Charles W. Peterson

Charles W. Peterson

Charles W. Peterson, agrarian editor, printer, NWT civil servant, farmer, businessman (b at Copenhagen, Den 28 June 1868; d at Calgary, 4 Feb 1944). Peterson homesteaded in Manitoba in 1887 before becoming deputy commissioner of agriculture for the North-West Territories, where he drafted the agricultural legislation inherited by Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1905, with Malcolm Geddes, he founded the Farm and Ranch Review in Calgary. From 1906 to 1912 he served the CPR as general manager of immigration and colonization and later superintendent of irrigation. During WWI he was secretary of the National Service Board and deputy fuel controller for Canada. He then returned to his first love - the Review - though he was also partner in a large farming concern. Author of the excellent period piece, Wake Up Canada! (1919), The Fruits of the Earth (1928), Wheat - The Riddle of Markets (1930), numerous economic tracts and scores of well-crafted editorials, he stressed the pre-eminence of agriculture in life. As agriculture lay in ruins at Depression-end, Peterson was distraught, and his abiding conservative business ethic was shattered. His pronouncements had become more strident, his solutions more radical.