James J. Morrison

James J. (J.J.) Morrison (1861–1936) was a farm leader in Ontario, Canada, a founder of the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) in 1914, and a leader of the co-operative movement. He was the UFO's sometimes controversial general secretary, who was given to making bizarre pronouncements, during the period in which it became a political party and took power in the province following the 1919 provincial election.

Morrison was born on his family's homestead in Peel Township, Wellington County.

He worked in manufacturing in Toronto for twelve years but returned to his family's farm in 1900. Morrison became active in the agrarian movement.

Morrison helped found the UFO in 1914 as a farm advocacy organization of which he remained its secretary until 1933, and over which he exercised a sometimes somewhat eccentric leadership style. Among Morrison's early colleagues in the UFO were future Ontario Premiers Mitchell Hepburn and Harry Nixon.

Morrison also served as secretary of the United Farmers Co-operative Company Ltd. (UFCC) from 1914 to 1935. The UFCC was the purchasing co-operative that the UFO operated on behalf of its members.

The UFO entered party politics in the 1919 provincial election, although it was far from clear whether Morrison regarded himself as exercising a rôle according to conventional notions of party politics. To everyone's surprise, the UFO won enough seats to form a government in coalition with Labour MLAs.

Morrison had hoped the UFO would be able to hold the balance of power and thus win legislation favourable to farmers but there began a whole series of sometimes erratic actions and position taking on the part of Morrison which are difficult to describe adequately according to conventional notions of success or failure.

Despite his party's winning of enough seats in the Ontario Legislature, Morrison retained reservations about the UFO even forming a government.

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