6 AAA ATT THE PEOPLE Telephone WMArine 6929 Published every Saturday by the People Publishing Company, Room 104, Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street, Vancouver, — British Columbia, and printed at Broadway. Printers Limited, 151 East 8th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia. EDITOR: HAL GRIFFIN : ASSOCIATE EDITOR: AL PARKIN ANA The Civic Election ess week, in one of the strongest labor centers of the country, organized labor and the working people gener- ally suffered a defeat. Frank recognition of this is essential to an understanding of the reasons for the defeat, so that the lessons may be taken to heart. While the progressive move- ment was divided, reaction was united, and for the seventh consecutive term the Non-Partisan candidates were returned to Vancouver’s city hall. Defeat of the progressive candidates means that in a city council which may face the tasks of the post-war period before it faces another election, there is not a single representative of the working people. No honest progressive will pretend that the two trade unionists reelected on the Non-Partisan slate speak for organized labor. Ald. H. L. Corey, and Ald. Jack Price, as he proved conclusively in the course of the cam- paign, have both allied themselves with the representatives of big business against the people’s interests. They help to give the Non-Partisan Association its camouflage of non-parti- san behind which is concealed the reactionary coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, As representatives of an organiza- tion whose prime purpose is to prevent the election of labor candidates pledged to fight for labor’s interests on the Givie field they are working against the interests of the labor movement. “Keep Politics Out Of Our City Hall” is a cynical slogan designed to hide from undiscerning yoters the fact that a pol- itical machine is firmly installed at the city hall. Until that machine is smashed Vancouver will never have progressive Civic government. pee daily papers, of course, are claiming that because the WNon-Partisan candidates were elected by a clear majority they represent the people. Even a cursory examination of the vote exposes the falsity of this claim. Of approximately 100,000 people on the voters’ list, less than 30 percent voted. Add to this perhaps another 50,000 people who are now denied the vote under our antiquated civic franchise, and it is apparent that only a minority of our citizens had a voice in the election. Without a united progres- Sive campaign to rally them, even a majority of those entitled to vote did not go to the polls. Again, a considerable portion of the majority vote polled by the Non-Partisan candidates is represented by multiple votes—the votes of those who exercised their franchise twice, once as home-owners and once as representatives of corpora- tions holding property in the city, and, almost invariably, twice for the solid Non-Partisan slate. This is how our limited civic democracy operates against the people’s interests and contributes to the maintenance in power of a reactionary “civic administration elected by only a small minority of our citizens. HE lessons for the progressive parties and organized labor are clear. They must unite their efforts in conducting a vigorous campaign to force revision of the city charter to ex- tend the francise. And they must unite their ranks for the next civic election. It must surely be clear to the CCF that in maintaining its opposition to the electoral unity proposed by the trade unions and inveighing against the Labor-Progressive Party when the people looked for positive proposals, they ensured -the defeat, not only of the trade union nominees, but of their own candi- dates. The results this year could have been different. The people’s candidates could have been elected, had unity been achieved. And if the results next year are to be different, this lesson must be learned and heeded and the basis for unity established now. ‘folks. Guilty Men By WILLIAM S. GAILMOR In The Union, organ of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (CIO) ove day one of those peace rumors will turn cut to be the real thing. Out of what’s left of Berlin will come a plea for an “honorable” peace. The United Nations won’t be suckers for that kind of talk. They will have had enough of it from fascists, semifascists and “reformed” fascists. An answer will come forth: “Un- conditional surrender.” Berlin will balk. It won?t help. Days of balk, and talk, will long have passed. The end of the balk and talk it depends also on whom the €ra came with the pacts of Mos-_ fascists will surrender to. And cow and the 3-way testament of who will pronounce judgement Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. on the cosmic criminals. The three most important lead- There are going to be trials. ers of free peoples buried the There will be an international remnant pieces of a patchwork court. Will Nazis and fascists be past and fused their forces in a _ tried _by juries of their peers? single fight for one kind of free- They should be tried by peers dom. ot their victims. Here lies Munich—a beer gar- e@ den, a putsch palace, and birth- FULTLE®. Goering and Goebbels place of the Great Balk. _Dead— should be tried by twelve dead as the days when oceans men, good and true, chosen as were protective barriers. follows: A Jew as foreman, a @ Russian from Kiey, an English- 5 man from Coventry, a Pole, a OF ne oe oes Frenchman, a Norwegian, a hi £ t ae : tifi my ee Dutchman, a Belgian, a Greek, is senatorial sanctifiers. Like | Dane, a Czech and a Yugo- Sir Oswald Mosley, resuscitated Sac for another spit into the faces Te, «7: : . of the British people who haven’t Every quisling and gauleiter z z ought to be judged by twelve yet wiped their faces of the sweat ilabitants of ieee He ruled. and tears and the blood of their Laval should be tried by a jury Soa, of Frenchmen he exported into But look closely at them. And German bondage. And Franco’s listen to them. They, too, are fate ought to be left to twelve crying for an “honorable” peace. Spanish’ Loyalists. Crying, and foaming at the That's justice. That's honor- mouth. For they, like their con- able. ‘That’s a blueprint for tinental counterparts, hear the peace. For that’s the uncondi- death rattle in the guns of the red Army, in the bombs blasting Berlin, in the roar of millions cf people’s voices. They want peace. The fascists and their fellow-drivellers want peace with the past. Let's have the things-as-they-were, they shout. But things as they were made things as they are—and things as they are make no pretty picture. The only things that count are things as theyre going to be. And that depends on the un- conditional surrender of fascism. LZ OTC TTT Books and People By KAY GREGORY tional surrender of the attacker te the attacked. Peace—only after the wunder- ground is given a chance to rise against the oppressor. No end to hostilities until the steel and flesh and soul of the German military machine are annihilated. That will open the book of an honorable peace. A book of obituaries, listing the death of fascists and their international kin. Signed, sealed and deliver- ed by the people as well as the armies of a world that wants to stay free: : EEUU AAT TTT Pee HAWES, author of Fashion is Spinach, has now written a book telling us Why Women Cry, about Wenches with Wrenches. From several reviews I have seen, despite some of Miss Hawes’ sweeping generalities and wild punches, it is a straight- from-the-shoulder book about the problems women in industry face today. Women “cry”, she says, because they are overworked, underpaid; beeause they haven't nursery schools for their kids, or com- munity kitchens, or after school programs, or streamlined house- work, or anything else to make them able to beceme equal part- ncrs in all things with their men- ject in such a readable way, be- cause if it dees nothing else, Miss Hawes’ book will provike heated arguments between all who read it. ) new album of records, Fila- menco (Songs of Andalusia), Her classification of modern womanhood