af Hs PROSE LAOREET ETOCS AMIS! i hited aw Feature Unemployed sitdown echoed 35 campaign for work and wages By Sean Griffin It was an echo of the relief camp strike of April, 1935 when thousands of unemployed single men had marched through the streets of downtown Vancouver. And if the year was now 1938, the demand — work and wages — had not changed in the three years of government inaction that had passed since. In Ottawa, although the Tory govern- ment of R.B. “Iron Heel” Bennett had been heavily defeated in the 1935 election — and the 20-cent-a-day relief camps closed in 1936 — the Liberal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King had done little to change the unemployment picture across the country. In Victoria, the Liberal government of Duff Pattullo remained in office, its policies on unemployment based on one general rule: take action to alleviate the suffering of the unemployed only when the public pres- sure to do so becomes irresistible. Pattullo did act in the winter of 1936, establishing a program of forestry and road camps when the consequences of refusing to deal with the jobless crisis were made dram- atically evident in the riot at Hamilton Hall, Vancouver's relief agency, the same year. More than a thousand single unemployed who had been denied any relief marched into the hall to demand the government make provision for them. voked a-riot and led to criminal charges against two unemployed leaders, Fred Grange and Harry Molland. Although the charges they faced usually resulted in sent- ences ranging from 30 to 60 days, the two men were handed prison terms of two years each in the New Westminster Penitentiary. Faced with overwhelming public revul- sion at Bennett’s old relief camps, Pattullo opened the relief projects under new provi- sions. In the first place, they were strictly under provincial jurisdiction and second, the men were to be paid wages of 30 cents an hour. But both the premier and his labour min- ister, George Pearson, rejected any notion that the projects were intended as a work and wages program. They were, the government said, strictly related to relief. As a result, the men were paid only half their wages — minus deductions for board and clothing — while in camp. The remaining portion was to be doled out, in weekly allowances of $4 a week, as relief while they were in town. The camps worked on a rotation system, whereby men worked for about two months and then were laid off to live on their deferred pay while a new group of men came into camp. In the spring of 1937, the government demonstrated that any obligation it may Steve Brodie’s account Continued from page 17 as he led Redvers out. He then made the mistake of asking a city constable to call an ambulance. The error cost him a slash which laid his jaw open two inches. He carried that scar to his grave at age 22. The grave is on the hill overlooking Dieppe. Young Mike joined us at age 17, when the relief department in the Nelson district told him his share of the family relief was now cut off. In order to leave the entire $13.50 per month to his widowed mother and two kid sisters, he had to leave home. The cost to the government of Canada to maintain his grave is now more annually than his family received altogether for three years. This doubtless will be explained away by infla- tion. Once I was recognized, I received some special attention by the eviction crew, and was subjected to a further attack after I was dragged from the building. The beating was finally stopped when a sergeant noticed a movie news reel being made. One of the reasons my suit against the Crown was never brought to trial was that, on examina- tion for discovery, in answer to the Crown counsel’s question, ““Do you mean to say you will take the stand and accuse the police of unneccessary beating?”’, my reply was: “I intend to say and prove by newspaper pic- tures, that it was attempted murder.” It was a citizen who placed me in his car and took me to St. Paul’s. The police were not calling ambulances that day, which ended for me at about 6a.m. I did not know anything more until I woke almost 24 hours later, to find that, surprisingly, I was not under arrest. While in hospital I was visited by Profes- sor G.G. Sedgewick of the University of B.C. the honorary chairman of the Civil Liberties Union (CLU), and two other members of the CLU, who asked if I would agree to a suit against the Crown being entered on my behalf. To my surprise a writ was granted. Then I learned the reason for 18 ¢ Pacific Tribune, April 27, 1988 this gracious gesture. I was informed the case was now sub judice, and I could not discuss publicly the events which gave rise to the case. The Exchequer Court refused to come to B.C. that fall, claiming to be interested in saving costs, and my suit was laid over for one year. This had never happened before, nor has it happened since. How conveniently our courts can forget that, “Justice delayed is Justice denied,” when to hear the case would condemn the forces of law and order as enemies of the people. The case was withdrawn by the lawyer appointed by the CLU, without reference to either the CLU or to me. He somehow felt embarrassed after September, 1939, about reminding the Canadian people that jack- boot justice can be used on both sides of the Atlantic. Some half a dozen men were charged in court at the fall assizes, but only with dam- age to property stores in the downtown area. Adam Smith-Johnston defended, ask- ing the defence committee only for his out- of-pocket expenses. He tried time