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The following is excerpted from The Chronicle Herald's review of In Search of R.B. Bennett by P.B. Waite:
Waite’s new book is his third treatment of Bennett. In 1991 he published The Loner: Three Sketches of the Personal Life and Ideas of R.B. Bennett. He has also written a fine short biography for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online.
In Search of R.B. Bennett is thus the product of many years of reflection about Bennett’s complex character and his performance as prime minister during the greatest economic crisis this country has yet faced.
Born in 1870, Bennett’s life story could have been lifted from the pages of Horatio Alger. He rose from a penurious childhood in Hopewell Cape, N.B., to amass a fortune as a Calgary lawyer and real-estate speculator during the boom years prior to the First World War. A teetotalling, non-smoking Methodist, he was gifted with high intelligence and a phenomenal capacity for work, which enabled him to pursue simultaneous careers in business, law and politics.
Bennett took himself very seriously. He habitually wore high wing collars and morning coats with a gold-watch-chain stretched across his imposing “corporation.” His pompous appearance contributed to the public’s unjust perception of him as a fat-cat capitalist, as well as making him a gift to cartoonists. An outstanding orator and debater, Bennett also had a ferocious temper, on one occasion reducing a cabinet minister to tears.
While not ignoring faults such as his inability to forget a slight, Waite brings out another side of Bennett. His public persona was a carapace that concealed a generous nature. He inspired love and devotion in those closest to him, particularly his sister Mildred, who was nearly 19 years his junior (false rumours circulated that she was his illegitimate daughter). Mildred had the qualities Bennett lacked. She was sociable, fun-loving, drank champagne and was good at listening. She lived with him in his large suite in the Chateau Laurier hotel until her marriage in 1931 to William Herridge, a successful lawyer and close adviser whom Bennett had appointed to be Canadian minister to Washington. Bennett was devastated by Mildred’s death from cancer in 1938.
(…)
In Search of R.B. Bennett, marked by Waite’s elegant style and light touch, is a delight to read. It brings us as close to Bennett as we are ever likely to get, but there remains something mysterious about this brilliant, repressed, driven man.
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