Duff Pattullo and Bloody Sunday, 1938: research notes

10 October 2026. The working file behind the thread Duff Pattullo, 22nd Premier of British Columbia: what did he get right, and what did he get wrong?. Six research briefs were gathered (the relief camps and the Trek; relief money and rules; the sit-down day by day; Pattullo's politics and temperament; his land and forest policy; the fisheries and Asian Canadians), then the key quotations were checked against the originals. This file records what was read, how far it was checked, and where the sources disagree. The argument is in the thread.

Evidence labels as elsewhere: [D] documented, [C] compiled, [I] inferred, [T] tradition.

Checked against the original (10 Oct 2026)

• Pattullo's "prime mover" claim [D]: Prince Rupert Daily News, 20 June 1938, p. 1 (CP), OCR text, https://prnewspaperarchives.ca/islandora/object/prdn:61382 (Prince Rupert Daily News, 20 June 1938, p. 1: Premier Pattullo in Vancouver after the eviction).
• "organized and premeditated... We have got to have a showdown. British Columbia cannot take care of unemployed from all over Canada. It is absolutely impossible." [D]: PRDN, 21 June 1938, p. 1 (CP Victoria), https://prnewspaperarchives.ca/islandora/object/prdn:62101 and prdn:62097 (Prince Rupert Daily News, 21 June 1938, p. 1: "Cannot Take Care of Canada's Unemployed, Pattullo Points Out").
• "socialized capitalism" [D]: PRDN, 24 Feb 1934, p. 1, https://prnewspaperarchives.ca/islandora/object/prdn:55253 .
• The 1933 Liberal platform, plank 1, "Profitable and permanent Employment is the most important question facing our people... a broad programme of construct[ive]... wage-distributing public enterprise" [D]: PRDN, 16 Oct 1933, p. 4, https://prnewspaperarchives.ca/islandora/object/prdn:52957 .
• Steeves (1960), pp. 117-118, "too much sympathy" and the sit-down [C, a participant-sympathizer's account], and the Province editorial of 20 June 1938 [D, excerpt]: BC Labour Heritage Centre lesson, https://www.labourheritagecentre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bloody-sunday-combined-lesson.pdf .
• Pearson's account of the camp closures [D, OCR]: Omineca Herald, 6 July 1938, https://bchdp.arcabc.ca/_flysystem/repo-service/2025-06/102837-Extracted%20Text.txt .
• Canada Year Book grants and revenue per head [D]: 1937 p. 761, 1938 p. 775, 1939 p. 911 (statcan).
• Abbott 1994, Gray 1989, Fisher 1985, Roy 1973, Guest 1983, Parnaby 1999, Irving 1988, Vance 2008 [C]: read in the original PDFs; quotations in the source files checked.
• Mackenzie King's diary, 25 Apr 1934; Hutchison 1933; "what I say goes" (1939); the Hyde Park "chat" (letter to George Pattullo, 7 June 1938) [C]: as quoted in Daniel Grant's UVic MA thesis (1980), pp. vi, xiv-xvi, from the scan (OCR).
• Bouchette's "smouldering resentment" and McNaughton's motives [C]: Rajala, Legion Magazine, 2000.
• House of Commons Debates, 20 June 1938, p. 4022 [D]: Lapointe's statement and the full text of the Euler telegram of 17 June ("a menace through possible contagion to the health of the occupants"), checked against the page image, https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC1803_04/642 .
• Fisher (1991), chapter 2, "Dawson City, Yukon," pp. 36-81 in part [C]: page images of the Internet Archive's lending copy (Robin Fisher, Duff Pattullo of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991): "Dawson City, Yukon" and "The Decline of Reform" (in part)). Settles the Bennett letter of 1 May 1898 (p. 44). Corrects the Wikipedia account of Freeman's drowning (an ice jam below the Big Salmon, 18 Nov 1897, p. 41, not Lake Bennett). Ogilvie's "Walsh's pimp" (p. 51, as in Guest); "rebellious spirit" not found in Fisher or Guest.
• Pattullo's letter of 23 Sept 1940 against Japanese and Chinese enlistment ("there will be a demand that they be given the franchise, which we in this Province can never tolerate") [D, archive description]: https://loi.uvic.ca/archive/lac_rg2_a-5-b_reel_c-11789_file_d_item_1.html .

