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Prime Ministerial Character: An Examination of Mackenzie King's Political Leadership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

John C. Courtney
John C. Courtney
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan
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Abstract

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Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1976 , pp. 77 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1976

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References

1 (Englewood Cliffs 1972). I am indebted to Professor Blair Neatby and to two anonymous assessors for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This paper was first presented at the Mackenzie King Centennial Colloquium at the University of Waterloo, December, 1974.

2 The only study published so far using psychoanalytic techniques to interpret a Canadian politician's behaviour is the excellent article by Esberey, J.B., “Personality and Politics: A New Look at the King-Byng Dispute,” this Journal, VI, no. 1 (March 1973), 37–55.Google Scholar I am not unmindful of the question raised about the appropriateness to Canadian politics of a theory (such as Barber's) applied initially to a study of American presidents. The institutional frame-work within which political leaders act differs, of course, from one country to another. Naturally this influences the line of attack followed by those political leaders when they act. But that is not the concern of psychological studies, for personality types cut across institutions. As Barber states: “shuffle the system as you will, there is still at its center the person, and it is his initiatives and responses that steer the ship” (p. vii).

3 It is not the purpose of this study to elaborate upon the theory as presented in Barber's work or to offer a critical assessment of that theory. George's, Alexander L. review article should be consulted for these purposes: “Assessing Presidential Character,” World Politics, 26, no. 2 (January 1974), 234–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For this study a number of the internal features (or subcategories) of Barber's model have either been bypassed entirely or been little used owing to (1) the absence of acceptably reliable information and (2) the difficulty of weighting and interrelating the subcategories. This applies, for example, to Barber's comments regarding the “power situation” and the “climate of expectations” within which a leader must make critical decisions, as well as to the subcategories of a politicians style. Barber's primary goal has been to develop a theory useful for both comparative and predictive purposes. Mine, at this stage, is not, although in this article I have tried to show how the predictive element of the theory might, with caution, be used. I merely wish to use in” an exploratory fashion categories of personality types as presented by Barber. There are uncertainties in the theory which only extensive empirical research will satisfactorily resolve.

4 To reduce the likelihood of incorporating one's author's bias on a particular leader into a study of this sort, it stands to reason that the largest possible number of biographical works ought to be consulted. As the King diaries do not cover the childhood, adolescent, and early family life period of King's life, the supporting evidence for this section is drawn from Dawson, R. MacGregor, William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography 1874–1923 (Toronto 1958)Google Scholar, chaps 1 and 2; Hardy, H. Reginald, Mackenzie King of Canada (Westport, Connecticut 1949)Google Scholar, chaps 1 and 2; and Hutchison, Bruce, The Incredible Canadian (Toronto 1952)Google Scholar, chaps 1, 2, and 3.

5 Public Archives of Canada (hereinafter cited as PAC), W.L.M.K. Diaries, Diary, 13 June 1894

6 Diary, 18 June 1895. For more on the likelihood of the father becoming “a failure” and the son “a success” by the year 1900, see Esberey, “Personality and Politics,” 41.

7 Diary, 17 and 20 June 1895

8 Diary, 22 June 1895

9 PAC, King Papers, King to Gardiner, 27 February 1926, 111768–9

10 Diary, 22 January 1901. Vanity was to be eschewed, but vanity in women was somehow doubly abhorrent: “Mrs. Peter Jack & Mrs. Oland of Halifax came to the city this morning… I was going to invite them to dinner, when I phoned at 9 I was told Mrs. Oland was in the Beauty parlor having her nails manicured. I felt so insenced [sic] at the birds of pleasure, birds of passage, social vampires tho’ very nice at times like the present, that I could not bring myself to ‘feeding’ them at a dinner & wasting an evening ministering to their vanities” (Diary, 11 March 1933). The outcome of this little episode was an invitation to tea, not dinner.

11 Dawson, King, 27

12 Pickersgill, J.W. and Forster, D.F., The Mackenzie King Record, 1947–48, IV (Toronto 1968), 23Google Scholar

13 Diary, 9 January 1902

14 Dawson, King, 199

15 Pickersgill and Forster, Record, II, 52, 53

16 Fraser, Blair, The Search for Identity, 1945–1967 (Toronto 1967), 93Google Scholar

17 Dawson, King, 113

18 Diary, 2 September 1901

19 Diary, 29 July 1933

20 When the mother's dominance first had its major impact on King is difficult to say with any certainty. It may be worth noting, however, that the first two letters extant written by King as a child show his signature at age eight as “Willie King,” and at age thirteen, in a letter to his father, no less, as “William Lyon Mackenzie King.” See Dawson, King, 43–4n.

21 Diary, 1–14 January 1919

22 Diary, 20 December 1932.

23 Bercuson, David Jay, Introduction to W.L.M. King, Industry and Humanity (Toronto 1973, originally published 1918), XVGoogle Scholar

24 Diary, 9 June 1900

25 Diary, 29 July 1933

26 Pickersgill and Forster, Record, II, 393

27 Diary, 23 May 1933

28 Diary, 3 December 1933

29 Diary, 15 October 1935

30 Diary, 31 October 1934

31 The Varsity (Toronto), 17 October 1894, 10

32 Diary, 9 and 10 November 1922

33 King, W.L.M., Canada and the War: Victory, Reconstruction and Peace (1945? n.p.), 40Google Scholar

34 Diary, 10 January 1936. There were, of course, discussions on coalition following the 1921 election, and extensive bargaining took place. That no agreement was reached, and that the King government could survive, would confirm in King's mind the unadvisability of forming coalition governments.

