempted to reenter politics in the election of 1917, when he supported Laurier in his opposition to conscription for overseas service in World War I. He was defeated in the constituency of North York, which his grandfather had once represented. At the death of Laurier in 1919, King was elected leader of the Liberal Party at a convention where his speech introducing the resolution on labor had made him a strong contender for the office. In the election of 1921 the Liberal Party under his leadership won the largest group of seats in the House of Commons, and King was asked to form a government. As prime minister he had the support of both the Progressive and Liberal parties. During his first term of office as Prime Minister, from 1921 to 1925, King pursued a conservative domestic policy with the object of calming the many social and political disturbances which followed World War I. In external relations he resisted all suggestions for the integration and centralization of the British Empire. For example, in 1923 the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, appealed to King for support in the British quarrel with Turkey. King administered Lloyd George a rebuff by declaring his intention of letting the Canadian Parliament decide the policy to follow, thus expressing the principle that Canada would not be bound by the British government in foreign policy. In the election of 1925 the Liberal Party lost ground, but King endeavored to retain office. Charges of corruption in the administration of the Customs Department, however, led to the government's defeat in the Commons. King advised the governor-general, Lord Byng, to dissolve Parliament and call another election, but Lord Byng refused the advice and called upon the Conservative Party leader, Arthur Meighen, to form a government. Meighen was unable to obtain a majority in the Commons and he, too, advised dissolution, which this time was accepted. In the ensuing election of 1926, King appealed for public support of the constitutional principle that the governor-general must accept the advice of his ministers, though this principle was at most only customary. The Liberals argued that the governor-general had interfered in politics and shown favor to one party over another. King and his party won the election and a clear majority in the Commons. The parliamentary crisis of 1926 provoked a consideration of the constitutional relations between the self-governing dominions and the British government. During the next five years the position of the governor-general of a dominion was clarified; he ceased to be a representative of the British government and became a personal representative of the British crown. The independent position of the dominions in the Commonwealth and in the international community was put on a firm legal foundation by the Statute of Westminster (1931). In domestic affairs King strengthened the Liberal policy of increasing the powers of the provincial governments by transferring to the governments of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan the ownership of the crown lands within those provinces, as well as the subsoil rights. In collaboration with the provincial governments he inaugurated a system of old-age pensions based on need. The onset of the great depression in 1929 led to a Liberal defeat in the 1930 elections. In opposition, it was King's policy to refrain from offering advice and to let the Conservative government make mistakes, which they obligingly did in their endeavor to cope with the most serious economic disaster in Canadian history. King's policy would probably not have been radically different. Though he gave the impression of sympathy with progressive and liberal causes, he had no enthusiasm for the New Deal of U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he never advocated massive government action to alleviate depression in Canada. In 1935 the Liberals overwhelmingly defeated the Conservatives, and King entered on a period of office that lasted until his retirement in 1948, having been prime minister longer than any other leader in the history of parliamentary government. During all but two years he was also secretary of state for external affairs. War Years and After. King's last 12 years in office were mainly occupied with the preparation for, the fighting of, and the aftermath of World War II. Confronted by the rise of Hitler, King followed the policies of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain which involved moderate rearmament joined with concessions, which, it was believed, would appease Germany. Once Canada entered World War II, King linked his policies more closely with those of the United States. The agreement concluded with Roosevelt at Ogdensburg, N. Y. , in August 1940 provided for the cooperation of Canadian and U. S. forces in the defense of North America. The mobilization of the Canadian economy for war yielded impressive results in industrial and agricultural output. On the political side, King encountered much difficulty over the question of conscription for service overseas. The fact that the main Canadian fighting came late in the war, after the landings in Normandy, enabled him to delay a solution to this controversy. Eventually, he agreed to send a limited number of conscripted men overseas to fight beside the volunteers, but the war ended before this policy provoked serious political dissension. In his two years of office following the war, King vigorously supported the formation of the United Nations and opposed the emergence of power blocs. In domestic policy he accepted the notion that the economy of Canada could be in some degree controlled by fiscal and monetary means. In August 1948 he resigned the leadership of the Liberal Party, and he retired from office and from Parliament on November 15. He died in his country house at Kingsmere, near Ottawa, on July 22, 1950.
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It was King's leadership of the country through six years of war and three years of postwar reconstruction that gave King a commanding place in Canadian history. During those years, he led a country long divided over external policy unitedly into World War II in 1939; surmounted two political crises over conscription, one nearly fatal to his government; and won the postwar election. The government he led organized a tremendous military, industrial, and financial contribution to the war and at the same time prepared for a smooth and rapid advance in economic development and social welfare afterward.
Member of the House of Commons of Canada, member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
As a political leader King had few of the usual personal attributes of a great public figure. He was not impressive physically, nor did he possess great oratorial powers, or a gift for warm human relations. He was a lifelong bachelor. It has come to light since his death that he believed in spiritualism and had mediums put him in touch with former associates and particularly with his mother. He was, however, a very sensitive man of shrewd and penetrating intelligence and with a profound understanding of social organization. He had a thorough knowledge of the Canadian temperament and mentality, or of the several components of it, and was thus able to maintain harmony among the sections of the country and the principal social groups.
King never married, but had several close women friends, including Joan Patteson, a married woman with whom he spent some of his leisure time; sometimes she served as hostess at his dinner parties. He did not have a wife who could be the hostess all the time and handle the many social obligations that he tried to downplay.