Early Socreds loved promotion, archives reveal
W.A.C. Bennett-led party never short of accolades for their accomplishments
The B.C. provincial election is just around the corner. So perhaps it was fate that I recently discovered some classic B.C. memorabilia in the Sun/Province archives — a cache of old Social Credit pamphlets from the early 1950s.
They’re green in colour, but pure gold for political junkies.
“You said it! Social Credit!” reads a tag line for a pamphlet explaining the Socred platform of “Prosperity and Security with Individual Freedom.”
It dates to 1952, the year the party stunned political observers by upsetting the CCF, Liberals and Conservatives to form the provincial government.
For many years, people in urban centres dismissed the Socreds as a bunch of hillbillies from the hinterlands. But the colourful Socred leader W.A.C. Bennett would be premier for 20 years.
On the back of the 1952 pamphlet is an ad for some Socred candidates, including Mrs. Tilly J. Rolston, “the champion of coloured margarine.”
It’s all but forgotten today, but for many years the butter lobby fought proposals to add a yellow tint to margarine, which is naturally white.
Rolston was a political vet who had first been elected as a Conservative in 1941. And one of her great accomplishments was helping to get approval to colour margarine in B.C. in 1951.
The same year she quit the Conservatives and joined the Socreds. When Bennett won the 1952 election, he named Rolston education minister. Sadly, she died of cancer a year later.
A second pamphlet appears to be from 1953. It has a list of Socred cabinet ministers on the front, a big photo of Wacky Bennett on the back, and a two-page spread that expands on the Social Credit creed.
“Social Credit is genuine free enterprise, but opposed to monopoly,” it reads. “Social Credit is in favour of social reform, but is opposed to State Socialism.”
The pamphlet also proclaims Social Credit “The People’s Movement,” which must have infuriated their main opposition, the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF).
The Socreds were shameless selfpromoters. This paper’s archives includes two booklets trumpeting the party’s achievements, Two Years of Progress with Social Credit in British Columbia (1954) and Four Years of Progress with Social Credit in British Columbia (1956).
The 1954 booklet is 64 pages and opens with the good news on a key Socred platform, highways.
“In the past two years a total of 160.9 miles of highway has been constructed and re-constructed on main arterial highways,” it states.
“Re-construction of secondary roads has totalled 650 miles. New construction on mining and settlement roads has totalled 140 miles.
“Highways paved by Hot Plant Mix Asphalt total 491.73 miles. Preliminary based hard-surfaced roads total 164.73 miles.
“THIS IS THE LARGEST PROGRAM IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE PROVINCE.”
The Socred hype machine was clicking on all cylinders by 1956.
“The Social Credit Government has brought a new era in the economic, industrial and physical development of British Columbia,” proclaimed the 1956 pamphlet.
“Steel rails have been laid for the development of a new economic empire; highways have been extended and improved; bridges are being built to link this Province with a modern transportation network that assures our prosperity, our economic and our financial welfare.”
According to the various pamphlets, all these wonders had been achieved without increasing the provincial debt. In 1959, Premier Bennett announced that the Socreds were such astute financial managers the party had eliminated the province’s $70-million debt.
Cynics in the media pointed out that the province still appeared to be $98 million in debt, and had another $500 million in debt from government agencies.
Bennett ignored them and celebrated B.C.’s new debt-free status with “the burning of the bonds,” a flamboyant stunt on Aug. 1, 1959 where he shot a flaming arrow onto a raft loaded with cancelled government bonds on Lake Okanagan.
To add to the drama the bond burning was held at night. Bystanders on the Kelowna waterfront may not have noticed that Bennett’s arrow bounced off, and the bonds were lit by an RCMP officer hidden at the back of the raft.
Province photographer Bob Allen was there to document the occasion, and got some fantastic shots of Bennett on the boat and the Socred cabinet at various events in the afternoon. My favourite is a luncheon celebrating seven years of the Social Credit government, where several cabinet ministers picked up toy instruments and led the Socred faithful in a rousing version of Happy Birthday to Social Credit in B.C.
The photos have never seen the light of day, but I recently found the negs and scanned them in. It’s the full Socred, a wacky party having a wacky time at a wacky event.
Christy Clark isn’t nearly as much fun.