the law, and
when the result of his action led to the enactment of a successful
arbitration measure by the Government of Colorado.

All this was prior to King's election as member of the House of
Commons. Eight years as Deputy in the Department of Labour, he stepped
into the Commons and the Ministry of Labour with exceptional qualities
to succeed. His record as Minister was the natural but uncommon sequel
to his experience as Deputy. King was so long the one man whose whole
time was spent in the effort to reconcile industry and humanity in
Canada that it seems hard to recollect that he spent but three years as
Minister. During that time, as well as before it, he became the ardent
disciple of Laurier. While there was great advantage in having spent
so many years as Deputy, it is a pity for the sake of the young
leader's subsequent elevation that he did not come under the spell of
the old chieftain as a candidate before Laurier had begun to grow
cynical in office. In 1908 Laurier had been at least three years tired
of public life when there was no man to succeed him, and when, as often
as he expressed his weariness of trying to govern a nation so
temperamentally difficult as Canada, he was tempted by the adulation of
his supporters to try again, until winning elections for the sake of
remaining in power became a habit.

Admiration such as King felt for Laurier made criticism impossible. He
worshipped Laurier. In this he was not alone. Older men than King,
among his colleagues, shared the same spell-binding sentiment. And
there was no member of the Cabinet who grieved more than King at the
defeat of Laurier in 1911.

Here begins the Standard Oil story. The _Montreal Gazette_, in a
report of two speeches made at a certain club, published an accusation
that King had "deserted Canada in her hour of crisis in search of
Standard Oil millions."

As similar statements may be made during the election campaign, it is
fair to know the facts. King was employed by the Rockefeller
Foundation, not by Standard Oil. The connection is merely one of cause
and effect. The Foundation spends on the wholesale betterment of
humanity the multi-millions which Standard Oil accumulated from the
people. The theory of justification here is that the people would have
spent these millions foolishly, whereas the Foundation spends them
well. There is some truth in the theory. King was engaged solely upon
the industrial relations prog