Daniel Boissevain hailed from a wealthy Dutch family, but gave up that lifestyle when he saw the unfairness of luxurious living while others lived in poverty.
He emigrated from Holland, rubbed shoulders with reformers in California and then settled in farm in central Alberta. He was a major fixture in the socialist activities at Red Lodge, Alberta circa 1908. (The place name was just a lucky coincidence.)
That well-read man of such strong fibre is a find indeed.
His comments in Alberta newspapers in the 1910s and 1920s are worthy of attention.
In 1921, he wrote a brief article on the issue of recall and socialist representation. The occasion was the candidacy of strident leftist minister William Irvine in the federal election.
At the time, (as now) many voters had grown disappointed with the results of elections and the representation they were getting from those elected in that fashion. Provincially the United Farmers had been elected on a promise of electoral reform, and three years later, before the next election, the UFA government brought in Single Transferable Voting, a district-based system of proportional representation, for at least part of the province.
But federally this was a harder shove.
More do-able was bringing in a device of local accountability. This was achieved by a candidate voluntarily depositing a letter of resignation with the local grassroots organization sponsoring his candidacy.
Boissevain wrote of how "a young townsman" (a Strathmore resident?) told him Boissevain that he did not like the recall. "To put a man's signed resignation in the hands of a committee to be sent in over his head at any time does not go with me."
Baoissevain responded that "you show that all you know about the working of the recall is election lies on the subject handed out by Charlie Stewart to a gullible audience, just before he met his Waterloo," Stewart was the Liberal premier whose government had gone down in defeat earlier in 1921. (A parallel exists with the lies spread today against pro-rep. Independent critical thought should always be encouraged.)
Boissevain explained that the UFA political organization (to which the letter of resignation is consigned) is not founded on crazy notions and impossible contingencies. He pointed to Stewart saying that Alberta farmers derived the recall from the U.S. where it had been put into use because parliaments there cannot be dissolved as they can be dissolved here - yet in this province an Alberta and Great Waterways piece of choice legislation is bleeding and burdening us showing us that we have as yet not reached summit. meaning that improvement could still be made.]
[I think he means that Canadian governments capable of dissolution or not, the people in Alberta have little power, and governments still make sweetheart contracts with corporations. A different interpretation of Premier Rutherford being tumbled out of the premiership due to A&GW scandal is that rightist elements in the Liberal party wanted to stop Rutherford from carrying on his pro-labour program. Rutherford, the Strathcona MLA, is seen as a gentleman, and balanced appraisals of the A&GW deal show not a n excessive amount of disregard for public risk.
Rutherford's support for a provincial university (the UofA) and its placement in Edmonton area, and his government's relatively early passage of an 8-hour work law seems to have irked some wire-pullers within the party who wanted a more pro-business and pro-Calgary approach, it seems to me.
But Boissevain was closer to the scene than us now, so if he criticized the A&GW deal, there must have been a good reason.]
Boissevain continued
"Now as a matter of fact the UFA organization is based on the fundamental principles that God laid down to Samuel when He said in reply to the oldprophet's indignation when he toldGod that lthe peole wished to institute king-rule insteadof democracy. faulty as it had become.
"Samuel, they have not rejected thee but <me; tell them what dire results in miltarism and land ownership, etc. they would suffer should they persist in being ruled over by a king.<'
\Right in line with this, Jesus says that the rulers of rhe heathen n]have authority over them, but that it is not so among His followers for the son of man came ot serve andnot to be served, there fore he that wold be the master of all shall be made the slave of all.
However the recall at the present time has two-fold interpretation, one of whihc says that we do not have our chosen servants "as sheep among wolves."
Tom Watson has stated the fact that public men are boiught and sold in the open market like fish, which makes the old adage come true, that every man has his price.
Now comes lthe recall not as Charlie Stewart would make his dupes belive quite onte contrary l. Since the eliminating of party poltiis each member is amenable to the constituency to which he is elected, and to themhe may be called upon to give an account of he course he pursued, and if such account be not acceptable his recall will come in the form of an election. [Boissevain is writing at a time when most voters in almost all Alberta district were farmers, so by constituency he means not only the geographic area but also the main voting block within it. (Now of course districts are more heterogenous.) The problem for Alberta farmers was to get a locally-elected member to represent them instead of merely following party discipline (formulated by Eastern city folk and corporate giants) once he got to the House of Commons. Even an Independent elected in Alberta may shrug off his farm roots once in the Big City!)
Boissevian contineud:
"It become self-evident that in case some big-monied interest would desire in bribe or buy one or more of our representatives, this recall takes all money value off them because we can recall them so that they cannot deliver the goods, and we further submit any corrupt act of legislation to a referendum vote."
[This last appears to be reference to a common companion of recall. Direct Legislation was a fad among reformers at the time (although by 1921 it was fading away, as the election of the UFA on promise of pro-rep indicates).
Direct Legislation had three elements:
referendum - where legislation passed in the Legislature would go to the voters to also pass it or not in referendum.
initiative - where voters by petition to force a government to pass some certain legislation or at least put it to referendum
recall.
Alberta never had the law of referendum. Never did a government have to get referendum approval for legislation passed in the Legislature, so I don't know why Bloissevain is saying this.
Alberta did have a law of Initiative. The Prohibition law (1916-1923) was result of petition campaign - the Liberal government legally had only two choices - pass the law or put it to referendum. It was put to referendum and a majority voted for it so government legally had to bring it in. (unless it was to cancel its Initiative law, which the powerful farmer lobby prevented.)
Boissevain then turned to the 1921 federal campaign where William Irvine was running in East Calgary with farmer support.
"Our chosen candidate is a very dangerous man, aye, so dangerous that our most courageous politicians, such as Meighen and the other fellows, are afraid of him because he has the horrid fashion of attacking his opponents with a sharp and two-edged sword, which those that fear him are wholly unable to use.
Any time old Meighen tells us how we kept faith with the boys overseas [in WWI] when we bought war bonds, which paid heavy interest and were, above that, free from taxation,* along comes Will with his little sword. And all there is left of "our courageous premier" and his taxation lies could not be pawned at your uncles.
It is that flaming sword of Truth, unsheathed by Wm. Irvine in his book The Farmer in Politics that gives Meighen, Stewart, Bennett and friends the creeps and, with one accord, they cry out "dangerous man."
As for the returned soldiers, Labor, UFA and all those who are heavy laden, they organize together, work together and vote together for Wm. Irvine to serve them in the future as he has done in the past.
Yours for the light of that flaming sword, Daniel F. Boissevain."
(from Daniel Boissevain, "William Irvine and the Recall," Strathmore Standard, Oct. 26, 1921)
*Boissevain's point here being that buying war bonds that garner high interest that is tax-free, is hardly equivalent or adequate to balance against the privations, horror and risks that the "boys overseas" experienced. If making a bundle on war bonds and tax-free at that, is keeping faith with the boys overseas, then what is the definition of wartime profiteering, I imagine him asking.
More on Daniel Boissevain later.
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