Herbert Greenfield
Template:Short description Template:Use Canadian English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox officeholder Herbert W. Greenfield (November 25, 1869 – August 23, 1949) was a Canadian politician and farmer who served as the fourth premier of Alberta from 1921 until 1925. Born in Winchester, Hampshire, in England, he immigrated to Canada in his late twenties, settling first in Ontario and then in Alberta, where he farmed. He soon became involved in the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA), a farmers' lobby organization that was in the process of becoming a political party, and was elected as the organization's vice president. Greenfield did not run in the 1921 provincial election, the first provincial general election in which the UFA fielded candidates, but when the UFA won a majority in the Legislature in that election he was chosen by the UFA caucus to serve as Premier. Like most of the UFA caucus, Greenfield had no experience in government and he struggled in the position.
He relied extensively on his Attorney General, John E. Brownlee, for counsel on policy and strategy. He was unable to control his caucus, which did not generally believe in party discipline, and his government almost lost several votes in the Legislature despite its majority. He was unable to effectively address the problems facing farmers (including drought and low grain prices), bitter labour disputes in the coal industry, or the pronounced divisions in public opinion that had sprung up around prohibition (which his government ended). Despite this, his time as Premier saw the elimination of the provincial deficit, substantial progress in negotiating the transfer of natural resource rights from the federal government, and the creation of the Alberta Wheat Pool. He also named Irene Parlby as the province's first female cabinet minister.
By 1924, many UFA Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) wanted to see Greenfield leave office, both because they were frustrated with his failings and because they thought it likely that a Greenfield-led government would be defeated in the next election. Their first attempt to replace him failed when Brownlee, their intended replacement, refused to have anything to do with the plan, but a second attempt, in 1925, was successful when Brownlee agreed to take office if Greenfield personally requested that he do so. Greenfield had not wanted the job in the first place, and agreed to resign in Brownlee's favour. After his retirement from politics, Greenfield represented Alberta in London, England, for several years before returning to Canada to work in the oil and gas industry. He died in 1949 at the age of 79.
Early life and family
Herbert W. Greenfield was born November 25, 1869, in Winchester, Hampshire, England,<ref name="Jones 60">Jones 60</ref> the son of John Greenfield and Mary Leake.<ref>Perry, Craig 2006, p. 313.</ref> He attended Wesleyan School in Dalston,<ref name="leg bio">Template:Cite web</ref> but dropped out as a result of his father's bankruptcy.<ref name="Jones 60"/> He worked aboard a cattle boat in 1892 before emigrating to Canada in 1896.<ref name="Jones 60"/><ref name="leg bio"/> In Canada, he worked in the oil fields near Sarnia, Ontario, and as a farmer in Weston, Ontario.<ref name="Jones 60"/> He married Elizabeth Harris on February 28, 1900.<ref name="leg bio"/> The couple had two sons, Franklin Harris Greenfield and Arnold Leake Greenfield.<ref name="leg bio"/> In 1904, the family went west for economic reasons and homesteaded near Edmonton.<ref name="Jones 60"/> He found work in a lumber mill and later turned to farming.<ref name="Jones 60"/> During his first year in Alberta, a fire destroyed his home, and he and his wife spent the winter in an abandoned sod hut.<ref name="Jones 60"/> In 1906, they resettled to a large home four kilometers south of Westlock.<ref name="Jones 61"/> In January 1922, while Greenfield was Premier, Elizabeth died suddenly as a result of routine surgery.<ref>Jones 71–72</ref> He remarried in 1926, to Marjorie Greenwood Cormack, who brought two children of her own into the marriage.<ref name="leg bio"/>
Early political career
Greenfield entered public life on a local level soon after moving to his new farm. He was elected to the local school board, where he spent twelve years, including stints as chair,<ref name="Jones 60"/> secretary, and treasurer.<ref name="leg bio"/> Additionally, he served as Vice President of the Alberta Educational Association,<ref name="Jones 60"/> as President of the Westlock Agricultural Society, and as co-founder and President of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts.<ref name="Jones 60"/><ref>Rennie, Agrarian Democracy, 178</ref> Greenfield also was an officer of the province-wide Association of Local Improvement Districts, which advocated for reforms such as a change from a ten-hour to an eight-hour work day, on the grounds that many Local Improvement Districts (LIDs) were having trouble competing with railways for labour.<ref>Rennie, Agrarian Democracy, 72</ref> John E. Brownlee later said of Greenfield's involvement in the ALID that it was there "that he was first initiated into the discussion of public subjects, and it became the training ground for his subsequent success."<ref>Masson 43</ref>
