BOOK EXCERPT PASSAGES FROM THE BOSOM OF RURAL ONTARIO TO THE PORTALS OF HARVARD: JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH’S REMARKABLE JOURNEY IN LIFE Richard Parker

From his early life in a small farm in southwestern Ontario, John Kenneth Galbraith grew to become a towering figure in more ways than one. While still in his twenties, he taught economics at Harvard. In his thirties he worked as a price czar in Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime Washington. In his fifties, he was a campaign adviser to John F. Kennedy and later ambassador to India. Throughout his life, he has been the prolific author of four dozen books, including bestsellers such as The New Industrial State. Now in his nineties, Galbraith remains the world’s most famous living economist. In this excerpt from his important new biography, Harvard University’s Richard Parker retraces Galbraith’s steps to his birth and youth in rural Ontario.

Né dans une petite ferme du sud-ouest de l’Ontario, John Kenneth Galbraith est devenu une figure d’exception à plus d’un égard. Dans la vingtaine, il enseignait déjà l’économie à Harvard. La trentaine venue, il était pendant la guerre le tsar des finances du président Franklin Roosevelt. Et il fut dans la cinquantaine conseiller électoral de John F. Kennedy, puis ambassadeur en Inde. Auteur prolifique, il a publié 48 ouvrages dont plusieurs best-sellers comme The New Industrial State. Aujourd’hui nonagénaire, il reste l’un des économistes vivants les plus réputés du monde. Dans ce passage d’une importante biographie qui vient de paraître, Richard Parker, de Harvard, remonte à sa naissance et à sa jeunesse dans l’Ontario rural pour éclairer les temps forts de sa carrière.

n the fall of 1934, a twenty-five- days, in the back upstairs bedroom of genteel by rural standards. (According year-old Canadian economist his family’s two-storey, white clap- to local legend, boosters had added the I freshly arrived at Harvard stood at board farmhouse. Several days later, second g to “Hogg” Street to betoken a crossroads. How had he gotten there? the local weekly, The Dutton Advance, the gentility.) What forces had propelled him, and duly noted the baby’s healthy arrival, But however pastoral and remote, what had brought his world to such a the third child born to William this rural countryside was far from juncture? We need to turn back a quar- Archibald Galbraith and his wife, untouched by the outside world. Iona ter century to 1908, which for many Sarah Catherine Kendall Galbraith. Station is located about as far south as today feels like a simpler time, to Like neighbouring farms along a Canadian can be, set low in the answer those questions. Hogg Street, as the road was known, of Ontario just a few miles On October 15 of that year, John the Galbraith property gave off an air above Lake Erie’s northern shore. Kenneth Galbraith was born into one of a modestly comfortable and secure Cleveland lies only sixty miles south, of the world’s quieter and more remote prosperity. Although farm equipment across the lake; Detroit is a hundred corners, the of Iona Station, and livestock shared the various struc- miles west and Buffalo only a bit far- Ontario, Canada. He was delivered, at tures scattered across the large yard, ther east. Regularly each morning, the home, as most children were in those the neighborhood itself felt quietly big- newspapers would arrive from

POLICY OPTIONS 57 JUNE 2005 Richard Parker PASSAGES Toronto, Ottawa, and Windsor, Canada was scarcely immune to the in fact...respectable people have had to pitched along with the mailbag onto same forces and debates — indeed, the live in stables, tents, old cars, sheds the local station platform from a pass- ’s official centenary history (others in damp cellars), where we ing express train. refers to the period as the time of would not place a valued animal, let Each evening, the local farmers Canada’s “Great Transformation.” alone a human being.” And on would pause after dinner and final During the tenure of Sir Wilfrid Laurier Canada’s farms, conditions were often chores to read from those papers, typ- and his Liberal Party, between his first equally harsh, since farmers faced ically from the Toronto Globe, known election in 1896 and his narrow defeat falling prices for farm goods as acreage locally as “the Bible” for its stalwart fifteen years later, Canada’s small popu- and productivity grew, rising prices for Liberal Party support and progressive lation grew by nearly 50 percent, heavi- manufactured and consumer goods, views, and the faith these Scots- ly augmented by immigrant growth, high freight rates, processor monopo- Canadians placed in it. Some read by much of it from non-English-speaking