{1 Labor Personalities—2

0) Minerva Cooper

Ey i _ By CYNTHIA CARTER

ae A HoT prairie sun beat down on the wooden wagon

.§s12— as it came to a halt on the trail. The two oxen

diay towered their heads wearily as the man in the driver’s

ej) Seat slackened the reins.

The woman in the wagon shaded her eyes with her qs hand and looked silently at the land which was to be her mew home — a govern- ; gj ment relief grant “recom-

gw mended for settlement.”

. ay) All she saw was swamp,

mibly SPFUCe, and rocks. With

me yg) a Shrug she stepped out, and lifted the sleeping as child beside her to the

i, yy ground.

ny “Well,” said Minerva

tsa) Cooper, rolling up her

mwisleeves fer worl, “this is th a it!”

So in 1934 began two

tizey years. of homesteading in

hkg@ynorthern Saskatchewan, tk @} two of the most interest- ing years in the life of

2) Minerva Cooper, uni-

© gi|versity graduate, scholar-

‘Wtship winner, and school

oS teacher.

a; All we had to go on

bas} Was a team of oxen, a plow, a box of nails and a monthly

wirelief allowance,” recalls Minerva. “We spent weeks att clearing the land. -Later the whole project was aban- doned. The government was wrong. The land was not suitable for settlement. But it was fertile ground for # political education.” a: Minerva Cooper was born in Nerth Bay, Ontario, in 5 1909. The family moved to Saskatoon, where she at-

-«§) tended public school, high school, normal school and uni-

lei versity.

a For a year before she entered university (where she majored in English and Economics) she taught school in rural Saskatehewan. When she graduated she mar- ried and moved to Newfoundland.

ga. I lived in Newfoundland when times were at their

ol worst,’ says Minerva. “The poverty of the people was

("§ unbelievable. I was on the scene when the Parliament

Buildings were sacked by the starving citizens. At the

time I had little understanding of the struggles of the

"Wi working people. I was impressed by their action and

im critical of the administration, but I did not realize its

vem Significance then.”

It was during her homesteading years that Minerva

2 became interested in the CCF. She was elected chair-

e™ man of the CCE branch in her locality, and held her

3

=

{

io

Hirst public meeting in a poolroom in Crooked River. After her return to Saskatoon she was elected to the €CF provincial executive and became women’s provin- cial organizer. A “T finally left the ranks of the CCF in the course of em the struggle for unity,” states Mrs. Cooper, “when the ™) CCF refused to cooperate with trade unions, the Social

Credit movement and the Communist Party in the elec- sa tion of a progressive candidate to the legislature.”

5 It was about this time that Mrs. Nielsen signed the

§ convention call for a series of western farm conferences, g§) and it was as a result of these conferences that the news- ‘paper Western Farmer was established in 1940. Minerva, 4 ! now a Communist Party member, was made assistant 8 editor, then editor-in-chief. During the following two

| years she spoke at more than 200 farm meetings, or-

| ganized 30 farm conferences, and represented western | farmers in a delegation of three in an appeal to the do- | Minion government to act to save the small, family farm. Minerva also conducted a series’ of radio broadcasts, in which farmers’ problems were analyzed and discussed. Early this year the Western Farmer eeased publica- tion and Minerva Cooper came to Vancouver to take the position of business manager on The People. Last month She attended the national convention of the new Labor- Progressive Party in Toronto, was elected to the national

» committee, and chosen provincial secretary-treasurer.

2 “These are stirring times for Canadians,’ she ex- plains. “To them belongs the job of fighting side by side With our courageous allies in this people’s war, and of building a new Canada when victory is achieved.”

Delegates Impressed

By Quebec

“There is no division be- tween English and French- speaking Canada so far as the labor movement is concerned. We are united on all the prin- cipal issues—and were all fighting monopoly.”

This is the opinion of two Vancouver delegates to the re- cent Trades and Labor Congress convention in Quebec City—Shel- don Rogers, Lodge 692, Interna- tional Association of Machinists, and Tom Parkin, Aeronautical Mechanics Union—who arrived back in the city this week.

The main impressions brought back by the two unionists, mem- bers of a 33-man delegation from BG, were first, the tremendous sweep of unionism among the French Canadian workers, their demand for equality of wages and conditions, and their insistance that no barriers to unity exist between French and English- speaking workers other than those artificially created by Catholic Syndicate elements and the fascists of the Bloc Popu- laire; and second, the progressive nature of the decisions approved by the Congress convention.

“The convention took a genu- inely progressive stand on all of the main issues facing Canadians generally as well as the labor movement,” Rogers said. “The decision to establish Political Action Committees for labor participation in independent po- litical action set the tone for the entire convention. If all local unions and trade councils put this resolution into action, it will go a long way to determining what kind of a government we'll have in Ganada and what action will be taken on Jabor’s outstand- ing grievances.

Convention highlights, accord- ing to both Rogers and Parkin, came first when J. L.. Cohen, K.C., addressed delegates and received an ovation, and discussion on the AFL-CCL unity resolutions, in which the BC delegation took an outstanding part.

The two Vancouver men were sharp in condemning the actions of Jack Ross, business agent of the Vancouver Electrical Work- ers’ Union, who took the conven- tion fioor to criticize Birt Show- ler, president of Vancouver Trades Council, for haying par- ticipated with CCL leaders in the united trade union campaign that secured the revised ICA Act, as well as haying agreed to act as member of a board of arbitra- tion involving the International Woodworkers of America, a ClO affiliate.

“Ross did not reflect either the attitude of the BC delegates and the BC labor movement or of Canadian labor as a whole,” Rogers stated. “This was evident in the discussion, when one after another, delegates took the filoor to support AFL-CCL cooperation. Gertainly he was speaking against

. the best interests of labor and of

the Vancouver Trades Council.”

Tom Parkin, who is secretary of Lodge 756, Aeronautical Mech- anics Union, found his greatest inspiration of the convention in his meetings with French-Cana- dian delegates.

“There’s a strong current of opinion among Quebec trade unionists that the old-line parties are out, that the Liberals are not going to win the next election,” he said. “Everywhere you go there’s a big sentiment against monopoly interests, and a desire to become a part of the big movement now taking shape in other parts of Canada, notably Ontario and BG, for the election of labor-farmer governments.

Allies Advance in New Guinea

A soldier is given a blood transfusion at a hospital behind the front in New Guinea, where American and Australian forces continue to push the Japanese back along the coast, despite bitter resistance. Australian troops, battling Japa- mese patrols in the jungles, have now fought their way to within two miles of the strong Japanese position at Mae, whose fall would open the way for a pincer movement against the Japanese on New Britain Island. The other arm of the Pincer, objective of which is the key Japanese base at Rabaul, is now being extended up through the Sclomons, where the Japanese are also being forced back step by step.

THE SOVIETS EXPECTED IT

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