An Alberta political revolution and Calgary's Lougheed Building.
Smith, Donald B.
The Herald of July 27, 1921, reported the excitement of that morning: "It was only towards mid-day that there appeared any animation within the room, so closely guarded, wherein the farmers were holding their deliberations. It began with mild applause. This increased as time wore on until there was a deafening roar which appeared to shake the girders of the Lougheed Building itself." The victory of the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) nine days earlier had been so unexpected by the public, as well as by the farmers themselves, that they had swept into power without a premier designate. Called together from across the province the UFA MLAs-elect gathered in secret session to pick a premier. Almost all delegates were men with only one woman, Irene Parlby from Alix. They met at the UFA's central headquarters in Calgary's Lougheed Building, at the southeast corner of 1st Street and 6th Avenue S W.
After the deafening noise on the second floor had abated, the door swung and the smiling farmers stepped out to announce the victor. They had selected Herbert Greenfield as Alberta's new premier. A popular "dirt" farmer from Westlock and a member of the UFA executive, Greenfield had served as the chief organizer of the extremely successful membership drive of the previous fall. During that drive, the UFA had canvassed literally every farm in Alberta. The new premier, now fifty-two years old, told those assembled: "I will do my best for the farmers and every class in the province of Alberta." Deafening cheers.
In 1921, two-thirds of Albertans lived on farms at a time when the province had a population of 600,000. Agriculture was the motor of the economy. Convinced that political involvement could better rural Alberta's depressed economic situation, the UFA had entered the provincial election of June 18. The organization, born in 1909, and its women's section, the United Farm Women of Alberta (established in 1915-16), had forced the Liberal administration, in office since 1905, to pass some favourable legislation for the farm community. But, in this period of farm crisis, it was not enough. The UFA wanted to put an end to "partyism," the old-party system of Liberals and Conservatives with its alleged exploitation and corporate domination.
Many challenges confronted Alberta's farmers immediately after World War One, including drought in southeastern Alberta, where one-quarter of the province's farm population lived. The lack of rain over several years had ruined many and UFA members called for immediate relief for farmers. The farmers' land was heavily mortgaged, their lines of credit overextended, and their money exhausted. In addition, the federal government had disbanded the Wheat Board, established to provide minimum wheat prices, and thus added to the farmers' unrest. As a result, the dire economic conditions led to an immediate response to the UFA's call for political solutions. By the final months of 1921, the farm organization had nearly 40,000 members, which meant that almost 40 per cent of Alberta's male farmers belonged.
Historian Brad Rennie reviews expertly the UFA's success in The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberto, 1909-1921 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000). It was a grassroots-controlled organization, consisting of locals, a central office, and a board of
directors. Every year it held an annual convention. At the top of the organization stood Henry Wise Wood, a Missouri-born farm leader who had come north to the "Last Best West" in 1905, at the age of forty-five. He purchased a wheat farm near Carstairs and became active in the UFA. Rennie refers to Wood as "the greatest UFA leader of all, whose sincerity and homely charisma attracted mass loyalty" (p. 13). The 61-year-old president of the UFA worked in an office on the second floor of the Lougheed Building, and had his apartment on the sixth. When invited to run for the premier's slot, Wood declined. He wanted to remain as president of the UFA, which he considered a far more important job.
Henry Wise Wood's chief advisor, John Brownlee, worked on the Lougheed's third floor, the headquarters of the United Grain Growers (UGG). Wood looked upon the UGG's lawyer, who had helped the UFA with legal advice, as the logical choice for premier. Some of the farmer members-elect supported him, but due to his profession, which he felt would not sit well with the UFA rank and file, Brownlee had turned down the nomination. With Henry Wise Wood, and now John Brownlee, out of the race, the MLAs-elect selected Herbert Greenfield who, in turn, appointed Brownlee his attorney-general.
