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Ontario History

The Sideways March Mackenzie King’s Monumental Quest, 1893-1940 Dennis Duffy

Volume 100, Number 2, Fall 2008 Article abstract This article concludes with King’s successful URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1065696ar diversion of the public memory of the struggle for responsible government DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1065696ar from its various historical proponents to his grandfather, William Lyon Mackenzie. This he accomplished through his influence on monuments erected See table of contents in during his heyday. The article follows this progress as it ambles through a number of other monuments and popular texts, culminating in an idealized testament to an individual apotheosized into a near-allegorical Publisher(s) political presence. The Ontario Historical Society

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Cite this article Duffy, D. (2008). The Sideways March: Mackenzie King’s Monumental Quest, 1893-1940. Ontario History, 100(2), 130–149. https://doi.org/10.7202/1065696ar

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 130 ONTARIOThe HISTORY Sideways March: Mackenzie King’s Monumental Quest, 1893-19401

By Dennis Duffy

illiam Lyon Mackenzie King the occasion of the monument’s unveil- knew how to work up a ing, thus transforming personal mourn- grand occasion and a grand ing into public monumentality.2 Wmonument too. As a very junior minister King knew how such deeds were in 1905, he had engineered the enshrine- wrought. What then had gone wrong ment adjacent to of his with what should have been the unal- heroically dead roommate, Bert Harper. loyed delights of his 18 June 1938 un- He had not only raised the funds and se- veiling of a Niagara Falls memorial arch? lected the sculptor and the emblem for After all, its panels marked the progress the memorial (a stalwart Sir Galahad), of Canadian governance and bestowed he had wheedled his way into a site that a culminating role in that pageant to his most viewers would assume was the Hill Grandfather. Though neither the monu- itself, so closely did it adjoin those sacred ment itself nor the attendant ceremony precincts. Most of all, he had convinced lay under his Prime Ministerial sway, he his patron, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, to grace had had his say about both. Its origins lay

1 I am deeply indebted here to an anonymous peer reader whose commentary proved at once learned, generous and transformative. 2 Harper monument: Dennis Duffy, “The Grandfathering of William Lyon Mackenzie King,” American Review of Canadian Studies 32:4 (2002), 581-608. McQuesten: John C. Best, Thomas Baker McQuesten: public works, politics and imagination (Hamilton: Corinth Press, 1991), 126-29; Jean Coutu, Vehicles of Nationalism: Defining in the 1930s,”Journal of Canadian Studies 37:1 (2002), 180-205. Ontario History / Volume C No. 2 / Autumn 2008 131 Abstract in the nationalist designs of a provincial This article concludes with William Lyon Mac- cabinet minister; its unveiling lay in T.B. kenzie King’s successful diversion of the public McQuesten’s hands too. But McQuesten memory of the struggle for responsible govern- was a Liberal, and as such shared Mr. ment from its various historical proponents to King’s estimation of the role that William his grandfather, William Lyon Mackenzie. This he accomplished through his influence Lyon Mackenzie had played in the evolu- on monuments erected in Ontario during his tion of responsible government. He had heyday. The article follows this progress as it consulted with King and even asked him ambles through a number of other monuments for a list of appropriate Scriptural quo- and popular texts, culminating in an ideal- tations for the monument. Ostensibly a ized testament to an individual apotheosized into a near-allegorical political presence. memorial to ’s pioneers, the Clifton Gate Arch had broadened the Résumé: Dans la mémoire collective, le nom normal notion of pioneering, expanding de William Lyon Mackenzie reste attaché à la lutte pour l’établissement d’un gouvernement it from a narrative of exploration, land responsable, et cela au détriment d’autres hom- clearance, settlement and defense to one mes politiques qui jouèrent aussi un rôle déter- including the development of political minant dans cette lutte. Cela est dû en grande institutions that came about well after partie, comme nous le montrons dans cet article, the typical pioneering experience had à l’action de William Lyon Mackenzie King qui réussit, lorsqu’il fut au pouvoir, à détourner concluded. One of its most notable bas- en faveur de son grand-père le souvenir de cette relief panels—there were four—depicted lutte. Son influence notamment sur le choix an idealized profile of Grandfather pre- des monuments érigés en Ontario, comme dif- senting to the Upper Canadian Assembly férents discours et écrits public, contribuèrent peu à peu à construire et imposer une image in 1835 his Seventh Report on the defi- idéalisée, une glorification presque allégorique, ciencies of the colonial regime that he de cet homme et de son action politique. would take arms against. The panels’ story was a novel one, recombining various elements of Upper Canadian liberalism. The panels move Canadian history within a teleology that chronologically from French explorers concluded in the 1837 Rebellion where such as La Salle and Hennepin (along Mackenzie had played so prominent a with Père Marquette, the first European role. St. James’ Anglican cathedral in To- to look upon the Falls), to pioneering ronto parades a set of stained glass win- United Empire Loyalists in an ox-drawn dows marking a progress of events origi- wagon, in turn leading to a British reg- nating with the creation of the world and ular along with a sailor and an Indian culminating in the establishment of Trin- defending Upper Canada in 1812. Mac- ity College. The sequence may strike non- kenzie’s Report concludes this process. tribal viewers as bathetic, yet it expresses Rather than a series of events marking a a community’s sense of selfhood and the historical evolution, the sequence more pride taken in its own achievements. closely resembles a set of historical snap- So with the secular faith of Upper shots. Those looking on it with the eyes 132 ONTARIO HISTORY

Clifton Memorial Arch. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library of faith beheld a geometry as inevitable The inscription itself summarizes a as the line from first base to home. The visual narrative at once triumphalist and panels’ deft assemblage of constituencies egalitarian in its exaltation of the com- and historical worthies chiselled into the monality: service of a common good could have This memorial was erected to honour the caused no disquiet in the Prime Minis- memory of the men and women in this land ter, himself expert in such constructions. throughout their generation who braved Mackenzie King wanted the struggle for the wilderness, maintained the settlements, responsible government at once focused performed the common task with praise or glory and were the pioneers of political free- upon his ancestor yet decoupled from dom and a system of responsible government the Rebellion, and the panel certainly ac- which became the cornerstone of the British complished that.3 Commonwealth of Nations.4

3 Mackenzie King to McQuesten, 30 March 1937, quoted in Best, Thomas Baker McQuesten ,129. 4 Mark Frank, The Mackenzie Panels. The strange case of Niagara’s fallen arch (: Red Robin Press, 1987), 2. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 133