lies, protective tariffs, and rural depop- ulation. They were During Laurier’s administration, the restiveness of Canada’s becoming restive and, fre- farmers spurred new forms of rural organization. More quently, radical. important politically, often radical new “farmers’ unions” uring Laurier’s admin- also appeared, especially in the west, where wheat harvests D istration, the restive- multiplied a stunning tenfold in the Laurier years. These new ness of Canada’s farmers “unions,” redolent with the same Populist sympathies that spurred new forms of rural had sparked William Jennings Bryan’s 1896 campaign in the organization. More impor- tant politically, often radi- United States, swiftly displaced their politically quieter cal new “farmers’ unions” predecessors, like the Grange. also appeared, especially in the west, where wheat har- kerosene light, others (including the . Industrialization redefined vests multiplied a stunning tenfold in Galbraiths) by their recently installed the balance between the city and coun- the Laurier years. These new “unions,” electric lamps. Most checked the tryside and, because many new factories redolent with the same Populist sym- grain and livestock prices in Chicago were US-owned, between Canada and pathies that had sparked William or Toronto first, then the car-loadings its powerful southern neighbor. The Jennings Bryan’s 1896 campaign in of wheat in Minneapolis or Winnipeg western acquired new power the United States, swiftly displaced or the tons of flour processed by mills vis-à-vis Ontario and Quebec. New their politically quieter predecessors, in nearby Buffalo. After that, some sources of mineral wealth and energy like the Grange. readers — though not all — turned were opened in the north, and wheat In Ontario, this new impulse for back to the front pages, to learn became Canada’s signature export. agrarian organizing led to formation of about broader matters, including the United Farmers of Ontario a year affairs in Ottawa and Washington ut the optimism was shadowed before Galbraith’s birth. Mostly con- and the events and larger forces that B with doubts, resistance, and con- tained in their agitation during the shaped them. flict. Canada’s , like those in the Laurier years by the shrewd prime United States, were all too typically, as minister’s delicately balanced policies, ince prehistoric times agriculture one historian described them, “a place by 1921 the UFO, with Galbraith’s S had employed most men and of violent contrasts, a home for the father Archie active in it, would not women, but it was now in a downward very rich and the very poor, for the just overthrow the provincial govern- employment spiral on both sides of the rural immigrant from a neighbouring ment but permanently reshape the Atlantic, as farmers everywhere well or a far distant land, and the nation’s traditional two-party system. knew. In 1908, farming and farm- native urbanite, for respectable In a stunning political stroke, which in related work still occupied a majority church-goers and for prostitutes, a many ways succeeded where Bryan’s of Canadians and Americans, but just place of conspicuous consumption 1896 Populist campaign in the United barely. (By 1911, Canada’s rural popu- and forced destitution.” One govern- States had failed, it ushered in a new lation outnumbered city dwellers by ment study of Toronto’s housing con- era in Canadian politics. about one million out of a seven mil- ditions, published shortly before But in 1908, although farmers across lion total, though in Ontario, a slight Galbraith’s birth, found, for example, Canada were restive, in Elgin County, majority was by then urban.) The direc- that “there is scarcely a vacant house Ontario, support still inclined strongly tion of change toward cities, factories, fit to live in that is not inhabited, and and steadily, as it had for many years, to shops, and services was irreversible. in many cases by numerous families; Laurier and the Liberals. This was not

58 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2005 From the bosom of rural Ontario to the portals of Harvard BOOK EXCERPT

