Outside of a few aging and greying historians, few are aware today of Mackenzie King’s early work as a journalist. He spent a year as a general assignment reporter for the Toronto Globe, and then the Mail and Empire, after he had earned his B.A. from the University of Toronto. In 1897, while at the latter newspaper, King researched and wrote a blockbuster four-part series on the evils of the sweating system in Toronto. This brought him to the attention of senior members of the Laurier government and King entered the civil service in Ottawa soon after. His rise to the Prime Minister’s Office was underway.
When King was returned to power after the 1935 election, one American newspaper recalled the 10th PM’s work as a journalist. The Kansas City Star reminded readers of King’s feature on the sweating system of labour.
“In his usual thoroughgoing way, he visited the homes of the working people in the poorer quarters of the city and again observed the effect of sweating,” the paper reported. “In some houses he found letter carriers' uniforms being made under contracts awarded by the Dominion government. He found women working long hours and receiving 3 and 4 cents an hour while some contractors made profits of 100 per cent. As a result of his report a clause was inserted in government contracts ensuring the payment of such wages as were commonly paid to competent workmen in the districts where the work was carried on.”
Considering the skill King had demonstrated as a reporter early in his career, it seems no surprise that members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, in 1944, made the 10th PM an Honorary Life member.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.