J. S. Woodsworth

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The Reverend J. S. Woodsworth
1st Leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
In office August 1, 1932 – March 21, 1942
Preceded by	new party
Succeeded by	M. J. Coldwell
1st National Chairman of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
In office 1932–1938
Preceded by	new party
Succeeded by	M. J. Coldwell
Member of the House of Commons of Canada
In office October 29, 1925 – March 21, 1942
Preceded by	new constituency
Succeeded by	Stanley Knowles
Constituency	Winnipeg North Centre
In office December 6, 1921 – October 29, 1925
Preceded by	George William Andrews
Succeeded by	constituency abolished
Constituency	Winnipeg Centre
Personal details
Born	James Shaver Charleston Woodsworth (1874-07-29)July 29, 1874 Labour Party (1921–1932) Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (1932–1942)
Spouse	Lucy Staples ​ (m. 1903)​
Children	Grace MacInnis
Alma mater	Victoria College, Toronto University of Oxford
Occupation	Author, lecturer, minister, secretary, social activist, teacher

James Shaver Charleston Woodsworth (July 29, 1874 – March 21, 1942) was a Canadian Methodist minister, politician, and labour activist. He was a pioneer of the Canadian

While studying at Oxford, he became interested in social welfare, and upon his return to Canada as a minister of the

. As the superintendent of the All People's Mission in Winnipeg and the secretary of the Canadian Welfare League, he focused on investigating social conditions, worked with immigrants, and campaigned for social welfare.

Woodsworth's focus on social issues and inequality led him to become active in the political labour movement in Canada. He led the protest campaign following the brutal police action which caused one person to be killed during the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 and helped to organize the Manitoba Independent Labour Party (ILP). He ran and was elected to the House of Commons as a member of the ILP in 1921. In 1932 during the Great Depression, Woodsworth and the ILP along with other socialist and labour groups founded the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), with Woodsworth as its leader. The CCF, Canada's first widely successful socialist party, evolved into today's New Democratic Party.^[2] Woodsworth influenced many of Canada's contemporary social programs including social assistance, pensions and medicare.

The oldest of six children, Woodsworth was born on Applewood Farm

In this role, he worked with the poor immigrants in Winnipeg and preached the

social welfare

.

Social activism

As a mission worker, Woodsworth had the opportunity to see first hand the appalling circumstances in which many of his fellow citizens lived, and began writing the first of several books decrying the failure to provide workers with a living wage and arguing for the need to create a more egalitarian and compassionate social order.

In 1909, his Strangers Within Our Gates was published,[7] followed in 1911 by My Neighbour.^[8] In Strangers Within Our Gates, Woodsworth elaborated on concerns related to immigration, and expressed sympathy for the difficulties new immigrants to Canada faced but also offered eugenic interpretations of human abilities and worth based on race. The organization of the book reflects Woodsworth's "hierarchy," with early chapters focusing on Great Britain, the United States, Scandinavians, Germans, and later chapters focusing on Italians, "Levantine races," and "Orientals," concluding with a chapter entitled "The Negro and the Indian."^[9]

In 1913, Woodsworth left All People's to accept an appointment as Secretary of the Canadian Welfare League. During this time, he travelled extensively throughout the three Canadian

.

In 1916, during

", he is quoted as saying. His resignation was accepted.

Political involvement in BC

Woodsworth and his family remained in British Columbia, where, despite his slight stature, he took work as a

, and wrote for a labour newspaper.

Winnipeg General Strike

In 1919, he set out on a tour of

meetings.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Winnipeg "special constables" charged into a crowd of strikers demonstrating in the centre of Winnipeg, killing two people and injuring 30, on Bloody Saturday, June 21, 1919. Woodsworth led the campaign of protest against this action.

The editor of the strike bulletin Western Labour News was arrested and charged with

. Woodsworth took over the duties and after just a week he too was arrested and charged with the same thing. Oddly, his seditious libel took the form of quoting from the Bible Isaiah 10:1 "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees..." and from Isaiah 65:21,22 (KJV). He was released on bail after five days' imprisonment, and the charges were never filed. (Other strike leaders served a year's imprisonment for their activities.)

