thy Thom pson

ee

recent issue of the Sun.
y Thompson, —presum-
qnniving. at a soft peace —

> Nazis, expresses grave
, because “unconditional
jer’ does not convey the
‘erms. She must however
ve that Churchill. Stalin

Roosevelt have several -

announced that they will
emit the continuation of
ified Germany. To im=
+ this policy involves
fall the punishment of
war criminals regardless
ak This automatically
tes the Nazi party and
y Lhompson
ware of this. A continua-
* her campaign for ela-
nm now of all the details
render may cause a rift

Alfied front before Hit-

defeated. Surely she
that unconditional sur-
precludes the danger of
thus assuring a united
intil the enemy is de-
Furthermore as Dor-
thompson loudly echoed
sdiction that the Nazis
3e in Viadivostock with-
weeks it is not difficult
ce the kind of peace she
mind.

despite all reactionary
‘e of pro-fascist propa-—
$3 justice will march re-

ly into every corner of-

y. The relatives of the
is tortured and murder-
ms of Nazi tyranny will
it that the Nazi beasts
full for their crimes.

JOHN MacKENZIE.

HAT DO

must be

de P Wake vive Se

YOU THINK?

CSP Riric Fer Ow!

“THIS RECONVERSION AIN'T SO EASY ATER ALIS

BCE Employees

Dear Sir:

The refusals of the National
War Labor Boards to grant the
muserly wage concessions de-
manded by the BCE employees
has the appearance of a provo-
cative action. Their ruling has
placed the workers in the posi-

tion of being forced to strike

in order to maintain decent liv-
ing conditions in the cause of

sES. OUR POSTED CEILING PRICES!"

which their own sons are fight-
img for in Hurope. As the strike
would tieup transportation
throughout our city, the whole
of the Fraser Valley and Van=-
couyver production
would be seriously reduced. Un-
doubtedly therefore those who
deny the small wage inerease
prefer the strike even though
they know it would hamper the
war effort. This emphasizes
the probability of provocation
and which most likely has been
initiated through the influence
of the mighty transportation
octopus of Canada with the ap-
proval of the powers behind
the BCE directorate. If the in-
stigators of this plot deem that
the public will blame the work-

Island, war

_ers they are mistaken for the

public is not so easily hood-
winked by political heelers as
in the olden days.

The people know that the
workers are justified in their
demands because of the in-
They

also have for many months

erease in living costs.
past read notices In the street

ears proclaiming “a million

more passengers last month.”

They know this means more™

profit—for the shareholders—
not the workers while business-
men know that any addition to
the workers’ pay is quickly put
in circulation or in war bonds
and thereby is beneficial to all
society.
JACK BOYD.

Reader’s Disgust

Saturday, January 6, 1945 — Page 5

SREREUCCOCCCOUEESECECAUERUCERAEATUGELECOUESSTORUCUACSEANINC ESS ANGST EAMAACTATRAENAANSLELUTESSETEERTONAELTA TACT

| Short Jabs by Ol Bill

/ERDOCRGESOCROSEAGETCRUTCCURCEROSONTESSENZECRCTCERS ASCE SSHRGCEDSTIGN SCA LATAUITSEPSUREARAAGAASRIGSNEUARERCROSA NOUN: ee

4

| PEERS US FUGIT, ars longa,”—time fiies, art is lasting, so wrote the
Romans. «It is not entirely true. Time stands still sometimes

though some forms of art are lasting. The art of lying and slander is

one of these forms.

A friend of mine passed me a copy of the Readers’ Disgust a few
days ago. I think that is the right name of the magazine although it
spells “Digest” on the title page. In this copy time has stood still for
fifteen years. Here in condensation from a book to be published shortly
by an American journalist and newspaper-owner William I. White of
Kansas, 1s gathered most of the red-baiting slanders about the Soviet
Union of the 1930 period of history, the era of MHoovervilles, soup
kitchens hunger-matches, and teen-age boxcar tramps of both sexes,
during the reign of the last Republican Tory president in the United!

ates.

