biographies, Tommy Douglas by Doris French Shackleton, and Tommy Douglas: The Road to Jerusalem by Thomas H. McLeod & Ian McLeod; and a delightful collection of anecdotes, Touched by Tommy, edited by Ed and Pemrose Whelan. Thanks very much to Doris French, the McLeods, and the Whelans for permission to use quotes from their books.
I’d also like to acknowledge insights into Tommy’s character gleaned from an unpublished doctoral dissertation, From Preacher to Politician: T.C. Douglas’ Transition, by Jan (John) Oussoren.
Thanks also to Joe Fafard and the Saskatchewan Property Management Corp. for permission to photograph and reproduce the bust of Tommy Douglas by Joe Fafard; and to Macmillan Canada for permission to quote the line in Chapter 4 from W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind. (Copyright © W.O. Mitchell, 1947.) Reprinted by permission of Macmillan Canada, an imprint of CDG Books Canada Inc.
Dave Margoshes
Contents
2 Boxing Rings and Grease Paint
5 Trading the Pulpit for Politics
11 A New Challenge, and Putting Down the Sword
Chronology of Tommy Douglas (1904-1986)
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green and pleasant land.
– William Blake
“Improving people’s economic conditions is not an end in itself, it’s a means to an end…. I never thought a man could save his soul if his belly was empty or that he could think about things like beauty and goodness if he had a toothache.”
– Tommy Douglas in conversation, 1982
“I am conscious of the fact that it is not customary for ministers to take an active part in the affairs of the nation; but I also remember that there was One who went about doing good so that the common people heard Him gladly. And I would not be worthy of His name if I did not take up the sword on behalf of the underpaid and underprivileged. I therefore dedicate myself this evening to the service of this constituency….”
– Tommy Douglas in his first nomination speech, November 4, 1933
National Archives of Canada/PA172625
Tommy Douglas (at right) dressed as King Arthur, along with (from left) Conservative Leader Robert Stanfield, Stanley Knowles (as Merlin) and Audrey Schreyer (as Queen Guinevere) in a 1971 Parliamentary Christmas skit, “Chamelot,” authored by Stanfield. Tommy was once urged to take up an acting career, “but I never really liked the idea of being an echo of someone else’s lines. I wanted to make up my own lines in life.”
1
An Immigrant Twice Over
The cold Winnipeg wind whistles around the corner of the house like a freight train bearing down on them, and little Tommy Douglas hunches his thin shoulders, willing the wool of his coat to be thicker and warmer somehow. It’s uncomfortable in the sled, the cold and wind, the ice beneath the runners so close to him, every bump shooting through his spine and zeroing-in on his sore knee. But complaint is the farthest thought from his mind. Rather, he’s filled with gratitude and wonder at the stoic, silent strength of his two friends who, also uncomplaining, every morning help him into the sled and pull him, across frozen streets, the quarter mile to school.
The pain in his knee is nothing new to Tommy, but just about everything else is. The first years of his young life were spent in the bosom of his father’s family in Falkirk, Scotland, where Tommy was the eldest son of an eldest son of an eldest son, all part of a large working-class family of iron moulders. Then, when Tommy was not yet seven, the family packed up their belongings and moved halfway across the world to Winnipeg, on the Canadian frontier. It was 1911 and the world was very different than it is today.
Tommy had been small and sickly almost from birth, and a serious bout with pneumonia when he was six had only made him weaker. Shortly after that, he fell against a stone and hurt the knee of his right leg, an injury that would nag at him for the rest of his life. Osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone, set in and there followed a series of operations on the leg. There was no money for a hospital. Instead, the doctor in his long frock coat and black top hat came to the house. The kitchen was the operating room, with the surgery performed on the table where the family had eaten breakfast shortly before. Young Tommy was sedated with chloroform applied to a gauze mask, his mother, grandmother, and a neighbour woman assisting. The doctor cut an incision in the flesh just above his knee and exposed the infected bone, the femur, so he could scrape it with a knife. No sooner had the doctor left then a suture came out and the wound began to bleed, causing a commotion in the family before it could be stanched.
The Douglas family was already in ferment at this time. Tommy’s father, Tom, had fallen prey to the lure of the new world and gone to Canada to check out possibilities, winding up in Winnipeg. As soon as he was settled, the family was to join him. The trip over was delayed by Tommy’s injury, but, after two more operations,
