Frank H. Underhill: Intellectual Provocateur

by R. Douglas Francis

'These men are rats who are trying to scuttle our ship of state.' That was how Colonel Fred Fraser Hunter, member of the Ontario legislature for the St Patrick riding in which the University of Toronto was located, described Frank Underhill and George Grube during debate on a motion to dismiss the two professors from the University for 'hurling insults at the British
Empire.'
... Colonel George Drew, leader of the opposition, reinforced [this] concern. Then suddenly he introduced Underhill's name into the discussion by quoting to the legislature the controversial last paragraph of Underhill's speech to the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, made four years earlier but recently published in Canada Looks Abroad (London 1938), in which he had declared that the poppies which grow in Flanders fields no longer had any interest for the people of Canada. 'Shame! Shame!' shouted Premier Hepburn, as he thumped his desk indignantly.
Drew continued: 'Now the time has come to stop and to stop permanently statements of that kind by a man who either in or out of the educational institution is speaking to the public as a member of that institution.' Such beliefs were corrupting the minds of youth and thus jeopardizing the future of democracy, he pointed out. Government ought to have the right to demand that 'in the schools they shall teach what we know as British democracy and shall not do anything to assist subversive elements which are seeking to destroy these ideals in which we believe.' 'I am disappointed,' Hepburn responded, 'that the University Board of Governors has not up to now disciplined Underhill in a manner befitting the crime he has committed. It smacks of rank sedition.'

229 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986