Who can indeed take exception to a pub- advertising and no propaganda,” though lic monument that he has personally in- we have copies of six-minute radio talks scribed? Granted, the wording came his about the upcoming festivities scripts way through the dictation of a panoply of broadcast on area stations. spiritual and actual forbears. The provin- King was pleased with his own re- cial authorities having awarded Macken- marks on the occasion, despite claiming zie King authorship of the inscription, he ignorance about the centrality of his ad- handed the business over to a visionary dress to the ceremony. Calling that promi- array numerous as those trooping across nence “a complete surprise,” his diary flies the stage in Act IV of Macbeth. Public in the face of surviving documents indi- figures such as Laurier and Asquith had cating a closely detailed demarcation of been accompanied by such humble folk the roles played by the various speakers, as King’s mother and father. Grandfa- documents that had to have been scru- ther, the monument’s subject had joined tinized by the Prime Minister’s Office. the company as well, and it was William The attendance (several hundred) struck Lyon Mackenzie’s spirit that had dictated him as inadequate, since he had yearned some alterations.5 Even the Prophet Isai- for a great national rather than a provin- ah had only answered to one editor. cial occasion, though the Memorial Arch Yet even the permanent display of was a provincial project with a provincial this group-writing project could not budget. And then there was the attitude measure up to King’s aspirations. His di- of Premier Mitchell Hepburn, which ary for that Saturday complains of the King denounced as “hateful.” The will- arch’s size. Fifty feet in height, its dimen- fully absent premier and the so-easily sions nonetheless failed to allow cars slighted prime minister were engaged in to pass through it, reducing it from the pumping the bellows of a mutual hatred Arc de Triomphe he had felt “not unwor- that would flare into the nastiness of two thy” of the events it marked to a minor years later when Hepburn’s Ontario leg- highway ornament. Yes, the weather was islative assembly voted to censure King’s fine when it needed to be—sun breaking government for what it deemed a slack through the clouds just as King pushed prosecution of the war. But that lay in the button dropping the veil—and a mo- the (predictable) future. What especially torcade consisting of a number of fancy galled Mackenzie King was Hepburn’s cars flanked by five Ontario Provincial brass in first placing his own name on the Police motorcyclists was more than most dedicatory plaque very near to King’s and of us get for our funeral, let alone for an then pointedly skipping the unveiling. unveiling. He complained about “little Still, it had been a grand occasion. in the way of publicity or organization Even the diarist who seemed particularly of the whole proceedings; no attempt at querulous that day, almost in search of a

5 The Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, 27 March 1937. Archivianet, 134 ONTARIO HISTORY

grievance to treasure, had to admit at the ranged from those purportedly seeking end that he had looked upon an artistic disinterestedly to deliver Canada from rendering of a concept “which will not the tyrannies of colonial rule to groups be without its significance, as related to appointing themselves to office in the the Old Testament conception of God’s provisional government that would fol- Covenant with his people.” In fact, the low the successful invasion. Whatever unveiling confirmed in him the sense their ultimate aims, the Hunters, (whose that “my life has helped to mark, in no name it was hoped legitimated their small part, the completion of Macken- prowling with guns around the border zie’s work.” Surely the amplitude of this zone) were scarcely the sort of group with significance justified a rest on the seventh whom Mackenzie King sought to link day.6 his grandfather’s name.8 If he had sought Whatever occasioned this dyspeptic to have the Rebellion itself downplayed lament, which even the memorial’s sig- here, then the appearance of those names nificance failed to calm utterly, an even recalled that uprising’s most disreputable greater upset—graven in stone—lurked aspects and proved especially galling. there. Within a few months, during the What was to be done? Rectifying winter of 1938-39, the prime minister that error required new stones, surfaces telephoned an antiquarian friend, com- that the Clifton arch failed to furnish. plaining at length to about the arch’s Luckily, a remedy lay close at hand, with- shocking inclusion of sinners amid its in a structure already shaped by the Prime cavalcade of saints.7 There, amid the list Minister’s concealed hands. of homegrown patriots, lurked the names of some American filibusters who had as- I sisted Mackenzie in his attempts to car- he Niagara Arch’s failure to achieve ry on the struggle from American soil. TMackenzie King’s aims lets us as- Membership in the Hunters’ Lodges es- sume that its demolition two decades af- tablished by the Patriot Hunters in 1838 ter his death had to have delighted him

6 I have based this account of the unveiling and of Mackenzie King’s responses to it, on Mackenzie King’s diary for 18 June 1938, and “Unveiling of Clifton Gate & Official Opening of William Lyon -Mac kenzie House,” Archives of Ontario (hereafter cited as AO) RG38-3-2-563. For a thorough background study of the arch and its eventual demise: Joan Coutu, “Vehicles of nationalism” and Mark Frank, The Mackenzie Panels. 7 “Mr. King believed that the inclusion of American raiders with Canadian Patriots was unjustified, and detracted from proper appreciation of the merits of the Canadian Rebellion.”: Edwin C. Guillet, “Foreword,” The Lives and Times of the Patriots (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963 [1938]), [2]. Guillet’s 1938 account itself indicates a milestone in the process of enshrining the Rebellion that culmi- nated in the Niagara Arch. Appropriately, his history’s later preface records the PM’s dissatisfaction, as does Guillet’s letter of 18 February 1939 to Saturday Night. 8 Oscar A. Kinchen, The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters. New York: Bookman Associates, 1956. see also, Curtis Fahey, “Hunters’ Lodges” in Canadian Encyclopedia Online. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 135

in the spirit world.9 The 1940 installation tute as Mackenzie King could seize upon. of the William Lyon Mackenzie memo- To mark each of these four phases—he- rial in Queen’s Park, Toronto, concluded roic revisionism, rehabilitative consen- a grandson’s rehabilitation of an ancestor sus, suppression of opposition material, who finally perched unblemished atop reconfiguration of popular historical nar- his very own pedestal. I have written rative—I have selected a representative, elsewhere about that memorialization.10 It concluded a complex process of cultural re- vision and diversion, some of that process under the guidance of Mackenzie King, but much of it through other agencies. My aim here is to review some moments in that proc- ess, before a final glance at the implications of the ancestral apotheosis that Mackenzie King brought to perfection in Queen’s Park. William Lyon Mackenzie Memorial in Queen’s Park. Courtesy of Archives of Four sites mark my Ontario tour of that rehabilitation highway that metonymous event or occurrence. Other stops on the grounds of the Ontario Leg- phenomena would serve as well; these islative Assembly. Not exhaustive in the are the ones offering the widest scope for manner of a MapQuest itinerary, my the argument here. survey overlooks many twists and turns on the route. I offer instead a schematic • The 1893 memorial to two 1837 rebels, and Peter Matthews in Toron- chart, one that highlights the phases in to’s Necropolis burying ground represented public memory creating the conditions the enshrinement of 1837 and the events for canonization that an observer as as- around it.

