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{OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER
CANADA}
Personal
Ottawa, September 13, 1943
C. Mortimer Bezeau, Esq.,
12 Ellen St. East,
Kitchener, Ont.
My dear Bezeau:
I duly received your long and interesting letter of August the 28th. Let me thank you most warmly for its congratulations upon my years of leadership of the Liberal party, and for the encouragement your letter brings with respect to the future.
Nothing could be truer than your statement that "the world is at war with itself for a new world order". As you know, I have tried all my life so to shape the government's policies as to be working continually toward a better world. While it is alleged that war serves to bring out the best in men; taken, by and large, it is destructive of nearly everything, and particularly Liberal principles and ideals. I am not without hope that the effort of my public life is sufficiently well known to the citizens of Canada to hope that I may retain, to its close, much of the confidence that has been so generously accorded me in the course of the past twenty-five years. I realize, nevertheless, the crippling effect which war has upon the Ministry charged with responsibility of office at a time of war, and I can see that very much will have to be done if our party, as I trust may be the case, is to hold its own against the forces which, within, but more without, have been sabotaging its efforts.
[handwritten] With kind personal regards, and, as always, all good wishes
Yours very sincerely, [end handwritten]
[signed] W.L. Mackenzie King
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