*

The trekkers delegation en route to Ottawa to meet with Prime Minister R.B.

Bennett. Left to right, Tony Martin, Art Evans, Doc Savage, Red Walsh, Mike
McCauley, Paddy O'Neil, Jack Cosgrove and Peter Neilson.

Continued from page 9

It meant putting off the trek’s departure, set
for June 17. And everyone. knew, instinc-
tively, that it was a ploy by the government
to gain time for its plans.

e had a suspicion that they were going

to use the time to get ready to attack
us,” in Savage’s words. “But you couldn’t
say no. Arthur told us, if we ignore the fact

that the government says it will negotiate’

with us, the whole Canadian public will be
against us.”

The vote taken, the committee headed
back to press for some final details: the 250
men expected to join the trek from the
Dundurn relief camp would be included in
the agreement on relief; and the government
would take no action against the trekkers
while the delegation was away.

After a sendoff rally June 18, the eight
men boarded the 8:20 p.m. train, this time
“riding the cushions”, the vernacular of the
day for riding in the passenger car.

Savage remembers the going:

“Tt was quite a delegation — packsacks
on our backs, some of us wearing overalls
donated by the Army and Navy store. Tidy
and clean but pretty ragged — probably
the most ragged delegation that had ever
gone to see the prime minister.”

As they crossed the country, the move-
ment that the trek had spurred into action
was inscribed in Savage’s memory. “When
we got to Port Arthur and Fort William, if
we could have opened the doors of the
coaches, we could have had four or five
thousand right there. Tie-hacks, miners,
lumberworkers, you name it, they were all
there cheering us on.”

They arrived in Ottawa on June 2 to find
government officials directing them to a hotel
re-opened specially for their delegation.

But if their accommodation was opulent,
the reception from Bennett and 11 members
of his cabinet the following day was austere
and forbidding. There was an. unemploy-
ment crisis gripping the country and the
work and wages demand had been stated
and re-stated by organizations everywhere,
but Bennett had allotted only half an hour
for the meeting.

Evans proceeded quickly to outline the
background to the six demands put forward
by the camp strikers.

“We are not empowered in any way to
alter these six demands,” he told the
cabinet. ““We are empowered to accept any
proposals which you may wish to offer
...and we will take them back to the
workers in Regina. If satisfactory, then
some arrangement should be made for the
safe return of these workers to the places
they came from. In the event they are not
satisfactory, there will be a continuation of
the trek to Ottawa.”

From the moment of Bennett’s reply, it
was clear that there never were intended to
be any genuine negotiations. There were

only interrogations, accusations — and a

tirade.

Bennett asked each man his age and
birthplace and then pointedly noted that all
but one were born outside Canada. As for

policies, he said, the government, through
its relief camps, “has taken care of its people
better than any country in the world...”

And then came the tirade:

“Agitators went into these camps, agita-
tors representing a form of government that
we will not tolerate in Canada, agitators
representing Communism which we will
stamp out in this country...”

Bennett brought the accusations closer to
home. Referring to an incident several years
earlier in which Evans had been jailed for
giving union funds to striking miners’ fami-
lies intead of sending the money to the
union’s international office, Bennett’ called
the strike leader “an embezzler.”

Evans’ restraint had finally worn thin.
“You area liar,” he exploded, “. ..andI will
say again you are a liar if you say I
embezzled.”

s for Bennett’s malicious remark that

the men “have not shown much anxiety
to get work,” Evans retorted with a comment
that would be quoted time and again in
years to come: “Anybody who professes to
be premier and uses such despicable tatics,”
he thundered “‘is not fit to be premier of a
Hottentot village.”

As the meeting moved to a conclusion,
Bennett moved quickly through the six

demands, dismissing each in turn. And .

then, “Good day, gentlemen.”

But Evans wasn’t finished:

““We are confronted today with a greater
responsibility than when we first came here
in view of the statement of the prime minis-
ter that the government will not deal with
the questions raised here,” he declared. “In
place of that they attempt to raise the red
bogey and it appears that the prime minister

“has the red horrors of this government. Our

responsibility is we must take this back to
the workers and see that the hunger pro-
gram of Bennett is stopped.”

If before the meeting they had only suspi-

cions that the negotiations would be a.

sham, now they were confirmed. As they
would later charge in a strike bulletin, the
talks were intended only to buy time to
allow the government to use the press to
attack the strikers — and to marshall
police forces in Regina.

