MACKENZIE 



3566 



MACKENZIE 



responsible for the construction of thousands of 

 miles of line in Canada and other countries. 

 The first railway built and also owned by Mac- 

 kenzie, Mann & Co. was the Lake Manitoba 

 Railway & Canal Company's line, 100 miles 

 long, completed in 1896. Out of this small be- 

 ginning has grown the great Canadian North- 

 ern system, comprising over 8,000 miles of rail- 

 way. Sir William is president of the Canadian 

 Northern and of many subsidiary railways, 

 street railways and other public service cor- 

 porations. He also controls transportation lines 

 in Cuba, Mexico and Brazil. In 1913, when the 

 Canadian Northern Railway was in dire finan- 

 cial straits, Sir William was instrumental, if not 

 chiefly responsible, in obtaining assistance from 

 the Dominion government. The honor of 

 knighthood was conferred on him in 1911. 



MACKENZIE, WILLIAM LYON (1795-1861), a 

 Canadian reformer and statesman, leader of the 

 Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada and for a 

 generation conspicuous in every movement for 

 radical political changes. Mackenzie was a 

 strange mixture 

 of the pathetic, 

 the ludicrous and 

 the heroic. He 

 was a born agita- 

 tor, and like 

 every man who is 

 constantly labor- 

 ing on behalf of 

 a propaganda, he 



tended to exag- WILLIAM LYON 



geration and, oc- MACKENZIE 



casionally, to misrepresentation. On the other 

 hand, he was a man of unquestioned integrity 

 and of great moral courage, a man who could 

 not be bribed, bullied or cajoled. He was 

 lacking, perhaps, in a sense of proportion, so 

 that trivial matters sometimes roused him to a 

 degree worthy of a great cause. Yet on the 

 whole he is one of the noteworthy characters 

 of his time, and without his efforts the progress 

 of Canadians towards political freedom would 

 have been long delayed. 



Mackenzie was born near Dundee, Scotland, 

 on March 12, 1795. The death of his father 

 less than a month later left the family in pov- 

 erty, a condition against which he had to fight 

 all -his life. He had practically no schooling, 

 and as a young boy earned his own living. He 

 emigrated to Canada with his mother in 1820, 

 settling first at York (Toronto), later Dundas, 

 and finally Queenston, " where he became a 

 storekeeper. The general dissatisfaction with 



political conditions in Upper Canada led him 

 to take an interest in public questions, and in 

 1824 he began to publish a newspaper, called 

 the Colonial Advocate, in which he expressed 

 bitter criticism of the government. Shortly 

 afterward he removed to York, the capital of 

 Upper Canada, where he continued to issue his 

 paper. To punish him for his steady attacks or 

 the government a mob wrecked his printing of 

 fice, but Mackenzie brought suit against th( 

 leading rioters and was awarded $2,500 dai 

 ages, a windfall which enabled him to continue 

 his publication with greater energy than eve 

 before. Most of the reforms he advocat 

 have since been adopted, but the bitterness 

 his attacks roused great opposition among 

 Tories, headed by Sir John Beverly Robinsor 



His Political Career. In 1828 Mackenzie 

 elected to the assembly. He was reflected 

 years later, but was denied this seat on 

 ground that he had published an account 

 parliamentary proceedings without a license 

 do so. This libel, as it was called, was an ol 

 vious pretext, the real reason being his extrei 

 radicalism. Four times more he was elect 

 and four times was refused admission. Finall 

 the government refused to issue new writs 

 election, and York for several years was wit! 

 out its proper representation in the assembb 

 In 1832 Mackenzie went to England to adv( 

 cate certain reforms in the Canadian govf 

 ment, and also to secure the removal of certaii 

 officials, a mission in which he was successf i 

 In 1834, shortly after his return to Cs 

 Toronto, as York was now called, elected hii 

 its first mayor, and at the expiration of hit 

 term elected him to the assembly, to which 

 was then regularly admitted. 



For a year or two the Reformers were in 

 majority in the assembly, but in 1836 Mackei 

 zie and all the other leaders of his party wer 

 defeated for reelection. The result of this 

 defeat was to drive Mackenzie along the same 

 path taken by Papineau (see PAPINEAU, Louis 

 J.), with whom the Upper Canada Liberals had 

 been in consultation for a year. Mackenzie 

 now began openly to applaud the people of 

 Lower Canada, who were planning insurrection, 

 and advocated a republican form of govern- 

 ment. From such talk to open rebellion was a 

 short step, and on November 25, 1837, Mac- 

 kenzie proclaimed a provisional government. 

 He gathered between 700 and 800 men to seize 

 Toronto, but a series of delays gave the gov- 

 ernor, Sir Francis Bond Head, time to prepare 

 a defense. In an engagement at Montgomery's 



