2
In counseling Rockefeller, King espoused ideas that today would be considered enlightened public
relations advice. King also was ahead of his time in theorizing about the relationships between big
business and key constituents. King--more than Lee—influenced John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s thinking and
understanding of industrial relations and complemented Lee’s publicity work in ways that have not been
fully recognized by public relations historians.
1. Mackenzie King Retained by the Rockefeller Foundation
1.1. A Progressive Reformer
Mackenzie King was born in 1874 in Kitchener (then Berlin), Ontario, Canada. He was the
grandson of the radical newspaperman and Toronto mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, who led the aborted
Upper Canadian rebellion against British rule in 1837. King was educated at the University of Toronto
and, upon graduating, briefly pursued a career in newspapering. Then, following a brief stint in graduate
studies in social work at the University of Chicago, the future Canadian politician transferred to Harvard,
where he earned a master’s degree in economics in 1898. [3]
King devoted his early studies and career to labor issues. Beginning in 1900, following a year
studying abroad, he became editor of the Labor Gazette, a publication of the Canadian federal
government, and later prepared speeches for Canada’s Postmaster General, who then oversaw government
labor matters. King was an arbitrator in about 40 labor disputes and served as a royal commissioner
studying anti-Asiatic riots in British Columbia. Soon after being elected to Parliament in 1908, he was
appointed Canada’s first minister of labor. He held that position 1911, when he and others in his Liberal
Party were swept out of office in a fractious parliamentary election.
King spent three years in political oblivion, settling for running the federal Liberal Information
Office, where he mostly gave speeches about the Liberal cause. He later edited a party organ, the
Convention