Over the next few days, the reports by the
two sides were worlds apart.

Accordingly, Bennett went ‘before the
House of Commons June 24 to repeat the
accusation about Evans and to present a
vision of imminent revolution: “‘. . .the pres-
ent movement of these marchers upon
Ottawa in defiance of the law is in reality an
organized effort on the part of the various
Communist oragnizations throughout
Canada to effect the overthrow of consti-
tuted authority...”

The government’s answer was to set upa
military camp at Lumsden, outside Regina
— Col. Wood in ealier correspondence had
referred to it as a “concentration camp” —
where the men would be processed before
being sent back to their home provinces.

For their part, in meetings across Ontario
and Manitoba, the eight men told audiences
that the only way to respond to Bennett

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, ON-TO-OTTAWA SUPPLEMENT

would be to take their demands en masse to
Ottawa. At Winnipeg, Evans urged the
trekkers gathered there to “broaden the
strike into a national movement.”

The delegation was set to arrive back in
Regina June 26. But already the govern-
ment and the RCMP were tightening the
noose around the city.

One June 25, Col. Wood reported to his
superiors that more police had been mobil-
ized to bring RCMP strength up to 340
constables. From the labor department,
C.P. Burgess, who had been responsible for
allocating relief funds, announced that no
further meals would be supplied to the
trekkers after breakfast June 26. The
government was moving to starve the men
into the Lumsden camp.

Despite these portents of the gathering
storm, thousands turned out for the mass
rally at the Exhibition Grounds to hear the
report from the delegation to Ottawa.

The next day, the trekkers launched a
final, audacious campaign — a call for citi-
zens to bring trucks and cars to transport
the men to Winnipeg.

But Bennett had already moved swiftly to
head that off. RCMP Commisioner J.H.
MacBrien told Wood that any attempt to
move by the men by car, truck, bus or on
foot should be prosecuted under the
vagrancy sections of the Criminal Code or
provincial vehicle legislation.

When Wood reported it to the press, it
became a sweeping order, effectively ruling
out assistance of any kind to the strikers.
“Prosecution faces any person who assists
relief strikers in any way,” the Regina
Leader-Post stated, confirming ‘news that
had already been widely reported the pre-
vious day.

The night before, Gerry Tellier was part
of a convoy, headed by a truck carrying
Methodist Church minister Rev. Sam East,
that set out to test the ban.

Just outside the city “there was an
RCMP blockade across the highway,” Tel-

of Concentration Camps :

lier remembers. “They had bales of wire up
and stakes across the road.

Forced out of the cars, several, including
Rev. East, were arrested and charged, while
Tellier and a few others “took off across the
prairie.” They later managed to make their
way back to the Grounds.

Regina was under police seige.

In Ottawa, the justice department opened
the way for the RCMP to move against
strike leaders under Section 98. There was
another flurry of telegrams, many of them
coded, as Col. Wood began to oragnize

deployment of his forces.

Ii was a warm, pleasant evening July 1,
1935 as several hundred people began to
gather in Market Square, grouped around a
farm wagon that would serve as the meeting
platform. The rally had been called by the
Citizens’ Emergency Committee to hear the
report of the delegation which had
demanded the granting of immediate relief.

Earlier in the day, faced with the block-
ade of the city and the prospect, already
rejected by the men, of going to Lumsden or
Dundurn camps;a trekkers’ committee had
met with Premier Gardiner to work out an
orderly disbanding of the trek, to allow men
to return, at provincial government expense,
to the destination of their_choice. Only the
final details were left to complete when the
meeting adjourned at 5 p.m. The provincial
cabinet was to meet later to consider the
proposal. ‘eae

While their leaders met with Gardiner,
hundreds of trekkers at the grounds had
accepted tickets for the baseball game
uptown from someone handling them out,
Jackson recalls. Only a couple of hundred
of the men planned to attend the rally in any
event, since it was intended for Regina citi-
zens.

Just after eight, the meeting got under-
way. There was applause as the chairman
introduced trekker Gerry Tellier to make
the appeal for funds. Moments before, three

tees:

j
i

Market Square 8

(IF wet will be held in Stadiu

m)

S akers |
everal Speakers representing loca |

will address the crowd

l organizations

Top, the handbill issued by the Citizens’ Emergency Committee advertising the —

meeting for July 1, 1935. Below Market Square shortly after the first police charge,
with tear gas clouds hanging in the air. The photos of the riot were taken by

Leader-Post photographer Ken Liddell.