Editing Stephen Leacock (section)

== Academic and political life ==
{{Conservatism in Canada|Intellectuals}}
Disillusioned with teaching, in 1899 he began graduate studies at the [[University of Chicago]] under [[Thorstein Veblen]],<ref name="epe.lac-bac.gc.ca" /> where he received a doctorate in [[political science]] and [[political economy]]. He moved from [[Chicago]], Illinois, to [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]], where he eventually became the William Dow Professor of Political Economy and long-time chair of the Department of Economics and Political Science at [[McGill University]].<ref name="epe.lac-bac.gc.ca" />

He was closely associated with Sir [[Arthur Currie]], former commander of the [[Canadian Corps]] in the [[First World War|Great War]] and principal of McGill from 1919 until his death in 1933. In fact, Currie had been a student observing Leacock's practice teaching in Strathroy in 1888. In 1936, Leacock was forcibly retired by the McGill Board of Governors—an unlikely prospect had Currie lived.

Leacock was both a [[social conservative]] and a partisan [[Conservative Party of Canada (historical)|Conservative]]. He opposed giving women the right to vote, and had a mixed record on non-British immigration, having written both in support of expanding immigration beyond Anglo-Saxons before World War II<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/leacock-mydiscoveryofthewest/leacock-mydiscoveryofthewest-00-h.html|title = My Discovery of the West, by Stephen Leacock}}</ref> and in opposition to expanding Canadian immigration beyond Anglo-Saxons near the close of World War II.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3T6cQgAACAAJ | title=Last Leaves| isbn=9780771091698| last1=Leacock| first1=Stephen| year=1970| publisher=McClelland and Stewart}}</ref> He was a staunch champion of the [[British Empire]] and the [[Imperial Federation]] Movement and went on lecture tours to further the cause.  Despite his conservatism, he was a staunch advocate of social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution. He is considered today by some a complicated and controversial historical figure for his views and writings.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://nationalpost.com/news/what-happens-when-the-heroes-of-the-past-meet-the-standards-of-today | title=What happens when the heroes of the past meet the standards of today? | work=National Post | author=Kathryn Blaze Carlson | date=2011-05-14 | access-date=2021-01-15}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://thetyee.ca/Books/2010/08/23/StephenLeacock/|title=Stephen Leacock's Dark Side|last=Francis|first=Daniel|date=2010-08-23|website=The Tyee|language=en|access-date=2019-03-25}}</ref> He was a longtime believer in the superiority of the English and could be racist towards blacks and Indigenous peoples.{{sfn|MacMillan|2009|pp=114–116}}

Although Prime Minister [[R. B. Bennett]] asked him to be a candidate for the 1935 Dominion election, Leacock declined the invitation.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RiU3AAAAIAAJ&q=Canada+in+the+next+parliament |title = Stephen Leacock, humorist and humanist|last1 = Curry|first1 = Ralph L.|year = 1959}}</ref> He did stump for local Conservative candidates at his summer home.

Leacock is mostly forgotten as an economist; "What was for many years a virtually final judgement of Leacock's scholarly work was pronounced by [[Harold Innis]] in a 1938 lecture at the [[University of Toronto]]. That lecture, which was intended to pay tribute to Leacock as one of the founders of Canadian social studies, was eventually published as his obituary in 1944 in the ''Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science''. Innis glossed over Leacock's economics in the article and largely dismissed his humorous writings. For a number of years, Leacock used [[John Stuart Mill]]'s text, ''Principles of Political Economy'', in his course at McGill entitled ''Elements of Political Economy''. According to one source, Leacock's light-hearted and increasingly superficial approach with his political science writings ensured that they are largely forgotten by the public and in academic circles.<ref>{{cite book |last=FRANKMAN |first=MYRON J. |editor-last=Staines |editor-first=David |title=Stephen Leacock: A Reappraisal. |publisher=University of Ottawa Press|date=1986 |pages= 51–58 |chapter=Stephen Leacock, Economist: An Owl Among the Parrots |isbn=978-0-7766-1694-0}}</ref>