35 PAC, King Papers, Speech File, 1933 Speeches, file no. 131

36 Diary, 1 February 1932

37 King, W.L.M., The Message of the Carillon (Toronto 1928), vii, viiiGoogle Scholar

38 Dominion-Provincial Conference, 1927, Report of Proceedings (Ottawa 1928), 9

39 See Heeney, Arnold, The Things that are Caesar's: Memoirs of a Canadian Public Servant (Toronto 1972), 42–3, 73–81Google Scholar

40 Diary, 27 July 1932

41 Massey, Vincent, What's Past is Prologue (Toronto 1963), 211Google Scholar

42 Diary, 27 November and 27 July 1932

43 See Diary entries for 25 and 27 November 1932, and PAC, King Papers, Liberal Party, National Liberal Federation File, vol. 114, Minutes of Organizational Meeting, 1932

44 Hardy, Mackenzie King, 250

45 Heeney, The Things that are Caesar's, 77

46 Diary, 13 January 1934

47 King, Canada and the War, 14

48 Diary, 5 March 1932

49 Diary, 10 December 1937

50 Diary, 15 December 1932

51 Diary, 26 June, 5, 7, 8 July 1900

52 Diary, 9 July 1900

53 Ibid.

54 See Dawson, King, 229ff., and Dawson, , The Conscription Crisis of 1944 (Toronto 1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 When, as in 1905, he took it upon himself to act without full and thorough reflection and advice, he was often brash and excessively pushy. See Dawson's account of King's demand of Laurier that he (King) be brought into the mainstream of Canadian politics, Dawson, King, 179ff.

56 Diary, 6 July 1938

57 Diary, 3 January 1936

58 Diary, 7 July 1936

59 Diary, 19 May 1938

60 Heeney, 48.

61 While in Opposition from 1930 to 1935 King was bored. He turned increasingly to mysticism; he recorded more and more dreams in his diary; he read countless books of little value; and he became preoccupied with his health. Once he was back in office following the 1935 election he seemed less likely to be so self-preoccupied.

62 Dawson, King, 41

63 Hardy, Mackenzie King, 25

64 Ibid., 273

65 Constructing a cabinet was a task King took most seriously. In 1935 he laid down certain ground rules for selecting ministers: there were to be no heavy drinkers; no men over sixty years of age; the various interests were to be balanced properly; there was to be a mixture of new and old members. “I was determined not to have men in the Cabinet who drank – that character must be the first essential. To this Lapointe said: ‘You will have a pretty difficult time'” (Diary, 31 October 1935). In the event, Lapointe proved to be closer to the mark than King, for the cabinet was not without its heavy drinkers.

66 As quoted in Forsey, Eugene, “Parliament is Endangered by Mr. King's Principle,” Saturday Night, 9 October 1948, 10–11Google Scholar

67 Excluding Norman McLeod Rogers who for two years had been King's secretary. He entered Parliament in 1935, six years after leaving his Ottawa position.

68 Heeney, The Things that are Caesar's, 45–6

69 Thomson, Dale C., Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto 1967), 12, 13Google Scholar

70 Mike: The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Lester B. Pearson, I (Toronto 1972), 299

71 Diary, 13 November 1936

72 Hardy, Mackenzie King, 94

73 Diary, 23 July 1900

74 Diary, 18 October 1932

75 Diary, 31 October 1932

76 Scott, F.R., “W.L.M.K.” in Scott, F.R. and Smith, A.J.M. (eds.), The Blasted Pine (Toronto 1962), 28.Google Scholar Blair Neatby correctly points out that “it would be a serious mistake… to think of King as accepting a passive role, patiently waiting for a consensus to emerge. King was patient but he was not passive.” “The Political Ideas of William Lyon Mackenzie King,” in The Political Ideas of the Prime Minister of Canada, ed. Hamelin, M. (Ottawa 1969), 133Google Scholar

77 Diary, 28 March 1933, italics added

78 Dominion-Provincial Conference, 1941, Report of Proceedings (Ottawa 1941), 3

79 See, for example, Diary 26 August 1936

80 Diary, 21 July 1933

81 Diary, 27 February 1934

82 For a brief summary of King's plan to ensure St Laurent's selection over Gardiner's, see my The Selection of National Party Leaders in Canada (Toronto 1973), 198–9Google Scholar

83 Formally, L.B. Pearson first entered King's cabinet, not St Laurent's but it was shortly before King's resignation in 1948 and was done at the urging of and with the agreement of St Laurent. Pearson leaves the reader of his memoirs with the impression that he would not have been happy in King's cabinet and deliberately chose not to enter on several occasions.

84 Diary, 27 November 1932