Montreal Gazette Archives John Kenneth Galbraith and his wife Kitty in 1961 at the time of his appointment by President Kennedy to be US ambassador to India. Later, Galbraith would have a parting of the ways with President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War. A long way from his humble rural origins in southwestern Ontario. because places like Iona Station escaped Erie), Iona Station was bisected by the to service the surrounding economy; the economic pressures bearing down on major rail line connecting Buffalo to hence “Iona Station,” the name cho- all farmers then, but because local farm- Detroit. Indeed, Iona Station owed its sen in recognition of the local ers had several particular advantages. existence to the line and the entre- Scottish majority who had long ago First, they practiced a mixed agriculture preneurs who’d built it in the 1870s. named the adjoining hamlet Iona. of crops and livestock, never depending Originally intended to transport set- The Galbraiths’ own family histo- solely on a single crop such as wheat for tlers and goods west to Michigan ry in southern Ontario dates back to their incomes, as did so many in western farmlands, within a few years it was the early nineteenth century and per- Canada. Second, time and again, they bringing their products (and eventu- haps the late eighteenth — family proved themselves adept at shifting the ally, the industrial outpourings of records aren’t clear. Galbraith has writ- mix when market conditions changed. Detroit and other Michigan cities) to ten that his first Canadian ancestor Third, they had the railroad. eastern markets. When the railmen was born in the 1770s in western Besides being blessed with a tem- encountered important farm roads Scotland, but never mentions when he perate climate (the weather’s crossing their right-of-way, they reached Canada. Other family mem- extremes moderated by nearby Lake would build a small terminal of sorts bers date that arrival around 1820.

POLICY OPTIONS 59 JUNE 2005 Richard Parker PASSAGES The first Archie Galbraith and his especially the purebred Shorthorns tive to family chores as Ken was dili- wife appear to have arrived as home- which the Galbraith family raised, gent. Two years younger, Bill was the steaders in Canada in 1819 (possibly were the community’s pride. family charmer, “gregarious, good- 1818) aboard a small passenger ship As a boy, young Ken looked for- looking, feckless, exceedingly popular laden with several dozen like-minded ward eagerly each fall to the nearby with the boys and girls of the neigh- Scottish families. With them, the Wallacetown Fair, and competition borhood, carefree, and lazy,” as one couple brought four of their six chil- with Duncan Brown, a neighboring acquaintance put it — and, like his dren (the other two had died in farmer, to decide whose family had father and brother, unusually tall. Bill Scotland as infants). raised the best Shorthorns. One year was also the natural athlete of the Like most of those aboard the ship, the Browns would take first place, and family, while Ken’s sporting interests the Galbraiths had been persuaded by the Galbraiths second; the next year were desultory at best. land agents in Scotland to begin their the order would be reversed. But the new lives on what was called “the competition was neighborly, and the ith his two sisters, Alice, four Talbot Settlement,” an immense, sup- two families regularly divided the prize W years older, and Catherine, five posedly fertile tract of southern Ontario money, forty or fifty dollars between years younger, things were different. purchased in 1803 by Colonel Thomas them. “My pets were really those cat- Alice, who never married, grew up to Talbot, a minor figure of the English- tle. I was always quite involved with become a teacher like her father, working installed Anglo-Irish nobility. Already them and gave them a lot of atten- for many years with retarded children; approaching middle age, Archie and tion,” Galbraith says. much beloved by family, friends, and stu- Mary had not made the decision dents, she died in 1974. lightly, but they had seen no By the time of Ken Galbraith’s birth Catherine (who also became a future in Argyllshire. in October 1908, the Scots had teacher) and Ken were the clos- The passengers quickly dis- turned much of vast old Talbot Tract est, bound together from child- covered on their arrival at tiny hood until her death in 2002 by Port Talbot on Lake Erie’s north into a prosperous patchwork of a love of reading and words. shore that the Talbot Tract, far family farms. The loamy soil that Galbraith’s parents were from being the prime farmland had once intermingled with sandy, much adored by all four chil- the colonel’s agents had ill-drained lands, had been dren, and in the latter’s com- described, was heavily wooded, mon retelling of childhood with soil of uneven quality, transformed through effort and skill tales, both figure prominently. loamy in some parts, sandy in over several generations into rich Early on, though, tragedy others, and sparsely populated. fields of corn, beans, oats, hay, and struck: in October 1923, their Like their fellow settlers, the pasturage for fat herds of cattle and mother, Kate, died suddenly. Galbraiths consequently would Ken had turned fifteen just spend years working the land sheep. The cattle, especially