James Scullin - Early Political Career

Early Political Career

Scullin stood for the House of Representatives seat of Division of Ballarat in 1906 against Alfred Deakin, but lost. In 1910 he was elected to the House for the country seat of Corangamite, but he was defeated in 1913 and went back to editing the Evening Echo.

He established a reputation as one of Labor's leading public speakers and experts on finance, and was a strong opponent of conscription. After World War I he came close to outright pacifism. In 1922 he won a by-election for the safe Labor seat of Yarra in inner Melbourne, and in 1928 he was elected Labor leader following the resignation of Matthew Charlton.

Read more about this topic:  James Scullin

Famous quotes containing the words political career, early, political and/or career:

    No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life’s course by a mere accident.
    James Bryce (1838–1922)

    Our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,
    Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Currently, U.S. society has been encouraged by its political and subsidized mass-media intelligentsia to view U.S. life as a continual “morning in America” paradise, where the only social problems occur in the inner cities. Psychologists call this denial.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)

    It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)