Provincially, Greenfield was originally a Liberal, but along with many other farmers, began to grow dissatisfied with the Liberal government's treatment of farmers.<ref name="leg bio"/> He became involved with the United Farmers of Alberta, which prior to 1919 was a non-partisan lobby group that eschewed direct involvement in the political process.<ref>Rennie, Agrarian Democracy, 180</ref> He was elected to the organization's executive in 1919 and chaired its mass conventions in 1920 and 1921.<ref name="Jones 60"/> He headed an extremely successful membership drive.<ref name="ABH"/> Despite this involvement, he did not seek election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1921 election.<ref name="Jones 60"/> When the UFA, which as part of its resistance to old-style politics had contested the election without designating a leader, won 38 of 61 seats, it found itself needing to form a government without having decided who would head it. Greenfield meanwhile had been named interim Vice President of the organization after the death of Percival Baker.<ref name="ABH"/>
The logical choice was UFA President Henry Wise Wood.<ref name="Rennie 81">Foster, Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, 81</ref> However, Wood had little taste for the minutiae of government, preferring to remain at the head of what he saw as a broader political movement (saying he would "sooner be President of the UFA than the USA"),<ref name="Rennie 81"/> and saw party lawyer Brownlee as the best choice.<ref name="Rennie 81"/> Brownlee, who, like Wood, had not contested the election, said he felt that the Premier must be a farmer for the aspirations of the UFA's base to be fulfilled.<ref>Foster, Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, 82</ref> George Hoadley, one of the two UFA members with previous legislative experience (Hoadley had been a sitting Conservative MLA prior to the election; UFA MLA Alex Moore had been elected in a by-election a few months before the general election), was considered, but since his previous experience had been as a Conservative—one of the old line parties so disdained by the UFA — he was deemed unacceptable.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 54</ref> There was even some speculation that incumbent Liberal Premier Charles Stewart, who had become a member of the UFA before it entered politics directly, would stay on as Premier, but he immediately announced that he would serve only until the UFA selected a leader.<ref>Jaques 49–50, 52</ref> A meeting of the UFA caucus in Calgary selected Greenfield, and he took office as Premier on August 13, 1921.<ref name="Jones 60"/>
Premier
Greenfield took office as Premier amid great expectations. The Lethbridge Herald called him "the only new Moses that can bridge the Red Sea", while the Calgary Herald noted that "no government ever went into office in this country carrying better wishes for its success".<ref name="Jones 60"/> He also took office without a seat in the legislature.<ref name="ABH">Template:Cite web</ref> This latter circumstance was addressed through the voluntary resignation of Donald MacBeth Kennedy, who had won the riding of Peace River for the UFA.<ref name="ABH"/> Greenfield won the seat by acclamation on December 9, 1921.<ref name="ABH"/>
Legislature and cabinet
Once in the legislature, however, Greenfield faltered in his leadership of his caucus. The UFA MLAs came from a determinedly independent and non-partisan background and proved nearly impossible to whip.<ref name="Jones 69">Jones 69</ref> When Greenfield selected his cabinet and was about to announce it to his caucus for their vetting, he was interrupted by Lorne Proudfoot who asked whether, in addition to the rumoured inclusion of Labour members, the cabinet would include any of the fourteen Liberal MLAs. Proudfoot argued that to exclude them would be to "start out much after the matter of the old parties".<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 59</ref> Greenfield had not intended this, and suggested that no Liberals would likely be amenable to it.<ref name="Foster 60">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 60</ref> Irene Parlby, the caucus's only woman (who Greenfield would shortly name as Alberta's first female cabinet minister) agreed, and suggested that the UFA's ideal of securing representation for all economic groups in society did not apply to the Liberals, who were not an economic group and were not democratically organized in any event.<ref name="Foster 60"/> Proudfoot's proposal was defeated sixteen votes to fourteen.<ref>Byrne 4</ref> Greenfield went on to name the seven member cabinet he had intended, including Labour MLA Alex Ross as Minister of Public Works, Parlby as Minister Without Portfolio, and Greenfield himself as Provincial Treasurer.<ref name="Byrne 5">Byrne 5</ref>