after time to bring evidence that the men had surren- dered to the law, long before any damage was done. The presiding judge refused to allow any discussion of events outside the blocks containing Woodward’s and Spen- cer’s stores. On police evidence only, his clients were sentenced to jail, and any suggesttion that window breaking was started by police agents was laughed out of court. As the judge rose to leave Smith-Johnston spoke in a broken voice, loud enough to be heard all through the courtroom, “Where can the people go, if justice has fled our court?” Embarrassed court officials pretended to notice nothing amiss, and as I walked out- side with him, and thanked him for his efforts, he said, almost in tears, “Right must not only be done, it must appear to be done,” and walked slowly away, a saddened man. have felt to the unemployed following the events at Hamilton Hall was again waning. By the beginning of June, all three of the 23 camps in the province had been closed down for the summer. The remaining three were to close by the end of the month. At the beginning of July, the provincial government announced that all single men under the age of 55 — except for war vete- rans for whom the age cut-off was 50 — would be cut off relief. Underscoring the government’s insist- ence that there were jobs to be found, Pear- son told the Ex-Servicemen’s League in a letter: “Conditions in industry in B.C. are far better than for many years.” For some, the conditions were better. Profits in the main industries in the province were up, and there had been a slight growth in employment over the previous year — although it hardly touched the thousands of unemployed. But in early 1938 even that changed, as the economic crisis of the 1930s deepened again. Throughout February and March, Van- couver newspapers carried reports of layoffs in the forest industry together with announcements of production cutbacks and permanent shutdowns in pulp mills and sawmills. Apparently oblivious to the worsening situation, both the federal and provincial governments announced measures that could only be expected to touch off a new crisis for the unemployed. In April, relief project workers discovered that the govern- ment would close the projects even earlier than the previous year, with the last man slated to be out by the end of April. In Ottawa, the King government aggra- vated the problem by reducing its relief grants to provinces — a move that was echoed in Victoria as Pattullo announced that relief loans to municipalities would be eliminated. Once again, governments were passing the responsibility for action on unemploy- ment as they had done in 1935. Vancouver followed the pattern, too, announcing in April, 1938 that it could not provide relief for the single unemployed. And both Victo- - ria and Vancouver urged the unemployed to leave the city and go to the Prairies to look for work — a callous suggestion that prompted outrage even from the mayors of Edmonton, Calgary and Regina who reminded B.C. authorities that all the pro- vinces faced a severe unemployment prob- lem. On April 25, unemployed leader John Matts led a delegation to city hall where he outlined the problem to city councillors: “In two weeks time, all wage vouchers will have run out and destitute men are pouring into the city daily. “No reasonable person,” he said, ‘“‘can expect hungry young men to starve while the niceties of placing responsibility on the RPWU members at the Harrison Mills relief project. ‘No reasonable person can expect hungry young men to starve while the niceties of placing responsibility on the governing body are estab-— lished,’ unemployed leader John Matts told city council. governing body are established.” Apparently, there was no reasonable person — for the city offered no prospect” of relief. And the Labour Minister George Pearson’s comment to the press following 4 — meeting with an unemployed delegation May 5, underlined his government’s policy. “The only thing for the men to do,” he said, “is to scatter as quickly as they can as the - government has no money to do anything.” With the camps closed and relief cut off, the single unemployed were again faced with the choice that had confronted them throughout much of the decade — organize or starve. The Relief Project Workers’ Union, which had begun organizing the camps when they were opened by the provincial _ government in 1936, continued the tradition — of its predecessor, the Relief Camp Workers Union, organizing demonstrations in down- town Vancouver, sending delegations to city hall and working among church,,. trade union and other organizations for assist- ance. Throughout the spring and summer of 1938, it campaigned for a public works program. - It was backed by the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, several churches, many members of the CCF and the Com- munist Party which launched a campaign around its six-point program of public works. On April 29, more than 3,000 RPWU members and single unemployed marched through downtown Vancouver from the Powell Street Grounds. Across the city, reporters remarked that it was like the relief camp strike three years earlier. From the platform RPWU leader Ernie “Smokey” Cumber warned that if the government did not move to establish some form of public works program to provide for the unemployed, the camp workers would devise “new. tactics” to step up the pressure. Over the next several weeks, a whole country would become aware of the cam- paign by the single unemployed — and the government’s response.