When the Ladies Home Journal printed this ait of American v ehildvan vat play” thousands of
people across the continent were shocked. But it revealed only a fragment of the shocking story as told
in Albert E. Kahn’s new book, The Game of Death.

It's your child they're after --
whet war propaganda does

LAST SUMMER Canadians
were shocked at a harrowing
news item. Eight young Ameri-
cans, playing a game—‘“chicken”
—on a narrow back road were
killled in a head-on collision. The
“same” was two cars, with four
young people in each one, rush-
ing at each other, in the dark,
headlights out, to see which
driver would give way.

This kind of “game” is a grim
and hideous result of the terrible
environment American children,
and, increasingly, Canadian chil-

. dren are living in. Is this a home

problem? Here are some words

of a young man, who, when he

was asked whether telling teen-
agers the dangers of drug addic-
tion might deter them, answer-
ed:

“Well I personally believe it
has to be more than a mere tel-
ling . . . danger and horror it-
self won’t stop a teenager from
using something. He has dan-
ger all around. . . . We are liv-
ing in an age and time when
danger doesn’t mean a thing.”

This is a quotation from Al-
bert E. Kahn’s new book The
Game of Death (obtainable here
at the People’s Cooperative Book-
store, 337 West Pender, price

. $1.15 paper cover). It is a moving

account exposing the dangerous

and shocking features directly

traceable to the cold war pro-

gram which U..S policies are im-
posing on their own and other
peoples.

Kahn provides documentation,
so comprehensive there can be
no argument to his contention
that the physical, mental and
moral deterioration of American
children is a direct effect on this
program.

Many Canadians are aware of
(and are protesting against) the
harmful effect of the comic
books, movies, TV, etc. The
chapter on these, entitled “Ni-
agara of Horror,” brings to the
fore, even more sharply the ef-
fects of such material, and the
shocking examples given should
awaken even those who claim
such material is harmless.

Some of the other chapters I
found more enlightening, be-
cause so few facts are known to
us here.

The chapter on _ education,
proving that schoools are being
used as indoctrination centres
for “our way of life.” Teachers
and pupils intimidated, spied on,
so that even in the higher cen-
tres of learning many are afraid
even to espouse humanitarian
causes, for fear that they will be
interpreted as left-wing interest.

* * *
NO PICTURE of a nation arm-

ing for war would be complete
without a report of what it costs.

Article on Tzinquaw

THE SIXTH issue of the Cana-

-@ian literary magazine, New

Frontiers, just off the press, is
dedicated to the theme of Cana-
dian art and life.

One article featured in this fall
issue deals with the work of the
Canadian-Icelandic poet, Stephan
G. Stephansson, the centenary of
whose birth was commemorated

‘ by the Icelandic people on Oc-

tober 3.  Stephansson, whose
works reflect his democratic striv-
ing and his love of the Canadian
West, spent many years of his life
in Alberta, where he died in 1927.

Also in this issue is an article
on Tzinquaw, the Native Indian
opera written and directed by
Frank Morrison, Vancouver _Is-
land schooolteacher, and produc-

New Frontiers feature

ed by the Cowichan Indian Play-
ers. Accompanying the article is
an original black and write paint-
ing by a young Indian artist.

Another article, by an Iroquois
scholar who has been engaged in

research for the National Mu-
seum, deals with Iroquois person-
al names.

Articles on the Shakespeare
Festival at Stratford, Ontario; on
the Shevchenko Museum at Pal-
ermo, Ontario; on the motion pic-
ture, Salt of the Earth, produced
by Mine-Mill; an autobiographical
sketch by a veteran miner and
logger; contemporary verse, orig-
inal lino cuts and book reviews,
round out the contents of this
issue.

ALBERT E. KAHN
His book a warning

The cost for American children
is staggering. In every area
they are being deprived. Schools
are crowded, in alarming
conditions, short staffed, ete.
Health, welfare and recreational
services are being curtailed.

Forty-five million people live
in incredible slums, often with
no sanitary facilities or running
water. Children of migratory
workers die of starvation, and
half of the Najavo Indian child-
ren never live to school age.