Once the legislature convened in 1922, the inexperience of the Premier and his caucus was further laid bare. Greenfield, devastated by the sudden death of his wife, turned in a poor performance.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 74. "The impact of the loss seemed to carry on into the opening session of the Assembly where Greenfield's preoccupied manner and lucklustre performance were attributed to his continuing grief."</ref> Faced with an aggressive attack by new Liberal leader John R. Boyle, Greenfield relied heavily on Attorney General John Brownlee, who sat next to him in the Legislature, to provide the defense.<ref name="Foster 75">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 75</ref> The session got off to an inauspicious start: Greenfield nominated the government's preferred candidate for speaker, Oran McPherson, only to have one of his backbenchers, Alex Moore, nominate Independent Conservative John Smith Stewart; Stewart spared the government embarrassment by declining the nomination.<ref name="Foster 75"/>
Moore, along with fellow UFA backbencher John Russell Love, caused the government further trouble with a resolution aiming to limit the circumstances under which the government would have to resign.<ref name="Foster 77">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 77</ref> By convention of the Westminster system, a government was required to resign on the defeat of any piece of its legislation that was critical to its program. Moore and Love objected to the manner in which this provision could be expected to pressure UFA MLAs to back government legislation that they might otherwise be inclined to oppose, and introduced a resolution in the Legislature that called for a policy by which the government would resign only upon passage of an explicit motion of no confidence.<ref name="Foster 77"/> The resolution caught the attention of politicians across Canada, including future Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, who warned that it was unconstitutional.<ref name="Foster 77"/> Brownlee moved an amendment that reduced the resolution to a vague statement of principle, which passed and was not heard of again.<ref name="Foster 77"/>
UFA members also objected to the concept of a caucus, in which MLAs from one party debate policy behind closed doors.<ref name="Foster 75"/> They believed that the role of an MLA was to represent the views of his or her constituents directly on the floor of the Legislature.<ref name="Foster 76">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 76</ref> This belief too proved problematic to the government. The Dairyman's Act had been adopted by the Liberal government to provide low-interest loans to dairy farmers.<ref name="Foster 75"/> It was unpopular among farmers, and Greenfield's government aimed to amend it.<ref name="Foster 75"/> Many UFA backbenchers, however, wanted to see it repealed altogether, but because of their objection to caucus discussions Greenfield was not aware of this by the time his amendments came to the floor of the legislature.<ref name="Foster 75"/> They passed through the house with little debate, until just after third reading, when one of the backbenchers rose to ask if the time had come to speak against the bill.<ref name="Foster 76"/> Brownlee suggested that, in view of the legislators' inexperience with parliamentary procedure, the legislature consider the motion to adopt the bill on third reading as not yet having passed, that debate might ensue.<ref name="Foster 76"/> This suggestion adopted, several UFA members attacked the Act. They were joined in this by the Liberals, despite the fact that it was a Liberal act that had been co-authored by Boyle.<ref name="Foster 76"/> In the end, the bill passed only by virtue of the support of the four Labour members.<ref name="Foster 76"/>
More trouble with the legislature struck Greenfield in August 1922, during a special session called for the purpose of passing enabling legislation for a provincial wheat board.<ref name="Foster 82">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 82</ref> The session lasted only a week, and on August 31 the only item of business that remained was the members' pay for the session.<ref name="Foster 82"/> The government was proposing $100 per member, but some MLAs complained that this was insufficient in light of the long travel times between Edmonton and their constituencies.<ref name="Foster 82"/> Greenfield, lacking the counsel of the vacationing Brownlee and wanting to avoid trouble, proposed upping the amount to $200.<ref name="Foster 82"/> Independent MLA Robert Pearson proposed increasing it once again, to $250, to match what their counterparts in Saskatchewan had received.<ref name="Foster 82"/> This suggestion was carried.<ref name="Foster 82"/> While Greenfield had hardly been the driving force behind the increases, he had facilitated them and had been blind to the appearance of paying MLAs more for six afternoons of work than some farmers were able to earn in a year.<ref name="Foster 82"/> The grassroots of his own party condemned the move, all the more so when the wheat board that had been the purpose of the special session failed to come to fruition.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 82–83</ref>
