On stage for the defence, he discovered his special dramatic genius. By the use of his voice, his penetrating eyes, his raised arm and accusatory finger, his sense of the ridiculous, his edge of sarcasm, his command of the fine points of law and evidence, he became a master of his juries. As defence counsel his role was not to prove a case but to raise doubts, to act on his instinctive feel for the mood of the jury. The man seemed made for the part and grew naturally into it. He could identify easily with unfortunate, the dispossessed, the poor, with all those who lacked the birthright and assumed superiority of wealth, power, language, and education of the British Canadian mainstream; and he could argue with passion. In Saskatchewan there was fertile ground for his talent.
Denis Smith, Rogue Tory The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker (Macfarlane Walter & Ross:1995), pp. 40-41.