Kahn comes to the only con-
clusion one can reach from this
study. To safeguard the very
lives of our children, and cer-
tainly their future health and
happiness means we must put an
end to the cold war, and make
certain there will be no more
“hot”. ones.

In the author’s words our fight
for peace will “be the measure
of our love for them.”

The book is very simply writ-
ten. Despite the use of quota-
tions, it never becomes a text
book. If one could read it objec-
tively as some study of the past,
it would be a fascinating work:
Unfortunately this is not the
case. It is all here, and now, a
grim warning of vhat we can ex-
pect if we do not check the war
drive,

This is for everyone, parent or
not, because the children of our
country and of all other coun-
tries are the future for all of us.

—VERA MORRIS

I's folly, all right
but on whose part?

J. ARTHUR RANK ,the British
film magnate} successfully claim-
ed in a court case recently that
there were not enough good Brit-
ish films even to fill the miser-
able quota of screen time allotted
to them in Britain.

It can be said that Rank him-
self has helped to bring about
this disastrous state of affairs.
But it is difficult to deny that it
is true.

When British films so child-
ishly trivial in approach and
amateurish in execution as the
Launder and Gilliat film, Folly
To Be Wise, are produced, it is
little wonder that they are un-
able to challenge Hollywood’s
monopoly successfully.

Folly To Be Wise is based on
an inferior Bridie play. The in-
tention seems to have been to be
witty and wise about marriage,
to cash in on the popularity of
brain trusts and to wring a few
more laughs out of well-meaning
clergymen, browned-off troops
and the eccentricities of the well-
to-do. |

Alastair Sim, an actor of dis.
tinguished talents, is called on
to use very few of them in the
part of an army padre who tries
to brighten a troop concert pro-
gram with a brains trust consist-
ing of the local lady (eccentric),
the village doctor (bumbling), the
local Labor MP (self-important),
the local arty couple (mad) and
a visiting BBC philosopher (beard-
ed Bloomsbury).

A cast which includes veteran
actors like Miles Malleson, Mar-
tita Hunt and Roland Culver gets
full value from the well-worn
jokes, but the film never rises
above the level of. feeble farce.

High-octane Ethel

WHEN IT IS guying the Ameri-
can political scene, especially
when Ethel Merman is convers-
ing by long-distance phone with
“Harry” about his daughter’s
re ai Call Me Madam is great
un

The humor has a bounce and
bite which’ allow full play to
Ethel Merman’s vigorous and in-
fectious high spirits.

Miss Merman, who has been a
Broadway phenomenon for many
years, fully lives up to her leg-
end. As the U:S. ambassadress to
Lichtenburg, she jazzes up Euro-
pean diplomacy with the sort of
behavior that makes her a popu-
lar Washington hostess.

Despite the noise, the glaring
color and the leaping about, how-
ever, I found the singing and
dancing competent and even ener-
getic, but not exhilarating—al-
ways excepting Miss Merman.

Yanks-cum-Martians
DESPITE ALL the perverse in-

genuity expended in The War of

the Worlds in trying to make our
flesh creep with atom-proof air-
craft and death rays operated by
Martians against the Earth, the
most notable feature of the film
is its used of childishly simple
horror effects borrowed from the
comic strip.

The most frequently employed
of these is to show, on a screen
bathed in a_ vivid, poisonous
green, a close-up of a soldier dis-
integrating into dust under an
irresistible death ray.

This is not the sort of thing
a sane country would allow in
its theatres.

ALISTAIR SIMS

, his
Not much opportunity fore
talents.

An enormous amount of i
agination and inventivene™ af
been lavished on the sce® nd pa
horror, mass destruction ani at oes
ic as the Martians set 2 Ny
troying civilization alae Ait
methodically as the — Nort!
Force has been bomb

Korea. ne

So much so that there is
imagination left over for th
man characters who, aP2
religion and military spon
have hardly an idea amo

—THOMAS SPENCER.
_ ae

GRAND

PEAC
BAZAM

SAT. Nov. 14

2 p.m. till Midnight

UKRAINIAN HAH
805 E. PENDER

AFTERNOON TEA
HOME COOKING ce
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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 6, 1953 — -