Second round, checked against the scans (10 Oct 2026)

Four more briefs: emigration from China and Japan; the crofters; Pattullo, the reserves and Asian Canadians; King's diary and Blubber Bay. Checked here against the page images:

• OIC 911/1923 [D]: "Dated this 25th day of July A.D. 1923," signed by Pattullo, Minister of Lands; Oliver presiding, Pattullo present (British Columbia Order in Council 911/1923: the McKenna-McBride report, as amended by Ditchburn and Clark, approved as the final settlement of the Indian reserves). The brief corrected the number (911, not 1036; OIC 1036 is the conveyance of 29 July 1938, signed by John Hart as acting Minister of Lands, not by Pattullo).
• The 1927 committee [D, OCR]: Scott on the Supplementary List (pp. 65-66), Ditchburn on Penticton (pp. 184-85), Oliver's telegram (Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons appointed to inquire into the Claims of the Allied Indian Tribes of British Columbia: Proceedings, Reports and the Evidence (Ottawa, 1927)).
• The Pattullo Papers [D]: letters of 26 Jan 1938 (with the press statement), 9 Mar 1939, 20 Oct 1939, 23 Sept 1940 and 28 Oct 1940; King's replies of 27 Sept and 25 Oct 1940; the consul letter and press statement of June 1940; the Lands memorandum of 1939 (Pattullo Papers and Premier's Papers, BC Archives: letters to and from Mackenzie King, and other papers, on Japanese and Chinese Canadians, 1938-1940). The Shoyama letter of 17 Oct 1940 was not checked (the file would not download).
• The Prince Rupert Daily News, 1924 [D]: 23 Feb (Ian Mackenzie, "in place of Orientals"), 19 May (Pattullo's speech), 30 Oct ("$600 and a tent apiece") checked; the rest as the brief read them (Prince Rupert Daily News, February-December 1924: Pattullo's plan to settle Hebridean crofter-fishermen in British Columbia).
• The Victoria Daily Times, 21 Sept 1938 [D]: "some very subversive elements at work" at Blubber Bay ("No Inquiry on Labor Rioting: Premier Says Subversive Elements Working at Blubber Bay," Victoria Daily Times, 21 September 1938, p. 1).

Not checked here: Neatby's quotations of King (search snippets only, H. Blair Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King, vol. III, 1932-1939: The Prism of Unity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), p. 265); the census and secondary figures on Chinese and Japanese immigration used for context in the thread (Barman 2013, Ayukawa 1995, the census studies of 1921 and 1931, the Canadian Encyclopedia), as the brief read them; van Ert (2017) on the timber-licence clause; Cohn (1985) on the CCF. The briefs' corrections: the Blubber Bay union was the IWA, not Mine-Mill; the white women's labour laws were Saskatchewan 1912, Manitoba 1913, Ontario 1914 and BC 1919 (replaced 1923).

Fisher's "The Decline of Reform," pp. 300-329 (read 11 Oct 2026)

From page images of the lending copy (Robin Fisher, Duff Pattullo of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991): "Dawson City, Yukon" and "The Decline of Reform" (in part)). Fisher states that Pattullo "arranged with the federal government to have the men forcibly evicted" (p. 306), and gives the meeting of 20 June without "too much sympathy" (p. 307). Correction: the thread had the 1938-39 budget leaving relief out "to be met by borrowing." Fisher (p. 308) and the Prince Rupert Daily News of 10 Nov 1937 ("Surplus For Next Fiscal Year is Anticipated, Not Taking Into Account Relief and Part of Sinking Funds," Prince Rupert Daily News, 10 November 1937, p. 1) agree that relief was outside the estimates but that Hart expected to meet direct relief from current revenue, borrowing mainly for relief works. Fixed in the thread. Fisher's endnotes (nn. 23-28) are not yet seen.