9 The destruction of the so-called Honeymoon Bridge by pack ice in January 1938 resulted in the planned Memorial Arch’s relocation at a spot distant from the bridge that replaced it, where it lingered as an impediment to traffic. In keeping with Ontario’s cherished cultural tradition of the automobile’s primacy in the allocation of public space, the authorities dismantled the arch during the winter of 1967-68 (Coutu). Some of the panels from the demolished arch now rest in the rear of Toronto’s Mackenzie House (Frank). 10 “The Grandfathering of William Lyon Mackenzie King.” 136 ONTARIO HISTORY

• The emergence of a consensus in high A number of provincial parliamentarians school and popular history textbooks indi- spoke, two clergymen delivered remarks, cated a rehabilitation of Mackenzie and his and Mr. Joseph Tait, “in response to many reputation, establishing a close relationship between his agency and the now-enshrined calls from the assembly,” found himself not rebellion. at all at a loss for words. The pair had not • Mackenzie’s descendants’ assault upon died in vain; their deaths “drew the atten- any accounts denying his primary role in tion of the home government to the abus- the emergence of Responsible Government es which existed and brought about the eliminated any effective barriers against his reforms for which they fought.” Cheers heroic emergence. then erupted when Mr. Tait closed with • The placement of Mackenzie’s protests within a monumental account of Upper Ca- the statement that they were “true, good, nadian genesis lodged him firmly within any loyal self-sacrificing men … a noble exam- provincial master narrative. ple to all who followed them.” Paralleling Discussing these indices as to how the this assertion of loyalty, the ceremonies rough places were made plain clarifies the concluded with a singing of one verse of Queen’s Park monument’s triumphalist the national anthem as everyone scattered recreation of Upper Canada’s history. from the downpour. Tait’s remarks indicate just how re- 1837 Reconstituted: spectable the former rebels had become, he remains of Samuel Lount and as does the presence of MPs, MLAs and TPeter Matthews, publicly hanged the clergy. Lount and Matthews had been for their role in the 1837 rebellion, lan- subsumed within a mythic pattern central guished in a potter’s field until 1859. to the Christian beliefs of their mourn- Then William Lyon Mackenzie marched ers: victims whose sacrifice had brought alongside others as they transferred the about a greater good. Any speaker invok- coffins—surely reconstructed for the -oc ing that consolation assumes an audience casion—to respectable burial in the Ne- convinced about the righteousness of the cropolis. Consider that relocation the cause for which the martyr died. Tait’s first phase in their posthumous cleansing. speech indicates that speaker and hearer There they lay with only the simplest of alike shared a sense of the Rebellion’s markers until 28 June 1893, when a group righteousness. Yet the inscription on the of “friends and sympathizers” erected in column itself ignores that consolatory their memory a fifteen-foot tall marble machinery, neglecting to assign its sub- broken column.11 The newspaper report jects any role in creating a new political of the unveiling remarks upon the suitably order. Instead, Peter Matthews is extolled rainy weather on the mournful occasion. as one who “was known and respected as

11 We know nothing about that group’s membership beyond its chairing by one T.W. Anderson. An account of the ceremony occurs in “Notice of Necropolis Ceremonies,” (Toronto) Globe (29 June 1893), 8. A broken column indicates a life cut short in Victorian funerary architecture; it often marked the grave of a child. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 137 an honest and prosperous farmer always J.D. Edgar, MP to draw this secular ver- ready to do his duty to his adopted coun- sion of a religious schema, and point out try and [who] died as he lived—a patriot.” the optimistic teleology surrounding the Lount “had lived as a patriot and died for deaths of the column’s subjects. Signifi- popular rights.” No great chain of causal- cantly, cheers greeted quite another mo- ity is graven in stone. Mr. Tait may have ment in Edgar’s address. He had noted identified their deaths with the eventual that these two Upper-Canadian rebels triumph of their cause and of Responsi- had endured the death penalty while a ble Government. Those in charge of the Quebec rebel, George-Etienne Cartier, marble column went on to a knight- felt no irresistible hood and nearly be- impulse to draw came prime minister. his far-reaching Resurrecting inter- moral. The pair provincial grudges are commemorat- charged a crowd to a ed as martyrs, but greater degree than witnesses to a mis- did apotheosizing the carriage of justice dead or idealizing the rather than figures present. Obviously, whose sacrifice— the myth of 1837 in the manner offered the prospect of the Christian of providential opti- Atonement—ena- mism (their deaths bled their follow- gained us our liber- ers to enjoy their ties). Equally as pat- present benefits. ent, the fund-raisers Here stood a and inscribers de- political culture clined to utilize this steeped in Chris- consolation, prefer- tian observance. ring instead to re- Yet the Reverend member the pair as Dewart (we have patriots rather than no initials to iden- as forerunners and tify him by) for- Necropolis Memorial. Courtesy of Toronto Public atoners. And with bore to draw that Library no recorded notice familiar trope of consolation at a moment taken of William Lyon Mackenzie. when an invocation of a progressive desti- Where does this leave us? With John ny would have seemed not only appropri- Charles Dent. His popular, 1885 Story ate, but even necessary. It remained to the of the Upper Canadian Rebellion drew secular figures, chiefly principal speaker the conflict in polemical terms. Doughty 138 ONTARIO HISTORY

