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THE PEOPLE

Telephone MArine 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 Golumbia.

EDITOR: HAL GRIFFIN
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: AL PARKIN
‘ccc

1944 - - Year of Decision

AS THE New Year is ushered in, to the triumphant thunder

of guns at Moscow and the crash of bombs on German
cities, the headlines tell their own story—Hisenhower Will
ead Invasion of Europe—Nazis Routed On Eastern Front—
Berlin Devastated In Smashing New Raid—Canadians Ad-
vance From Captured Ortona—Tito Strikes Into Italy—
Marines Attack New Britain Airfield. And out of the events
that make the headlines emerges the pattern of victory as it
was shaped by the decisions of Teheran and Cairo.

Yo the men on the battlefronts who are fighting for victory
and to us on the home front who are working for it, through
the labor movement advancing those demands essential to

achievement of its aims, the victory foreshadowed by events
means one thing. It means the opportunity to create out
of the misery and wreckage of the past, out of the suffering
and destruction of the present, a world from which the
causes of that suffering and destruction shal] be eliminated.
To all of us, as working people, whether on the battlefronts
or at home and however we translate it into terms of our
own desires, victory means the opportunity to live at peace
in a country so governed that its developing economy pro-
vides us with the increasing security and rising living stan-
dards through which democracy can grow and flourish.

But to powerful Canadian big business interests this con-
ception of victory would not he victory at all but defeat—
an end to the “right of free enterprise’, that sacred “fifth
freedom” which would deny all other freedoms, to shape
the future in the ugly image of the past. Eyen while the
Allied armies are being ordered for the military destruction
of Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” they are preparing to recreate
in Canada the conditions of want and destitution upon which
reaction and fascism thrive. Disguised in plausible words,
their voice is to be heard through the Progressive-Conservative
Party’s spokesmen. Their demands are reflected in the King
government's policies. Working through every reactionary
element, with unlimited means at their disposal, they are
sowing the seeds of disunity among the people while uniting
their own forces to accomplish their ends.

ie FACE of this organized campaign to thwart the people’s

wishes, unity of the labor movement itself is delayed be-
cause the CCF -national leadership insists upon accentuating
the differences between the CCF and other sections of labor
and refuses to transform the CCF into that labor-farmer fed-
eration which would ensure the defeat of reaction.

M. J. Coldwell, the CCF national leader, recognizes the
threat to the people’s interests posed by hig business, but
refusing to recognize the answer, he continues to regard it
as an issue between the CCF and big business. “Nothing
stands between the Canadian people and a-return to the
dreary days of the pre-war years except the united efforts
of individual CCF workers in all parts of the country,” he
writes in his New Year’s message in the CCF News. “When
we see the successful thrust to dominance of reactionary busi-
ness interests elsewhere, it becomes plain how great our re-
sponsibility is.” But the objective of big business is not only
the weakening and eventual destruction of the CCF. That
attack is directed against all labor, the CCF, the LPP and
the trade unions. And only the unity of all labor can meet
and defeat it.

This is the task, the paramount need, of labor as it enters
upon 1944, its year of decision, to unite its own forces. In
countering the attempts of big business interests to take Can-
ada back over the long dreary road of the ‘thirties, it can
draw upon the lessons of those years and remember the lack
of labor unity which helped to make that road possible. But
in 1944, with all the changes wrought by four years of war,
with all its richer experience and greater strength, provided
that strength is organized and directed through united action,
labor has the opportunity to lead the Canadian people forward
to realization of the aims of victory.

“BETTER GRAB IT, MISTER-IT'S THE LAST ROOM FOR RENT IN TOWN!"
AACA TCAD

| Books and People

By KAY GREGORY

—TTwOCtCtiiimiit iii iiiTTATATATATTTinA

EWS new anthologies to be published shortly séem to be
out of the usual run of short story collections and con-
tain a lot of contemporary material hitherto unpublished on

this continent.

Heart of Europe, a 1000-page collection of European crea-
tive writing since 1920, contains the work of 164 authors from

21 couniries.
States Army commenced the edi-
torial selection and it was com-
pleted by Herman Kesten. Dor-
cethy Canfield Fisher introduces
the volume.

Edwin Seaver is editor of the
second collection to be entitled
Cross-Section which will be pub-
lished by Fischer in May. This
anthology will contain novyelettes,
stories, poems, essays and plays,
most of the material marking the
first appearance of new authors.

Exceptions to this, however,
will be a new novelette by Rich-
ard Wright, the first since his
Magnificent novel, Native Son,
entitled The Man Who lived
Underground, and a new story by.
Pulitzer Prizewinner Ira Wolfert,
author of the bestseller, Battle
for the Solomons and Topedo 8.
If these two stories set the pace
for the rest of the book, it should
be a worthy addition to any book-

shelf.
Cs)

ee Council on Books in War-
time has issued a new list of

fifteen current books recom-
mended for wartime reading
which, in my opinion, includes

several which could be passed up
with no great loss to the reader
and some which,.while they make
interesting reading, do not pre-
sent any too accurate a picture
of their subjects.

Two in particular in this lat-
ter eategory are Indigo, by Chris-
tine Weston, and Mother Ameri-
ca, by Colonel Carlos P. Romulo.

