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James Shaver Woodsworth
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James Shaver Woodsworth's lifetime of work affected the life of every Canadian during his career as a church minister, as a social worker and as a Member of Parliament. Moral courage, a social sympathy, a passion for clarity and an intellectual prowess are the qualities that makes J.S. Woodsworth a pioneer in the social movement of Canada.
Woodsworth had common Canadian roots. He was raised in a Methodist household which installed moral values into his life. His family moved to Winnipeg in 1882 when the West was in the middle of expansion. His father, James Woodsworth, was Superintendent of Methodist missions in the North-West
The Woodsworth family also came from a loyalist background. His grandfather, Richard Woodsworth, fought William Lyon Mackenzie in the Rebellions of 1837 and the sword that his grandfather carried was displayed in Woodsworth study.
For J.S. Woodsworth, his evangelistic background made him critical of society. His loyalist background made him aware of the importance of tradition. Nevertheless, Woodsworth saw at an early age that there were things that needed to be fixed in Canada.
Woodsworth had a good education. He began his education in Winnipeg at Wesley College. He then went to Toronto to study theology at Victoria College. He went to Oxford, England in the fall of 1899 for a year to complete his studies and to reflect on life and the role he was to play in life.
His trip to England helped to create the Woodsworth we know now.
While at Oxford, he did not register as a student but sat in on some of the classes and partook in the conversations of the students. The Boer War broke out while he was overseas and he was privy to the discussions that occurred about the moral values of imperialism. The next year, the British Labour party was founded and again he was able to hear many conversations about social- reform.
His moral background was enlightened during travels around Europe.
With all intentions of seeing "English life" rather than the tourist view, he felt that the best method was to live at a university social-service settlement. He had expected to undergo some discomfort since most social settlements had some tinge of radicalism and the settlement was situated in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of London.
He was pleasantly surprised and wrote to his father to describe Mansfield House where he spent his Christmas holidays; "In the first place, men live here in with comfort. It costs about the same as a hotel I think. But everything is run in what is to me so strange a style that I hardly yet know where I am at any rate I am more than delighted..." Woodsworth was always careful when describing the Mansfield House because it had a different approach to Sunday afternoons. This approach was different from that of the Canadian Methodists and he described the Sunday afternoons as "a political or social meeting rather than a religious meeting..." because they were so different than the Sunday School afternoons he was used to in Canada.
By the end of his trip to England, Woodsworth had adopted a new social philosophy that was still new to Canadians who were still caught up in the old nineteenth century pioneer ideology of individualism rather than community.
Woodsworth returned to Canada in July, 1900 and went on to Brandon Manitoba where on August 26, he was ordained as a Methodist minister. Even at the beginning of his evangelical work, Woodsworth was troubled. He began to question if could accept the dogmas of the Methodist "Discipline" and whether the continual effort to "save" the individual, while ignoring his social context, was really practical Christianity. In 1902, he wrote his first letter of resignation from the church. He brought it to the annual conference but never submitted it because he was convinced by others that now was not the time. The conference appointed him assistant pastor to Rev. R. F. Bowles of Grace Church, Winnipeg.
He threw himself into his pastoral work and began visiting young people's organizations. He finally began to feel a working basis within Methodism.
In 1904, he married Lucy Lilian Staples and their home in Winnipeg became a gathering place for young people. His wife became a great confidante throughout his troubles with the church. As many of his letters prove, she was very supportive of any decision he felt that he had to make.
His second resignation, along with an accompanying statement of explanation was given to the Manitoba Methodist Church Conference in 1907. He outlined his many problems that he felt he had with the Church again, including "the concern discipline", baptism, tests for those who enter the Christian Church and fasting as a religious exercise.
The conference struck a special committee that later rejected Woodsworth's resignation. They stated that "there was nothing his doctrinal beliefs and adhesion to our discipline to warrant his separation from the ministry of the Methodist Church."
He was offered the post of the superintendent of the Methodist city mission Winnipeg along with a free hand to reorganize and revitalize it. He accepted the offer. The All People's Mission was supported financially by the Methodist General Board of Missions, the Women's Missionary Society, contributions from Winnipeg Methodist churches, collections at Mission church services and special collections. Though it had many contributors and it had grown somewhat during its nine years of existence, it had not grown in its motivating philosophy and therefore played only a small role in Winnipeg's charities.
