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Tribune building
Editor:

in regards to assisting and
raising of a necessary subsidy to
maintain the radio broadcasts of
AJ Parkin and the Pacifie Tri-
bune, I would like to submit an
idea that may be of help. It may
not be new, but I assure you, “It
can be done.”

Last evening with fear and
trembling, I cailed at the home of
Gne of our subscribers, introduc-
ing myseli as a member of the
LPP. I asked him how he liked
our paper, and if he was receiving
prompt delivery service. On being
assured all was well, we began
to discuss the various articles and
features of the paper. During our
conversation, I explained the need
of financial aid to carry on our
party work. I did not appeal in
vain; I left very happy. The
fruits of my labor received from
our sympathetic friend, $1.00 don-
ation for radio fund, one six
months’ subseription for a friend,
50¢ for our popular girl and 50c
for a Labor’s jubilee picnic ticket.
This was an experiment on my
part, but proving sucessful. If
know it can be done. Perhaps
this is what is called strategy and
tactics, if so, Old Bill on reading
this wall be pleased to Know that
at least one of his students learn-
ed and gained something from his
most interesting and inspiring
classes.

Wes, there are many ways in
which we can help maintain a
regular income to enable the
Tribune to carry on without fear
or hindrance to ultimate victory.
It is entirely up to each and every
one to discuss and lay plans care-

fully “and seriously for the wel-
fare and building of our paper,
knowing it is the first and most
important means of educating the
masses to a better understand-
ing, and to a truer perspective
of what lies behind the headlines.
Lay these plans carefully, give
one day or evening a week, two
weeks or a month, and conscienti-
ously carry them through. Oh,
yes, I can see you smile and say,
“easier said than done.” There is
no such word as can’t. For we
know we have fought, and must
continue to fight for the victori-
ous fulfillment of the system we
believe in.
NANCY NELSON,
1199 Bidwell St.
Vancouver, B.C.

Need mental food

Dear Editor:

In connection with the recent
press drive I would like to offer
the following views.

It may be pointed out that of
the 300% over-subscription by the
Aldergrove Club, 280% was sold
by myself. This is an unsatisfac-
tory disproportion of effort and
I think we shared this fault with
most of the other clubs. It made
the drive more of an individual
effort than the collective one it

‘should have been.

Gur attitude to the clubs is also
-somewhat mistaken. Instead of
regarding it as a centre of train-
ing and education through public
meetings, canvassing campaigns,
ete., we look to it too much for
entertainment. We must remem-
ber that the main purpose of the
party is to seek contact with the

public through its branches, the
clubs.

Times are too Serious to let the

defeatist attitude of “what’s the
use?” get hold of us. If ever the
Canadian people needed a streng
Communist party they meed it
now, for as my daughter wrote
to me, “the only thing that stands
between us and fascism on this
continent is our party.” Can we
afford to let it down—even to
weaken ?

OQur mightiest weapon is the
press and so our duty is to build
the “Pacific Tribune” until it
reaches the status of a daily
paper, financing itself. The pre-
requisites for realizing that goal
are:

@ The conviction by the can-
vasser that the paper is good. He
must know, though he may dis-
agree with its views occasionally,
that in comparison to-our dailiés,
“P.T.” is tops.

j@i The .possession of superior
weapons (more and better know-
ledge) to those of his customers.
To convince a customer one must
be reinforced by theoretical know-
ledge. We must take time to
read “P.T.’ and “N.A.M.”’, even
the dailies. Let us give the mental
side of our lives some nourish-
ment too.

@ When you have finally gath-
ered enough courage to start
visiting your neighbours during
the press drive begin with well-
known sympathizers. You will
soon find how readily people
listen to reason.

With best wishes te the “Tri-
bune,””

VICTOR VESTERBACK,

Aldergrove, B.C.

On the inside track |

REVEALING light on the motives of the King government in devising what will

go down in history as its infamous red spy

scare has been cast by Drew Pearson,

internationally known Washington columnist. In his column last weekend Pearson dis-
closed that Prime Minister Mackenzie King had attempted to use the espionage charges
to blackmail the Soviet government into supporting Canada’s bid for a seat on the United

Nations’ Security Council.

