No Kings, Canadian Style

Last month, we took our Graphical History Tour to the special election in Wisconsin that sent Robert La Follette Jr. to the U.S. Senate. That was so much fun, that today, we're heading north of the border to kibbitz on the  general election Canada held one month later.

"Are We Downhearted" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, Oct. 1, 1925

Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was forced to call for a general election after the budget presented by his government was rejected by the Canadian Parliament in September, 1925. King's party held the most seats in Parliament (118), but claimed a majority only because of the tepid support of the four-year-old Progressive Party (58 seats). The Conservatives led by Arthur Meighen came to the October 29 election with only 49 seats; another five seats were held by Independent Labour and United Farmers of Alberta.

"Sweeping Everything Under the Bed" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 5, 1925

The Conservatives' number one issue was their proposal to raise tariffs on imported goods, a policy opposed by the Liberals and especially the Progressives, whose constituency of prairie province farmers would be hurt by barriers to imports and exports. The issues swept under the bed here were railway and ocean rates and Senate reform.

"The Idol and the Sacrifice" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 2, 1925

Conservative stalwart A.G. Racey depicted the Liberals' low-tariff policies in the direst of ways: in one cartoon after another, his eastern Canada was at the mercy alternately of a dagger to the heart, a bludgeon to the head, and a rope to the throat.

"What a Protective Tariff Wall Has Done for the U.S.A." by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 12, 1925

In contrast, Racey pointed across the line to Calvin Coolidge's United States, where high tariffs appeared coupled with unparalleled prosperity. He could not, or would not, foresee how Herbert Hoover's United States would fare.

"Her Favorite Song" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 28, 1925

Racey's endorsement of Smoot-Hawley-style tariffs was shared by the conservative Toronto Evening Telegram, which may or may not have had an editorial cartoonist of its own; its archives for 1925 are not available on line. Sam Hunter at the Toronto Star twits the rival newspaper's editorial enthusiasm for copying the U.S. model by depicting "Tely" accompanying Meighen and Ontario Premier G. Howard Ferguson as they sing the U.S. national anthem.

"When Forke Pulls the Rope, What Happens" by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 1, 1925

In case depicting Prime Minister King stabbing, bludgeoning, and garroting hapless Quebeckers didn't work, A.G. Racey had another line of attack: arguing that the real threat came from Robert Forke, leader of the Progressive Party, the junior partner in the Prime Minister's governing coalition.

The Progressives were a fractious bunch, having suffered from party defections in the few years in elective office. By and large, however, their power center was in the central plains provinces, and were more opposed to high tariffs than the Liberals were.

"Devinette" by Passepoil (?) in Le Canada, Montréal , Oct. 8, 1925

Across town at the francophone Le Canada, its cartoonist answered Racey's October 1 question with a cartoon depicting a masked man festooned with dollar signs (a Yankee, I presume) wielding the rope around the necks of Meighen and his Québécois lieutenant, Esioff-Léon Patenaude, a former Conservative cabinet minister and member of the province's National Assembly.

I have not found any background of the cartoonist who signed his cartoons as Passepoil — son nom de plume? — if I'm reading it correctly. (I've cleaned up the out-of-focus scans of Le Canada as much as I can; I could be mistaken about the name.) The character thumbing his nose and replying "Not a darn!" is Baptiste Ladébauche, originally created by Hector Berthelot in 1877. A boisterous, roguish, and merry old peasant popularized by Albéric Bourgeois, Baptiste was the personification of French Canada, roughly the equivalent of Uncle Sam for the U.S.

Baptiste’s retort here, in English, is as it appeared in the original cartoon.

"That Meighen-Nationalist Alliance" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 16, 1925

For his part, Liberal cartoonist Hunter warns his Toronto readership that Meighen would be beholden to Patenaud and his Québécois supporters. The wedding car of Meighen and “Nationale” is tailed by “Compulsory French in Canada's Schools," "Anti-Imperialism" (opposition to British and U.S. influence), and "Quebec First.”

"What the Solid Bloc Would Let Quebec In For" by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 22, 1925

Was it the Liberals and Progressives themselves that A.G. Racey feared, or was he merely trying to gin up Quebecker resentment of Canadians out west? He certainly opposed "anti-imperialism," instead charging that Quebec would be shaken down by "Western Domination." 

The one supposedly wasteful project he listed, "the useless Hudson Bay Railway," is an 810-mile (1,300-km) track connecting Churchill, Saskatchewan to Flin-Flon, Manitoba begun some twenty years earlier to open up grain exports to Europe. Its construction was suspended during World War I, and it didn't yet reach Hudson Bay until construction resumed in 1926. The Canadian government would take over the line in 1929, eventually selling it to private ownership in 1997.

"Les Croque-Morts" by Passepoil in Le Canada, Montréal, Oct. 23, 1925

Baptiste Ladébauche holds a sheet of figures purporting to show how well the economy is doing, while the black hooded figure behind Rodolphe Monty (a Conservative candidate in Montreal), Meighen, and Patenaude holds a picket with the Conservatives' slogan, eerily prescient of one of the U.S. presidential candidates last year: "The country is in ruins; only Meighen can save it."

"A 'Party' Call" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 26, 1925

Sam Hunter also predicted that Canada would not be receptive to Conservatives' Cassandra calls of "blue ruin."

"My Moose, Mr. King" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 30, 1925

But when the votes were counted on October 29, Hunter had to acknowledge that the outcome was, at best, in doubt. Liberals lost 18 seats to the Conservatives, including Mr. King's. Progressives fared even worse, losing 36 of the 58 seats they started out with.

Yet even though the Conservatives more than doubled their previous representation in Parliament, they still fell eight members short of a majority, with none of the other parties interested in a coalition with them.

"On the Carpet" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, Oct. 31, 1925

Instead of leaving office, Prime Minister King persuaded a member of his caucus in a safe riding to resign so that King could stand for election there. The minority coalition government of Liberals and Progressives would be short-lived, thanks to a scandal already brewing in the Customs Department; but at three days, the Conservative government of Arthur Meighen that followed has the distinction of being the shortest in Canadian history.