His involvement in the strike further established Woodsworth's credentials with the

.

Woodsworth briefly returned to British Columbia in 1920 to run as a Federated Labour Party candidate in Vancouver in the provincial election. He received 7444 votes but was not elected. He then returned to Winnipeg.

He became involved in organizing the Manitoba

In December 1921, Woodsworth was elected to the House of Commons in the

. He served in the House of Commons for the next 20 years, until his death.

The first bill he proposed concerned

that bills involving federal spending had to be presented by the government, he nonetheless continued to press his case for better labour legislation.

He also pursued constitutional reform but was unsuccessful in attempt to have

In 1936, the government set up a committee to discuss constitutional reforms (but the First-past-the-post voting system was not replaced).

Woodsworth was an unflagging advocate for the worker, the farmer, and the immigrant.

In 1929, Woodsworth was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Student Christian Movement of Canada, a fledgling social justice movement founded in 1921, and inspired Stanley Knowles, then 21, who later became ordained and helped found the New Democratic Party.

Rejecting violent revolution and any association with the new Communist Party of Canada, Woodsworth became a master of parliamentary procedure and used the House of Commons as a public platform. He at first sat beside the Progressive Party of Canada. He was a leader of the radical farmer-and-labour Ginger Group. This group's activities led to the 1932 founding of the first country-wide democratic socialist party, the CCF.

When the

system.

In 1932, Woodsworth toured Europe as a member of the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva.

After most of the world went into the Great Depression, Woodsworth and the ILP joined with various provincial farmer, labour and socialist groups in 1932 to found a new socialist party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Woodsworth was its first leader.^[10] Woodsworth said: "I am convinced that we may develop in Canada a distinctive type of Socialism. I refuse to follow slavishly the British model or the American model or the Russian model. We in Canada will solve our problems along our own lines."^[12]

In 1933, the CCF became the official opposition in British Columbia. In 1934, the party achieved the same result in Saskatchewan.^[13] One of its founding groups, the UFA, was government in Alberta.

In the 1935 election, seven CCF Members of Parliament were elected to the House of Commons. (None of the UFA MPs were re-elected.) The CCF received 8.9 percent of the popular vote. The CCF, however, was never able to seriously challenge Canada's party system, which was then dominated by the Liberals and Conservatives. In particular, the enormous prestige of the long-time Liberal Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, prevented the CCF from displacing the Liberals as the main party of the left, as had happened with the socialist parties in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

In 1939, the CCF was divided on the question of Canadian entry into World War II; the majority was in favor, but Woodsworth was against.^[10] During the debate on the declaration of war, Mackenzie King said: "There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. I admire him in my heart, because time and again he has had the courage to say what lays on his conscience, regardless of what the world might think of him. A man of that calibre is an ornament to any Parliament."

I would ask, did the last war settle anything? I venture to say that it settled nothing; and the next war into which we are asked to enter, however big and bloody it may be, is not going to settle anything either. That is not the way in which settlements are brought about. While we are urged to fight for freedom and democracy, it should be remembered that war is the very negation of both. The victor may win; but if he does, it is by adopting the selfsame tactics which he condemns in his enemy. […]

I am among a considerable number in this country who believe, and we hold it as a mature conviction, that war is the inevitable outcome of the present economic and international system with its injustices, exploitations, and class interests. I suggest that the common people of the country gain nothing by slaughtering the common people of any other country. As one who has tried for a good many years to take a stand for the common people, personally I cannot give my consent to anything that will drag us into another war.

— J. S. Woodsworth, 8 September 1939^[14]

Nevertheless, Woodsworth was almost alone in his opposition to the war. He was the only Member of Parliament to vote against the bill, and his days as a party leader were over.^[10][15]

He was re-elected to the House on 26 March 1940, but suffered a stroke in the fall and, over the next 18 months, his health deteriorated. He died in Vancouver, British Columbia in early 1942, and his ashes were scattered in the Strait of Georgia.

