Arthur Puttee

Puttee, Arthur

Arthur Puttee, printer, editor (b at Folkestone, Eng 25 Aug 1868; d at Winnipeg 21 Oct 1957). Puttee was Manitoba's first Labour MP, as member for Winnipeg 1900-04. He had immigrated to North America in 1888, settling in Winnipeg 3 years later, where he was especially influential as publisher 1899-1918 of The Voice. In this labour weekly, Puttee popularized his reforming ideas, emphasizing the links between "labourism" in Canada and the practice of Labour Representation in Britain.

Political opponents charged that behind him lurked unnamed "revolutionists" and "assassins," accusations that led to his defeat in the 1904 general election. Puttee himself was an advanced Liberal, not a socialist, and by no means a supporter of the pacifist opposition to the South African War (1899-1902). A critic of militant labour's "Industrial Workers of the World methods" during WWI, Puttee was replaced by younger and more radical leaders and played no major part in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, whose seed he had nonetheless helped sow.