the three days earlier. into first-rate condition. The purebred Shorthorns which the Galbraith, despite his prolific fifty-acre plot they chose (not Galbraith family raised, were the writing, has never described far from where Ken Galbraith community’s pride. either the circumstances or emo- was later born), and the work tions surrounding his mother’s they put into it proved beneficent in Farm life easily and naturally death. In his memoirs more than five one respect, though: having arrived formed the early center of his life, and hundred pages long, there is only one when he was nearly fifty, Archie lived it imbued him with habits that austere sentence about her: “My mother, to be 103, his wife Mary, to 79. endured throughout his life. Foremost a beautiful, affectionate, and decidedly was his capacity for hard work, despite firm woman, died when her children — y the time of Ken Galbraith’s an often laconic posture that suggested my brother, my two sisters, and I — were B birth in October 1908, the Scots to some an easygoing country gentle- not yet all in their teens.” Nothing more, had turned much of vast old Talbot man. “A long day following a plod- among the thousands of pages written in Tract into a prosperous patchwork of ding, increasingly reluctant team his life, exists. family farms. The loamy soil that had behind a harrow endlessly back and Kate Galbraith’s funeral was attend- once intermingled with sandy, ill- forth over the uninspiring Ontario ter- ed by hundreds of neighbors and rela- drained lands, had been transformed rain persuaded one,” he wrote, “that tives, the largest funeral in years, through effort and skill over several all other work was easy.” according to the local paper, which generations into rich fields of corn, His work habits were reinforced eulogized her for her work with the beans, oats, hay, and pasturage for fat by his relations with his younger schools and the local women’s institute. herds of cattle and sheep. The cattle, brother Bill, who proved as inatten- Devastated by Kate’s death, her husband

60 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2005 From the bosom of rural Ontario to the portals of Harvard BOOK EXCERPT seemed lost for almost two years after- the Liberals under Laurier after 1896 of local boys grew from more than ward. Christmas that first winter was an the dominant force until his narrow what his son has described as residual especially somber time for the family. loss of power to the Conservatives in Scottish distrust of their English over- 1911. But the First World War created lords. It was at the heart of a bitter and or Ken especially, his father’s pub- a crisis in what had been a durable fundamental national political battle. F lic involvements proved not only two-party system. The issue that trig- In 1917 hundreds of thousands of consoling but an avenue into the larg- gered it was simple: conscription, the angry Canadians, including the er world of politics and public debate. draft of Canadians to serve as Allied Galbraiths, abandoned the Liberal Among the Scots of Elgin County, troops in Europe’s Great War. Party and the once beloved Laurier in Archie Galbraith was well known and In 1914, Canada had entered the favor of the rebellious party wing that highly regarded. In addition to being a war alongside Britain in a patriotic and opposed conscription and its Union successful farmer who kept up with the bipartisan mood of support among its Government supporters. Within latest methods and tech- nologies, he always Ontario farmers like Archie Galbraith, who’d broken with their found time for commu- Liberal Unionist colleagues, now presented the government nity involvement. He helped establish the local with an unprecedented challenge. Hundreds of thousands of telephone exchange and them bolted the provincial Liberal Party for a new third party a cooperative insurance that had suddenly appeared, the United Farmers of Ontario. company, and for many Having begun twelve years earlier as a reforming farm years was a and county official, supervis- movement, by the end of 1919 the UFO shocked the country ing the auditing of local by sweeping Ontario’s elections; rural like Elgin finances. formed the heart of its support. Archie Galbraith was also a man of decided opinions. A life- middle and upper classes (though less months of the war’s end in November long activist in Laurier’s Liberal Party, so among its urban workers and the 1918, the opponents of the now-hated an allegiance to which the Scots of French Québécois). Canadians’ support Unionists struck back. Out on the southern Ontario generally adhered, for the war had waned dramatically by Canadian prairie, anger burst forth in he was a prominent public speaker on 