Alberta's Revolutionary Leaders

Joe Cherwinski is a history professor at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland.

One of the persistent popular myths about Alberta politics is that the
apparently conservative strain running through that province’s
development was in reality an enlightened policy knowingly promoted and
promulgated by strong, innovative leaders moved to great acts by high
ideals. With Alberta’s Revolutionary Leaders, the tradition continues.

The central argument presented by Byrne, a career civil servant and
later professor of education, is that the 1921 election began a social
and political revolution that continues to this day. Instrumental to the
beginning of the process and its continuation were four men. The first,
Henry Wise Wood, while never premier, was its guiding light, through the
United Farmers of Alberta organization and the UFA farmer government it
spawned. Then in 1924, the official affairs of government fell to the
dedicated John Brownlee, under whose direction the province gained
control over its natural resources in 1930. A sex scandal and the
Depression ended his career, and the UFA was replaced by Social Credit
in 1935, under the autocratic leadership of the charismatic William
Aberhart. His premature death in 1943 elevated his understudy, Ernest
Manning, to the premier’s chair, which he occupied until his
retirement in 1968.

While the book contains some interesting insights into the day-to-day
administration of government, particularly as it pertained to education,
it is seriously flawed in a number of ways. Foremost is Byrne’s
failure to convince the reader that the leaders he has chosen were in
fact revolutionary in their objectives or in their achievements while in
office. Streamlining government, reducing debt and taxes, encouraging
resource development, and expanding postsecondary education were not
unique to Alberta by any means. Moreover, there is little in the book to
indicate the leadership qualities this quartet possessed or their
ability to control their often-fractious followers. In fact, Byrne
appears to demonstrate that they simply responded to changing
circumstances—like the post-World War I farm crisis, the Progressive
movement, the Depression, and the oil boom after 1945—in the only way
they knew how. That they succeeded was largely due to luck.

The book would have been strengthened through further research. For
example, a glaring omission is any reference to Alvin Finkel’s
significant modern study of Alberta society and politics, The Social
Credit Phenomenon in Alberta. In addition, closer attention to the
book’s central theme by eliminating extraneous material on the CCF and
the high-flying entrepreneur Bobby Brown would have greatly improved its
focus. Nevertheless, it serves as useful grist for the historical mill
that will either support or disprove the myth.