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— Arndt, Neues Deutschland, Berlin

EDITORIAL

The choice is ours

A assassin’s bullet has brought Vietnam to the U.S. The
proud capitol of Washington, D.C., much of it a Negro-
American slum ghetto is in flames, as are scores of other Negro
ghettos in many U.S. cities. So also are the “promises” of white
politicians, long accustomed to substitute gunshot, a fiery cross or
a lynch mob in lieu of the ‘‘Great Society."

A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. King dedicated his life's work and
teachings to the lofty principle of human brotherhood and non-violence
in a century-old struggle for civil rights and equality for 20 million
Negro-Americans — for all Americans, Black and white alike — for all
humanity.

The deadly sickness which obsesses a large segment of white USA
and drives it to turn to the club and gun as a violent solution to all its
self-made social problems, has also struck down its greatest advocate
of peace and non-violence Dr. Martin Luther King by an assassin’s
bullet. But the assassin’s hand was directed by the sick mentality
which spawns in the dark and murky swamps of race hatred and
bigotry. That is the real ‘criminal not yet apprehended.

The flames of burning cities throughout the U.S. in angry
retaliation has already posed a terrible question: did the bullet which
struck down Martin Luther King also kill the non-violence he so
ardently and devotedly advocated? Only the future can tell, but one
thing is now sure: that 20-million Negro-Americans will no longer bare
their backs to the white lash of inequality, inferiority and racist
persecution.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s last march in Memphis, Tenn. was a march
on labor’s picket line: a march to support the long strike of Memphis
garbage workers (mostly Negros), to whom a white racist civic
administration had said, “for you, no collective agreements — no
unions”. A march which George Meany and the Executive Council of
the AFL-CIO should have been in, shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Martin
Luther King, instead of whooping it up for President Johnson’s
murderous war upon Vietnam.

The world’s peoples, and we here in B.C. and Canada, with all our
multi-national and multi-racial origins, are also among the bereaved
by the tragic death of Martin Luther King. We also have our Negro-
Canadians, Native Indian and Eskimo peoples, Asian-Canadians, who
suffer from the racial discriminations which Dr. Martin Luther King
so fearlessly fought against, and for whom as with peace-loving decent
people everywhere, a mighty voice is now stilled. *

In the silence of our own hearts we can only grieve, and in our
sorrow find a new strength and a new resolve by his example: a re-
solve to unitedly sweep the violence of war and race hatred from the
world of mankind. Either we do that or return the world to racist
savagery. to the law of gun and club. the law of the jungle which
killed Dr. Martin Luther King.

The choice is ours, and the time of choosing — now.

APRIL 13, 1968—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2

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edition, Canadian Tribune

Editor—TOM McEWEN Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months.
North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year.
All other countries, $7.00 one year. Authorized as second class mail by the
Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash.

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NEW DEAL URGED

Trail mayor gives
CIVIC Crisis views

Mayor F. E. DeVito of Trail, B.C.,
predic.ted last week that the crisis
facing B.C. municipalities will
increase until there is a clearer re-
organization of the responsiblities of
various levels of government. *‘The
present governmental organization,
Federal, Provincial and Municipal is
in a state of flux and almost chaos.”

He was replying to questions put
by PT Associate Editor Maurice
Rush on the crisis facing B.C.
municipalities. Here are his answers
on some of the major issues as he
saw them:

POLLUTION: “This matter is
being projected as a municipal
problem by the provincial
government, whereas, as a matter of
fact, it is a national problem and
each municipality is going to be
unable to face the financial demands
required by recent legislation.”

EDUCATION: “Here again we
have a national problem. A student
from one province, in this age of
movement, is unable to continue his
education if his family should move
too often. Using the BNA act, the
Federal and Provincial governments
are attacking this problem in a
minimal way and ignoring the real
crisis in education.”

EMPLOYMENT: “The matter of

jobs is a national disgrace. The only
way that we are going to solve this
problem of maintaining present
communities qand not forcing
everyone to live in the large centres
with all its attended problems, is for
the Federal government to have a
national policy of both assistance
and direction in maintaining present
communities with their very costly
and extensive service system. This
will require a real program of
direction of industry as public
policy.”’