1916, though, as the cost in men and the fabled and brutally fought behalf of candidates and causes alike. materiel grew horrific. (Sixty-eight Winnipeg general strike, just one of so Six feet, nine inches tall, with reddish- thousand of the 242,000 soldiers from many strikes throughout the country brown hair, a thick mustache, and the Ontario alone were dead, wounded or in 1919 that a record was set for large, rough-hewn handsome features missing by war’s end.) Volunteers for Canadian labor strife. he passed on to his son, Archie was the armed forces plummeted, and the constantly sought out by neighbours Conservative government, under pres- ntario farmers like Archie and clansmen for his opinions on from Britain, decided that it would O Galbraith, who’d broken with many matters, from proper farming have to implement conscription. their Liberal Unionist colleagues, now methods to whom to support for presented the government with an prime minister or MP in upcoming his created an enormous and bitter unprecedented challenge. Hundreds of elections. “If Archie approved, one was T division within the Liberal Party, thousands of them bolted the provincial safe to go ahead,” one friend recalled, and in 1917 the party openly split, Liberal Party for a new third party that “but if the project was faulty, he had with one wing (including the now aged had suddenly appeared, the United the gift of seeing straight through to Laurier) entering a coalition “Union” Farmers of Ontario. Having begun the hidden weakness, and with his dis- government with the Conservatives, twelve years earlier as a reforming farm approval the scheme was con- and the other wing restively searching movement, by the end of 1919 the UFO demned.” Another acquaintance said for alternatives that would sustain their shocked the country by sweeping simply of him that in Elgin County, opposition to the draft. Conscription Ontario’s elections; rural counties like Archie Galbraith’s “word was as good and the Unionists narrowly won in the Elgin formed the heart of its support. as a Dominion of Canada bond.” passionately fought December 1917 The new party was led by E.C. Archie’s political beliefs were as election; but this “bitterest campaign Drury, a politically gifted forty-six- influential on his son as his public in Canadian history” left deep, gaping year-old farmer who had been a well- service. Canadian politics had been wounds throughout the country. known, well-liked figure in the safely divided since the 1860s between Yet Archie’s service on the county prewar Liberal Party. A head of the the Liberals and Conservatives, with draft board and his willing deferment National Grange (and son of the

POLICY OPTIONS 61 JUNE 2005 Richard Parker PASSAGES province’s first Minister of Wisconsin would champion in 1924. wives were even dryer; workers and the Agriculture), Drury now almost W. C. Good, one of the UFO’s early cities, by and large, weren’t. But overnight found himself premier of leaders, put it simply: “God made the Drury’s government had chosen to Ontario after successfully forging a country, Man made the town.” support provincial prohibition, and as coalition with the Labour Party, Once in office, the new Farmer- the 1923 elections approached, it which had been marginal until 1919 Labour government moved swiftly. became the party’s divisive sword, just but now spoke for thousands of “In our first two sessions,” Drury as conscription had been for the angry urban workers. His new gov- later wrote, “we enacted such a pro- Liberals in 1917. In a light turnout, the ernment horrified the Canadian gram of social legislation as Ontario government fell to the Conservatives, political establishment, with the and indeed all Canada and North whose campaign slogan, “business Crown-appointed lieutenant gover- America had never seen, or perhaps methods in administration,” firmly nor of Ontario, Sir John Hendrie, thought possible.” echoed the new Republican era in the declaring it as “a move away from He did not exaggerate: minimum United States. party representation toward class or wage laws for women, expanded wel- en Galbraith was only Canadian farmers were not Leninists or Irish nationalists, but K eleven when Drury they were nonetheless in a revolutionary mood. As Drury was elected and fourteen when the Farmer-Labour assured his supporters: “The United Farmers of Ontario form government failed, and the nucleus of a new party which is going to sweep the two one can easily imagine him old parties into a single organization, which they really are, a listening to his father dis- new party that will stand for wisdom, justice and honesty in cuss politics on those Sunday afternoons, absorb- public affairs; a party untainted by campaign funds ing