{1 Labor Personalities—2

0) Minerva Cooper

Ey i _ By CYNTHIA CARTER

ae A HoT prairie sun beat down on the wooden wagon

.§s12— as it came to a halt on the trail. The two oxen

diay towered their heads wearily as the man in the driver’s

ej) Seat slackened the reins.

The woman in the wagon shaded her eyes with her
qs hand and looked silently at the land which was to be her
mew home — a govern-
; gj ment relief grant “recom-

gw mended for settlement.”

. ay) All she saw was swamp,

mibly SPFUCe, and rocks. With

me yg) a Shrug she stepped out,
and lifted the sleeping
as child beside her to the

i, yy ground.

ny “Well,” said Minerva

tsa) Cooper, rolling up her

mwisleeves fer worl, “this is
th a it!”

So in 1934 began two

tizey years. of homesteading in

hkg@ynorthern Saskatchewan,
tk @} two of the most interest-
ing years in the life of

2) Minerva Cooper, uni-

© gi|versity graduate, scholar-

‘Wtship winner, and school

oS teacher.

a; All we had to go on

bas} Was a team of oxen, a plow, a box of nails and a monthly

wirelief allowance,” recalls Minerva. “We spent weeks
att clearing the land. -Later the whole project was aban-
doned. The government was wrong. The land was not
suitable for settlement. But it was fertile ground for
# political education.”
a: Minerva Cooper was born in Nerth Bay, Ontario, in
5 1909. The family moved to Saskatoon, where she at-

-Ǥ) tended public school, high school, normal school and uni-

lei versity.

a For a year before she entered university (where
she majored in English and Economics) she taught school
in rural Saskatehewan. When she graduated she mar-
ried and moved to Newfoundland.

ga. I lived in Newfoundland when times were at their

ol worst,’ says Minerva. “The poverty of the people was

("§ unbelievable. I was on the scene when the Parliament

Buildings were sacked by the starving citizens. At the

time I had little understanding of the struggles of the

"Wi working people. I was impressed by their action and

im critical of the administration, but I did not realize its

vem Significance then.”

It was during her homesteading years that Minerva

2 became interested in the CCF. She was elected chair-

e™ man of the CCE branch in her locality, and held her

3

=

{

io

Hirst public meeting in a poolroom in Crooked River.
After her return to Saskatoon she was elected to the
€CF provincial executive and became women’s provin-
cial organizer.
A “T finally left the ranks of the CCF in the course of
em the struggle for unity,” states Mrs. Cooper, “when the
™) CCF refused to cooperate with trade unions, the Social

Credit movement and the Communist Party in the elec-
sa tion of a progressive candidate to the legislature.”

5 It was about this time that Mrs. Nielsen signed the

§ convention call for a series of western farm conferences,
g§) and it was as a result of these conferences that the news-
‘paper Western Farmer was established in 1940. Minerva,
4 ! now a Communist Party member, was made assistant
8 editor, then editor-in-chief. During the following two

| years she spoke at more than 200 farm meetings, or-

| ganized 30 farm conferences, and represented western
| farmers in a delegation of three in an appeal to the do-
| Minion government to act to save the small, family farm.
Minerva also conducted a series’ of radio broadcasts, in
which farmers’ problems were analyzed and discussed.
Early this year the Western Farmer eeased publica-
tion and Minerva Cooper came to Vancouver to take the
position of business manager on The People. Last month
She attended the national convention of the new Labor-
Progressive Party in Toronto, was elected to the national

» committee, and chosen provincial secretary-treasurer.

2 “These are stirring times for Canadians,’ she ex-
plains. “To them belongs the job of fighting side by side
With our courageous allies in this people’s war, and of
building a new Canada when victory is achieved.”

Delegates
Impressed

By Quebec

“There is no division be-
tween English and French-
speaking Canada so far as the
labor movement is concerned.
We are united on all the prin-
cipal issues—and were all
fighting monopoly.”

This is the opinion of two
Vancouver delegates to the re-
cent Trades and Labor Congress
convention in Quebec City—Shel-
don Rogers, Lodge 692, Interna-
tional Association of Machinists,
and Tom Parkin, Aeronautical
Mechanics Union—who arrived
back in the city this week.

The main impressions brought
back by the two unionists, mem-
bers of a 33-man delegation from
BG, were first, the tremendous
sweep of unionism among the
French Canadian workers, their
demand for equality of wages and
conditions, and their insistance
that no barriers to unity exist
between French and English-
speaking workers other than
those artificially created by
Catholic Syndicate elements and
the fascists of the Bloc Popu-
laire; and second, the progressive
nature of the decisions approved
by the Congress convention.

“The convention took a genu-
inely progressive stand on all of
the main issues facing Canadians
generally as well as the labor
movement,” Rogers said. “The
decision to establish Political
Action Committees for labor
participation in independent po-
litical action set the tone for
the entire convention. If all local
unions and trade councils put
this resolution into action, it will
go a long way to determining
what kind of a government we'll
have in Ganada and what action
will be taken on Jabor’s outstand-
ing grievances.

Convention highlights, accord-
ing to both Rogers and Parkin,
came first when J. L.. Cohen, K.C.,
addressed delegates and received
an ovation, and discussion on the
AFL-CCL unity resolutions, in
which the BC delegation took an
outstanding part.

The two Vancouver men were
sharp in condemning the actions
of Jack Ross, business agent of
the Vancouver Electrical Work-
ers’ Union, who took the conven-
tion fioor to criticize Birt Show-
ler, president of Vancouver
Trades Council, for haying par-
ticipated with CCL leaders in the
united trade union campaign that
secured the revised ICA Act, as
well as haying agreed to act as
member of a board of arbitra-
tion involving the International
Woodworkers of America, a ClO
affiliate.

“Ross did not reflect either the
attitude of the BC delegates and
the BC labor movement or of
Canadian labor as a whole,”
Rogers stated. “This was evident
in the discussion, when one after
another, delegates took the filoor
to support AFL-CCL cooperation.
Gertainly he was speaking against

. the best interests of labor and of

the Vancouver Trades Council.”

Tom Parkin, who is secretary
of Lodge 756, Aeronautical Mech-
anics Union, found his greatest
inspiration of the convention in
his meetings with French-Cana-
dian delegates.

“There’s a strong current of
opinion among Quebec trade
unionists that the old-line parties
are out, that the Liberals are not
going to win the next election,”
he said. “Everywhere you go
there’s a big sentiment against
monopoly interests, and a desire
to become a part of the big
movement now taking shape in
other parts of Canada, notably
Ontario and BG, for the election
of labor-farmer governments.

Allies Advance in New Guinea

A soldier is given a blood transfusion at a hospital behind
the front in New Guinea, where American and Australian
forces continue to push the Japanese back along the coast,
despite bitter resistance. Australian troops, battling Japa-
mese patrols in the jungles, have now fought their way to
within two miles of the strong Japanese position at Mae,
whose fall would open the way for a pincer movement against
the Japanese on New Britain Island. The other arm of the
Pincer, objective of which is the key Japanese base at Rabaul,
is now being extended up through the Sclomons, where the
Japanese are also being forced back step by step.

THE SOVIETS EXPECTED IT

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