Woodsworth changed the whole operation of the People's Mission and in turn, improved its contribution to the city of Winnipeg. He first concentrated on unifying the scattered branches of the mission and on expanding the facilities and staff. He later moved his family into the mission and felt comfortable that it was adequate for the assimilation of foreigners. His daughter, Grace MacInnis, described the house as always being an open and welcoming environment to any traveller that passed by its door.
Through his work with the mission, Woodsworth came to realize that Winnipeg's social problems were due to the huge amount of immigrants. Not because they were moving from rural settings to urban settings, as was the case in England, but it was vastly more complicated because of the digesting a new and very different population. Woodsworth directed the mission's work to be primarily focused on this problem. Through his work and research, Woodsworth became the foremost authority on Canadian immigration as well as one of the leading sociologists in the country.
Woodsworth work at the mission lasted six years. He continued with his social work by being the secretary of the Canadian Welfare League in 1913 and being made the director of the three prairie provinces joint Bureau of Social Research in 1916. He travelled throughout the West during these years investigating the social conditions and writing reports on them. He became known nationally as a lecturer.
In the winter of 1916-17, he decided that he must publish his objections to conscription. He objected to the church becoming places to recruit men. Where ministers communicated to the worshippers that it was their duty to serve. He was opposed to war on a moral basis and could not condone the church as a vehicle of recruitment. He was instantly closed down at the Bureau of Social Research.
In 1918, Woodsworth decided that the time had come to resign again from the church. He stated in his resignation that he opposed the church becoming more commercialized. He felt that the control of the church did not lie in the hands of the people, rather it was invested in the control of those men who controlled the wealth. He felt that "in many cases the temptation for the minister to become a financial agent rather than a moral and spiritual leader." He also pointed out his disagreement with the church and the position it had taken on the war. "I thought that as a Christian minister I was a messenger of the Prince of Peace." His resignation from the church was accepted.
Finding himself out of a job, he moved on to the Pacific Coast and found work as a longshoreman. During his time on the west coast, Woodsworth joined the longshoremen's union, helped organize the Federated Labour Party of British Columbia and wrote for the labour paper. He became a regular speaker at labour meetings and was sent on a speaking tour of Western Canada in 1919.
Woodsworth found himself in the middle of the Winnipeg General Strike when he arrived in Winnipeg. By the time he arrived in the city, he found that the strike had escalated into a city wide sympathy strike. Immediately upon arrival in Winnipeg, Woodsworth began addressing the massive striker meetings.
He went on to help edit the workers' strike bulletin when the chief editor was arrested and charged with libel and Woodsworth was arrested himself a week later. The charges were later dropped. As it turns out, his position and identification with the labour movement later gave him a seat in Parliament for twenty years.
Woodsworth was elected to Parliament in the federal election of 1921 as the member for Winnipeg North Centre. His first resolution was one on unemployment insurance. He was told by the Clerk of the House of Commons that he could not move such a bill because all bills that cost money had to be presented by the government. He kept pressing the King government on the obstacles of the constitution when it came to presenting changes in the social- reform policy. He succeeded in 1935 of getting a committee struck to examine constitutional difficulties.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the House of Commons had many different parties represented in its chamber. The Progressive party became more splintered after every election and soon an independent group nicknamed the "Ginger Group" broke away from the Progressives.
This group was mostly farmers from Alberta. Woodsworth and Agnes Macphail from Ontario began to work with the group of farmers and became the founding nucleus of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F.) in 1932. They found that it was possible for farmer and labour representatives to work together because they agreed on every main issue that came up and shared a common belief that what was needed in Canada was a far-reaching change in the whole economic and social system. His work in the House of Commons and beforehand as a social worker made J.S. Woodsworth the inevitable first leader of the C.C.F..
J.S. Woodsworth was a pioneer of his time. His moral courage was evident in his willingness to make sacrifices for his principles. This was demonstrated in his struggle to remain with the church. His social sympathy is best demonstrated through his many years as a social worker and with identifying himself with the unfortunate and the exploited. Woodsworth possessed a passion for clarity that forced everyone to face up to the unpleasant issues that confronted the Canadian society.
Lastly, he was an intellectual pioneer because he had an understanding of and a new approach to the issues that confront us. From The All's People's Mission, to Unemployment Insurance Legislation, Woodsworth projected new ideas and solutions to the people of Canada when it came to solving social problems. In his career, he made changes to our system that, in the end, affect the life of every Canadian during his time and those to come. He made the first steps in improving the Canada that we have come to know and appreciate today. He is truly a pioneer of his time.
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