Hull-House, Nineteenth Ward
Chicago, Illinois, United States
January 7, 1897
“I am afraid, Miss Addams,” King said, nervously tapping his fingers on the desk in front of him, “that money is not my sole consideration.”
Not long after he arrived in Chicago in the early autumn of 1896, King had called on Jane Addams at Hull-House. Addams had helped found this inner-city settlement house in one of the city’s “worst” districts in 1889. Here, as at the Toynbee Hall settlement house in England, people came to teach and live with the poor. Addams and her volunteer workers hoped they were giving their charges the tools they needed to address the wrongs in their horrible living and working conditions. Volunteers helped men, women, and children, many of them immigrants, learn to read and write. They established kindergartens and worked to change legislation. They held enthusiastic talks on literature, art, health, childcare, worker safety, and industrial unions.
In October, at Addams’s invitation, King had eagerly taken up residence at Hull-House. Now, only a few months later, he was informing Addams that he could not go on as a volunteer. Thinking the issue was money, Addams responded by looking at the young student with understanding brown eyes and offering him a small salary.
“I enjoy the speeches and my work,” King yammered uncomfortably, “but it is walking and taking the train from Hull-House, for two hours each day through misery, wretchedness, vice and degradation, abomination, filthiness and noise to classes where I must concentrate! It is just too much!” Willie babbled. “In fact, I consulted my doctor as I’m afraid I’m about to have a nervous breakdown. Furthermore,” he added sincerely, “I do not feel I’m doing either job well. I think I will better be able to help others if I complete my master’s degree first.”
“Of course,” Addams agreed, sympathetically. Suddenly they heard a crash followed by a wail from one of the kindergarten rooms. Addams was on her feet and off to divert a catastrophe. The interview was over. With over two thousand souls to care for each week Addams was very busy. Perhaps, after all, she didn’t have time to understand.
King felt rebuffed for but a moment. He reminded himself his work lay in his studies. He would work hard and he would do good.
Toronto
September 19, 1897
William Mulock, the postmaster general, had the appearance of a staid Victorian gentleman. With his white beard and formal poise, he looked like someone who might have dismissed the young man before him as a wet-behind-the-ears whipper-snapper.
Young King had come to Mulock to divulge terrible wrongs that he had discovered were going on right under the governments eyes – even with the government’s sanction, he had almost suggested. “My mind was ablaze!” King passionately confessed as he described the investigation he had done for an article on the terrible conditions of the garment trade. “Women work long hours for a few pennies!” King contended. “And the work they were doing in these sweat shops was sewing letter carrier uniforms.” Government contracts, King had discovered, had been subcontracted to men who unfairly ran “sweat shops” and drew huge profits while the workers were paid pittances.
For a number of reasons Mulock heard out the clean-shaven, energetic young man with courtesy and patience. Mulock and John King were colleagues and friends, whose families moved in the same social circles. John had suggested his son speak to Mulock before he sent results of his investigation to print. When he was vice-chancellor at the University of Toronto, Mulock had seen young King and learned something of his interest in labour, politics, and philosophy. Mulock was now postmaster general and a Liberal member in the House of Commons. As the century drew to a close, he was one of Prime Minister Laurier s party men listening to changing ideas and aware that the Liberals would need young people with new skills and energies to carry them out. He was interested in seeing how bright young King’s fire might burn.
“What do you suggest?” he asked calmly.
“A study!” Willie answered without hesitation. “The government could hire me to carry out a study of the matter with suggestions for reforming the system.”
“That,” Mulock replied slowly, “is a good idea.”
Willie worked on the landmark study and completed his master’s thesis on the International Typographical Union during 1897. One other very important event in his life occurred that year. During the winter he spent three weeks at St. Luke’s Hospital recovering from typhoid fever. His stay was just long enough that he became enamoured with nurse Mathilde Grosset, a woman with lovely wavy hair, an intriguing German accent, and a “beautiful Christian character.” By spring of 1898 Kings fancy had turned to thoughts of love, to the point where he was preparing to marry his nurse. He pictured himself assuming his grandfather’s mantle, fighting for right with his beloved by his side.
His family brought him back to earth with a crash. Father, Mother, and sister Jennie provided a united front – a forceful wave of sternly reproaching letters. They reminded Willie that he had not finished his education or even begun a career, which was unfair to the girl and to himself. Furthermore, they counted on him, Father pointed out, as his “first duty is to those at home.” Even Jennie royally chastised him, but Mother wrote the most scathing letter. She complained how she was growing weary with age. She solicited his charity not so much for herself, but for his sisters. “I have built castles without number for you,” she reminded him. “Are all these dreams but to end in dreams?”
Although King agonized, in a few months it was clear the affair would end. He spent the summer healing his wounds and expanding his prospects. “A man’s success very much depends on his social qualities,” his father had taught him. King summered with the wealthy Gerry family, tutoring their two sons. In summers previous to this he had visited Bert near Barrie, Ontario and paddled schoolgirls about on the Muskoka lakes. Now he stayed in the United States, on Rhode Island, tasted his first sip of champagne, and was within smiling distance of the cultured Miss Julia Grant, granddaughter of American Civil War hero and president, Ulysses S. Grant. King still had no position and wasn’t sure whether he would have a career in the hallowed halls of academia or elsewhere. But he was twenty-five, had education and connections, and his future, ah, his future was bright.
He received a master’s degree from the University of Toronto in 1897 and another from Harvard in 1898. He began studies in political science and work at Harvard on a PhD. He would later complete his PhD dissertation on “Oriental Immigration to Canada,” but when Harvard granted him a travelling scholarship, he eagerly set off to discover Europe. While he took in the breathtaking scenery of Britain, France, Switzerland, and Italy, he got to know important people who might be of help one day.
One day in late June after he had been cycling with a friend in the countryside around Rome, Rex was heading to his hotel room when the desk clerk called out “Signor King, a telegram.” With amazement he read:
June 26, 1900
Will you accept the editorship and management of new Government Labor Gazette, Ottawa? Begin duties early in July. Salary fifteen hundred dollars. May increase. If yes, come. Wm. Mulock
Mulock had not forgotten him, and his proposition was intriguing. The Dominion government was just beginning to form a department for Labour. King could be in on the ground floor.
However, Harvard was also offering him a position as lecturer in political economics. What to do, what to do? A position with the civil service with the government of Canada or one in the halls of Harvard?
I still have work to do, King thought, remembering his unfinished doctorate. He decided to decline Canada’s offer.