E. T. Kingsley

Eugene Thornton Kingsley (1856 – December 9, 1929) was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of Canada and an editor of the Western Clarion newspaper, one of the most prominent left wing publications in Canada before World War I, in the first decade of the 20th century. He ran for Parliament in the riding of Vancouver City in the 1908 and 1911 federal elections as a candidate of the Socialist Party of Canada and in the 1926 federal election in the riding of Vancouver Centre as a candidate of the British Columbia Independent Labour Party. He also ran for the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in the 1907 and 1909 provincial elections. He served as editor of the Western Clarion from 1903 until 1908 and was later active in the British Columbia Federated Labour Party where he served as a vice-president and eventually the British Columbia Independent Labour Party. In 1919, he edited the weekly paper, Labour Star, which survived for a few months.

Little is known of Kingsley's early life. Born in the 1850s, Kingsley came from a modest, middling class background. He spent his early years moving with his family along the Midwest of the United States, from Chautauqua Country, New York, to Ohio, to Wisconsin, and finally to Minnesota, where he settled with his wife Almira Doan and began to start a family. Kingsley himself kept moving west, working the railroad, eventually ending up in Montana working for Northern Pacific.

On October the 15th, 1890, Eugene T. Kingsley was setting brakes while working on the flat cars of the North Pacific Railway Company's line near Missoula, Montana at a location known as Spring Gulch. A traincar defect, however, and the darkness of the night, resulted in his stepping through the gaps between the cars.The train ran over and crushed both of Kingsleys legs from the knees down, and later they had to be amputated. While recovering in hospital, Kingsley read the works of Marx and Engels. After recovering from his injury, Kingsley moved to San Francisco, and quickly became the state organizer for the Socialist labor Party of America. After a bitter confrontation with Daniel De Leon over tactics and policy, Kingsley left the SLP.

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