heroes fought a demonized opposition, changes which the insurrection was the satisfying a public’s demand for a simple chief agent in producing.”13 That weld how- story, simply (if voluminously) told. The ever, failed initially to hold. Dent’s work of dedication of the Necropolis memorial twenty-three years later, so supportive of reflects this thinking. So the Rebellion the Rebellion, so critical of the role Mac- has been redeemed, its providential na- kenzie played there, indicates just how ture now a matter of widespread assent. limited was the acceptance of Mackenzie’s But William Lyon Mackenzie takes no prominence in the evolutionary process. pride of place there. No hero in this ac- This lack of acceptance explains why John count, Dent describes Mackenzie as pos- King, another Mackenzie son-in-law and sessed of Mackenzie King’s father, felt compelled an active but ill-balanced organization. His to publish a 150-page pamphlet savaging sympathies were too quick and strong for Dent’s work. John King placed his hero in his judgement, and he frequently acted from very unlikely company, accusing Dent of impulse and hot blood. From his cradle to his “bigotry” against John Beverley Robinson, grave he was never fit to walk alone and with- John Strachan and William Lyon Mac- out guidance through any great emergency.12 kenzie. Indeed, John King viewed “[T]his In hindsight, the Necropolis column laid bulky book [as] partisan from the circum- what turned out to be the foundations ference to the core.”14 No matter; support for Mackenzie King’s enthronement of of the Rebellion had yet to entail any sup- his grandfather. Yet Dent’s infantiliza- port of Mackenzie that went beyond his tion of Mackenzie helps explain why any family. The join came unstuck. celebration of Mackenzie was going to The Necropolis column and Dent’s take time to bring about. history alike reflect that while the rebels of Inserting Mackenzie’s figure atop that 1837 had become the heroes of 1885-93, ideological base was not going to be easy. no single rebel had been marked out for As long ago as 1862, son-in-law Charles distinction, especially the rebel whom the Lindsey had attempted to couple together Mackenzie family had in mind. The liter- the Rebellion and Mackenzie’s role in it as ary arm of that conviction had disdained foundations of responsible government: Mackenzie; its monumental one ignored “Much of the liberty Canada has enjoyed him. But a plinth had been raised. The since 1840, and more of the wonder- need to personalize events, to picture them ful progress she has made, are due to the in terms of human figureheads was bound

12 John Charles Dent, The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion; largely derived from original sources and documents (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885), I, 118. 13 Charles Lindsey, William Lyon Mackenzie. “Edited with numerous additions by G.G.S. Lindsey.” (Toronto: Morang, 1910 [1862]), xiv. 14 John King, The other side of the “story” : being some reviews of Mr. J.C. Dent’s first volume of “The story of the Upper Canadian rebellion” : and the letters in the Mackenzie-Rolph controversy : also, a critique, hith- erto unpublished, on “The new story” (Toronto: James Murray, 1886), 3. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 139 eventually to place a man’s statue atop that tional liberty which British subjects enjoy foundation. But for the present, that figure today have only been obtained by agitation and in some cases by the exercise of force. … was not going to be Mackenzie’s. Few will deny today, in the light of history, The Textbooks and Popular that the cause of constitutional government in Canada was materially advanced by the Histories Speak action of Wm. Lyon Mackenzie and that y 1900, things were changing. A straw results have justified the rising on 1837.15 Bin the wind, an announcement in the A metropolitan daily had now pro- Globe indicated that a revision was taking claimed that Mackenzie was the most place, and on a popular level. Beneath a prominent player in a rebellion that had large headline, RISING OF MACKEN- advanced Canadian freedom. Whatever ZIE, followed by the encouraging subhead, these public utterances may tell us about YOUNG CANADA TAKING AN IN- the shift in public opinion toward Mac- TEREST IN HISTORY, the paper ran a kenzie, the fact that the Globe editor’s state- lengthy item quoting a query by Miss Liz- ment was made to a group of high school zie Scott, a teacher at Galt (ON) Central students leads us to consider just what had High School. Miss Scott had requested on been going on in their history classes. 7 December that the editor forward to her As we might expect, the high school any “pointers you can” that would assist textbooks changed their views over the her students (three boys and three girls) in years, both about the rebels themselves their forthcoming debate. The resolution: and the roles they played in the master “Was W.L. Mackenzie justified in the re- narrative of Upper Canadian history’s bellion of 1837 and 1838?” To which the climax: the appearance of responsible editor, John Willison replied with a few government. Narrative logic assumed hundred words in the affirmative, which that responsible government’s appear- concluded with a mention that the stand- ance provided the destination for any ard works on the subject were those by charting of pre-Confederation politics. Lindsey and Dent. Despite his yoking of Opinion therefore centered on the ques- two sources differing in their estimate of tion of the degree to which the Rebellion Mackenzie, Willison spoke with no am- hastened that epiphany. Once this ques- bivalence about his estimate of the rebel’s tion had been answered, it remained only role in the evolution of the desired goal: to assign points to any rebel’s role in that History proves that the rights of constitu- process.16 W.J. Robertson’s 1892 Public

15 “Rising of Mackenzie,” (Toronto) Globe (11 December 1900), 4. 16 By the time we are discussing, the terms in which the debate had been set, especially the widespread adoption of the epithet “Family Compact” had skewed the argument in the rebels’ favour. This major as- pect of a historical re-naming is not my concern here. The writings of the late Graeme Patterson, to whose scholarship I am profoundly indebted, provide ample and original discussion of these matters. See espe- cially, his “An enduring Canadian myth: Responsible Government and the Family Compact,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12:2 (1977), 3-16; History and Communications. Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, the Interpretation of History. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 136-69. 140 ONTARIO HISTORY