Agriculture
Greenfield became Premier at a time of agricultural depression, especially in the province's south.<ref name="Jones 61">Jones 61</ref> The region, which was responsible for approximately 75% of Alberta's wheat production, was in the midst of its fifth consecutive year of drought, and the farmers who had been responsible for putting the UFA into office were now demanding action.<ref name="Jones 61"/> Initially, the government offered direct financial assistance, with $5 million provided in seed and grain relief by the end of 1922.<ref name="Jones 63">Jones 63</ref> However, this effort was driving the province close to bankruptcy, and in 1923 Greenfield announced an end to the handouts (the bill authorizing the last of these was a source of chagrin for MLAs from all parties, both because it marked the end of direct assistance for farmers and because the last of the assistance was itself so expensive).<ref name="Jones 63"/> Farmers and political representatives from the affected areas criticized the government bitterly,<ref name="Jones 63"/> referencing Greenfield's earlier pledge that "if the south country should fall, then we are prepared to fall with it".<ref name="Jones 62">Jones 62</ref>
The government did not give up on addressing the problem when it ended subsidies. It had previously commissioned a number of studies on the agricultural situation and related factors,<ref name="Jones 62"/> and converted some of the results of these studies into legislation. The Debt Adjustment Act of 1923 was designed to adjust farmers' debts to a level that they could actually pay, thus allowing them to carry on while still ensuring that creditors received as much as was feasible.<ref>Jones 63–64</ref> In the words of University of Calgary professor David C. Jones, the bill offered "solace, but no real satisfaction".<ref name="Jones 64">Jones 64</ref> According to Jones, Greenfield's attempts to rescue southern Alberta from agricultural calamity were probably doomed to failure.<ref name="Jones 65">Jones 65</ref> Even so, Greenfield had called the situation his top priority,<ref name="Jones 61"/> and his failure to bring it to a successful resolution cost him politically.<ref name="Jones 63"/>
Another preoccupation of the UFA and the Greenfield government was the marketing of wheat. From 1919 to 1920 there had been a federally established wheat pool to stabilize wheat prices.<ref name="Jones 68"/> When it was disbanded, wheat prices tumbled by two-thirds, prompting many farmers to call for its re-introduction.<ref name="Jones 68"/> At the call of the UFA and farmers' organizations in other provinces, the federal government (whose razor-thin majority in the House of Commons was often widened by the support of farmer-friendly Progressive members) created a new, mandatory agency, pending the appointment by the provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan of a board of directors for the agency.<ref name="Foster 96">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 96</ref> This they proved unable to do.<ref name="Jones 68"/> Greenfield's government ultimately admitted defeat and gave up on re-establishing the pool, opting instead to guarantee loans to farmer-run cooperative pools.<ref name="Jones 68"/> With government assistance, the Alberta Wheat Pool came into existence in time for the 1923 harvest.<ref name="Foster 90"/>
Labour unrest
During Greenfield's premiership, Alberta's major non-agricultural industry was coal mining, and the industry was not prospering.<ref name="Jones 65"/> Production was more than 50% greater than demand, and fewer than half of the province's mines were profitable.<ref name="Jones 65"/> The industry as a whole was earning a profit of less than one cent per ton of coal.<ref name="Jones 65"/> Miners' wages had more than doubled (in nominal terms) between 1909 and 1920 but had barely held their own against the wartime inflation. In the 1920s mine owners began to roll them back.<ref name="Jones 65–66">Jones 65–66</ref> Besides the low wages, miners were unsatisfied with working conditions in an industry that saw more than 3,300 workplace accidents per year.<ref name="Jones 65"/> The results had been labour militancy and violence.<ref name="Jones 65–66"/> A general strike in the industry in 1920 had seen strikers assault strikebreakers, throw them off their bicycles, and throw rocks through the windows of buses.<ref name="Jones 66">Jones 66</ref> Police were used to aid the strikebreakers and had been sometimes attacked as well. One constable was partially paralyzed from the beating he received.<ref name="Jones 66"/> Provincial police commissioner W.C. Bryan was warned against inspecting one strike site in a note reading "You spoilt the strike, and if you go...you will be killed."<ref name="Jones 67">Jones 67</ref> He went anyway, and was greeted by an ambush in which three bullets were fired into his car, missing him.<ref>Jones 66–67</ref>
