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Tom Monto

Winnipeg labour man called for active citizenry after General Strike

Updated: Mar 12, 2021

Fred Dixon after his release from jail for involvement in the 1919 General Strike called for "purifying the government" through several reforms – "abolishing the Canadian Senate, establishing the initiative, referendum and recall, and proportional representation."


"If we are to get a better government we must be free to criticize. The government that is afraid of criticism has something radically wrong with it....

On July 12, 1919 you were robbed of free speech.


While I do not believe in force, if they do not leave us our constitution for redress, then they are bringing the matter on their own heads.


Those in power at Ottawa set property rights ahead of human rights. They say for spreading venereal disease, one will get six months, but stealing an auto one will get a year at least, and possibly two years. There is greater freedom in the British Isles than here. The politicians at Ottawa are trying to put the clock back 100 years.


We are going to try to make May the first [MAY DAY] a day of protest over the whole Dominion of Canada against the retention of these convicted men in jail. In Winnipeg a big parade will be held in the morning and a mass meeting in the afternoon.


We are also going to make a prison slate [made up of convicted labour leader serving time in prison] for our candidates in the Manitoba elections in July.


By labour I mean those who work with hand or brain, all those are useful members of society.”


He appealed to organize and raise funds to have the laws repealed that he alleged had taken the right of trial by jury from the people and to support the families of the men behind bars.


“Our brothers are in jail in Manitoba, and the only crime that they have committed is of having tried to better conditions for their fellow man. Public opinion put them in jail, and it is public opinion that is keeping them there. I don't care if a dozen juries found them guilty and 20 judges -- my views would still be the same.


The trouble with the people is they are too indifferent of what is going on around them. You could get ten thousand of them out to a hockey game in Winnipeg, but they were not to be found in the courtroom where they were being robbed of their inherited liberties. Novels are read instead of economic works. As long as the people do not study these vital questions for themselves, they can but expect the kind of justice that was meted out in Winnipeg."


If the majority of the people wanted these men out of jail, they could get them out.


If the people wanted to change the present economic form of government they could change it.


The people are the most powerful force in any country and can get anything they want if united in their demands." (Edmonton Bulletin, April 21, 1920, page 3)


Dixon would be elected in the provincial election held a couple months after this speech. The 1920 Manitoba election was the first election in North America where at least some of the members were elected through a form of proportional representation.


The ten MLAs representing Winnipeg were elected through STV.


And yes, a prison slate was organized -- three or four men serving time in prison ran for office in this election.


(The need for a new involved citizenry was along the theme of John D. Hunt's 1917 book The Dawn of a New Patriotism. This now-forgotten Prairie classic was once strongly applauded in the pages of the Grain Growers Guide.)


Thanks for reading.

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keywords: Unionist government, armed struggle revolution, winnipeg general strike, WWI repression human rights Canadian politics 1920 manitoba election labour labor

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