°tders from the Bennett government, charged into the peaceful meeting.

Stop the further trespass on rail- Way property.”

The trekkers marched into the fair grounds in. Regina with thousands filling the streets on fither side to see the column

Stretching far back toward the rail Yard.

Needing time to establish his Police cordon, Bennett sent R. J. anion, minister of railways and

Canals, and Robert Weir, minister

of agriculture to Regina to an- ounce to the assembled men that © would negotiate with a delegation in Ottawa. It was a ploy, very man knew it was a ploy, but at a time when newspaper reports of imminent revolution dogged the tek’s every step, public support €pended on acceptance of the offer to negotiate. The decision Passed through a stormy meeting and, after assurances from the S0vernment representatives that

NO strikers would be harassed’

uring the delegation’s absence, ight men — Art Evans, Pete €ilson, John Cosgrove, Doc Savage, Mike McCauley, Paddy

O'Neil, Red Walsh and Ed Martin ,

~ Set out for Ottawa.

Bob “Doc” Savage, one of the “ight, remembers the going:

“It was quite a delegation — Packsacks on our backs, no Mefcases, wearing. coveralls donated by the Army and Navy Store. Tidy and clean, but pretty Tagged — probably the most Tagged delegation that had ever Bone to see the prime minister: : d as we were going, we noticed a Tainload of R.C.M.P. going in the °pposite direction. ‘

; “When we got to Port Arthur and

pet have had four or five

Ousand right there. Tiehacks, ners, lumberworkers, you name a they were all there cheering us

then’ day after we got to Ottawa, €y marshalled us in to see R. B. x Mhett and his cabinet. There

€ren’t many there — two R.C.M.- us dden behind drapes in the

Ck, some cabinet ministers and one old senator, I guess he was, Sir ‘forge Perley...”

ee meeting was brief that rea. Bennett, brushing off the ©mands and grievances of the

ont William, if we could have. io Pened the doors of the coaches, we:

strikers, left no doubt that genuine negotiations were never intended. Beginning with the insinuation that the delegation was made up of enemy aliens, that their leader, Evans, was an embezzler, he concluded with the familiar charge of ‘‘Communistic agitation,’’ drawing from Evans the now famous comment that Bennett was “not fit to be the premier of a Hottentot village.”

With Evan’s final statement, “Our responsibility is to take this back to the workers and see that the hunger program of Bennett is stopped,’’ the delegation was ushered out.

For the eight men, it was to go to amass meeting in Ottawa to report on the meeting. For Bennett, it was to return to the House on June 24 to continue his tirade and to announce

Md At UL a aA A A

Ais

Part of the scene in Regina’s Market Square on July 1, 1935 after the RCMP and provincial police, under

his intention to reply with violent repression.

Regina, meanwhile, was in a virtual state of siege. R.C.M.P. and provincial police detachments surrounded the city.

Returning to Regina, the delegation reported on their meeting to the strikers and, noting the marshalled police, issued a warning to the -provincial authorities of the danger of the federal cabinet usurping the authority of the province in law enforcement.

By 5 p.m. on July 1, the trekkers had made proposals to ‘the federal government for an organized return to Vancouver provided their organization was allowed to remain intact. Negotiations had already begun with premier Gardiner of Saskatchewan for transportation, and.a mass rally

Their column stretching far back towards the rail yard from which they have come, the trekkers march into Regina. Even as they entered

had been’ called for 8 p.m. in Market Square to acquaint the public with the situation and to gain support for the demand for ‘relief.

But Bennett had already set the stage for his savage drama — the evening of Dominion Day, 1935. More than 1,500 had gathered in the square. Evans’ words reached out over the sympathetic crowd....

And then it broke. ...

‘Suddenly the back doors of the garages opened across. the square,’’ Doc Savage remem- bered, ‘“‘hundreds of men in civic- dressed police armed with white batons — they looked like half- baseball bats — all rushed out like a stampede. In the meantime, four long vans pulled up, the back doors opened and R.C.M.P. charged out. Their rush coincided with dozens of police on horses moving in from the other side. They had it all worked out — premeditated.

“They fired on us and threw tear gas everywhere. Red Walsh and a couple of others tried to rally everybody back into line to get us back to the fairgrounds. We partly lined up when a carload of plain- clothes police, some of them on the

‘running board, went’ by and emp- -tied their guns... .”

Faced with an imminent mas- sacre, the men defended them- selves in the best way possible, with rocks and barricades and fought for an escape.

Already in the first rush of police, a Regina plainclothes detective, Charles Millar, was clubbed to death — R.C.M.P. of- ficers had mistaken him for Art

Evans who, by that time, had been arrested. A trekker, W. T. Schaak, died later.

By the time it was over, 100 had

-their

LAV a

been injured and 113 arrested. A price was put on the head of Millar’s attackers as _ the authorities sought to turn their own cold-blooded error into a case against the trekkers. Three hours later, as the men regrouped in the fairgrounds, machine guns were trained on them from the walls above.

Negotiations with - premier Gardiner concluded swiftly the 3 following morning and j arrangements were made for the j return of the men to Vancouver aboard two: trains. The cost came to $31,257, coupled with an in- determinate amount for the movement of police — money that the government could never find for unemployment insurance or work and wages.

The men returned to Vancouver, | organization unbroken. Bennett had lashed out with his ‘“Sron heel of ruthlessness’’ but the struggle was unabated. In October, the Conservatives went down to humiliating defeat, never to recover until the Diefenbaker victory in 1957. The successor, King, was forced to strike Section 98 off the books. And the relief camps were closed in July, 1936.

Two years later, many of the men who had marched in the tight, disciplined column returning to Vancouver’ appeared in another trek, this time thousands of miles away, rallying to the defence of Republican Spain as part of the heroic International Brigades. What had been perhaps, an elementary fight for a future and a decent life.was raised to a new height — against the fascist in- vader, for a decent life for all

people. Many of them never returned. But the struggles of their

generation had already helped to shape the future.

i ae - a

ae:

BwWwoon

ee 2 ee «@ i a C14 GLASGOW LUMBER ,S

the city, Iron Heel Bennett was marshalling the R.C.M.P. for the brutal police attack on the meeting in Market Square, July 1.

- PACIFIC TRIBUNE SUPPLEMENT—FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1975—Page 5