Book Review: Arthur Meighen
| Author | John T. Saywell |
| Published date | 01 June 1961 |
| Date | 01 June 1961 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206101600205 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book
Reviews
ARTHUR
MEIHEN.
A
Biography.
By
Roger Graham.
Volume
1,
The
Door
of
Opportunity.
1960.
(Toronto:
Clarke,
Irwin
&
Co.
Ltd.
ix,
341pp.
$7.50.)
"Meighen
is
clever,
destructive
in debate,
crushing
in
criticism,
but
there
it
ends
...
He
is
by
qualification intended
for
first
lieutenant,
in
place of
commander-in-chief
...
He
is
the
terrier
who
worries
the
other
fellow,
the auditor
who
discovers
mristakes
in
the man
of
con-
structive
imagination."
So
wrote
Sir
Joseph
Flavelle, and
while
Pro-
fessor
Graham
does
not
subscribe
to
the judgment
his
book
underlines
every word
that
Flavelle
wrote.
The
portrait
of
Meighen
is
not
new;
it
is
of
the
same
clever,
industrious,
ambitious,
courageous Meighen we
have
always known.
No
one
has
really
questioned
these
qualities,
al-
though
Professor Graham reminds
the
reader
of
them
so
often,
so
without
any
kind
of
qualification,
that
one finds
the
halo
blinding
and
wishes
that
the
superlatives
had
been
tamed.
For
Professor Graham
deals
in
superlatives and
there
is
a
halo.
Meighen
was
never
wrong;
his
opponents
never
right.
And
though
it
is
clear
at
the
end
(as
it
was
tragically
clear
to
Meighen's
cabinet
colleagues,
who,
after
all, knew
him
best)
that
the
"door
of
opportunity"
led
to
the
highroad
of
disaster,
the
reader
is
asked
to
believe
that
the
system-political
parties,
the
politics of compromise
and
concession,
democracy,
and
even
parliamentary
government-is
somehow
at
fault.
But
Arthur
Meighen
never.
Blots
on
the
halo
are
ignored,
or
Meighen
himself
answers
in
his
own
defence.
On
the
Winnipeg
General
Strike
alone
does
the
author
plead
a
case,
and
many
will
find
the
case
less
than
completely
convincing.
What
really stands
out
in
this
very
sympathetic
account
is
that
Meighen
was
not a man
"of
constructive imagination."
His
silence
on
many
of
the
great
issues
may
be
due,
as
the author
suggests,
to
his
conclusion
that
one
cannot
convert
the
unconverted.
But
it
is
strange
to
see
a
man
whose
inherited
political allegiance
was
un-
questioned
and
unchanging,
who
remained
silent
on
the
naval
question,
*
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