School History of England and Canada, Beverley Robinson. In fact, the series after a glance at the Rebellion, shrouded compounded its bias by inserting Lind- its eventual outcome in vagueness: years sey’s hagiographic volume of forty years would pass after the Rebellion before previous (see above), updating it with a a “full measure of responsible govern- lengthy appendix by another descendant, ment” came about. David Duncan’s 1905 one that highlighted Mackenzie’s “advo- textbook offered a more precise dating, cacy of those great constitutional reforms that of 1848 and Lord Elgin’s call to which are inseparably connected with Baldwin and Lafontaine to form a gov- our present system of government” (p. ernment for the United upon 526). Clearly, only Responsible Govern- the occasion of W.H. Draper’s electoral ment’s advocates figured in the nation’s defeat.17 By 1897, the popular historian growth.19 W.H.P. Clement’s version of history for As the Globe’s remarks attest, the high school students had unequivocally Galt Central debaters at the end of 1900 restored Lindsey’s coupling: could have reckoned that the affirmative If the rebellion in the two Canadas led—as just might be the winning side of their no doubt it did lead—to Lord Durham’s contest. By 1914, W.L. Grant’s Ontario report, and so to the enlargement of colonial High School History of Canada could as- self-government, then not only Canada but sume this as well, casting Durham as the British colonies the world over should have a proximate cause but leaving no doubt kindly feeling for Papineau and Mackenzie.18 that the Rebellion had served as the pri- Kenneth Windsor’s definitive survey as- mal.20 An observer could argue that by sures us that progressivist assumptions 1910, a pro-Mackenzie stream of opinion underlay all (Upper) Canadian history had made its way into respectability. In in its early days. J. Castell Hopkins and fact, the Lindsey volume itself appeared William Kingsford were prominent in the prestigious “Makers of Canada” se- in this Whiggish cavalcade, which like ries. The suppression through the courts many a procession was also distinguished of a later, competing, less adulatory bi- by those whom it excluded. As Wind- ography by W.D. LeSueur has been told sor notes, the prestigious “Makers of elsewhere.21 Into that vacuum, reflecting Canada” series barred from its precincts the shift in opinion, sprang a product of such figures as John Strachan and John family piety that was—in its latest rein-

17 W.J. Robertson, Public School History of England and Canada (Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1892), 250-51; David M. Duncan, The Story of the Canadian People (Toronto: Morang, 1905), 183. 18 W.H.P. Clement, The History of the Dominion of Canada (Toronto: Wm Briggs, 1897), 244. 19 Kenneth N. Windsor, “Historical Writing in Canada (to 1920),” in Literary History of Cana- da. Canadian Literature in English, edited by Carl F. Klinck. 2nd Edition. Vol. I. (Toronto: Univer- sity of Toronto Press, 1976), 229-40. 20 W.L. Grant, Ontario High School History of Canada (Toronto: T. Eaton, 1914), 207-11. 21 A.B. McKillop, “Introduction. The Critic as Historian.”A Critical Spirit. The Thought of Wil- liam Dawson LeSueur. Ed. A.B. McKillop. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), 247-67. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 141 carnation—given the seal of public ap- Lyon Mackenzie among the notable mov- proval. The figure who had sought to be ers of this force. the breaker of Canada was about to be Not every one wanted to do that. translated into one of its makers. George M. Wrong’s 1921 Ontario Pub- Shortly afterward, public sculptor lic School History of Canada was not only Walter S. Allward had enshrined Reform’s influential in the way that textbooks are, twin heroes, Baldwin and Lafontaine on it also represented the work of a well-con- Parliament Hill in 1914, in poses natural- nected figure whose importance at the istic rather than heroic. Seven years previ- University of Toronto was matched by his ous, Stephen Leacock’s remarkably uncriti- status in Toronto high society. In 1908, cal Makers of Canada volume on Baldwin, Wrong had played a minor role in the sup- Lafontaine, Hincks had performed this pression of W.D. LeSueur’s “unfriendly” task of consecration. If, as Leacock’s intro- biography of William Lyon Mackenzie. duction to the volume put it, ““Time has Wrong’s textbook’s interpretation rode the shown [that] … the conception of respon- crest of the wave that had been building for sible government—has proved the cor- decades. Despite his marriage to a daughter nerstone of the British imperial system,” of Edward Blake and the impeccable Lib- then Baldwin and Lafontaine and Hincks eral credentials that fact conveys, Wrong had in fact guided a global movement.22 shied away from any exculpatory portrayal Allward’s memorial echoed in bronze of Mackenzie, and adroitly evaded the op- sentiments that had become an historical portunity to write a biography of him.23 textus receptus. To be sure, Mackenzie had He noted instead that “in demanding that been excluded from the pantheon, but no the people of Canada should govern them- one any longer doubted that the figures selves,” Mackenzie has been “vindicated by within that pantheon had exerted world- time.” But not in his embrace of American historical influence. Leacock, Canada’s aid, where “he was running counter to best-known non-fiction writer had placed the deepest convictions of the Canadian Upper Canada’s political history at the people.”24 Wrong’s caution seems exces- center of the British Empire’s evolution. sive, and not at all surprising in a figure so Other, less prestigious forums than the meticulously circumspect. Textbook and Makers of Canada series would advance popular historians alike appeared on the this thesis. It remained to place William verge of canonizing Mackenzie.

22 Stephen Leacock, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks Responsible Government. (Toronto: Morang, 1907), ix. 23 According to LeSueur, Wrong had been offered the Makers of Canada slot for a biography of Mackenzie. He demurred on the grounds that such a project was bound to incur controversy, which would in turn lessen his effectiveness as a professor of Canadian history. William Dawson LeSueur, “Preface by the Author,” in William Lyon Mackenzie: A Reinterpretation. Carleton Library No. 111. (Toronto: Macmillian of Canada, 1979), xxxiii. The reissue of the old Lindsey biography in the “Makers” series in fact attested to just how uncontroversial a figure Mackenzie had become. 24 Wrong, Ontario Public School History, 232. 142 ONTARIO HISTORY

A Critical History Silenced ally of King remarked to LeSueur “some of our friends think that you intend .B. McKillop tells in detail the story to slaughter Mackenzie King’s distin- Athat I briefly summarize, here and guished grandfather.”26 That King ally, elsewhere.25 Over a period of five years, publisher George Morang, withheld the during a time when King was advancing author’s manuscript from him for three within his parliamentary career and first years, returning it only after LeSueur suc- ascending to Cabinet (the Labour min- cessfully litigated. Morang’s rationale? istry), he masterminded the suppression His advance to LeSueur allowed him control over any man- uscript submitted. The Supreme Court finally threw out that argu- ment, pushing King into successfully em- ploying another argu- ment, one calculated to chill later historical researchers. The Lindsey fam- ily—controllers of the papers that LeSueur made use of—success- fully contended that LeSueur gained access to them after repre- “Rebels marching down Yonge Street to attack Toronto, December 1837” by C.W. Jeffreys, The Picture Gallery of Canadian History, Vol. 3, 1830-1900 (Toronto: senting himself as a “fa- Ryerson Press, 1950), 23. vourable” biographer. The court supported of LeSueur’s biography. William Lyon the family’s contention that LeSueur had Mackenzie: a Reinterpretation portrays misrepresented himself. It allowed the its subject more as a quarrelsome but Lindseys both to smother LeSueur’s right compelling and at times necessary nui- to publish his biography of Mackenzie sance than a prophet. Employing first a and to retain possession of any notes ac- whispering campaign, then a luncheon- cumulated during his research. From his table confrontation, then the law, King desk at the Rockefeller Foundation in silenced the unbeliever. The low drama December 1915, King proclaimed per- nonetheless provoked high feeling. An sonal victory in a jubilant telegram: “Ac-

