| CENTENNIAL FEATURE: By MABEL RICHARDS ny Nanaimo there is a 78-year- the Ittle lady who lived through fost Vicious labor lockout in fr istory of the province. That + at the Extension-Cumber- oe Mines on Vancouver a during 1912-1914, and she Members it well. whe Surrey there is a woman Fe took a leading role in the iru proved and relief camp renee’ of the 1930’s. She too eects the poverty, the u and day battles to mobilize PPort for the hungry Daze DLoved. The picture on this ‘wai of the mothers who fought Mst relief-camp-25-cent-a- mel eswers demonstrates how I he women could organize! f a Greenwell, the daughter Sey, Coal miner,, and Annie ate art, working class mother, bay, Symbolic of the women who ee cuett through the years Mop, etter life for working Reyecinly it is impossible to vad 90 years of the labor and Topenist movement in this Jiang Nce without finding, again Who again, the names of women eo ere in the forefront of the Oph es’ battles against leg €ssion. Their names are enti and it is impossible to atti 1on them all in a_ short me: rin’ big moments of the big Vea ‘Seles during B.C.’s past 100 al,».8S a province have been ‘a,cst uniformly ignored in the and penial editions of the Sun Credi Tovince, and as for Social : it Centennial flack, suffice thei Judge Begbie still heads Bhar st as a_builder-of-B.C. tte fight for the 40-hour week, trag rganization of workers into © unions, the struggle for tation S suffrage, the organi- the US against war and fascism, “hig, Ctivities centred around “thilg Prices, housing needs, try ren’s welfare; in all of these Iegqrees women have played a t ine role largely ignored by list historians. WOMEN IN COAL TOWNS & the early part of the monger ous coal mines in the 1000. In 1909, 8.08 miners per ine employed were killed. A fo % Could be, (and was) fired Boy, porting gas leakage under- Nd, so it is not difficult to fyyeStand reasons for the high ataili ag rate from one source at at’: Greenwell remembers ip Curing the two-year lockout med by the coal bosses lamire Which miners and their les starved, were jailed and a her father and brother jug Imprisoned. The brother, p— vears of age, was an Ury, B.C. boasted the most. underground miner who was jailed for six months. He was allowed out for the day at Christ- mas on payment of $10,000 bail for which uncles and other family members mortgaged all their property. Those years in the Cumber- land coal fields are remembered by Ellen Greenwell as months of militiamen in the streets of the mining towns, by harrass- ment by imported strike- breakers, and as months of real hunger. Today she says ‘‘I don’t know how we survived. But there was such a spirit amongst the miners that if it hadn’t been for the war, they’d still be fighting!” Annie Stewart’s role in the thirties was typical of that of- hundreds of other women whio- refused to take the miseries Of unemployment lying down.. Although her own husband was’ working, she looked upon the thousands who roamed the’ streets of Vancouver without food as her own. Thousands of pounds of vegetables, fruits, and stews were dished out in the unemployed halls by Annie and her colleagues. They organized marches on Victoria and Ottawa by “mothers committees’. They helped organize demonstrations to city hall. They were the women who showed the young men and women without. work that the only way out was to organize, organize, organize. PIONEER PROGRESSIVES Another ‘‘organizer’’ par excellence was Helena Gutter- idge, Socialist and. trade unionist. Pioneer in progressive legislation governing working conditions, Helena Gutteridge and her sisters lobbied, peti- tioned, and agitated for reforms. She was a leader as well in the fight to gain votes for women. In 1918 they succeeded in electing Mary Ellen Smith as a women’s candidate to the legis- lature, where she steered many legislative reforms through the House, including the Minimum Wage Act, Juvenile and Family Court Act — an act protecting infants, etc. Helena Gutteridge was elected to city council in 1937 as a CCF candidate — the first woman alderman in Vancouver. Judge Helen McGill must be given credit for having put together the fine points of many Bills covering needed changes in legislation dealing with children | and with the rights of women. Judge McGill was an outstanding woman, and so far as can be 7th ANNUAL CANADA-CUBA WINTER CARNIVAL Departs Vancouver Dec. 26/71 Only $659.00 Contact: - GLOBE TOURS Women in the forefront ‘of B.C. labor struggles learned was the first and last woman judge appointed in this province. Susie Lane Clark was another life-long socialist who fought the day to day battle through the struggle for a minimum wage for women, for decent hours of work, and for widows and mothers’ pensions. Among the clippings on my desk is one which is headlined “Effie Jones has fought her last election, but she’s not retiring.” - CORBIN MINERS WIVES. On April 17, 1935 a huge bulldozer manned by police drove into a picket line of miners wives who took to the picket line in the struggle of their husbands against vicious anti-labor bosses The result is shown in this historic photo. They suffered crushed feet and broken legs. IN THE HUNGRY THIRTIES. This historic photo of a giant rally in Stanley Park sh d > y Park shows thousands of mothers. fornins a huge heart te express mele support for the struggle of the youth to pera eccaee camps. This photo was widely sold as a postcard. Working class women in the h irti ; role in the struggles for jobs and decent wages. : Se eet anise eked amaler The note is dated 1958, at a year when Effie was nearing 70 years of age. She said then ‘‘I don’t intend to retire .. . I shall carry on as long as I am.able to,’’ and indeed she has done so. The editor of the Tribune wrote ‘Voters in thousands of working class homes will miss Effie Jones’ name on the ballot where it has been every year for the past 17 years.’’ She came close to defeating the NPA candidates in 1947, and always she put up a good fight for her strength lay, said the editor, in her working class purpose, her humanity, her willingness to help those in distress. If there was an eviction picket line, Effie was sure to be there. “Tt took the sheriff's men five hours to pack the furniture out,” she recalled with a smile, ‘‘but it took us only 25 minutes to put it all back in the house. That is the spirit which typifies the many women who have taken part in the fight for progress in the past 50 years. The worker’s press_ carries many stories of their exploits and no resume of the era would be complete without them. They were many. Dozens of old photos testify to the numbers who turned out to march against high prices; for the shorter work day; for better schools, hospitals and for peace. They share equally with the women men- tioned in foregoing paragraphs: The. Corbin miners wives who and broken legs from bulldozers operated by scabs; the women who stood in front of scab-driven trucks at Scott Transport; the women who went out in the night during periods of acute repression to paste up posters and deliver illegal literature. Last but not least the many thousands of women who manned the factories and indus- tries during the war years 1941 to 1945, they got pushed back into the kitchens because they were ‘‘superfluous’’ once the war ended. And never forget that while those women worked the 8- hour and more shifts to get out the tools needed to defeat fascism, they kept up homes and families and worried about husbands, sons and brothers over- seas. Today’s heirs to the traditions of those who fought for the vote; for equal rights and better laws for women are engaged in a new struggle, but one no less vital to the welfare of people as a whole. Today the sights are set not only on womens’ rights, but on human rights. As the capitalist system reveals itself to be more and more rotten at the core, a new perspective comes into being. Progressive women know that it is possible to live without repression, without economic privation, without war. 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