CMA sym-phoneys

ers.’ In 1941 the industrial acci-
dent rates per 1000-man years
is shown as follows:

South Africa, -.------- 1,57
Ghee ss5stso5s555c005 3.68
TiS GAC ees es oe 2.92
Am dia. 2 6 ee 87
Germany ...--.-------- 2.13
Australia .....-....----- 1.35
New Zealand ...-..-.--- -08
FATAL
NON-FATAL
Canada ae 231
(Of Sb ON eigs Ss F535 So aos 154
Germany ..------------- 172

There isn’t a mining centre in
Ganada, coal or hardrock, which
hasn’t had its major or minor
disaster that snuffed out the
lives of scores of miners. There
isn’t a mining center in Canada
where you will not see on the
street a crippled and broken
man, whose blood and sweat and
sinew—and finally his physique,
went into make up the profit
balance sheet of some monopo-
list concern. Go into every hard-
rock mining centre in Canada
and you will find the victims of
Silicosis — in extensive grave-
yards, or waiting for the in-
evitable. Not old men, but men
whom silicosis made old in
their youth. In many centres
you will hear miners ironically
refer to well-filled graveyards of
their buddies, as ‘Blaylock’s gar-
den’ or the ‘Hollinger garden’
or the ‘Inco dump’ and so on.

e.

> take the history of the West

ern Federation of Miners and

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5

its successor the IUMM&SW;
what has it been, if not a his-
tory of struggle against the
most brutal industrial oligarchy,
where violence, terror and mur-
der were the weapons of the
bosses against unionization. We
cannot forget Ginger Goodwin,
or the Noranda miners, or the
Inco and CM&S terror against
union men and their families.
We haven’t forgotten that some
of the outfits which Lord Haw
Haw Locke speaks so glibly for
today, were exploiting Canad-
jan miners to dig metal for Ja-
pan, to be shot back as those
same miners on the world’s
battlefronts. We haven’t forgot-
ten—and if the paper was avail-
able we would print them and
nail them up in every mining
camp, the profit balance sheets
of these Wall St. mining syndi-
eates, masquerading under the
guise of ‘little investors.’

We don’t look for the truth
from the spokesmen of the BC
metal mine operators. To do so
would be as naive as to have
looked for it in the Wilhelm-
strasse under Goebbels. But we
do have the responsibility of
telling, with every medium:
available, the truth of the just-
ness of the miners’ cause for a
29e per hour increase, for the
40-hour week, and that degree of
union security that will assure
protection to the miner and his
family. Locke’s caterwauling is
aimed at keeping that truth
from the people.

With the cabinet divided on the
question of timing the anti-So-
viet campaign to the govern-
ment’s greatest political advan-
tage, Pearson asserts that “the
most telling argument for delay
was made by the prime minister
himself.”

He explains: “He (Prime Min-

ister King) pointed out that Can-
ada was extremely anxious for a
seat on the Security Council of
the United Nations. These seats
were to be voted at the General
Assembly meeting of the UN in
London, so King proposed that
the spy ring prosecutions be held

off until after the General Assem- .

bly meeting in the hope that Rus-
sia, with the threat of a spy-ring
prosecution over its head, would
vote Canada into the Security
Council. :

“Thus prosecution of the spy
case was delayed until after the
General Asembly session. Russia
blocked Canada’s selection and
threw its weight behind Australia
instead. Mackenzie King ordered
the arrest and prosecution of the
Russian spy ring.”

Pearson has shown on other oc-
casions that he has access to in-
mer circles in Washington. He
broke the news of the impending
Canadian spy scare when it was
still a highly confidential matter
supposedly known only to high
ranking members of the King,
Truman and Attlee governments.
This gives credence to his dis-
elosure that Prime Minister King,
in the name of diplomacy, at-
tempted to blackmail an ally
whose armies bore the brunt of
the war, saving untold thousands
of Canadian lives and sparing the
Canadian people the horrors of
war on their own soil.

©

Jubilee show

PRE much touted jubilee shew is over. Personally I might say

that I never really knew the meaning of “lousy” until I had
seen this show. The part of the labor movement in the building of
Vancouver, the most important part at that, was never mentioned,
unless one considers a parade of women dressed in prison garb
accompanied by an alleged poetic recitative written apparently by
seme one who knew nothing of the why or wherefcre of that

"great event, is to be So understood.

