John
Queen grew
up in Scotland under his father's oppressive hand. He was born February
11, 1882. He remembered his father as being interested only in religion
and money, definitely not a socialist. At age 12, John Queen he was
apprenticed to a coopermaker. On a train travelling west, he arrived in
Winnipeg on a hot day in 1906, stepped off the train to see the sights
and decided to stay. He was 24 years old and not yet a socialist. He
immediately found work as a cooper for the Prairie City Oil Co. and he
became involved in the Independent Labour Party and Winnipeg's
socialist circles. But Queen was different type of socialist. Queen
liked John Stuart Mill's ideas on liberty. Unlike most Brits of the
time, he thought of everyone as his equal, and got along equally well
with Jewish socialist and communists like Jacob Penner.
Over
his life he
drove a bread truck, sold insurance for Metropolitan Life and
advertising for the Western Labour News. And he always lived in the
heart of Winnipeg's working class at 1452 Ross Ave.
CITY
POLITICS
In
the fall of
1915 he was elected as the to city council and in the next year, 1916,
6 socialist councillors were elected to city council. He pursued bread
and butter issues like better wages for civic employees and paychecks
every two weeks instead of at the end of every month. He voted to
acknowledge the creation of the Winnipeg police Union in Oct 1918. He
came to the defense of the Bolsheviks. Later he said he had probably
hade gotten carried away by his own rhetoric.
During
the 1919
strike, Queen was identified as one of the strike leaders, and while
Queen's wife and kids were at their Gimli cottage, Queen was arrested
along with A A Heaps. He was tried found guilty of sedition and
sentenced to a year in jail. Near the end of his trial, Queen had to
defend himself as his lawyer withdrew after calling the presiding
judge, Judge Metcalf unjust.
QUEEN
AT THE LEGISLATURE
Queen
was a
member of both the Manitoba legislature and city council for many
years. Queen was elected to the legislature while in jail. He worked to
represent the interests of the working man. But he was often at odds
with his more doctrinaire socialist friends. Queen fought his colleague
Fred Dixon on the issue of allowing Sunday trains to take the working
man to the lake on Sunday. Queen was for it.
Queen
found in
John Bracken, the stand-pat, do-nothing but control the deficit
premier, a big disappointment. Labour had already lost five seats in
the 1922 election. One of them was Fred Dixon and now Queen became
party leader. He fought for better housing, restoration of wages after
pay cuts and, more and better schools and aid to municipalities. Queen
saw investment in education as the way to pull people up from the slums.
There
were other
incidents where he was found wavering from his socialist principles. He
found himself in trouble because he owned shares in the private hydro
company that wanted to open Seven Sisters, while at the same time
arguing for public ownership. Socialists saw this as a moral offence.
MAYOR
QUEEN
He
had already
run and lost in 1927. In the 1932 election Queen had to do battle with
his old communist friend Jacob Penner and lost due to splitting the
leftist vote. In 1934 Queen battled 8 term mayor Col Webb whose heart
sounded like it was made of stone. Webb warned Winnipeggers not to
allow themselves to be run by socialists. In 1934 Queen became the
first socialist mayor in Winnipeg's history winning by 224 votes. The
next day the Free Press wondered whether Queen was a big bad wolf or a
fine fellow.
His
deeds would
show him to be a fine fellow for the working man. During the depression
about half of Winnipeg's families were estimated to have been on relief
at one time or another. Queen's first act upon being elected was to
increase relief payments by 10%.
Queen
was
described as able to charm the birds out of trees with his rich
Scottish voice and his magnetic personality. Queen's pragmatism was
always under attack by the left who called him a capitalist lackey. But
he always had to work hard to earn a living and while an MLA, he
switched from selling insurance to selling cars for Breen Motors. Each
evening when he would come home from the legislature, he made a bowl of
porridge which he shared with his Scottish terrier Heather before going
to bed.
Queen
lost the
1942 mayoralty election. There were no big jobs, no directorships
awaiting him. To continue to earn a living, he took on a job as a
modest a union agent. He died in 1946 at age 64 of a heart attack. He
died alone leaving an estate of $10,000.