25 See MacKillop, A Critical Spirit, and Duffy, “The Grandfathering of William Lyon Mackenzie King.” 26 George Morang to LeSueur, 5 September 1907, quoted in A.B. McKillop ed., A Critical Spirit, 257. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 143

cept heartiest congratulation on a splen- Ontario’s Minister of Highways T.B. Mc- did victory am delighted.”27 Questen—was commissioned as part of a Within the context of the present series of highway and tourist sites advanc- argument, LeSeuer’s silencing demon- ing the message that Canada’s national strates how half full the glass of victory culture differed from that of the U.S. We must have seemed to Mackenzie King. know that McQuesten visited Mackenzie On the one hand, the law had confirmed King in , seeking from him a list that control Grandfather’s public memo- of apt Biblical passages to engrave upon ry now rested in the family’s hands. Pro- the arch. He also gave him final approval fessional historians now faced consider- on the arch’s dedicatory inscription (see able obstacles in registering any weighty above). One might expect two Liber- dissent from this hagiography. On the als in power, one federally and the other other, no professional historian rushed provincially to chat about such matters into that vacuum. The Makers of Canada of mutual interest as the erection of his- series had to resort to a biography writ- torical memorials with nationalist inten- ten by a non-professional backed by a tions. But these discussions went beyond clumsily-inserted familial apologia in or- polite chat, as we have seen, assigning to der to fill the Mackenzie slot. A scholar the prime minister control over the ver- of the timidity of Wrong still did not feel bal aspect of the arch’s memorial intent. compelled to produce anything more That assignment could never have hap- than a lukewarm defense of Mackenzie pened had the prime minister not paid in a textbook published more than five close—perhaps supervisory—attention years after the family’s victory. That fact to the monument’s visual aspects. indicates just how reluctant professional That said, we have no record of who historians were to award Grandfather originated the arch’s panoply of heroes the leading role that Mackenzie King that culminates in William Lyon Mac- and family had cast him in. What could kenzie’s submission of his grievances to not be printed on paper could be cast in the Assembly. Certainly Mackenzie King bronze, however. could not have composed a narrative more congenial to his own view of Upper Niagara’s Narrative Arch Canada’s history. Hypothesizing an alter- e know very little about the proc- native series of panels focuses our under- Wess by which Ontario’s version of standing of just how partisan a reading nation-building came to award pride of of history appears on the arch. The first place to William Lyon Mackenzie. Jean three panels (opening: exploration; sec- Coutu’s superb “Vehicles of National- ond: U.E.L. settlement; third: 1812) fol- ism” shows in detail how the Niagara low what we may call the Loyalist para- Arch—brain-child of a staunch Liberal, digm. Exploration may have been largely

27 McKillop, A Critical Spirit, 278. 144 ONTARIO HISTORY

a French affair, but it bore fruit only with historical reality rather than mythic im- the arrival of the U.E.L. settlers and the peratives, but the panels thus far embody establishment of British institutions that again that classic pattern of Upper Cana- their appearance entailed. The second dian Loyalism: defeat in a revolutionary panel, first drawn by popular historical struggle followed by the successful de- illustrator C.W. Jeffreys, then moulded fense of the new land handed over to the by Emanuel Hahn, and finally sculpted defeated, who then turn it into a bastion in bas-relief on stone by Louis Tempo- of British institutions. rale, significantly replicates the style and For all their differences, John Bever- figuration of an earlier Jeffreys series on ley Robinson, John Strachan and Egerton the Loyalists’ arrival. The story told so Ryerson would have found themselves far follows the path set out by such nine- roughly in agreement here. That pat- teenth-century historical novels as Wil- tern of settlement and successful defense liam Kirby’s The Golden Dog (1877) and defined their society and its role within Gilbert Parker’s The Seats of the Mighty a global empire that gave that colony’s (1893), in which l’ancien régime yields petty affairs a greater significance.28 Such through a process of moral evolution a trio might have come up with some to the successor regime. The moralistic subject or other for a fourth panel that message of the historical novels may be would deliver the ultimate significance absent from the panels, but they main- of that settlement and its defense. But tain a pattern of natural, continuous suc- the posturings of a gadfly who enlisted cession. The panels assume continuity American aid in his attempt to overthrow rather than disruption as a hallmark of British institutions could hardly have Canadian history. The French explorers been their first choice. Of course, the were part of a historical evolutionary pat- province had changed, and of course that tern they could never have discerned, but ”myth of Tory origins” that Dennis Lee which bestowed significance upon their mocked as “full of lies and blanks” could actions. From these premises, the third no longer be sustained through public panel conveys the final act in the Loyal- imagery.29 The rebellion itself and to an ist myth, but without the actual Loyalist extent Mackenzie’s role in it had been presence. A British regular, a seaman and subsumed within a greater progressive a native ally stand on guard. The absence mythic framework of the sort invoked by of a settler militiaman as a prime partici- Willison of the Globe. pant in Upper Canada’s defense reflects Thus, the Niagara Arch grafted Mac-

