William Lyon Mackenzie King. lian goodall

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      Willie worked on the landmark study and completed his master’s thesis on the International Typographical Union during 1897. One other very important event in his life occurred that year. During the winter he spent three weeks at St. Luke’s Hospital recovering from typhoid fever. His stay was just long enough that he became enamoured with nurse Mathilde Grosset, a woman with lovely wavy hair, an intriguing German accent, and a “beautiful Christian character.” By spring of 1898 Kings fancy had turned to thoughts of love, to the point where he was preparing to marry his nurse. He pictured himself assuming his grandfather’s mantle, fighting for right with his beloved by his side.

      His family brought him back to earth with a crash. Father, Mother, and sister Jennie provided a united front – a forceful wave of sternly reproaching letters. They reminded Willie that he had not finished his education or even begun a career, which was unfair to the girl and to himself. Furthermore, they counted on him, Father pointed out, as his “first duty is to those at home.” Even Jennie royally chastised him, but Mother wrote the most scathing letter. She complained how she was growing weary with age. She solicited his charity not so much for herself, but for his sisters. “I have built castles without number for you,” she reminded him. “Are all these dreams but to end in dreams?”

      Although King agonized, in a few months it was clear the affair would end. He spent the summer healing his wounds and expanding his prospects. “A man’s success very much depends on his social qualities,” his father had taught him. King summered with the wealthy Gerry family, tutoring their two sons. In summers previous to this he had visited Bert near Barrie, Ontario and paddled schoolgirls about on the Muskoka lakes. Now he stayed in the United States, on Rhode Island, tasted his first sip of champagne, and was within smiling distance of the cultured Miss Julia Grant, granddaughter of American Civil War hero and president, Ulysses S. Grant. King still had no position and wasn’t sure whether he would have a career in the hallowed halls of academia or elsewhere. But he was twenty-five, had education and connections, and his future, ah, his future was bright.

      He received a master’s degree from the University of Toronto in 1897 and another from Harvard in 1898. He began studies in political science and work at Harvard on a PhD. He would later complete his PhD dissertation on “Oriental Immigration to Canada,” but when Harvard granted him a travelling scholarship, he eagerly set off to discover Europe. While he took in the breathtaking scenery of Britain, France, Switzerland, and Italy, he got to know important people who might be of help one day.

      One day in late June after he had been cycling with a friend in the countryside around Rome, Rex was heading to his hotel room when the desk clerk called out “Signor King, a telegram.” With amazement he read:

      June 26, 1900

      Will you accept the editorship and management of new Government Labor Gazette, Ottawa? Begin duties early in July. Salary fifteen hundred dollars. May increase. If yes, come. Wm. Mulock

      Mulock had not forgotten him, and his proposition was intriguing. The Dominion government was just beginning to form a department for Labour. King could be in on the ground floor.

      However, Harvard was also offering him a position as lecturer in political economics. What to do, what to do? A position with the civil service with the government of Canada or one in the halls of Harvard?

      I still have work to do, King thought, remembering his unfinished doctorate. He decided to decline Canada’s offer.

3

       The Dream of My Life

      Gatineau Hills, Quebec

      Thanksgiving Day, 1900

      “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…” Bert Harper surveyed the autumn scene and quoted a few lines from Keats’s poem “To Autumn.” Just outside Ottawa, King Mountain was glorious in its autumn colours – fiery reds and oranges leaped into the blue sky. Below, the waters of King Lake winked merrily in the sunshine.

      “Any regrets, old man?” Harper asked.

      “Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find,” King continued the poem. “Regrets? On a day like this, seated in the bountiful lap of nature? But for the fact you are eating all the chicken! The cycling up here has made you as greedy as a lion.”

      William Lyon Mackenzie King, M.P. (North Waterloo, Ontario) and Minister of Labour, December 1910. A Windsor suit still hangs smartly at Laurier House, Ottawa, Ontario.

      Harper laughed, but this didn’t stop him from helping himself to another piece of chicken from the plate on the checkered picnic cloth. He lazily continued the conversation between mouthfuls. “You know what I mean, Rex. Europe, Harvard, all that! Any regrets about changing your mind and giving it up for a desk job in Ottawa?”

      “A desk job in Ottawa?” King exclaimed. “I am King of the desks!” He leapt up on a boulder and took a mock strongman stance. “I am editor of the Labor Gazette – produced, I may add, with the worthy Mr. Henry Albert Harper, my friend, colleague, and roommate. I am deputy minister of labour, the youngest deputy minister in the history of Canada. I have seen the groundwork I laid built into the Fair Wages Resolution Act, striking down the use of sweat shop labour for government contracts. I am now truly carrying on the work of my grandfather, able to influence those who might do something for the working classes!”

      “Hear, hear!” Harper encouraged, his brown eyes bright with glee.

      “Why,” King said pridefully, “if my spirit and my resolve stay strong, I may even enter public life. I am but twenty-six. One day,” he paused, looking at the grand vista before him, “should it be the will of the God of Bethel, I may be premier of this country.”

      Harper mumbled his approval through a mouthful of grapes.

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