Talk:William Lyon Mackenzie King

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Portal:Biography
 Biography Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Canada on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project member page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
A This article has been rated as A-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance for this Project's importance scale.
Voting in Canada This article is part of the Political parties and politicians in Canada WikiProject, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Politics in Canada. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

Contents

[edit] Greatest?

No question he was an extremely influential, and obviously an extremely popular PM, but is it fair to say he was the greatest? It could be argued that Trudeau, Pearson, Macdonnald etc... could be considered the greatest as well. And for a pop-culture reference, he didn't make the top ten on The Greatest Canadian, but Trudeau and MacDonnald both did. mylesmalley 16:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

It strikes me that the section on the 1920s is unbalanced. He was prime minister for almost the entire decade. Surely he did more than triumph over Byng and Meighen in 1926. Does anyone have more details about the sorts of things he was doing in the 1920s? HistoryBA 20:27, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In addition, can someone straighten out the correct form of the surname, whether it's "Mackenzie King, William Lyon" or "King, William Lyon Mackenzie"? I think the first is correct, but this article uses a random mixture of the two surname forms. --Johnwcowan 21:12, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

King's surname was King. He called himself Mackenzie King to emphasize his ties with his grandfather Mackenzie. Mackenzie, however, was one of his given names, not his surname. Deleting Unnecessary Words 00:24, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I decided to be bold and removed this bit: "In 1999 King was ranked by historians to be the greatest of Canada's Prime Ministers. (Granatstein & Hillmer, Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders.)" Yeah, whatever, Granatstein and Hillmer.Bobanny(eyes rolling) 14:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • With all due respect, Granatstein and Hillmer are pretty good historians. King would certainly be among the greatest PMs, whatever the criteria, especially if longevity was a main criteria.Moomot 05:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed, Granatstein and Hillmer aren't historians whose judgement we should should scoff at. I think you need to justify the edit with more than with just an eye roll. Boubelium 07:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I think mylesmalley made a good point above that justifies removing that claim from the article. Granatstein and Hillmer's claim that King was the greatest PM is a value judgement and has nothing to do with their skills as historians. Besides, scoffing at Granatstein is a proud tradition of Canadian historians, and vice versa. Personally, I find that kind of gushing reverence for any Prime Minister nauseating, especially when it's cloaked as an objective fact, but don't worry, I'll keep my personal opinions out of the article. And please, don't remove the bit about Japanese Canadian being interned during WWII just because Granatstein says it never happened. Bobanny 07:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • You obviously are intelligent, perhaps if you were less sarcastic and more informative you would have found less issues with your edit. Having read your argument, I agree. You are correct that the greatest PM title does not belong in this article. As for your condescending comments about the Japanese internment, ironically, I spent some time expanding the racism section of this article. Regarding the Granatstein article, he does not claim that "it never happened" but instead argues the semantics of the term 'internment'. Your paraphrasing is either quite careless or malicious; you're essentially making him sound like a Holocaust Denier, which is far from the case. I do appreciate you pointing out the article though, because we (likely) both agree that Granatstein is on dubious ground. When Granatstein argues that there was a 'unanimous call for evacuation" he is exaggerating. See my racism edits on King for evidence. Then again perhaps those that didn't actually fear the Japanese could have supported the internment out fear for their safety, especially given the long history of anti-Asian violence in Vancouver. But, whatever, I don't agree with Granatstein's general perspective here. He's still a great historian even if we don't agree with him that the word 'internment' should be replaces with 'evacuation'. This reminds me, the internment article needs a lot of work. Perhaps we should be discussing this there. Regards Moomot 18:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I see that you did read my additions to "Racism," and you improved the writing. Thank You. Moomot 19:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I'll try and put my smarminess aside. I stand by my opinion that Granatstein's point about Japanese internment is more than semantics, because behind those words are the meaning of the event. "Evacuation" and "internment" are two different things. Yes they were evacuated, but it was quite a different circumstance than, say, an evacuation of an area during a flood or forest fire threat. In the connotation of the word "evacuation," it's purely circumstantial, or an unfortunate event, where no one is to blame but the forces of nature or history. "Forcible displacement" would be more precise to describe the actual removal of those people from their homes. "Internment" on the other hand, is an act of war, defensive or offensive, in which people are confined under threat somewhere and dispossessed of their property and belongings. If the Japanese had resisted the internment, it probably would have looked more like what Granatstein claims the word implies. The scale of the holocaust makes that comparison unfair, but the underlying principle is the same: a nationalist glossing of the past, and that's what I'm accusing Granatstein of. He's defending a view whereby the true or authentic "Canadian" identity or experience is represented by the most privileged people in society, the "great men" of history like King. Hence the unanimous call for evacuation. Japanese-Canadians were not calling for evacuation, nor were the RCMP operatives who reported that no national security threat existed from west coast Japanese. Local white entrepreneurs who scored some great deals on Japanese property and were able to take over that portion of the coastal fishing industry as a result were the voice of Canada in the national pride version. It's also worth pointing out that some Italians, who actually did have fascist sympathies and affiliations, were interned as well, but only for a short while and then in relatively swanky conditions in Ontario. The things I feel are most worthy of Canadian pride are where past mistakes are not forgotten or minimized, but are openly acknowledged and measures are taken to ensure they aren't repeated. This discussion is also relevant to the current issue of redress for the Chinese head tax, which has brought out some of that old racist sentiment here in Vancouver. But, the average Chinese or Japanese on the west coast are as prosperous, if not more, than whites, and that's a change to be proud of. I don't believe, as Granatstein does, that highlighting past injustices constitutes a chronicle of shame, as if it somehow cancels out the positive things in the past, just like King's racism doesn't cancel out his accomplishments. Similarly, again, I'm not questioning Granatstein's abilities as a historian or his notable contributions to Canadian historiography because of my opinion of him on this, just as, hopefully, your opinion that I'm condescending doesn't cancel out the one that says I'm intelligent (you could probably add "wordy" to that list :) Bobanny 20:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm pasting this to the internment section. Well said. Moomot 01:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preceded/Succeeded