lessons that would contributed by selfish interests, that will cleanse the whole reappear years later in a of public life of Canada.” parallel to his father’s own political journey. In the factional representation.” Some lead- fare for widows and orphans, civil mid-1960s, Galbraith became a vocal, ers took an even darker view, wildly service pensions, workers’ compensa- vehement opponent of America’s war identifying the United Farmers with tion reforms, education overhaul, in Vietnam, a leader of the “Dump Bolshevism and even with the Irish new taxes on corporations and utili- Johnson” movement, and floor man- nationalist Sinn Fein. ties, new public savings banks, new ager for the insurgent Senator Eugene credits for farmers and cooperatives, McCarthy at the 1968 Democratic anadian farmers were not rural road and rail construction, giant Convention. As happened with his C Leninists or Irish nationalists, but public hydroelectric projects, even father, his disaffection grew out of they were nonetheless in a revolution- the critical funding for medical wartime policies, not least the draft, ary mood. As Drury assured his sup- research that led to the discovery of and a steadfast belief that certain core porters: “The United Farmers of insulin — all these now poured forth values took precedence over party loy- Ontario form the nucleus of a new from the Drury government. alties. McCarthy lost the Democratic party which is going to sweep the two Despite these early legislative nomination to Vice President Hubert old parties into a single organization, achievements, however, the rebellion Humphrey, and Humphrey then lost which they really are, a new party that didn’t last. Unlike the New Deal, the to the Republican Richard Nixon. But will stand for wisdom, justice and hon- Farmer-Labour government, and with like his father before him, Galbraith esty in public affairs; a party untainted it the United Farmers, collapsed within refused to abandon politics. Four years by campaign funds contributed by four years of Drury’s taking office. In later, he helped lead the successful selfish interests, that will cleanse the retrospect, its failure seems inevitable: fight to nominate Senator George whole of public life of Canada.” tensions between farmers and workers McGovern on the Democratic ticket, a The party’s inspiration was an over wage reforms, between the coun- man who in many important respects unadulterated agrarian populism, tryside and cities over tariff policy resembled Drury, and whose insurgent deeply fused with the language of the (with farmers devoutly in favor of free campaign similarly shared the quali- Christian Social Gospel movement — trade), and, perhaps most important, ties and spirit that had once character- precisely the kind that William divisions over alcohol had torn at the ized the UFO. Jennings Bryan had spoken for in the young coalition from the start. For the teenaged Galbraith, the United States in 1896 and that The farmers were temperance loss of his beloved mother in 1923, Governor Robert La Follette of men, and their newly enfranchised then his father’s heartbroken with-

62 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2005 From the bosom of rural Ontario to the portals of Harvard BOOK EXCERPT drawal after her death (and the col- father’s decision, announced perfunc- claiming that his comment applied to lapse of the UFO the same year) had torily the previous fall, near the end of OAC in his undergraduate years and inevitable effects, although through- a hard day that the two had spent that he would allow that Arkansas out his life he remained oblique cleaning and repairing the family’s A&M was no doubt worse, although about what they were. He acknowl- granary. Archie — without pausing or there was some question whether edged that he struggled with school even looking up from his work — had English was spoken there. over the next two years after his simply remarked quietly, “I think Yet by the standards of the times mother’s death, but blamed his trou- you’d better decide to go on to college OAC offered a decently advanced cur- bles on “foot problems.” (His sister at Guelph.” It never occurred to Ken riculum in farm management prac- recalled only that he had flat feet.) to protest the decision. tices, if not much else. The college’s But even before then, high school OAC was a practical choice, thirty full-time professors included hadn’t been easy; he’d entered it at though. Tuition fees were nominal three Ph.D.s, and classes in the age twelve, hadn’t been well pre- (twenty dollars annually for the first humanities, social sciences, and natu- pared by his one-room Willey’s School experi- ence, and found the Ken Galbraith was only eleven when Drury was elected