a es

NE year ago. in® the
early dawn of Decem-
ber 31, 1949, “Ol Bill’ Ben-
mett left us. Hight.days

before death stilled his gréet.

fighting spirit, his final para-
graph in the last “Short
Jabs” column he wrote for
the Pacific Tribune (a column
written in tribute to the passing
of another working class fighter)
epitomized his outlook for the
final and complete victory of so-
ciallism in all lands: “For every-

body like Ben Sparks who dies, ,

we have a new task ahead of us;
we have to find replacements, not
one or two but. twenty or more
for one like him.”

In the year that has just passed,
with its reactionary “wars and
rumors of wars’’ and the evil ef-
fects of a decadent capitalism
‘upon the common people every-
where, it has been difficult at
times to adjust ourselves to the
realization that William “Ol Bill”
Bennett is no longer driving home
his “Short Jabs” to the midriff
of the ignorant and noisy spokes-

- men of a social order which can

survive only by falsehood, exploi-
tation, and mass destruction.

How this life-long revolutionary
socialist would have castigated the
warmongers with their handful
ef trade union bureaucrats and
social democrats, whom they have
been able to recruit and corrupt
in an effort to weaken the fight-
ing unity of labor and the people
in their struggle for peace and
social security during 1950!

What joy and pride Ol’ Bill

would have expressed at the vic-
tory of the Chinese people over
their centuries-old feudal imper-
ialist oppressors; of the birth of
the new People’s Republic of
China in 1950, heralding the his-
toric reality that 475 million peo-
ple, symbol‘of a great, free Asia,
have stepped upon the stage of
a new socialist world. Himself
a teacher, leader, and pioneer of
Marxism-Leninism in India,
hounded by the British-Indian
police of the Baldwin-MacDonald
tory “socialist” coalition govern-
ment of the early thirties, Ol’ Bill
would revel in the knowledge that
“China has stood up,” and as a
result, is building a great socialist
highway (for the imperialists a
one-way road) upon which all
Asia will march to complete free-
dom, equality, and democratic
unity.

Ol Bill didn’t hear the feeble
war blasts of the Trumans, Ache-
sons, Attlees and their kind in
the dying hours of 1950, speeches
expressing their blood lust for

1951. But he had heard them in ~

1949, and what hé had to say
in his “Short Jabs’ of January 7,
1949, still holds good for January
7, 1951.

“Truman accuses the Soviet

government of refusing to keep
the agreements Premier Stalin
made at Yalta and Potsdam, In
face of the actions of the im-
perialist powers in Germany (to
which can now be added Japan,
Formosa, Kyrea, since Ol’ Bill
left us) Truman has a lot of
gall in even suggesting that the
Soviet government refuses to keep
these agreements, Not the Soviet
government, but the champion
breaker of treaties, the U.S.A., is
responsible for every breach of
these agreements. .. .”

OV Bill had no illusions about

newspaper editors who barely —

mention or completely suppress
the voice of those who speak for
progress and peace, but who give
full space and obeisance to those
who promote fascism and war
under the guise of. “peace.”

“The editor who prints only the
Truman blasts is as much a war-
monger as John Foster Dulles,
Forrestal, or any other Wall
Streeter,” he wrote.

A man who felt the sufferings
of others very deeply, it goes
a5 5.

Prt Tee ee ee

PT hd

Bill Bennett:

He

lives in the

world’s tomorrows

ye Fat Pe Fe Pee Se SE Se By TOM McEWEN VENEERS

without saying that Ol’ Bill’s pro_
letarian heart would have grieved
at the ruthless horror and de-
struction perpetrated against the
heroic people of Korea by USS.
imperialism, disguised as _ the
“UN.” Equally it would have
gladdened his heart—and under-
scored his life-ling convictions—
to see the crack armies of USS.
aggression, with their “superior-
ity” of death-dealing equipment
and “know-how” (Ol Bill called
it “bull’), reeling back in chaos
and retreat before the just wrath
of an outraged people, supported
by their heroic Chinese allies, de-
termined to drive exploiting im--«
perialism from the much-exploited
ancient land of Korea. Ol Bill
wouldn’t have wasted any print-
er’s ink “sympathizing” with
dollar-imperialism’s “loss of face.”
‘He would have said, as he did
on many similar historic epics. of
the class war, “those birds can
only be taught a lesson the hard
way, so let’s get united to,make
it hard.”

On all issues of the daily strug-
gile for a better life Ol’ Bill’s pen
spoke with simple working class
forthrightness, often with biting
gatire and contempt. He hated
social democrats, not because they
were social democrats with
confused, utopian notions of what
constituted socialism, but because

“they utilized their pretended ‘“so-

cialism” to hoodwink the workers

and ‘blunt the fighting capacity
of the people against their cap-
italist exploiters. :

On March 11, 1949, Ol’ Bill put
it this way in his column:

“When the brave and far-
seeing Reds who are fighting for
Chinese liberation speak or write
about ‘the running dogs of im-
perialism,’ the phrase does not
always convey the same meaning
to the Occidental mind as it does
to them. But there are occasions
when the social denfocrats, by
their own words and activities
make the meaning absolutely clear
to us.”