As far 2s the jubilee show committee is concerned there has
never been a labor movement in Vancouver, one of the best union
towns in North America.

But then, what should we expect from a committee which has
among its members such names as M. Leo Sweeney, booster for
Mussolini and fascism; R. J. Templeton, labor-hating broadcaster
and publicity writer for the equally labor-hating Federation of B.C.
Industries and the radio nit-wit, Diespecker?

These are the people who proclaim that the workers cannot
be trusted to do anything without their Buidance, but, with about
eight thousand willing and able participants, the dJargest stage in
the world,’ the most beautiful background in the world, the most
up-to-date lighting and sound amplification equipment, the best
thing they can produce is a flop as far as the history of Van-
couver is concerned.

The part of the show that was good was not their work—
the naval and military displays, the Pro-Rec demonstration and
the magnificent voice of John Charles Thomas.

The Indian people, the native population of this coast, were
singled out for special insult. The scene depicting the meeting: of
Vancouver with the Squamish chiefs was a piece of chauvinistic
intolerance that would never have been allowed on any stage where
the direction was im the hands of the workers.

In the pictured event, Wancouver’s second in command, an

- alleged comedian, when ordered by Vancouver to give the Indians

a gift, lifted a keg of molasses and threw the molasses in their
faces. Instead of knocking him down which would have been the
legitimate answer toe such an insult, they are made to run off,
licking the molasses off their faces, supposedly with great pleasure.

This incident in the show, one of the few action scenes, shows
the contempt and scorn for the native people, held by some of the
loud-mouthed jubilee city boosters. -

That, of course, was all in keeping with general treatment
handed out to the Indians who were good enough to sacrifice their
income from the year’s fishing to help make the celebration 2
success.

Besides being the victims of the gyppo committee and having
to put up a fight te get enough money to take them to their
homes, they were referred to in our ‘‘so very democratic press”
as “disgruntled Indians.”

That is what 60 vears of Wamncouver’s growth has taught the

kind of people whe pass for democrats in this neck of tne woods. -

Press drive

UR column did so well in the recent press drive that the com-

mittee in charge of the campaign awarded us a prize—a copy
of “Son of the People,” a biography of the leader of the French
Communist Party, now a member of the French government,

I had the very pleasant job of apportioning the prize to the
Ol’ Bill columnist who made the best showing in raising our quota.
Since I was out of the city most of the time, I did not consider
that I had earned it and that I should pass it on to some other
member of the committee.

My old friend, Mrs. Lammede, stacks up best in her perform-
ance. She turned in over $20 in subs and donations, which was
well ahead of any other member of the committee. And so to her
the book in recognition of that effort.

The drive, which we used to consider a twice-a-year spurt, has
been developed into an all-the-year-round affair. Although no quotas
have been set for the performance, a record is now being kept which
will show how each press committee is holding up its end in
securing subs.

Already we have to our credit 12 subscriptions, collected since
the end of the drive, mostly the work of my peregrinating sidekick
Chuck McPhee and his guidwife Bud.

While thanking all those who took part in making the drive a
success, and complimenting them on the exceilence of the job
they did, I am appealing to them to keep it up. Let us see if, in
@ year’s performance we can do as well as we did during the in-
tensive drive.

Public opinion polls

PUBLIC opinion polis are more a method of propaganda than ex
pression of opinion on any of the debatable political questions
that they claim to deal with.

In the past few weeks, some of them have posed the question
for the cross section of the people they have contact with: “Do
you think the USSR has warlike intentions towards us?” or some-
thing to that effect. These pools found that a Majority of their
“voters” answer “yes” to the question, the percentage running
round 56 to 65.

Do these people really “think” themselves into voting that way?
I do not think so. They are voting the way they’ have been told
by the warmongers in the press, the radio and in so-called literary
contributions like Bullitt’s book just off the press.

These “votes” are in turn again used to further inflame the
war spirit, to work up antagonism against the Soviet Union, and
so it goes on in a yicieus circle.

That is one reason why we must work unceasingly to build our i

own paper, which is now and will always be, a barrier to the plans
of the warmongers.

ERIDAY, JULY 19, 1946