and atmosphere, under fourteen when the Farmer-Labour government failed, and one what he describes as a can easily imagine him listening to his father discuss politics on tyrannical principal, those Sunday afternoons, absorbing lessons that would repellent. Because the Galbraith children trav- reappear years later in a parallel to his father’s own political eled the six miles to journey. In the mid-1960s, Galbraith became a vocal, vehement school by horse and opponent of America’s war in Vietnam, a leader of the “Dump buggy, they were fre- Johnson” movement, and floor manager for the insurgent quently late, which resulted in routine pun- Senator Eugene McCarthy at the 1968 Democratic Convention. ishment. two years, fifty dollars thereafter, ral sciences, beyond nominal intro- o after spending a fifth year with room and board an additional ductory offerings, were considered S attending nearby St. Thomas High five to six dollars per week), and the best reserved for Toronto’s main cam- School, Ken graduated in June 1926 entrance requirements undemand- pus and its more urbane student and three months later set off for col- ing. To enroll, one had to be eight- body. Still, as he walked onto the lege in Guelph, Ontario. A month shy een, show evidence of “moral school’s grounds for the first time, of turning eighteen, he must have character and physical ability,” and Ken recalled, “it was a lovely autumn found Guelph attractively far away produce a certificate affirming that day, the campus was extremely beau- from the traumatic pains he associat- one had spent at least a year on a tiful, the football team was practicing. ed with home. The two-and-a-half- farm, and thereby acquired “a practi- I was shown to my room — and I felt hour train ride that carried him and cal knowledge of ordinary farm oper- I had arrived.” two other local boys there marked the ations, such as harnessing and start of a fresh life and the chance for driving horses, plowing, harrowing, albraith spent five years at OAC, distracting new adventures. It was the drilling, etc.” A high school diploma G the fifth year necessitated by farthest he’d ever been from home. was not listed among the school’s health problems (“an incipient tuber- Adventure for college freshmen is entrance requirements. culosis”) and his weak high-school always relative, and in this Galbraith Galbraith years later created a preparation. His major was animal hus- was no exception. Guelph, only furor at his alma mater by referring to bandry, and he seems to have done eighty miles northeast of Iona Station, it in a Time interview as in his youth quite well, mastering degree require- hardly qualified even as a provincial “not only the cheapest but probably ments in field husbandry, poultry hus- metropolis, but it was home to the worst college in the English- bandry, horticulture, soil management, Ontario Agricultural College, the speaking world.” There was much forestry, veterinary principles, and api- “farm school” branch of the much angry talk in Guelph about rescinding culture with relative ease; he graduated more distinguished University of the honorary degree he’d been given with distinction. This he credits, how- Toronto. OAC wasn’t young Ken’s first as “OAC’s greatest living alumnus,” ever, less to the excellence of his teach- choice; indeed, he hadn’t made a and dozens of outraged alumni wrote ers than to the practices he’d learned choice about where (or even whether) to denounce him. Galbraith eventual- from his father and their neighbors. to attend college. That had been his ly backtracked, but only slightly, (He likes to recall that among the pro-

POLICY OPTIONS 63 JUNE 2005 Richard Parker PASSAGES found insights of his dairy husbandry remembered, which “paid for all my tion of free markets should guarantee professor was the gravely offered forms of recreation.” success. And yet they didn’t. Galbraith, observation that “the dairy cow is the Recreational opportunities were, entering his last year at OAC, decided to foster mother of the human race.”) however, limited. Among its other find out why — and so he enrolled in a For this young, ungainly, but deficiencies, OAC enrolled few course on agricultural economics. His very bright farmboy, the awkward- women, and of those, none — at least interest was not purely abstract: if he ness that came with his upbringing, in Galbraith’s recollection — was “could there come to understand the especially when faced with the rela- interesting to or interested in him. real problem [behind the tive “sophistication” of his more citi- OAC did, however, allow him to trav- Depression]...that understanding might fied classmates, was overcome finally el, including a trip his senior year all also help me get a job.”