The situation was still unsettled after Greenfield became premier in autumn 1921. Greenfield was at a loss as to how to respond to this crisis, complaining that both employees and employers were the most difficult people in the province to deal with and that they showed "very little spirit of compromise".<ref name="Jones 67"/> He tried to be balanced in his approach to this labour-employer friction but was not aided by his own Minister of Public Works, Labour MLA Alex Ross, who took the side of the miners and objected to the government's provision of police escorts for strikebreakers.<ref name="Jones 67"/> Though the problems originated before Greenfield took office,<ref name="Jones 65"/> many Albertans felt that a stronger leader might have been more successful than Greenfield in achieving industrial peace.<ref name="Jones 67"/>
Prohibition
Prohibition had been introduced in Alberta following a 1916 referendum, during which the UFA had advocated for the prohibitionist side.<ref>Jaques 49</ref> The Liberal version of prohibition was weak, and Greenfield came into office intending to strengthen the legislation.<ref name="Foster 64">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 64</ref> Even by 1920, however, it was becoming apparent that the policy was not working (or, as the Medicine Hat News noted, "Prohibition is now working smoothly. The only thing left is to stop the sale of liquor!").<ref name="Jones 67"/> Greenfield's own MLAs began to grumble about the policy—Archibald Matheson expressed in 1923 the view that "This government has acted as philosopher, guide, and God to the people long enough."<ref name="Jones 68">Jones 68</ref> Public opinion, too, began to shift against the policy, more rapidly after 1922 when three police officers were killed in the line of duty by bootleggers.<ref name="Foster 85">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 85</ref> The last and most dramatic of these was the murder of Steve Lawson in front of the barracks where he and his family lived, by Emil "Pic" Picariello and Florence Lassandra.<ref name="Foster 85"/> Public opinion ran high both for and against the pair, and their 1923 hangings only served to unite both factions against prohibition.<ref name="Foster 95">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 95</ref>
An autumn 1923 referendum saw Albertans vote decisively for the repeal of prohibition, despite the UFA's continuing support for the policy.<ref name="Foster 100">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 100</ref> In response, the government resolved to repeal the Prohibition Act and replaced it with government-controlled liquor sales.<ref name="Foster 95"/> Greenfield attempted to make the move more palatable to prohibitionists by proposing that liquor profits be shared with impoverished municipalities.<ref name="Jones 68"/> However, the scheme proved unworkable, and the re-legalization went ahead without any such profit-sharing.<ref name="Jones 68"/> In 1924, the government introduced legislation to replace prohibition with the regulation of liquor sales by the government, and subjected it to a free vote.<ref name="Foster 107">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 107</ref> While the legislation passed, the new measures were divisive, pitting community leaders who wanted their towns to remain "dry" against those who wanted to apply for liquor licences, and different would-be saloon-keepers against one another in competing for the government-issued licences.<ref name="Foster 107"/>
Provincial finances
At the outset of his premiership, Greenfield served as Provincial Treasurer as well as Premier.<ref name="Byrne 5"/> In both of these capacities, he was faced with a provincial deficit, which reached an accumulated total of $4 million between his taking office and the end of the 1922 fiscal year.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 92</ref> One reason for this was the government's involvement in railways: it had found itself the owner of four uncompleted money-losing railway lines after the private syndicates set up to run them collapsed due to construction cost overruns.<ref name="Foster 81">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 81</ref> By 1922, the government had lost a total of $6.7 million on the endeavor,<ref name="Jones 68"/> with an additional $5 million expected to follow that year—37% of the estimated 1922 provincial budget.<ref name="Foster 81"/> Greenfield wanted to sell the lines to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), a course of action that was endorsed by Brownlee, but many farmers despised the CPR and most UFA MLAs preferred to keep the lines government-operated.<ref name="Jones 69">Jones 69</ref><ref name="Foster 81"/> Moreover, Greenfield's own Minister of Railways, Vernor Smith, was among this faction.<ref name="Jones 68"/> This problem plagued Greenfield for his entire term as Premier, and it was not until Brownlee succeeded him that a resolution came in the form of a $25 million sale to the major lines.<ref name="Jones 69"/>