28 I follow here the outline of Loyalist self-imaging and Imperialist imagination treated by me in Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Images of Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 29-43, 55-69 and Sounding the Iceberg: an Essay on Canadian Historical Novels (Toronto: ECW Press, l986), 11-23. Jeffreys’ U.E.L. settlement series:The Picture Gallery of Canadian History. Vol. 2 1763-1830 (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1945), # 23, 24, 25. 29 Dennis Lee “When I went up to Rosedale,” The Gods(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 17. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 145 kenzie within the Ontario primal of looking at narrative that is truly sequen- settlement and defense. Now Ontario’s tial, but only adventitiously so. After all, achievement no longer lay in its perpetu- it takes a very great wrench in meaning ation of British political institutions in to posit that the French “discovery” of North America. That triumph lay rather Niagara Falls was the prelude to Loyal- in Ontario’s alteration of those institu- ist Upper Canada. The monument’s nar- tions, its “pioneer[ing]” of “a system of rative is not tightly plotted. Mackenzie’s responsible government which became grand remonstrance neither “belongs” to, the cornerstone of the British Common- nor can it be argumentatively excluded wealth of Nations.” We know who wrote from the series of panels. They represent that inscription, and we have to admire propaganda, not rigorous exposition of Mackenzie King’s rhetorical sleight of historical consequences. What interests hand in plucking the concept of pioneer- instead is the cultural politics that have ing out of the muck of laborious settle- settled around this panel. Mackenzie had ment (the stuff of pioneer museums) and by then become a “safe” enough histori- idealizing it within the development of cal personage for his prime ministerial political institutions (the stuff of civics grandson to help parachute into a leading textbooks). role within a pageant of Ontario history. Like the acid used by the cleaners of This swelling progress that the provincial stone, Mackenzie’s appearance within government—in the institutional guise this new context erases the violence of of the highway ministry—had decided agitation and rebellion from his image. to image on the arch served as the prov- We will not find here the sentiments of ince’s self-image on display. Defending a contemporary Marxist historian extol- Canada (panel three) was no longer the ling the armed struggle for democracy in province’s primal. Instituting a system of Upper Canada.30 On the arch, violence self-government—thus linking a Canadi- within the peaceable kingdom has been an quiet revolution to an American noisy directed outward—against foreign inva- one—bound visitor and native alike in sion—while the memory of civil conflict a reverence for representative institu- has been relegated to the halls of assem- tions. The border could continue to be bly rather than to the tavern where the undefended; mutually, L/liberally unit- rebel forces formed themselves up for ing both nations. Where better could their disastrous march. the memory of William Lyon Mackenzie Does it matter whether the final pan- flourish than under those new, post-his- el “fits” the preceding three? We are not torical conditions?

30 Stanley B. Ryerson, 1837. The Birth of Canadian Democracy (Toronto: Francis White, 1937). The Canadian Left’s armed support for the Loyalist side in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War—Ryerson dedicates his monograph to them—took the form of the “Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion” in the International Brigade, an entitlement that Mackenzie King could neither control nor relish. Ontario’s acknowledgement of the “Mac-Paps” takes the form of a very humble ground-hugging plaque in the vicinity of the towering Mackenzie memorial. 146 ONTARIO HISTORY

II about the hostile attention his act of an- iewed in that rosy, continentalist cestral homage might attract. The other Vglow, the inclusion of the Hunters on question considers the implications of the arch need not have unduly bothered the enigmatic nature of the monument’s Mackenzie King. After all, foreign free- most prominent figure. Mackenzie’s por- dom fighters occupy an honoured niche trait bust that rests atop a tall base in the in many a national, revolutionary myth. memorials left foreground stands in front My supposition is that it was as “fighters” of a figure resting on a base that gives him that the names most discomfited Mac- a twelve-foot elevation. So sizeable an ar- kenzie King. Unlike Stanley Ryerson’s tifact commands a viewer’s attention. It history, the monument leaves the nature will also command ours, once we have of the successful “struggle” comfortably discussed the anxiety occasioned by the vague. Only the odd Canadian versed in monument as a whole. his own history or the astoundingly rare Because the project belonged to its American visitor possessed of that knowl- patron from the beginning, we have no edge would even realize that the struggle problem assigning authorship where any had at one point taken a violent turn in aspect of the Mackenzie memorial is con- which some men perished and others saw cerned. The wording on the base—a near- their lives and fortunes wrecked. Some copy of that on the Niagara Arch—the kinds of events are best not recalled too positioning of the monument itself with- specifically on public columns, at least in in the Ontario via sacra on the grounds cultures on the brink of global war. of the legislative assembly, the commis- As we have seen, this would all be sioning of the sculptor, the use of funds remedied. The Queen’s Park memorial donated by as powerful an assembly of in- graced the west side of the legislative dividuals as the country could have come buildings two years after the Niagara up with at that time, all lay under Mac- Arch’s unveiling. The planning of the in- kenzie King’s control by the time of the stallation, the relationship between pa- statue’s installation.31 The wording does tron and artist, I have covered in detail not quite assign the arrival of responsible elsewhere. Beyond summarizing the stat- government solely to Mackenzie. Yet the ue and its genesis, two other aspects of the singling out of his name, plus his appear- memorial require discussion here. First ance as the sole historical (as opposed to we need to examine Mackenzie King’s allegorical) figure on the site certainly apparently groundless attack of nerves implies his primacy in the struggle. The

31 TO COMMEMORATE THE STRUGGLE FOR RESPONSIBLE/GOVERNMENT IN UPPER CANADA AND THE PIONEERS OF A/POLITICAL SYSTEM WHICH/UNITES IN FREE ASOCIATION THE NATIONS OF THE/BRITISH COMMONWEALTH. IN MEMORY OF/WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE. 1795. 1861./FIRST MAYOR OF TORONTO 1834. MEM- BER FOR/ YORK IN THE LEGISLATURE OF UPPER CANADA 1828 1836/AND FOR HALDI- MAND IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF CANADA 1851. 1858. Commission by the William Lyon Mackenzie Centennial Committee, 1940. mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 147

replication of the Niagara material func- indicating how acceptable Mackenzie’s tions as a kind of pentimento; the new me- role in the rebellion had become. Anoth- morial’s recounting of Mackenzie and his er high school contest provides a glimpse career is the brushstroke that effectively into fear driving both the committee and covers the earlier motto, refocusing its en- its behind-the-scenes controller. Memo- ergies toward a single hero. rial Committee Secretary J.L. Wilson’s The pleasure that Mackenzie King apparently innocuous suggestion that took from the monument was not the committee sponsor an essay contest marred by any inclusion of the wrong set that would heighten interest and under- among any list of names. While he had standing of Mackenzie’s achievements wanted the structure installed by 1937, provoked a stormy response from Sena- and missed out on a grand opening when tor A.C. Hardy, Committee Chair. Such it was installed in 1940—lest such an oc- a competition “throw[s] the whole thing casion seem a distraction from the war ef- too much into politics. Amongst the es- fort—he took comfort in what the statue says and probably among the winners, symbolized to him. He had inherited the there is a certainty of certain political ancestral mantle, and done his duty both or provocative statements being made. to Mother and to Grandfather. Ironi- Above everything I want to avoid this.”32 cally, Mackenzie King had over the years What would constitute provocation? defended in the House, sculptor Walter Opinions denying Mackenzie’s centrality Allward’s many delays in his production in the process of acquiring responsible of the Vimy Memorial. Now it was his government? In an essay contest geared personal project whose deadlines All- to exactly that conclusion? Or could ward had ignored. Still, it seems to us provocation lurk instead in the possibil- now that a small dedicatory ceremony in ity of the contest’s attracting media at- 1940 wouldn’t have generated the kind tention, which would in turn provoke of negative reaction that Mackenzie King unfriendly comment? seems to have feared. That fear, seem- The committee’s records tremble ingly groundless but which nonetheless with anxiety on the part of fundrais- haunted Mackenzie King and his stand- ers, prime minister and sculptor alike. ins on the Memorial Committee, may Senator Hardy feared that “Toronto’s have originated in uneasiness about the prejudice and hatred” would forestall process of historical revisionism that we any Mackenzie memorial, as if John Stra- have been describing in this essay. chan and John Beverley Robinson still As we have seen above, a high-school stalked the assembly.33 Certain enough debate had provoked a media response of the rightness of his cause not to appear