Among its other deficiencies, OAC enrolled few women, and ealizing the intellectu- R al and occupational of those, none — at least in Galbraith’s recollection — was promises of academic eco- interesting to or interested in him. OAC did, however, allow nomics, even agricultural him to travel, including a trip his senior year all the way to economics, was not easy at Chicago for the 1930 International Livestock Exhibition, an OAC. The school offered no major in the field, and the expedition he still considers “the greatest triumph of my half dozen courses available college days.” The trip included stopovers to view agricultural were stronger on simple facilities at Michigan State, Purdue, and the University of and practical application Illinois, and it opened entirely new vistas in his life. than on theory. (OAC’s pedagogical approach offered “so wide ranging an educa- through his discovery of writing. the way to Chicago for the 1930 tion,” Galbraith dryly remarked in his Among the otherwise mediocre facul- International Livestock Exhibition, an memoirs, that it “involved some sacri- ty, Galbraith found two English expedition he still considers “the fice of depth.”) Still, the classes hinted teachers, O. J. Stevenson and E. C. greatest triumph of my college days.” at a world more challenging than life McLean, who were “well known The trip included stopovers to view on the farm or, more exaltedly, as a Canadian literary figures, of the sec- agricultural facilities at Michigan county agent. ondary sort,” but demanding State, Purdue, and the University of The moment he truly committed enough. Students wrote weekly com- Illinois, and it opened entirely new himself to economics came in the positions that were corrected and vistas in his life. autumn of 1930, when he happened evaluated meticulously, and upon a poster tacked to the bulletin Galbraith soon became one of their og grading wasn’t quite at the board at the campus post office. It favorites. “That was where I first H high frontier of his now-stirring advertised graduate research fellow- became involved in writing.” ambitions. In the summer of 1930, a ships being offered by the Giannini Building on his new-found abilities, research job interviewing more than a Foundation of Agricultural Economics he helped found a college newspaper, hundred tenant farmers and their fami- at the University of California at The OACIS, which he mischievously lies underscored for Galbraith the Berkeley. The annual stipend was claims he edited with enough inde- poignant suffering the Depression was $720, a princely sum — and the lure of pendence that it “gave maximum inflicting on the province’s once- California, an exotic place by compar- offense to the faculty” (elsewhere he prosperous (and still ingenious and ison to Guelph, was strong. He applied has said that in truth “I kept well to hardworking) rural population, and it shortly afterward, and some months the side of safety”). led him to conclude that something was later received notice that he’d been Seeking a wider audience, he terribly wrong with the way agricultural accepted. started freelancing a few pieces on markets worked. Farming was as close to And so, in late July 1931, after sever- contemporary agricultural issues for neoclassical textbook perfection as exist- al weeks spent back on the family farm, two small western Ontario papers, ed, a world generally of small producers Ken Galbraith departed his life in Canada the St. Thomas Times Journal and the and small buyers (there were certainly never to return, save for short visits. Stratford Beacon Herald. This led in exceptions) who competed sedulously, turn to the offer of a weekly column, adopted new technologies, improvised Excerpted from John Kenneth Galbraith: for which he was paid the munifi- new marketing strategies, sought out His Life, His Politics, His Economics, by cent fee of five dollars per column. It new customers — all the things that in Richard Parker, by permission of was “an enormous sum,” he proudly the modern equilibrium-based concep- HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2005.

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