Absent a solution to the railway problem, the government continued its deficits. Brownlee advocated deep cuts in spending to bring them under control,<ref name="Foster 81"/> and, when Greenfield demurred, began to cut staff in his own department.<ref name="Foster 111">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 111</ref> He found an ally in Richard Gavin Reid in 1923 when Greenfield, exhausted by his responsibilities, appointed the latter to replace him as Provincial Treasurer.<ref name="Foster 111"/> Reid impressed on the cabinet the need for drastic economy in all departments and, by 1925 (the last year of Greenfield's Premiership), the government at last showed a surplus, a state that would persist until the beginning of the Great Depression, with the exception of a small deficit in 1927.<ref name="Foster 111"/><ref>Rennie, Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, 110</ref>
Natural resources
At the time that Alberta was made a province in 1905, the federal government retained control of its natural resources (though it provided financial compensation to the new provincial government for this), a fact that set it apart from the older provinces.<ref>Thomas 10</ref> By 1925, negotiations to alter this state of affairs had been ongoing for more than a decade,<ref name="Jones 69"/> and the two levels of government had an agreement in principle.<ref name="Foster 114">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 114</ref> Despite this, Alberta Liberal leader John R. Boyle sent a letter to his fellow Liberal, Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, pleading with him to delay any agreement until after the expected 1925 election so that the UFA could not claim success.<ref name="Jones 69"/> Greenfield and Brownlee attended a series of meetings with federal representatives beginning May 19 in Ottawa; these continued until June 7, whereupon Brownlee returned home.<ref name="Foster 114"/> Greenfield offered to stay, but on June 11 King told him that the cabinet would need the summer to consider the question and that no agreement would be immediately forthcoming.<ref name="Foster 114"/> This decision did not help the Alberta Liberals, who went on to lose the next election soundly,<ref name="Jones 69"/> and did not prevent the transfer of resource rights, which took place in 1929,<ref>Foster, Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century, 90</ref> but was enough to rob Greenfield of his glory; he left office the next year.
Provincial banking
It was the longstanding view of a segment of the UFA that the Alberta government should enter the banking business directly by obtaining a bank charter from the federal government (which has responsibility for banking under the Canadian constitution). In fact, UFA President William John Tregillus had included the idea in a speech he gave on his goals for the organization in 1913.<ref>Grain Growers Guide, January 29, 1913, p. 27)</ref> At the UFA convention in 1923, a proponent of provincial banking, George Bevington, made a passionate speech in favour of this idea, bringing most of the membership around to his side.<ref name="Foster 90">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 90</ref> The convention passed a resolution in favour of the idea (along with one calling on the provincial treasury to establish a loan department, an idea that came to fruition fifteen years later with the creation of Alberta Treasury Branches),<ref>Finkel 46</ref> against the stiff opposition of Attorney-General Brownlee.<ref name="Foster 90"/> Brownlee's opposition stemmed in part from investigations that Greenfield's government had already undertaken into the subject: information was gathered from similar experiments in New Zealand and New South Wales, leading to the conclusion that, while there would be some benefit to a provincially owned bank, Alberta "had neither the economic nor constitutional base to consider such a scheme".<ref name="Foster 93">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 93</ref> This conclusion was affirmed by University of Alberta professor D. A. MacGibbon in a government-commissioned study.<ref name="Foster 93"/>
At the 1924 UFA convention, Bevington and his followers moved a resolution calling for immediate action on the previous year's banking resolution.<ref name="Foster 105">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 105</ref> Against them stood Greenfield's government, UFA president Henry Wise Wood (whom Bevington was challenging for re-election),<ref name="Foster 105"/> and radical Labour Member of Parliament William Irvine.<ref name="Foster 106">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 106</ref> Thanks to Irvine's surprising intervention on the side of the conservatives, the resolution was soundly defeated.<ref name="Foster 106"/>
Departure from politics
