Canada, were locked in a deadly struggle against Germany in the fields of France. World War One had been underway for two years and John believed it was the duty of every able-bodied citizen to sign up.
In March of 1916 he enlisted. By May he received his commission as Lieutenant in the Infantry of the Active Militia, and on September 23rd, he boarded the SS Lapland and sailed for England.
Lawyer for the Defence
“Do you realize that sixty-five per cent of you will be pushing up daisies within three months?”
Diefenbaker and his fellow officers were bunked down on a cold concrete floor at Napier Barracks in Shorncliffe, England. The officer who had just called out had already been wounded at the front and had recovered enough to be sent back again. He wanted to let the boys know exactly what they were in for. Artillery echoing across the Channel added doom to his words. The officer shouted his question every time the group tried to sleep.
It was a harsh welcome for Diefenbaker and a sign of what was to come for him and his friends. They continued training in England while they waited to be sent to the front. Diefenbaker worked hard at the physically exhausting labour of digging trenches – perhaps too hard – for within a month he reported spitting up blood and shortness of breath. He was diagnosed with “disordered action of the heart” and within a short time had been judged unable to serve. He returned to Canada. Like his father, John had a weak constitution, but he still wanted to do his part for “King and Country.” He tried to enroll in the Royal Flying Corps but was turned down. Sadly, several of his friends who travelled overseas never returned.
Young lawyer in Wakaw, September 1919. Diefenbaker would win his first trial and become one of Saskatchewan’s most prosperous lawyers.
His brief military career over, John could now pursue his goal of becoming a lawyer. The University of Saskatchewan, like other Canadian universities, gave credit for war service, so Diefenbaker was able to graduate. In the spring of 1919 he wrote and passed his finals and received his law degree.
“Gentlemen of the Jury, have you reached your verdict?” The Clerk of the Court asked.
“We have.”
“How say you? Is the prisoner guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty.”
With those two words in the fall of 1919 the career of John Diefenbaker, lawyer for the defence, was launched. It was his first victory, and news that the boy with the piercing blue eyes was a dynamite lawyer spread like wildfire through Wakaw and the surrounding area.
Diefenbaker had defended John Chernyski, a farmer who had stepped out of his house at twilight, seen his dogs wrestling with what looked like a fox or a coyote and had let go with both barrels of his shotgun. The animal yelped and then called out, “help!”
The victim was actually a neighbor boy who’d been crossing the field on his bike. He was wounded. Chernyski scrambled to take the boy to hospital.
Chernyski ended up in court charged with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. His wife convinced Diefenbaker to defend Chernyski – for a fee of six hundred dollars. Diefenbaker argued that the farmer had made a simple mistake: he’d gone from a brightly lit home to twilight without waiting for his eyes to adjust before pulling the trigger. There was no intention to cause another human being harm. The jury convened and decided John’s argument had been compelling enough to render a verdict of “Not guilty.” In his memoirs, John wrote that the jury was being kind to him because it was his birthday. If that truly was what motivated their decision then it was perhaps the best birthday present Diefenbaker had in his lifetime.
The small town of Wakaw, Saskatchewan, where Diefenbaker’s law office was located, had a population of six hundred. John had chosen the town after examining court records that showed Wakaw was, in his words, “particularly litigious, in court at a moment’s notice.” What better place for a lawyer to be! It was also close to Saskatoon, which made visiting his parents easy. There was another lawyer in town, but winning the Chernyski case helped John gain a good reputation.
He had sixty-two trials in his first year of practice and won half of them. He would sometimes travel between villages on an old railway handcar, but by the summer of 1920 he paid off a few of his debts, moved into a larger office and bought a Maxwell touring car at a price of $1764.00.
“It was a thing of beauty,” John later said, “if not a joy forever.” Sadly, tires in those days were not all that dependable. “The only good thing about it was its name… I lost all count of the flat tires. But I loved to tour.” The boy who used to taunt the wealthy in their newfangled automobiles now had a car of his own.
It wasn’t all about money, touring around, and winning court cases, for John there was a real stake in defending the innocent and the downtrodden: “When I accepted a case where I thought someone’s rights were being violated, often the person couldn’t pay me, or did so only after many years. From the beginning of my practice, I never charged a Métis or an Indian who came to me for advice. I was distressed by their conditions, the unbelievable poverty and the injustice done them.”
He lived frugally and threw himself into his work, though he did take the time to drive to Vancouver in 1921 and Los Angeles in 1923, long trips over unpaved roads, and he also bought a summer cottage at Wakaw Lake, where he could fish and hunt.
Diefenbaker wasn’t as lucky in love as he was in court; he remained ill at ease with young women. He blamed this shyness on his childhood: “I am sorry, particularly sorry that Elmer and I were to grow up without sisters. Given our later isolation on the homestead, our separation from other boys and girls, it became natural to think of women as a species apart, an experience destined to leave a permanent mark on one’s attitude toward them.” In those days an acquaintance described John this way: “He was tall, slim, quiet, aloof, not aggressive, a very poor mixer.” The lawyer who was known for his powerful performance in court was not so powerful on the dance floor.
John became infatuated with Olive Freeman, the young daughter of the minister at First Baptist Church in Saskatoon. He gathered up all his courage and asked her for a date, but she moved with her family to Brandon in 1921 before he could pursue a relationship. Diefenbaker later became engaged to a woman named Beth Newell, but she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died in 1924.
John himself still suffered from his own physical weaknesses. After several minor hospital stays he travelled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and had surgery for a gastric ulcer, which led to some improvement in his health. He didn’t stop working though, and he soon felt it was time to perform on a bigger stage: Prince Albert.
Prince Albert in 1924 was a raucous frontier city booming with money, politics, and law cases. Once it had dreamed of being the capital of the
