While you rarely hear Canada’s present-era New Democrats utter his name, here at Art’s History we’ll buck the trend and celebrate the great Canadian socialist leader J.S. Woodsworth on this, his birthday. He entered the world on this date in 1874 in Etobicoke, Ontario, and went on to prove himself a man of principle during his electoral career between 1925 and 1942.Woodsworth’s advocacy as the leader of Canada’s CCF (what would become today’s NDP) helped lay the foundations of the Canadian welfare state of the 20^th century. A man of his times, Woodsworth held views on eugenics, race and immigration that would be (rightly) considered offensive.A pacifist, Woodsworth struck true to his principles and was the only MP in 1939 to vote against Canada’s entering the Second World War. His great opponent, Prime Minister Mackenzie King, paid tribute to Woodsworth at the time.  "There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation,” PM King said.” 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."How I wish that sort of politics – mutual respect between partisans of differing faiths – was in play today.Happy birthday, J.S. Woodsworth.[caption id="attachment_545411" align="alignleft" width="220"] Former CCF Leader J.S. Woodsworth[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.