O.D. Skelton and the North American mind
| Author | Norman Hillmer |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000108 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
NORMAN
HILLMER
0.0.
Skelton
and
the
North
American
mind
=
NINETEEN
THIRTY-FIVE
WAS
A GOOD
YEAR
for
the
Canadian-
American connection. Prime Minister R. B. Bennett began the negoti-
ation
of
atrade agreement
with
the
United
States in
the
spring.
Another leader, Mackenzie King, finished the job in time to celebrate
his success on Armistice Day,the 11th
of
November, from his perspec-
tive the appropriate occasion to contrast the cooperative peoples
of
North
America with those
of
abarbaric Europe.' O. D. Skelton, King's
chiefforeign policy adviser as he had been Bennett's, was delighted by
the substance
of
freer trade,
but
even more by its potential for the shap-
ing
of
a
"North
American mind."?
That
would distance the country
from the trap
of
British imperialism and European militarism.
THE
RISE OF
NORTH
AMERICANISM
The
first four decades
of
the
20th
century, the period
of
Skelton's aca-
demic
and
public service career, witnessed the rise
of
a
North
Americanism that went to the core
of
his thought.
North
Americanism
Norman Hillmeris
professor
of
history
and international
affairs
at
Carleton
University.
This
article
is
based
upona
presentation
to the
Organization
for the
History
of
Canada
conference,
"Do
borders
matter?"
University
of
Ottawa,
14 May
2004.
the
authoris
grateful
to
Susan
B.
Whitney,
H B.
Neatby,
Robert
Bothwell,
Stephen
Azzi, Philippe
Lagasse,
andMichael
Ryan.
1
Library
and
archives
Canada
(LAc).
W.
L.M. Kingfonds,
MG
26. Kingdiary.30
October
1935.
2
Franklin
Delano
Roosevelt
presidential library,
Hyde
Park,
New
York.
F.
D.
Roosevelt
papers,
PSF,
Canada.
1933-1941.
Norman
Armour
to
William
Phillips.22
October
1935;United
States
national
archives.
Washington.
Department
of
State
records
611.4231/1273. Armourto
secretary
of state.17
October
1935.with
memo-
randum
of
same
date.and Phillipsto
Roosevelt.
7
November
1935.
INTERNATIONAL
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Winter
2004-2005
Norman
Hillmer
was
not
an organized impulse,
nor
was it the
dominant
force driving
attitudes
and
policy in Canada or the United States. But it was on an
upwards trajectory during Skelton's adult life.
North
Americanism came from many
directions-from
the growth
of
the
United
States' power
and
ambition,
and
the
dimming
of
the
British empire's light
and
authority; from
the
resolution
of
the
Canadian-American disputes that
had
dogged the late 19th
and
early
20th
centuries; from the sense that asuperior
North
American diplo-
matic
structure
was taking shape,
with
the
International
Joint
Commission
(IJc)
as both symbol
and
evidence
of
an ability to resolve
knotty problems cooperatively; and from continental publicists such as
J.
T. Shotwell
and
J.
W. Dafoe.
It
came, too, from intensifying links
of
economics
and
culture,
and
from the merchants, doctors, engineers,
lawyers, bankers, unionists, bureaucrats, academics, entertainers,
and
athletes who moved effortlessly
and
increasingly across the border.
When
Americans
and
Canadians turned away from the world in the
years between the two world wars,
North
Americanism
took
atighter
hold. Sir Robert Falconer, the president
of
the University
of
Toronto,
wrote in 1925 that
North
America was the hope
of
the world: "Fear
of
force is unknown, vessels
of
war are
not
seen on the lakes
nor
fortifica-
tions on
the
frontier,
and
such rivalries which exist spring
not
from
incompatible racial ambitions
but
from legitimate trade between two
peoples
of
mutual affinity
and
respect."
How
sad, by comparison, was
"the plight
of
Europe:
country
set against country, race against race,
frontiers watched by suspicious guardians, enclaves
and
fragments
of
peoples only tolerated by necessity." Canadians regularly traveled to
the League
of
Nations to read what became known,
and
not
in a com-
plimentary
way, as
the
"Canadian
speech," prescribing
the
IJC's
methodologies
of
investigation, reason,
and
discussion as a remedy for
the world's ills. Canadians, Mackenzie King told the League in 1928,
lived "in perfect harmony
...
with their neighbour to the souch."!
3Sir
Robert
Falconer,
The
UnitedStatesas a Neighbourfrom a
Canadian
Point
of
View(London:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1925),
242.
4
Norman
Hillmer,"The
Canadian
diplomatictradition," in Andrew
Fenton
Cooper,
ed.,
Canadian
Culture:International
Dimensions
(Toronto
and
Waterloo,
Ontario:
Canadian
Institute of InternationalAffairs/Centreon
Foreign
Policyand
Federalism,
Universityof
Waterloo,
1985),
53;DonaldM.
Page,
"Canada
asthe exponentof
North
American
idealism,"
American
Review
of
Canadian
StudiesIII, (autumn
1973):
38.
94
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