In retrospect, it is extraordinary that the UFA MLAs chose the province's next premier in a building named after a key figure in their "enemy's' camp. Sir James Lougheed, who built the Lougheed Building in 1911-12, served in 1921 as both the leader of the federal Conservative Party in the Senate and Minister of the Interior in Prime Minister Arthur Meighen's cabinet. As a member of the cabinet, the senator endorsed the hated tariff that forced farmers to buy expensive eastern-manufactured goods in a protected market while at the same time requiring them to sell their wheat in a protected market. In 1921 the Conservatives raised the tariff again. In response, the farmers called for withdrawal of the high tariff, Senate reform, and the elimination of British titles. They may have resented the fact that a title had been given to the building's landlord ("tinpot titles have no place in a democratic country" said the Grain Growers Guide in 1918), but they loved Sir James's building. By 1921 the UFA occupied almost the entire second floor,
Political power proved a challenge for the farmers' government. Only one of the newly-elected UFA members had ever sat in the legislature before. In terms of his administrative ability the hale-fellow-well-met Premier Greenfield proved ineffective. The government needed someone skilled in law, competent in administration, and confident in dealings with non-farmer groups in society. Franklin Foster tells what followed in his well-written biography, John E. Brownlee: A Biography (Lloydminster: Foster Learning Inc., 1996). Almost every issue before the government necessitated Brownlee's legal advice. A flow of correspondence from the premier's office arrived at the Attorney-General's with a simple memo attached: "Kindly let Mr. Greenfield know what to reply to this" (p.71). In 1925 the UFA caucus finally acted upon Henry Wise Wood's initial advice, and corporate lawyer John Brownlee became the second UFA premier of Alberta.
Brownlee led the UFA to victory in the provincial election of 1926, helped by the economic upswing of the mid-1920s. His success in gaining provincial control from the federal government of Alberta's natural resources in 1930 led to another electoral victory that year. But the Great Depression hit the UFA badly. A sex scandal removed John Brownlee from office in 1934, his replacement as premier being Richard Gavin Reid. A year later William Aberhart and his Social Credit movement swept the third UFA premier, and the UFA itself, into political oblivion in the provincial election of 1935.
Aberhart provides another link with the historic Lougheed Building. In the early 1920s--some years prior to the future Social Credit premier's entry into politics--the high school principal and freelance evangelist had used the Grand Theatre in the building for his Sunday afternoon Bible conferences. The central theme of his orations was Biblical prophecy. So the handsome old building could claim an association with the vanquished, the UFA, and the victor, Social Credit.
Nor was that the Lougheed Building's last link with provincial politics. Almost a half century after the momentous UFA meeting of June 1921, the venerable old building participated in an urban, not a rural, revolution. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the penthouse of the seventh floor housed the provincial headquarters of Peter Lougheed's Progressive Conservative party. On August 30, 1971, the grandson of the building's namesake, Sir James Lougheed, won the provincial election and ended thirty-six years of Social Credit dominance.
No historic plaque at the building's main entrance on 1st Street SW commemorates the building's important link with Alberta politics. No reference appears to the most dramatic political event to take place within the Lougheed's walls: the selection of a provincial premier. On the day of the event all the UFA members-elect sat for a group photo on the Sixth Avenue side of the building. This photo does not appear in the lobby, nor does the second floor of Calgary's venerable old building contain the wonderful photo of the farmer politicians meeting to select a premier. Nor does a photo of Herbert Greenfield, premier designate, appear on the second floor, or photos of the two other major players: Henry Wise Wood, the UFA president, and John Brownlee, its very effective legal counsel.
The intended demolition of the nearly century-old Lougheed Building around 2000 helps to explain the lack of historical reminders. Then, in early 2003 a significant change occurred when the building was purchased by Heritage Property Corporation, which hopes it will be possible to keep it standing. For the first time in over twenty years the building is owned by a owner who wants, if financially feasible, to restore it. One wishes the new owner every possible success. The Lougheed Building is hallowed ground for all those interested in Alberta history.
Donald Smith was born in Toronto in 1946 and raised in Oakville. He prepared both his B.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, and his M.A. al the Universite Laval in Quebec City. He began teaching Canadian history al the University of Calgary in 1974 and immediately became an enthusiast of Calgary history.
His major publications include three biographies: Long Lance: The True Story of an Impostor (1982: revised edition. 1999): Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians (1987),: and From the Land of Shadows: The Making of Grey Owl (1990). He is currently writing of twentieth century Calgary from the viewpoint of the Lougheed Building/Grand Theatre.