Woodsworth's daughter, Grace MacInnis, followed in his footsteps as a CCF politician.

Woodsworth strongly influenced Canadian social policy, and many of the social concepts he pioneered are represented in contemporary programs such as social assistance, pensions, and medicare, which are deemed to be fundamentally important in Canadian society today. While the party for which he was central founder, today called the New Democratic Party, has largely abandoned Woodsworth's vision of a socialist Canada, Woodsworth's memory is still held in great respect within the party as well as across Canada.

in 1987.

The Woodsworth home at 60 Maryland Street in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is now the location of the Centre for Christian Studies.^[20] CCS purchased Woodsworth House from the Woodsworth Historical Society in 1998, with a commitment to keep the Woodsworth name and to continue to display photographs of Woodsworth and reminders of his commitment to the social gospel and social justice.

In 2004, a CBC contest rated Woodsworth as the 100th Greatest Canadian of all time.

In October 2010, the town of

but not in Gibson.

Electoral history

v t e 1921 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg Centre
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	James Shaver Woodsworth	7,774	40.1	–
	Conservative	Norman Kitson McIvor	4,034	20.8	-63.8
	Liberal	John W. Wilton	4,032	20.8	+5.4
	Independent	Harriet S. Dick	2,314	11.9	–
	Independent	George William Andrews	1,220	6.3	–
Total valid votes			19,374	100.0
Note: Conservative vote is compared to Unionist vote in 1917 election.

v t e 1925 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg North Centre
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Labour	J. S. Woodsworth	4,794
	Conservative	Joseph Edwin Braid	3,578
	Liberal	Edward Wesley Lowery	1,689

v t e 1926 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg North Centre
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Labour	James Shaver Woodsworth	7,221
	Conservative	Jose Alexander Banfield	4,220

v t e 1930 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg North Centre
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Labour	James Shaver Woodsworth	8,265
	Independent Conservative	Thomas Gargan	2,028
	Communist	Martin Joseph Forkin	492
Source: lop.parl.ca

v t e 1935 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg North Centre
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Co-operative Commonwealth	James Shaver Woodsworth	10,052
	Liberal	H.P. Albert Hermanson	6,025
	Conservative	Richard Randolph Pattinson	4,657
	Reconstruction	Thomas William Kilshaw	2,490
	Social Credit	Charles Wesley Huffman	1,035

v t e 1940 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg North Centre
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Co-operative Commonwealth	J. S. Woodsworth	11,324
	Liberal	Ambrose Roy McDonnell	11,199
	National Government	Bjorn Stefansson	5,412

Archives

There is a J.S. Woodsworth fonds at Library and Archives Canada.^[22] Archival reference number is R5904.

• Allen, Richard (1973). The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-28. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  ISBN 978-0-8020-6199-7
  . Retrieved 2023-05-20.
• MacInnis, Grace (1953). J.S. Woodsworth: A Man to Remember. Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada.
• McNaught, Kenneth (1959). A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J. S. Woodsworth. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Retrieved 2023-05-20.
• Mills, Allen (1991). Fool For Christ: The Political Thought of J.S. Woodsworth. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  ISBN 978-0-8020-6842-2
  .
• Payment, Shirley Frances (1999). The Big Project: James M. Shaver at All Peoples' Mission, Winnipeg, 1921–1941 (M.A., History thesis). University of Manitoba. Retrieved 2024-03-02.
• Pulkingham, Jane, ed. (2016). Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism: Rethinking the Legacy of J.S. Woodsworth. University of Toronto Press.

External links

• Douglas-Coldwell Foundation biography
• Saskatchewan NDP History
• University of Toronto J.S. Woodsworth Tour
• Civilization.ca (now historymuseun.ca) - The History of Canada's Public Pensions
• Grace MacInnis' personal recollections
• Woodsworth, James Shaver: National Historic Person. Parks Canada.
• James Shaver Woodsworth 1874-1942 Manitoba Heritage Council Commemorative Plaques
• J. S. Woodsworth – Parliament of Canada biography