'Honest Enough to Be Bold': The Life and Times of Sir James Pliny Whitney

Louis A. Knafla is a history professor at the University of Calgary.

Sir James Whitney (1843-1914) was Premier of Ontario from 1905 to 1914, and this political biography examines the history of his government. Whitney is interpreted as a gruff and forceful man who perceived the social and technological forces of the industrial era, and who constructed a powerful political machine based on the urban working class to herald the advent of the Progressive Conservative Party to supremacy in the province. Economically, he laid the foundations of government intervention in the private sector, creating Ontario Hydro, developing the North, regulating automobiles and railways, and introducing housing and workmen’s compensation legislation. Culturally, he developed bilingual schools, created a Board of Governors for the University of Toronto, and placed the educational system on a firm financial footing. Politically, he transferred power from rural to urban society, developed a strong party caucus, and became a broker for the federal Conservative Party by the election of 1911.

This volume marks the third biography in the Ontario Historical Studies Series on The Biographies of the Premiers, following J.M.S. Careless on the Pre-Confederation Premiers (1980) and Peter Oliver on G. Howard Ferguson (1977). Humphries’ Whitney reflects the focus to date by concentrating on orthodox political biography. There is little attempt here to get inside of the man, to discover how and why he worked, and to discuss his personal life. Thus, while Whitney is seen as being his own man, there is a strong undercurrent that suggests that many of his ideas and policies came from his friend Chief Justice W.R. Meredith. But these undercurrents cannot be resolved because the study lacks context and texture; it begins virtually in 1905, comprising a year-by-year chronology to his death in 1914. The study is, however, exhaustive within its terms of reference. Much use has been made of the collections in the Public Archives of Canada and the Provincial Archives of Ontario, especially of the Borden, King, Laurier, Macdonald, and Whitney papers. The index is comprehensive, making the book a useful reference work, and the writing is clear if not elegant. A working man’s biography, this study enlarges our understanding of the origins of the “Progressive” Conservative Party and the “Big Blue” political machine.