When Eric’ Johnson, President of the American Chamber of Gom-
merce, went to the Soviet Union some time ago, he made it clear that
ihe visited that country, not as a politician but as a business man inter-
ested in production. His published impressions of that visit prove that
he maintained that role. hey are impressions that may help to cement

the bond of friendship, which took twenty years to fashion, between -

the United States and the Soviet Union, a bond which depends on eco-
nomic co-operation between these two great powers, a bond which may
Serve to prevent a world calamity such as has been visited on us during
the past five years.

In his entourage, however, was the author of the book featured
in the Readers’ Disgust. This man was inspired by no such worthy
motives as Johnson. The content of his book is a wedge driven into
the high purpose of the Johnson visit, thinly veiled political propaganda
in the guise of human interest and economic criticism.

Right at the beginning of this Readers’ Disgust condensation, he
tells his readers that, “it takes me a week to find out that what is
missing is competition,’ and that the absence of competition results
in inefficiency. “Here competition with the state is outlawed, hence
inefficiency is protected.”

This is the past speaking!
up to sound Jike honest fact. But “facts are chields that winna ding”
as Burns wrote, and the facts are, that the people’ of the Soviet Union
are so efficient that they moved their whole machinery and industrial
plants in which it was housed, two thousand miles out of the range of
the forces of destruction—the Nazi invaders—in a few weeks, setting
it up again in safety to produce the military material and equipment to
launch the Red Army into a victorious advance, the only consistently
victorious army in the war to date. :

White claims to have seen evidences of inefficiency due to lack
of competition everywhere, even in the field of medical practice in
the war zone. He writes, “Their general standard of medical care can-
not compare with that of the Western countries. . . . So when permission
to visit a Russian hospital is refused—by the Soviet method of delay
and postponement—the real reason often is, that the Russians know
that the foreigner would learn nothing new except the meagerness of
their equipment.” : -

Reactionary Ink-Coolie

HERE. too, the facts belie this reactionary ink-eoolie. He never

saw even one Soviet hospital or what kind of equipment they have.
He had no opportunity to see any of them any more than the other
coolies who supplied him with this line of tripe. Or he may have taken
it with him from America or alternatively manufactured it from the
whole cloth.

: The facts! The percentage of wounded soldiers who do not die,
in Red army hospitals, is higher by 5 or 6 percent than in any other
Allied army, 95 percent to 89 percent. Innovations too. made by Soviet
surgeons, in the field of plasma preservation and blood transfusion
particularly, are a miraculous advance over anything yet accomplished
by medical science in the countries where “competition” prevails. And
that lead of Soviet medical science is equally true of theory as of practice
whether they have to deal with anatomical, pathological or psychological
problems. In spite of the acknowledged advanced position of socialist
methods, White would have his readers believe that “But almost always
capitalism pioneers while socialism merely copies.”

“Since competition has gone from Moscow shops and buildings: over
everything rests the dull, unimaginative hand of a bureaucracy which
produces a dreary mediocrity,” he writes. In another place, having
forgotten he had written that passage, he also writes about the Moscow
subway, “It is a good one, exactly like the best in New York or London
with the difference that it is cleaner and its platforms and corridors are
lavishly done in costly polished marble. . . . In the Western world the
cost of this polisjied marble would be spent instead to provide more
miles of track and more stations, thus swelling the capitalist profits by
taking: in more nickles from a public eager to ride nearer to work.”

This little knock at the “competitive” system is undoubtedly injected
to eatch the unwary or disarm the otherwise alert. The superiority
of the Moscow subway over those of New York and London must be
great to draw this grudging tribute.

The comparison of the conditions of life in the Soviet Union, right
in the front line of the struggle for existence, with the American way
of life in a peaceful environment where they hardly know there is a
war on, is a trick well worthy of Col. McCormick. “Here no one ever
kills an hour. There are no cafes, bars or hours of leisure time.’ No,
certainly, the Soviet people have no time to sit around yapping in cafes
ard bars. They have much more important work to do. “And they are
dcing it well—for us as well as for themselves.

This is reactionary opinion dressed’

i
i