Seems to be a problem with either the names or the dates in the chart at the bottom. I don't have time to fix it now, and I'm not sure how to use these tables properly, but if it's not fixed i'll come back and try to sort it out.

  • Huh? Looks OK to me... Fawcett5 04:28, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

my bad, got confused by Meighan's 28 day term --Goog 21:10, May 17, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Crystal Ball

I have been asked why I keep making this insert, I was watching a Canadian political talk show yesterday "Countdown", on CTV and they were talking about it, when they were talking about the Speakers BBQ, they talked about Mackenzie King because the house was his. At this time they talked about how he had a Crystal Ball and a Ouija board, which he used as advisors to help him make his important decisions. - Meanie.

With all due respect to "Countdown," journalists tend to sensationalize history, as they frequently do with King. The truth is better found in the work of scholars like Charles Stacey, Joy Esberey, and Blair Neatby. King did own a crystal ball, which was given to him by a friend, but did not use it or believe that it could be used to contact the spirits. His diaries contain no reference to a ouija board. He was, however, a spiritualist, beleving that he could contact the deceased through the help of a medium. HistoryBA 00:59, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] None is too many

Wasn't it Blair himself who said "none is too many"? HistoryBA 23:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it was, and I'm removing the line from the bio. F.C. Blair was a notorious little anti-Semite (and back when that term meant "racist against Jews" and not "disagrees with Israeli policy") whose words shouldn't be attributed to W.L.M. King. -Scientz 15:34, 4 May 2006 (EST)

I think that this section rather unfair. King was not opposed to allowing Jewish refugees but submitted to the will of his cabinet, the majority of whom were opposed to the idea. His policy was the result of political expediency not any particular anti-semitism on his part.

  • That is too kind to King. In the Canadian parliamentary system the leader holds a lot of power, if King was not an anti-semite then he could have spoken-up. Furthermore, he visited Hitler and felt that he was a kind and gentle man. This was long after Mein Kampf was published and the whole world knew Hitler's take on Jews. There is little doubt that King was an racist. Moomot 21:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Could someone please clean up the vandalism of this article? The first paragraph seems a bit out of hand.

Done. But you could have done it yourself :) Adam Bishop 20:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Was he the only unmarried Prime Minister? If so, it seems that should be mentioned. Also, someone with some free time should move those quotes to WikiQuote :) Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 00:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

No. R.B. Bennett was a bachelor. HistoryBA 02:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
And Trudeau was a bachelor when he started. --Funkmaster 801 12:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
And Campbell was a divorceé when she was Prime Minister. Fishhead64, 15:14, 04 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh sure, exhibit my atrocious lack of knowledge about my own country! grins Anyways, in my defence I knew those except Bennett...so now I have to go read about Bennett. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 23:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Anti-Semitism" Section

I changed the name of the section entitled "anti-semitsm" due to its content dealing with Japanese-Canadians, as well as Jews.

[edit] Hee Hee...fortune teller

I think this line might contraindicate one's powers of prognostication- "Indeed, after his death, one of his mediums said that she had not realized that he was a politician." L0b0t 02:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/l/Talk%7EWilliam_Lyon_Mackenzie_King_ff1f.html"