Description
In a fiercely fought provincial election in 1919, a new political movement came to power in Ontario. The victorious party was the United Farmers of Ontario. Its leader, Ernest Charles Drury (1878-1968), became the province's eighth premier.
Idealistic agrarian reformer, staunch temperance man, free-trade advocate, Simcoe County 'yeoman,' and progressive populist, Drury was a man of the people and of the land, inevitably tagged the Farmer Premier. In this biography, Charles M. Johnston follows the career of Drury through agrarian activism and partisan politics, and explores the personal and ideological forces that directed him.
Drury began his career in the farm movement as leader of the Dominion Grange and Farmers' Alliance. He went on to act as the driving force behind the Canadian Council of Agriculture, and then co-founded the UFO in 1913.
Activist though he was, Drury as a premier sought no dramatic departures from established political procedures. When others