Then Ol’ Bill gives the activities
of the social democrats to which
he has reference; the union-
raiding, splitting and disruption
carried on by the CCF-CCL
Moshers, Conroys, Millards and
their ilk, all under the war-
monger-inspired slogans of “com_-
batting communism,’ “a good job
of housecleaning,” etc, “And,” says
Ol Bill, “like little dogs that have
been, or expected to be whipped,
they beg for a pat on the head
from their masters... .”

Ol Bill had much more than
a columnist’s interest in the main-
taining and building of a militant
labor press. A brilliant apostle of
the science of Marxism-Leninism,
he knew that the struggles, hopes
and aspirations of the great mass
of the common people, organized
and unorganized, could never find

expression through the medium
of the monopoly “free” press,
whose concept of freedom and
truth is determined by the class
interests of those it serves,

Ol Bill knew that a virile labor
press must be rooted deep in
the ranks of labor, giving full
scope to its struggles, throwing
the lies of the boss press back
in the teeth of its hired inventors,
patiently building unity among the
people as the touchstone of final
victory in every struggle, and
simplifying the basic principles of
scientific socialism for the people
in order to hasten its final at-
tainment. To this great task Ol’
Bill Bennett dedicated the greater
part of his lifetime.

From the Pacific Tribune back
to the earliest days of militant
working class journalism in Can-
ada, there are few fighting labor
papers where the pages of such
do not recall something of the
moral, financial, and revolutionary
imprint of Ol’ Bill Bennett. He
spoke courageously for all people,
irrespective of race or color, who
suffered oppression, and on all
issues. To Ql’ Bill a Chinese, a
Korean or Indian peasant defend_
ing his home and loved ones
against aggressive imperialist
maurauders was the same as a
Vancouver worker and his family
being evicted from their home by
some grasping landlord. They
were both part of a titanic strug-
gle in which no genuine socialist
can stand aloof, a lesson which

Ol’ Bill drove home to thousands
of workers in his wetkly “Short
Jabs.”

The launching of a new youth
paper, Champion, in this first
month of 1951 wotld have been
a source of deep joy and satis-
faction to Ol’ Bill. It would have
made him express again what he
once said when listening to the
report of the 1949 Beaver Brigade
delegates, returned from a visit
to the New Democracies of Eur-
ope: “Old codgers like myself and
some of us don’t have to worry,
these young bucks will do a better
job than we have done.”

e

During the summer of 1949 when
Ol Bill was in hospital, and just
before he was able to return to
his desk to write a last few col-
umns before bidding us his last
farewell, there were a few “Short
Jabs” columns written by others
“pinch-hitting” for the old war-
rior. One has only to read these
columns now to realize it wasn’t
O! Bill. Even in his sickness he
was an indefatigable press builder
for the “PT.” Thousands of friends
and cronies in the isolated camps
and mills of B.C. have maintained
their valuable support of the Pa-
cifiic Tribune because, as some
have written in their own way,
“it was Ol’ Bills paper.” In
essence, content, and objective,
those who have the task of fol-
lowing the pattern he set down,
will try to keep it that way.

Whatever 1951 may bring, and
the Second World Peace Congress,
speaking for two-thirds of the
world’s peoples, declares it can
bring peace, the memory of OY
Bill Bennett, his work and the
lessons he left us, preserved in
the files of labor’s fighting press,
are an assurance that the forces
of peace will be victorious. But
there are some conditions, set
down by .Ol!’ Bill himself before
he left us one year ago. Many
OY Bills have fallen in the strug-
gle during the year; Ol Bills in
lands fighting for a better world.
“We have a new task ahead of
us, we have to find replacements.
Not one or two but twenty or
more for one like him.”

The best memorial tribute we
can pay to Ol’ Bill on the first
anniversary of his passing is to
push forward with greater speed,
vigor, and determination, those
things he lived and worked for.
To increase and strengthen the
party of Marxism-Leninism, the
Labor-Progressive: party; to ex-
tend the circulation and influence
of the Pacific Tribune and all
sections of the fighting labor
press. OJ!’ Bill regarded this as
his highest duty to his fellow man.
The ranks of labor must be united
against the splitters and traitors
who now openly and_ brazenly
serve as “the running dogs of
imperialism.” And peace, to be
won, must be fought for; reso-
lutely, boldly, in the sure know-
ledge that it holds the way to the
triumph of socialism and human-
ity over the brutal forces of im-
perialist fascism and war.

LPP provincial exec-

utive announced this
week that it is completing
plans for an annual mem-
orial tribute to be held at
“Ol Bill” Bennett’s grave in
Ocean View cemetery. Date
set is March 18, anniversary
of the Paris Commune pf
1871, dedicated to building
the left-wing labor press

with which Bill Bennett was
identified.

During 1950 a new edition
of Stanley Ryerson’s A
World To Win was publish-
‘ed under patronage of the
Bill Bennett Memorial Fund.
A book on Bill Bennett's
life and work is now being
completed by Tom McEwen
and it is hoped to publish it
in time for the first memor-

- ial tribute in March.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 5, 1951 — PAGE 5