Clarence Decatur Howe, born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on January 14th, 1886; died in Montreal, on December 31st, 1960. Engineer and politician.
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Nicknamed "the Minister of Everything", he was described as
a "fascist, but a nice Fascist", and accused of having set himself
up as a virtual dictator. All agreed, however, that Howe was the man that
got things done. As minister responsible for transportation, munitions
and supplies, he gave Canadians the means that were urgently needed to
support the war effort.
C.D. Howe was born in Waltham, in New England. His father was in the
construction business, and the family was affluent enough to allow young
C.D. Howe to receive a university education. He studied at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Boston between 1903 and 1907 and graduated
as an engineer.
In 1908 he took up a teaching position in civil engineering at Dalhousie
University in Halifax. He was already convinced that any problem could
be solved through common sense and hard work. On that basis, and despite
the fact that he had no practical experience in that area, he left for
the Canadian West in 1913 to supervise the construction of grain elevators
for the Canadian Board of Grain Commissioners.
In 1916, Howe created his own engineering firm in Port Arthur, Ontario,
with a specialty in grain elevators: the C.D. Howe Company Ltd. was to
be immensely successful in the 1920s building elevators and bridges in
Vancouver, Saskatoon, Churchill, Port Arthur, Toronto and Prescott, and
as far as Buenos Aires in Argentina. In the 1930s though, the Depression
forced the company to drastically reduce its activities.
While Canada was in the grip of the great economic depression, the Liberal
Party of W.L. Mackenzie
King asked C.D. Howe to run in the 1935 federal elections. In September,
he was elected as Liberal MP for Port Arthur and chosen by Prime Minister
King for the double portfolio of Shipping and Railways, to be fused in
1936 in a single department, that of Transportation.
Applying his pragmatic outlook and keen business sense to political issues,
Howe launched a reorganization of the Canadian harbour system and a restructuring
of the Canadian National Railway to help them regain profitability; he
also ensured state control over the airwaves by creating the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation (CBC - Société Radio-Canada).
On June 30th, 1937, Howe flew from Montreal to Vancouver on a Lockheed
14H of the Department of Transportation. The 17-hour and 34-minute flight
was the first transcontinental connection in Canadian history and the
first flight of a new Crown corporation, Trans-Canada Airlines, which
would become much later Air Canada.
In 1939, the Department of Transportation was feverishly preparing for
the upcoming war. On April 9th, 1940, the Department of Munitions and
Supplies was created, with C.D. Howe at the helm. The engineer turned
politician was facing a major challenge: to lead the Canadian population
and industry through the production changes required by the war effort.
Through the War Measures Act, the Department of Munitions and Supplies enjoyed far-reaching powers, controlling markets, the allotment of natural resources, production volumes, and the use of specialized manpower. To run this gigantic war production machine, Howe relied on the patriotism of Canada's leading businessmen, asking them to provide their services to the Department of Munitions and Supplies for the duration of the war without compensation. He also surrounded himself with an outstanding management team, which included men such as E.P. Taylor and W.C. Woodward.
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Howe himself was not immune from the perils of the war. In December 1940, as he was sailing to Great Britain aboard the Western Prince, his ship was torpedoed by a U-boat; Howe spent eight exhausting hours aboard a lifeboat on the icy sea. The possibility of death by exposure or by drowning, or by enemy fire from the submarine that surfaced near his boat, could not abate Howe's determination. Having been rescued by a merchant ship, he resumed his journey to London without any delay and according to plans.
On October 13th, 1944, C.D. Howe was put in charge of a new portfolio,
that of Reconstruction. His task was to reorganize Canadian industry back
into the free enterprise mode, to ensure employment for demobilized soldiers
and, in general, to maintain the wartime level of activity into the upcoming
peace era. Industry had to be freed from government control measures and
guided through a shift to the production of consumer goods for the welfare
of the whole population.
As peace returned, Howe was appointed Minister of Trade and Commerce;
he was to keep that portfolio in the government of Louis Saint-Laurent
who replaced King as Prime Minister in 1948. He was in charge of armament
production programmes during the Korean War and in the earlier stages
of the Cold War.
In 1956, a scandal erupted over the financing of a trans-canadian natural
gas pipeline and Howe was in the eye of the storm. His intractable attitude
and abrupt manners, which could be tolerated from the former "Minister
of Everything" in times of emergency, were no longer deemed acceptable
in a democratic, parliamentary regime. At the 1957 federal elections,
the Liberal government was defeated and Howe lost his seat. After 22 years
of uninterrupted good and faithful service, Howe, now 70-year old, retired
from political life.
"Since the beginning of the war, it has not been my practice to take part in the debates of the House, apart from giving certain information about my department which seemed to be required in order to allow of decisions being reached. I have been entrusted with the task of mobilizing the activities of industry for war production, and I have concentrated all my time and thought on that particular problem."
C.D. Howe, June 16th, 1942
| Suggested Reading: |
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• R. Bothwell et W. Kilbourn, C.D. Howe: A Biography,
1979. |
| Links: |
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See "Clarence Decatur Howe, Transforming Canada into a Modern Industrial Nation (1886-1960)" on the site of Canada's Digital Collections |