32 AO, R.G. 3-10-0-1024. Box 307. Mackenzie Memorial Correspondence, Hardy to Wilson, 26 Oc- tober 1936. 33 AO, R.G. 3-10-0- 495. Box 259. Hepburn Private Correspondence, A.C.Hardy to Mitchell Hep- burn, 9 March 1936. 148 ONTARIO HISTORY

finicky in his misuse of fact, Wilson as- … I should hate to have him disappear sured Eric Brown of the National Gallery from the scene before the monument is that politics was playing no part in this finished?” Could he have been serious cultural endeavour.34 Hardy warned Wil- when he confided to Public Works min- son “we shall probably have to contend ister Harry Nixon “strictly between our- with a good deal of political attacks.” selves it is just possible that some fanatic Sure enough, the feeblest fulfillment of might try to wreak a hundred year old this prediction came about a month lat- vengeance on this structure.”36 Fanatic? er when an anonymous sheet arrived in In Toronto? Over an event a century the mail, headlined “Lest They Forgot.” past? Surely that weight of anxiety had It purportedly quoted William Lyon to have trickled downward. Mackenzie Mackenzie expressing regret over his act King’s first try at the canonization of of rebellion and apologizing to a British Grandfather had been marred. Nothing statesman. “[W]e doubtless will be up was going to go wrong here, and keep- against something of this kind,” fretted ing everyone concerned in a state of Wilson.35 perpetual agitation may have seemed an Who would cancel the Santa Claus efficient management tool to Mackenzie parade on the complaint of Ebenezer King. It appears as logical an explanation Scrooge? What can account for such as any for the perturbation afflicting all anxiety? Were the proponents of the me- concerned. And the role of underdog is morial a-tremble at the audacity of their always congenial in public life. appropriation of responsible government Even the most deviously aggressive of to a single—highly contested—figure? managers cannot create symbolic mean- Walter Allward may have been nervous ing where none readily appears. Whatev- about “the possible state of public opin- er the enigmatic nature of the ploughboy ion which may be antagonistic to the figure on the Mackenzie Memorial may erection of a Memorial of this kind next have meant to the sculptor, it certainly spring,” but the men we are quoting were bewildered its intended audience. With- hardened political operatives. Who was out rehearsing in detail what I have said Hardy trying to fool with his apprehen- elsewhere, the meaning of the ploughboy sion that he feared to disturb the prime puzzled not only educated members of minister on this matter, crushed as he was the audience and provincial cabinet min- “under the great strain of the present day isters. It seems to have eluded the sculp-

34 Wilson to Brown, 10 September 1936, “C. Boyanowski Research William Lyon Mackenzie Monu- ment,” Edward P. Taylor Research Library, Art Gallery of Ontario. 35 AO, Mackenzie Memorial Correspondence. Hardy to Wilson, 26 October 1936; 21 November 1936. 36 AO, Mackenzie Memorial Correspondence.” Wilson to Hardy, 19 September 1939; Hardy to Wil- son, 20 September 1939. Public Works Files, 1940 “Memorial—W.L. Mackenzie”, Hardy to Nixon, 13 May 1940. “Mackenzie Memorial Correspondence,” Wilson to Hardy, 27 May 1940, mackenzie king’s monumental quest, 1893-1940 149 tor himself, an artist unusually articulate testimony interrupted his soliloquy, no where the meaning of his allegorical fig- contradictory claim disturbed the rever- ures was concerned. His placement of his ent atmosphere. Wasn’t that enough? twenty Vimy figures into such groupings The 1893 broken column in the Ne- as “the Spirit of Sacrifice,” “the Defend- cropolis had resurrected Upper Canada’s ers,” and “Canada Mourning” indicate a revolutionary martyrs, wresting them out creator not at all shy about naming his al- of the darkness and into the light. It had legorical creatures. Yet what more sensi- been a long march from there, from a me- tive barometer of Allward’s possible exas- morial mute about Grandfather’s deeds, peration and impatience have we than his mute in the very cemetery where he lay telephoned dismissal of the queries about buried. There had to have been a soften- his figure’s significance: “One can put ing in the inscription of public memory. own interpretation on it.” It is “[m]ore or A false start had to have been made, and less a background for Mackenzie.”37 then repudiated. The opposition had to The question of the figure’s intelligi- have been silenced. But it had all worked bility concerns us here only insofar as it out. represents Mackenzie King’s indifference William Lyon Mackenzie King’s to the question, at least as far as the writ- 1940 ancestral memorial signified impos- ten record is concerned. Certainly the ingly in stone and bronze that cultural Prime Minister of a nation at war had and genuine politics alike had concurred more pressing concerns, but he had taken in William Lyon Mackenzie’s apotheosis. time from them to discuss the memorial Time, historical amnesia, partisan po- on numerous occasions. Was he simply lemic, behind-the-scenes manipulation unwilling to undertake another stab at and ancestral piety had finally grasped perfection, since his principal aim lay the opportunity for a substantial rewrite fulfilled? Grandfather now occupied his of Ontario history. Who controlled the very own site. No other historical person- present, controlled the past. Nothing had age blocked the view of him, no written been lost, finally, save intelligibility.

37 AO, “Memorial—W.L. Mackenzie 1940,” Quoted in J.G. Gibson to Campbell, 29 September 1940.