Young Mackenzie King spent part of Christmas Day 1896 writing letters. In one, which he sent off to his best friend, Bert Harper, the future PM, then studying at the University of Chicago, described the darker side of the city he was living in. The letter shows that the future Prime Minister, as idealistic as ever, did not confine his experiences to campus and the nicer areas of Chicago. Far from it. Instead, he sought out the poorer parts of the city, particularly its 19th Ward where the famed Jane Addams had established her famous Settlement House in aid of the underprivileged of the city.“The district is situate almost in the heart of the city,” King wrote, “(it) is the most crowded and undoubtedly the filthiest. Around this strange conglomeration is a literal barricade of brothels with their unfortunate daughters of unhappiness and scattered through it more thickly than anything else are saloons and gambling hells of every sort and description. Misery and wretchedness, vice and degradation, and filthiness are the characteristic features on all sides.”And so, Christmas Day 1896 passed for young Mackenzie King.
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.
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.