Read by the research briefs, not checked again here

• House of Commons Debates, 23 May, 6 June, 20 June 1938 (page images, Canadiana): the Euler telegram of 17 June, Lapointe's account, Woodsworth's "some request from the premier," Macphail's "Sunday coup" (House of Commons Debates, 23 May, 6 June and 20 June 1938: the Vancouver sit-down and its eviction).
• Victoria Daily Colonist, 21 June - 10 July 1938 (archive.org OCR): the eviction day's figures ("Nearly Two Score Persons Hurt"; 39 businesses' windows, "$30,000"); Pattullo's flight to Vancouver and the refusal of a hearing to the men in Victoria; the Mothers' Council delegation of 21 June (Mrs. R. K. Lusk), which met Pattullo and the Minister of Labour, George Pearson; the clergy's request for a conciliation board, called "impracticable"; Ottawa's acceptance of relief for registered transients pending return home; the 9 July settlement (150 men back to the mainland). https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist0638uvic_16 (and _17, _18, _20), dailycolonist0738uvic_56, _58.
• RCMP Annual Report for the year to 31 Mar 1939, p. 17: "over 1,200 men"; the Hotel Georgia exit "on payment of $500"; a delegation of one hundred to Victoria.
• Bob Smeal interview (1964), BC Labour Heritage Centre transcript: divisions "like a small army," Brodie as "public relations voice," no baths, the songs.
• Rajala (2003), "Political Football" (Forest History Society) and the BC Forest Branch annual reports, 1935-1939: the Young Men's Forestry Training Plan (1935), the Forest Development Projects for single men (1936-39): 50 percent federal, 30 cents an hour less board, part deferred at $4 a week; 2,809 men in 1936-37, 4,005 in 1937-38; trails, parks, watersheds, the Quinsam nursery.
• Order in Council 1324/1936: the Dominion-BC agreement, Ottawa paying "fifty per centum" to a maximum of $750,000 (Nov 1936 - Mar 1937); forest development $900,000 (including Mount Seymour Park and Cathedral Grove) and highways $600,000.
• The Macdonald Commission on the relief camps (1935): the men's grievances ("the absence of an adequate wage," "a forgotten group," "the apparent hopelessness of their position").
• The Regina Riot: two deaths, Detective Charles Millar and the trekker Nick Schaack (DCB, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/schaack_nicholas_john_16E.html).

Conflicts and open points

• "Too much sympathy": only Steeves (1960) gives it, at a meeting with pastors in Vancouver on 20 June; Wikipedia attributes it to Fisher. No 1938 newspaper version found. Wording: "That time had come" (Steeves) or "has now come" (later retellings).
• Who ordered the eviction: the federal government authorized it (Euler, 17 June); the Chief Constable, Col. W. W. Foster, commanded, with the RCMP at the post office (Lapointe); Pattullo claimed to be "the prime mover in securing" it. Who chose the hour is not known.
• An "early 1938" federal cut: repeated in secondary accounts, not found as a dated cut. The documented change is the monthly grant falling from $223,125 (1936) to $115,000 (late 1937); the 1938 Act fixed BC's grant at 30 percent or $1,380,000 for the year.
• The "1,800" men to be sent home (18 May): not found; Pearson gives 1,600 recent arrivals.
• The 30 May residency order: stated by the Legislature's history page; no text found. The working rule in practice was a year's residence.
• Numbers: the post office held 300 to 800 by different counts; casualties from 4 (Lapointe) to "nearly two score" (Colonist) to about 100 injured; arrests from 7 to 22, four committed for trial.
• Brodie's age: 28 (born 8 June 1910, Falkirk), not 26 as Wikipedia has it.
• The crofter scheme and the Japanese: Vance (2008, n. 27) says Pattullo's plan was "in part" meant to replace the Japanese fishermen; the 1924 newspapers put "in place of Orientals" in Ian Mackenzie's mouth, and Pattullo's recorded words are about settling the north. The thread treats replacement as part of the plan's appeal (likely), not shown as his motive.
• King's diary: Library and Archives Canada's search refuses scripted access; the entries for May-July 1938 are still to be read.
• Not seen: Fisher's chapters on 1938 and 1941 in Duff Pattullo of British Columbia (1991); Ormsby (1962); Sutherland's thesis (1960); Rajala's chapter "From 'On-to-Ottawa' to 'Bloody Sunday'" (2009); Brodie's pamphlet (1974); the Pattullo Papers (BC Archives MS-0003).