Greenfield's political stock fell during the course of his time as Premier. His arrival was heralded with great expectations of economic and political reform. After the 1921 federal election, Progressive Party of Canada leader Thomas Crerar was considering a merger of his party with the Liberal Party of Canada and asked Greenfield to join him as Alberta's representative in the federal cabinet upon completion of this merger.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 70</ref> This initially lofty stature was reduced by incident after incident: his reliance on Brownlee in the legislature and elsewhere,<ref name="Foster 64"/> his failure to deliver on the promised economic relief,<ref name="Jones 63"/> and his alienation of the radical wing of his own party.<ref>Jones 70</ref>
By 1924, many of Greenfield's own backbenchers had had enough and hatched a plan to force Greenfield's resignation and replace him with Brownlee, who was perceived as more likely to lead the UFA to victory in the impending election.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 110–111</ref> This group—which included George Johnston, George MacLachlan, William Shield, Donald Cameron, Oran McPherson, and Austin Claypool—contacted Brownlee to alert him to their intentions and were taken aback when the Attorney-General told them that if Greenfield resigned, so would he.<ref name="Foster 111"/>
The following year, the group approached Greenfield directly to ask for his resignation.<ref name="Foster 116">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 116</ref> He initially agreed, but then vacillated long enough for Brownlee to once again pledge his loyalty to the Premier.<ref name="Foster 116"/> This time, Henry Wise Wood intervened to ask Brownlee to reconsider, which he agreed to do only if Greenfield himself made the request.<ref name="Foster 116"/> The Premier immediately did so, saying that he had never wanted the job in the first place.<ref name="Foster 116"/> On November 23, Greenfield resigned as Premier of Alberta, tearfully telling the media that he was "through with politics".<ref name="Jones 71">Jones 71</ref> He never again ran for elected office.
The media judged the rebellion harshly. The Calgary Herald mocked the rebels as a "group of farmer politicians who have always claimed to be purer than those of other parties" and yet "[threw] their leader to the wolves in the hope that they may save their own skins".<ref name="Jones 71"/> It concluded: "Greenfield was not a good political captain, but he had a poor set of officers and a mutinous crew."<ref name="Jones 71"/>
Later life
In 1927, Greenfield was appointed Alberta's Agent General in London, England.<ref name="ABH"/> The appointment was controversial and was perceived as a patronage reward even by some UFA backbenchers.<ref name="Foster 133">Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 133</ref> Liberals also accused the government of benefiting the Hudson's Bay Company, which owned the London office that the government leased, more than Alberta.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 147</ref> Even so, Greenfield's performance in the position was well regarded: his personality was better-suited for his duties there, which included the promotion of Alberta's burgeoning oil and gas industry,<ref name="Jones 73">Jones 73</ref> attracting English immigration to Alberta,<ref name="ABH"/> and acting as a guide for Albertans visiting London.<ref name="Foster 133"/> It was in this last capacity that he welcomed Brownlee to London, where the two met together with British immigration and financial officials.<ref>Foster, John E. Brownlee: A Biography, 138</ref>
In 1931, the Agent General's office closed, and Greenfield returned to Alberta, settling in Calgary.<ref name="ABH"/> There he entered the oil and gas business, serving as a director (and later vice president) of Calmont Oils, president of the Oil and Gas Association, president of the Alberta Petroleum Association, and director of Home Oil.<ref name="ABH"/><ref name="Jones 73"/> He also served as managing director of the British Dominion Land Settlement Corporation and as president of the Calgary Board of Trade.<ref name="Jones 73"/> He spent the rest of his life in the city, maintaining an office in the General Trusts Building.<ref name="Jones 73"/>
Greenfield died at 8:25 in the morning of August 23, 1949.<ref name="Jones 73"/> His funeral took place at Grace Presbyterian Church and he is buried in Union Cemetery, both of which are in Calgary.<ref name="Jones 73"/> In 1968, Greenfield School, an elementary school in Edmonton, was named in his honour.<ref name="ABH"/>
See also
Notes
References
- Premiers of Alberta
- People from Winchester
- English emigrants to Canada
- People from Westlock County
- United Farmers of Alberta MLAs
- Businesspeople from Calgary
- Politicians from Calgary
- 20th-century Canadian farmers
- Alberta political party leaders
- 1869 births
- 1949 deaths
- 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
- Farmers from Alberta
- Burials at Union Cemetery (Calgary)