The first is undoubtedly a vivid
enough story of Indian life but
is written from the viewpoint of
a foreigner in the land who does
not or dare not tackle the funda-
mental causes of conditions de-
scribed. The second volume,
while it condemns other “white
race arrogance” in the Far East,
can hardly be termed a critical
appraisal of American policy in
the Philippines.

Target Germany, first on the
list, is, I agree, essential read-
ing, even if only to acquaint ev-
erybody with the terrific amount

Klaus Mann, now a sergeant in the United

of men, toil and Sweat, neces-
sary to put 1,000 bombers over
Germany—60,000 highly skilled
men and 50 airfields are needed
for such. a raid.

My Native Land, by Touis
Adamic, also on the list, is anoth-
er must book, since this is the
first authentic expose of Milkhail-_
ovich by a man well qualified to
write it. —.

Retreat Hell, by William Mar-
tin Camp is a story of the Mar-
ines and seems to be good read-
ing, while Ernie Pyle’s Here Is
Your War is the story of the or-
dinary soldier’s view of the war.

The full list is:

Target Germany; Here Is Your
War, by Ernie Pyle; To All Hands,

by Lt. John Mason - Brown;
Bridge to Victory, by Howard
Handleman; The Pacific Is My.

Beat, by Keith “Wheeler; Condi-
tion Red, by Cmdr. Frederick J.
Bell; Retreat Hell! by William
Martin Camp; My Native Land,
by Louis Adamic; Meet the Arab,
by John Van Ess; The Forgotten
Ally, by Pierre Van Paassen; In-
digo, by Christine Weston; Moth-
er America, by Carlos P. Romulo;
Food Crisis, by Roy E. Hendrick-
son; Cooking on a Ration, by Mar-
Jorie Mills; and Assignment: USA,
by Selden Menefee.
e@

iS you want to read a book

which, in the words of one
reviewer, “brings the Russians
and their war from lofty slogans
and cold communiques down to
small everyday human events
that anyone can understand and
sympathize with,” set The Night
of the Summer Solstice, selected
by Mark Van Doren and pub-
lished by Henry Holt and Com-
pany at $2.50. It is a collection
of modern Russian short stories,
all of them concerned with what
the Soviet Union is doing today,
and while the collection is some-
what uneven it provides a de-
tailed and many-sided picture of
Soviet life. Particularly good is
Vasili Grossman’s “Death on a
Collective Farm.”

Short
Jabs

‘“—by OV Bill.

Anti-Semitism
AFTER reading Gallas:
44 pamphlet, “Anti-Semit |
a_shipyard worker I know ~
mented, “It must have been «
ten by a Jew.” Willie Gallia |
is not a JJew but that is nol
point. What is tragic is, that
attitude is a near approach {
anti-Semitism the pamphlet *
written to dispel. The indivi
who makes that criticism! may
be an active anti-Semite bu |
is easy meat for those race ch,
inists who are. :
It is due largely to an imag
superiority of race which
ceived a jolt recently at Glas
university when the first q
in engineering science was &
for the second year runping
a Chinese student. The sneer
tained in the statement aig
due to the fact that those
make it have little or no Ia }
ledge of the contribution’ §
Jewish people haye made to
cial progress, in spite of the :
discrimination that has been p i
tised against them for hundi
of years—proscribed from fol) |
ing any but a few. occupati
compelled to live in restr
areas, victims of pogroms and
termination programs, zest fy
In spite of these handicaps,.
Jews have, by their contribu
to science, literature and art, x §
an honored place among
world’s most advanced peg) |
which cannot be belittled |
sneering at them. i

eo 4
Accomplishmen t
WEex the medicoes cure b

beri and scurvy today ¥ ih
vitamins, we have to thank |
Polish Jew, Casimir Funek, |
discovered vitamins while we
ing at the Lister Institute in alk
When they tackle the one-t
deadly typhoid fever, they =
the cure made possible by: =
Jews, Weil and Widal. The — i
‘covery of insulin for holding ¢ |
betes in check was made possi} =
by the preliminary work of
Kowsky, another Jew. 5
A Jew, Jacob Schiff, lean
enough about the thyroid gi:
to teach the medical profess M
how to deal with it in dise |
and another Jew with a Sor. &
what similar name, Schick, ¢ |
covered a method of treat &
diphtheria which has virtue
made our children immune fr
its ravages. Paul Ehriich. ¥ \ |

Fo eae =~ Bill wedete —ekso

discovered salvarsan for cur |
syphilis was also a Jew. :

I~ physies, Einstein is i
greatest name today. Sir Willi:
Herschell, discoverer of infrax
rays; Hertz, discoverer of tt
Hertzian waves from which ¢
veloped the X-ray and the rad
David Schwartz who invented £ HE
dirigible which bears the nar
Zeppelin; Berliner who inyent
the microphone and Haber w
made nitrates from the air—
were Jews. j nae |

The only worthwhile cont |
butions. to German literature
the past generation have be Y
made by Jews; Arnold and Si |.
pan Zweig; Ernst Toller: Frat
Lafka, Lion Feuchtwanger: Jaci
Wasserman; Emile Ludwig, a
all Jews.

And the greatest mind of :
past time, whose contribution
Social progress is the greatest ye
made by one man, Karl Mar ¢
Was a Jew. ae

With this knowledge, how cou
anyone be anti-Semitic? And t)
writer of this column is not a Je