E. T. Kingsley

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E.T. (Eugene Thornton) Kingsley (1856 – December 9, 1929) was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of Canada and an editor of the Western Clarion newspaper, one of the most prominent left-wing publications in Canada before World War I.[1] He ran for parliament in the riding of Vancouver City in the 1908 and 1911 Canadian federal elections as a candidate of the Socialist Party of Canada, and in the 1926 Canadian federal election in the riding of Vancouver Centre as a candidate of the British Columbia Independent Labour Party. He also ran for the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in the 1907 and 1909 provincial elections to represent Vancouver as a member of the Socialist Party of British Columbia.

He served as editor of the Western Clarion from 1903 until 1908 and was later active in the British Columbia Federated Labour Party, where he served as a vice-president, and the British Columbia Independent Labour Party. In 1919, he edited the weekly paper, Labour Star.

Early life[]

Little is known of Kingsley's early life. Born in 1856, Kingsley came from a modest, middling class background. He spent his early years in the US, moving with his family from Chautauqua County, New York, to Ohio, to Wisconsin, and finally to Minnesota, where he settled with his wife, Almira Doan, and began his own family. Kingsley himself kept moving west working on the railroad, eventually arriving in Montana as a brakeman for the Northern Pacific.[2]

Accident and radicalization[]

On October 15, 1890, Kingsley was setting brakes while working on the flat cars of the North Pacific Railway Company line near Missoula, Montana at a location known as Spring Gulch. A train car defect, however, and the darkness of the night, resulted in his stepping through the gaps between the cars. The train ran over and crushed both his legs from the knees down, resulting in an eventual double amputation.[2] While recovering in hospital, Kingsley read the works of Marx and Engels.[3] After his convalescence, Kingsley moved to San Francisco, and quickly became the state organizer for the Socialist Labor Party of America. However, he left the party after a bitter confrontation with its leader, Daniel De Leon.[3]

Life in British Columbia[]

In 1902, the Nanaimo Socialist Club invited Kingsley to speak on a short tour of Vancouver Island. His impact was such that he was asked to stay. The club first sponsored Kingsley as a fishmonger, then as a printer.[3] Kingsley's knowledge of socialist thought made him a valuable asset as an educator, organizer, speaker, and publicist for the emerging radical socialist movement in British Columbia. This was all the more remarkable as Canadian immigration law at the time largely prohibited immigrants with disabilities, and Kingsley wore prosthetic legs. However, the government made no move to deport him.[4]

The Nanaimo socialists left the SPBC and established the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Canada in 1902. The party's platform, which was the most radical in the country at the time, called for the destruction of capitalism. It stated that "the pathway leading to our emancipation from the chains of wage slavery is uncompromising political warfare against the capitalist class, with no quarter and no surrender."[3]

Further reading[]

A biography of Kingsley by Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt, Able to Lead: Disablement, Radicalism, and the Political Life of E.T. Kingsley, was published by UBC Press in 2021.[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Ian McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People's Enlightenment in Canada, 1890-1920, Between the Lines, 2008, p. 30.
  2. ^ a b "Incident at Spring Gulch-Disability and the Railroad". Able to Lead. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d McCormack, A.Ross (1977). Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement 1899-1919. Canada: University of Toronto press. pp. 26–27. ISBN 0-8020-5385-8.
  4. ^ "The Old War Horse-Socialism in British Columbia". Able to Lead. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
  5. ^ "Able to Lead, by Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt".
  • Peter Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way. Montreal & Kingston: McGill University Press, 1999.
  • Ian McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People's Enlightenment in Canada,1890-1920.
  • A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement 1899-1919. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1977, reprinted 1991.
  • History of the Socialist Party of Canada, by J.M. Milne (1973).
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