Oh man, have I ever been neglecting this poor little blog. And I've came up with two suitable excuses: 1. I've been busy. 2. William Lyon Mackenzie King is such a beast of a Canadian political figure that I couldn't really half-ass it. He is the longest serving prime minister, sitting in that office for a total of 21 years. His tenure was a full fledge adult by the time he officially retired from politics.

Politics was steeped into King's blood, as his grandfather and namesake, William Lyon Mackenzie, was the first mayor of Toronto and a major Canadian political figure in his own right. King, or Rex as I want to call him, mostly because Arthur Meighen did, was born on December 17, 1874, in Berlin, ON, now commonly known as Kitchener. His proud parents, John King and Isabella Grace Mackenzie, had a total of four children. Education was important in the family, and even though money was tight, they found money to tutor their children. John King was a struggling lawyer before becoming a law professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, which Rex would eventually attend. It was there that he met his political rival, Meighen.

King obtained a robust education, ultimately earning five degrees. In 1909, Harvard, where he earned at M.A. in political economy a decade prior, gave him a PhD for his dissertation on "Oriental Immigration to Canada", which is exactly as racists as it sounds. His entire dissertation argued against Asian immigration, saying that Canada should remain a "white man's country". It's hard to find a politician who didn't share some racist sentiments or support racist policies, proving how embedded racial inequality is into our national history and tapestry.

In 1900, Rex started his career in the public sector as the Deputy Minister in the newly minted Labour Department. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1908, as one of Laurier's Liberals, and was appointed as the first Minister of Labour in 1909. But after losing his seat in 1911 he dove into the lucrative private sector, making upwards of five times as much. His work as a consultant for the Rockefeller Foundation pocketed him a cool $12,000, making his MP salary of $2,500 look like peanuts.

After Laurier's retirement from politics in 1919, Rex was asked to step into the leadership role for the Liberal party, which he did so with gusto, even though he was considered to be an "outsider" after spending a decade working in the private sector, mostly in the US. He did something few prime ministers before him did - he actually cared about the Prairies. This move helped him win the 1921 election, defeating Arthur Meighen for the first time (there was a few times he defeated Meighen).

Because he was in office for over two decades, Rex accomplished a laundry list of things, which would be longer than a book to detail. So here are some highlights:

*He refused to back the UK in a potential war conflict with Turkey in 1922, even when asked to by British PM, David Lloyd George
*Had a interest in the city planning and beautification of Canada's capital city, including parks, Confederation Square and the Great War Memorial
*Extended provincial autonomy and power
*Inaugurated the old-age pension system
*Appointed Cairine Wilson as the first female Senator in 1930
*Formed the National Film Board of Canada in 1939
*Made the CBC into a crown corporation in 1936
*Had a strong working relationship with Franklin Roosevelt during his fourth stint as PM, marking a turning point in Canada-US Relations after the Great Depression

Likely most importantly, Rex was leader during the Second World War. He warned British PM that he intended to remain neutral if Britain went to war with Germany in 1937 but that declaration quickly changed. What I find most interesting about his role as a wartime leader is that he is often compared to some heavy hitters in political history. Winston Churchill, FDR, Charles De Gaulle and, on the evil side of things, Hitler and Stalin, were all in power at the same time. Rex barely makes a mark on history compared to these men. It shows that while he was an arguable effective leader, he wasn't a very robust one, and most likely was not a charming man. The one thing most people remember about him: he believed in ghosts and would hold seances to try to speak with them. So more on THAT next week.