GREAT CITIZENS WITH HIGH IDEALS (APRIL 26)

The Kitchener-Waterloo Record 

April 26, 2006 - Editorial
Great citizens with high ideals

This month, Vision TV aired the biography Fighting Words, about newspaper publisher Joseph Atkinson and his lifelong crusade to make Canada a nation that cares about its poorest citizens. It is an excellent chronicle of a life of purpose realized.
 
Viewers in Waterloo Region may have noticed the role that two former Kitchener residents played in helping Atkinson achieve his goals: William Lyon Mackenzie King and Beland Honderich. We can be proud of the contribution of these native sons to Atkinson's legacy.

Atkinson rose from a childhood amid poverty to become editor of the fledgling Toronto Daily Star in 1898, eventually becoming publisher and principal owner of Canada's largest daily newspaper. Toronto, like other cities in 1900, was polarized by great wealth and cruel poverty. In its sprawling slums, misery was widespread. The infant mortality rate was two in five. As a medical officer said at the time, the babies of the rich lived, the babies of the poor died. This nation
had no medicare, no old age pension, no employment insurance. Atkinson advocated relentlessly and made enemies among the rich and powerful in his efforts to free families from disease and hunger.
 
Atkinson's lifelong friend was King, the long-serving Liberal prime minister who came from Kitchener. King wrote the last letter Atkinson received, hours before his death in 1948. And it was under King's leadership that many of Atkinson's goals were achieved, in new social programs.
 
Honderich was a successor to Atkinson. Hailing from nearby Baden, Honderich worked first at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record as a cub reporter, then joined the Star where he rose to editor, publisher and chair of the board of Torstar Corp., as a part-owner.
 
Atkinson left his newspaper to a charitable foundation, but this arrangement was made illegal by a Conservative government of Ontario, vexed by the newspaper's liberalism. A court forced the sale of the paper to investors, who made a commitment to uphold Atkinson's last wishes. His will stated that the profit motive should sometimes be subsidiary to the primary function of a great metropolitan newspaper: the full and frank dissemination of news and opinion.
 
Atkinson never codified his beliefs into a set of principles. This was done by Honderich, who read Atkinson's editorials and distilled six elements of the founding publisher's beliefs: social justice, a strong and united Canada, labour rights, individual and civil liberties, town planning (later restated as "community and civic engagement"), and the necessary role of government. Was this truly all of it? Who is to say whether Atkinson, were he alive today, might be crusading for environmentalism or world peace? One great-grandson says Atkinson might simply ask himself, in prescribing policies for this era, how the most disadvantaged are affected.
 
Torstar Corp., since 1999 the parent company of The Record, makes clear in its annual reports that, legally, the commitment to Atkinson's values applies to the Toronto Star only. The spirit of Atkinson may infuse the entire organization, but other publications -- dailies such as The Record, the Hamilton Spectator,
the Guelph Mercury, and scores of community weeklies published by Metroland Printing and Publishing -- chart their editorial positions independently.  Often, the opinions of these newspapers contradict one another -- and that is fine, to those who value freedom of expression.
 
The Record's editorial traditions were born under our first publisher, Peter Moyer, a conservative thinker who was deeply involved in local civic affairs and who in 1878 launched the Daily News of Berlin for, it seems, the love of it.

It's said he never made a penny from the business. Moyer promoted progress and good town planning; very much like Atkinson, he advocated for public investments, including a municipal waterworks, to make Berlin (now Kitchener) a better community for all its citizens.
 
With new owners in 1919, the paper's editorial views evolved and became known for steady liberalism. Under co-owners the Motz family and seven-term Waterloo County Liberal MP W.D. Euler, The Record stood for many of the same policies of social justice and civil liberties that Atkinson espoused in Toronto. Not surprisingly, Record publisher William J. Motz, too, considered himself a friend of King. More often than not, The Record under the Motzes endorsed Liberals, from King to Pierre Trudeau.
 
It is no coincidence that this region, settled in the 1800s by Mennonite farmers and to this day characterized by a spirit of community connectedness and generosity, produced a man such as Beland Honderich. He transplanted his fierce social conscience, from its Mennonite roots locally, to the compatible publication Atkinson built. Honderich died this past November, and his ashes were scattered here in Waterloo Region, his birthplace.
 
Steeped in the same local influences, The Record's voice is entirely its own. We take no editorial guidance from others, not from Torstar Corp. and not from the Toronto Star.
 
We enjoy a better fit with our current owners than under former owners Sun Media or Conrad Black's Hollinger, in the decade after the Motzes' sale to Southam in 1990. But even through that period, we maintained our unique voice. Consistent with a tradition exemplified in 128 years of community
service, our principles today are expressed in our editorial mission statement, published in our Editorial Ethics and Policy Manual. We stand for the values of community, social justice, individual and civil liberties, a united and independent Canada, a free market economy with a strong public sector delivering essential services such as health care and education, and we are non-partisan.
 
Our editorial opinions are crafted by our editorial board, whose members live and work in this community. We publish the views of our Community Editorial Board and our new Youth Community Editorial Board, citizens at large. Our pages are open to the reasonable views of all, including those who differ
vociferously with our editorials. The right to free expression and a free press demands room for all these voices.
 
The documentary Fighting Words is largely about another newspaper in another city (and those who missed the program may be able to obtain a copy from the Atkinson Charitable Foundation), even while the King and Honderich contributions loom large. At its core, however, the story is about striving to make
the world a better place. In our community, we see many people living this ideal today. Fine groups including Leadership Waterloo Region, the United Way, and service clubs work to spread the spirit of community involvement and volunteerism.
 
We can be just as proud of those among us who embody the spirit of sharing today, as we are of great citizens past.