L. D. Taylor

Louis Denison Taylor (July 22, 1857 – June 4, 1946) was elected the 14th mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia. He was elected eight times between 1910 and 1934, serving a total of 11 years.

His Worship Louis Taylor
Taylor in 1932 (aged 75)
14th Mayor of Vancouver
In office 1931–1934
Preceded by	William H. Malkin
Succeeded by	Gerry McGeer
In office 1925–1928
Preceded by	William R. Owen
Succeeded by	William H. Malkin
In office 1915–1915
Preceded by	Truman S. Baxter
Succeeded by	Malcolm P. McBeath
In office 1910–1911
Preceded by	Charles Douglas
Succeeded by	James Findlay
Personal details
Born	(1857-07-22)July 22, 1857 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Died	June 4, 1946(1946-06-04) (aged 88) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality	American-Canadian
Political party	Liberal
Profession	Pioneer, businessman

Biography

Born in Michigan, Taylor lived in Chicago before coming to Vancouver on September 8, 1896. He briefly participated in the Klondike Gold Rush before beginning his political career.

L. D. Taylor championed the issue of amalgamating South Vancouver and Point Grey with Vancouver, and oversaw a variety of public works projects in the rapidly developing city, including the opening of the airport at Sea Island and the Burrard Street Bridge. Amalgamation would take place in 1929 but not under Taylor, because he lost the 1928 election to W. H. Malkin.[1]

Taylor was a Georgist, locally known as 'Single-Tax Taylor' for his belief in the economic teaching of Henry George.[2] Taylor ran as a friend of organized labour, although he opposed labour militancy and Communists.

The Sun Tower at Pender and Beatty Streets, erected by L. D. Taylor as the headquarters for his Vancouver World newspaper.

Mayor Taylor's political career immeasurably benefited from his other role as a newspaperman. He began in the trade working for the Vancouver Daily Province before buying the Vancouver World. The building he had constructed for his newspaper was later taken over by the Vancouver Sun and remains a landmark building in the city, known today as the Sun Tower. Taylor eventually was forced to sell the paper, but not before using it as a political platform from which he railed against Chinese immigration, big business, and other issues of the day that helped establish his reputation as a populist leader.

Despite his popularity at the polls, Taylor often found himself mired in controversy. In particular, an exhaustive 1928 inquiry into allegations of corruption in the police department and city hall revealed that he had associations with known vice operators in the city. Although he was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, the inquiry blamed his "open town" policy on the proliferation of vice and crime in Vancouver. Mayor Taylor claimed that he had no intention of running a "Sunday School town" and argued that police resources should be spent on major crimes, not victimless vice crimes.

This was the basis for Gerry McGeer's 1934 electoral campaign, which obliterated Taylor's political career with the largest electoral defeat Vancouver had ever seen. McGeer was an old adversary of Taylor, having been the lead attorney prosecuting the 1928 police inquiry, and claimed in his campaign that he would eliminate the crime and corruption that flourished under Taylor's civic administration. Taylor unsuccessfully contested several more elections, but spent the rest of his life bitter about the 1934 election. He died in poverty. Taylor Manor, a senior citizens' home in East Vancouver, was named for him in 1946. It was renovated and re-opened in 2015 as a supportive-housing complex for people living on the street with mental health and addiction problems.[3]

See also

• History of Vancouver

References

1. Purvey, Diane; Belshaw, John Douglas (2011). Vancouver Noir: 1930-1960. Vancouver: Anvil Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-897535-83-7. OCLC 724642772.
2. Rawson, Mary (May–June 2001). "Eight Times Mayor Of Vancouver 'Single Tax' Taylor: Louis Denison Taylor – 1857–1946". GroundSwell. Retrieved December 2, 2014.
3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on September 9, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2015.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

• Francis, Daniel (2004). LD: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 1-55152-156-3.
• Mackie, John (November 30, 2002). "The mayors of Vancouver" (PDF). The Vancouver Sun. p. B4.
• Marquis, Greg, "Vancouver Vice: The Police and the Negotiation of Morality, 1904–1935," Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Volume VI British Columbia and the Yukon. Hamar Foster and John McLaren, eds. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8020-0789-9

External links

• Daniel Francis, excerpt from "L. D.: Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver," Vancouver Courier, 5 August 2004.. Retrieved November 15, 2006.
• Donna Jean McKinnon, "Mayors of Vancouver," History of Metropolitan Vancouver.. Retrieved August 24, 2006.