FINANCES: ‘“‘In this matter the
situation is not better. Even the most
competent finance authorities are
unable to agree on or make sense of
Mr. Bennett’s finance manipulations
with regard to municipalities. It is a
constant process of ‘robbing Peter to
pay Paul!”

HOUSING: ‘‘The housing crisis
and the continuing resort to
commissions and studies but no
resort to a real solution to see that
Canadians are housed with mini-
mal cost. Our resources of trades-
men, materials and land make the
housing solutions offered a national
tragedy and those in need of hous-
ing.”

Trail’s popular mayor was elected
last December with an
overwhelming majority after
leading campaign for amalgamation
of Trail and Tadanac.

‘Protect tenants
from profiteers”

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Are rent controls necessary in
Vancouver today? Or are they a too
radical measure at this time?

Before you answer that question
let me tell you of a case I came
across last week.

A family in the 600 block East
Broadway, faced with a 25 percent
boost in rents, called me up. I went
down and looked the place over. It
was an experience I won't soon
forget.

The house was an old one, probably

a lot older than I am, ina familiar °

area since I was born and raised a
few blocks away.

The upstairs, consisting of four
rooms including a bath and toilet of
sorts, is rented to a family for 140 a
month.

In the back of the main floor is a
pokey four room suite with a toilet
but no bath occupied by a family with
seven children. The rent is $130 and
the landlord has announced a $20 a
month raise which would bring it to
$150.

In the front of the main floor is
another two room suite, no toilet or
bath, rented to a mother and child
for $85 a month.

The basement has a two room suite
rented to an Indian mother and her
child for $85. The basement toilet
and shower are shared with both
families on the main floor which
means 13 people use it. The shower
was wet and slimy with garden
slugs up the sides.

The house has no rugs or carpets,
just rough wooden floors that look as
if they had been gouged with a
peevee. Cockroaches’ are
everywhere.

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I checked the assessment at City
Hall; the market value of the house
is just under $15,000. Yet the owner
extorts $440 a month from these
poor, unfortunate people, and still
not satisfied wants to increase it to
$470. That’s over $5000 a year and
obviously little or nothing is spent on
repairs and maintenance.

What would you do if a tenant from
this place asked for your help?

I'm certainly going to do my best
to stop this rent increase, and have
asked the health inspector to look
into the lack of sanitation, but that
isn't enough. Vancouver should have
by-laws which would compel
landlords to fix a place like this up
until it is fit for human habitation.
When I moved a motion in Council
several months ago to introduce such
by-laws, the NPA dominated Council
turned it down.

Don’t we need rent controls to
protect tenants from this type of
unmerciful profiteering?

T. C. DOUGLAS

APRIL 27

Douglas to
speak at

‘war protest

The Co-ordinating Committee 1°
End the War in Vietnam announce
last week that T. C. Douglas, national
leader of the New Democratic Party,
will be the feature speaker .at the
giant anti-Vietnam war protest !”
Vancouver on Saturday, April 27.

Plans are well underway for the
biggest and most representative
demonstration yet staged in
Vancouver for peace in Vietnam and
against Canadian support to the U.S.
war in Vietnam, The demonstration
will coincide with rallies being held
across Canada and the U.S. during
that week.

Marchers will gather at the City

Hall at 11:30 a.m. leaving there at !
p.m. to arrive at the Courthouse at 2
p.m. for a giant rally. The ¢9
ordinating Committee sponsoring the
protest is made up of about 30 Lower
Mainland peace groups, trade unions,
student organizations and other
interested individuals and groups.

Slogans agreed to by delegates to
the Co-ordinating Committee, which
will be prominently featured in the
march and rally are: End War in
Vietnam; Stop the Bombing of
Vietnam; Honor the Geneva
Agreements; Withdraw U.S. Troops
Now; End Canadian Complicity; No
More War Shipments to U.S.

The Co-ordinating committee ‘s
opening a headquarters at 307 W.
Pender St. Correspondence should be
addressed to: Co-ordinating
Committee to End the War in
Vietnam, P.O. Box 2982. For further
information phone 224-4249 or 876-
8577.

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