The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
Last week’s column on Guelph businessman Christian Kloepfer ended with his surprise win over veteran Wellington South Liberal MP James Innes in the 1896 election.
When Kloepfer took his seat, it was as an opposition MP, but Kloepfer was ready to defend the National Policy’s protective tariff against Laurier’s free-trading Liberals.
The budgets brought down by the Liberals, though, surprised many by making only minor changes in the tariff structure, thus taking the wind out of Kloepfer’s main sail. Still, he argued loudly against some of the tariff reductions, claiming that they would force Canadian manufacturers out of business.
These were not happy years for the Conservative Party, which had virtually disintegrated since the death of Sir John A. Macdonald in 1891, struggling under four leaders in five years.
Sir Charles Tupper had reluctantly taken the helm of the party in 1896, only to lose the election that year, but stayed on as leader in an attempt to build the party, especially in Ontario.
Kloepfer might have been a great help to the party had he chosen to spend his time meeting people and speaking across the province, but instead he continued to devote whatever time he could to business affairs in Guelph.
He took a major step to the top of the business community in 1897 when he purchased all of Charles Raymond’s stock in the venerable Raymond Sewing Machine Co., tapping contacts he had made in Toronto as a director of the Traders Bank. Kloepfer reorganized the firm as a limited company, and became its president.
This was the first of several corporate reorganizations that Kloepfer pulled together. He became something of a specialist at restructuring firms to permit them to expand their output and markets. His work in this sphere did as much as anything to establish a strong industrial base for Guelph in the early years of the 20th century.
Back at Ottawa, the South African War replaced tariff questions at the top of the agenda after the first two years of the Laurier administration. A strong British Empire proponent despite his German Catholic background, Kloepfer, along with his leader Sir Charles Tupper, argued vehemently for Canadian participation. The reluctant Laurier administration eventually agreed.
Otherwise, Kloepfer did not play a major role in the Conservative caucus in his area of expertise: financial and economic matters. George Foster, a former finance minister, had a prior claim in these policy areas.
When Laurier called an election in 1900, Tupper’s efforts at rebuilding the Conservative Party in Ontario paid off. His party gained 30 seats in the province. Kloepfer ran a very strong campaign for re-election in Wellington South. His opponent, Hugh Guthrie, was the son of a former MP, and a member of a long-standing legal firm that had been the county solicitors for decades.
Kloepfer ran a strong campaign, emphasizing his own ideas, and promoting the war effort and Empire.
As in 1896, he captured a solid majority of the vote in the City of Guelph, but Guthrie was able to command sufficient strength in the townships and villages to capture the seat.
Many viewed Kloepfer as favouring the city to the detriment of the balance of the riding. As well, Guthrie easily gained the confidence of farmers, and the name was already well known to most people. Perhaps most importantly, farmers had enjoyed four years of an unusual combination: rising commodity prices and good crops. They were happy with conditions under the Laurier government, and wanted more of it.
The defeated member did not cry in his beer for long.
Kloepfer pressed ahead with his various business interests, which revolved around Toronto financial circles as much as the Guelph business sector. He hobnobbed with the moneyed bigwigs at Toronto’s Albany Club.
Without his Ottawa responsibilities, he was able to spend more time on his duties as a corporate director. He became a vice president of the Trusts and Guarantee Co. and added to his burden directorships in the Dominion Permanent Loan Co., Spanish River Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd. and the Imperial Cotton Co., eventually becoming vice president of the latter.
At home in Guelph, the Raymond Sewing Machine Co. hit a plateau, with the market saturated with sewing machines, and many families increasingly preferring store-bought clothing over homemade. Kloepfer attempted to keep the factory humming by branching out into other product lines, notably bicycles and cream separators.
His other business interests prospered. His first venture, the coal business, thrived under the management of his brother Frank. The carriage hardware business grew rapidly. He opened a branch office in Toronto, and in 1904 undertook construction of a new three-storey factory and warehouse, which still stands on Woolwich Street. He also sat as a city-appointed director of the Guelph Junction Railway.
The year 1904 was a busy one for Kloepfer. In addition to a whirlwind of business activity and politics, he found time to marry for a second time. His first wife had passed away in 1895. With his new bride, Sara Burns of Toronto, daughter of an associate in the coal business, he fathered two more children, Kevin and Jean.
Busy as he was with his business affairs, Christian Kloepfer still had an eye on politics. Wellington South’s Conservatives were delighted when he accepted the nomination again for the November 1904 election. Perhaps unimpressed with the new Conservative leader Robert Borden, Kloepfer downplayed his Conservative affiliation.
Much of his advertising did not even mention his party, emphasizing instead his personal qualities and his patriotic stance in favour of Empire and high tariffs.
The results repeated those of the 1900 election. Kloepfer won a solid majority in the city, which was offset by Guthrie’s strong showing in the townships. It would be his final venture into politics.
In the months before the 1904 election Kloepfer had been busy with another investment: the old Guelph Carpet Co., established in 1873. Along with Guelph businessman Robert Dodds, he purchased the firm in 1901 and then reorganized it as a limited company, with greatly augmented capital, and a major extension to the factory in 1904 to produce new lines of carpeting.
A new subsidiary company, the Guelph Spinning Mills, later known as Guelph Yarns, produced much of the raw material for the carpets. Kloepfer sat as president of the new firm, which expanded rapidly, with over 400 on the payroll by 1910.
Another project engineered by Kloepfer was the reorganization of the Guelph Stove Company. Established as a small concern in 1897, the company subsequently merged with the Woodyatt Co., another foundry, but found further expansion difficult due to insufficient capital. Kloepfer bought a share in the firm, reorganized it as a limited company, with himself as vice president, and found the capital for a new factory on York Street in Guelph, constructed in 1911.
The new plant and its 200 employees concentrated on enamelled kitchen stoves. For a time the entire output went to the T. Eaton Co. in Toronto for national distribution.
A year later, Kloepfer expanded his activities in the textile industry when he organized the Dominion Linens Co. in Guelph.
The new firm included Guelph men such as his old carpet company associate Robert Dodds, plus some Toronto men such as railway magnate Sir William MacKenzie.
Kloepfer’s final venture occupied his time in 1912. The International Malleable Iron Company, associated with the Illinois Malleable Iron Co. but largely financed in Canada, established a new foundry in Guelph. Kloepfer was one of the organizers, and responsible for assembling the financing for what would be Guelph’s largest foundry.
Christian Kloepfer did not live to see the new factory completed.
In January 1913, he caught a bad cold. It soon turned into pneumonia, and then there were further complications, suggesting a more serious illness. He suffered severe hemorrhaging, and died early on the morning of Feb. 9, 1913, six weeks past his 65th birthday.
A few hours later, Father Doyle paid tribute at the 10 o’clock mass at Church of Our Lady to the congregation’s most generous supporter, emphasizing his rise to prominence from humble beginnings. The funeral took place two days later in the same church.
The funeral procession, one of the longest ever seen in Guelph, began at Kloepfer’s house at 199 Woolwich Street, and included dozens of business associates and hundreds of employees.
The crowd at the church overflowed the available seating. Four priests, including two of Kloepfer’s nephews and a cousin, celebrated the mass with Father Doyle.
During the funeral and as the procession passed to the cemetery, downtown businesses closed their doors and drew their blinds in tribute to the man who had done more than anyone for the benefit of the city in their time.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Sept. 1, 2000.
