ar

“Only an

ORTY-SEVEN years ago this
P week, on August 4, 1914, the
guns of World War 1 opened their

four years of death and destruc-
tion. :

Portrayed as a “lofty cause” by
OMe reactionary imperialism
against another for the spoils of
conquest and exploitation, it was
“a war to end all wars”, a “war for
democracy”, a war for “strafe der
kaiser”, “Gott Mitt Uns” and so
on. Millions died in useless sacri-
fice to this cruel illusion.

On August 6, 1945, in the closing
weeks of World War 2 (which in-
herited its evil embryo from the
aftermath of 1914-18), U.S. im-
perialism unleashed the first atom-
ic bomb upon the non-military city
of Hiroshima, Japan. The horror
of that diabolical act still hangs
over the world (increased a thous-
and-fold since), like a threatening
“sword of Damocles”, today more
threatening than ever before.

In the staggering toll of death
and destruction of two world wars,
all rival imperialist powers, and
U.S. imperialism in particular,
reaped immense profits. Million-
aires sprouted like fungus on the
trunk of a decaying tree.

Coinciding with these anniver-
Saries of horror, the July 25
Speech of U.S. President Kennedy,
& speech voicing the desires of the
most reactionary circles in U.S,
and world imperialism; a Pentagon
call to speed up preparations for
world war three,

More human fodder for the mod-
érn nuclear barbecue pits, more
billions added to the already stag-
gering totals going down the arms
drain. More of the Goebbels - Hit-
Jerite anti-Soviet hate poison, con-
cocted to stampede the so-called.
“Free West” into a war-hysteria
psychosis. To promote war seqite
ters”, sell “civil defence” stupid-
ities, and stimulate “austerity” for
War instead of prosperity for
peace.

The Berlin made-in-the-U.S.A.
“crisis”. To “save” Berlin from
non-existent “communist threats”,
(See page 2). To push the U.S. and

P if; T e até
acific Tribune
Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Business Mgr. — OXANA BIGELOW
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 ‘Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone MUtual 5-5288
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Canadian and Commonwealth
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©ne year. Australia, United States and
all other countries: $5.00 one year.
Authorized as second class mail,
Post Office Dept., Ottawa.

the NATO powers which it dom-
inates, closer to the “brink” of
world war. Kennedy’s platitudes
for “peace” are clearly shown up
for what they are by his jingoistic
clamor for “peak preparedness”
for war against the Soviet Union
and the socialist world. The Berlin
“crisis” serves as a “moral” pre-
text for stepping-up the cold war
into a shooting one.

Reaction by the Diefenbaker
government to the Kennedy “call-
to-arms” has been “cautious”, not
because it opposes -the Kennedy
“doctrine” of aggression and war,
but simply because too noisy ap-
proval would be widely resented by
the Canadian people who are rapid-
ly becoming aware of the dangers
inherent in U.S.-Canada “integra-
tion” and involvement in U.S. war
policies through the media of
NATO-NORAD war pacts.

In his northern junket Dief in-
dulged in a lot of Washington
sabre-rattling aimed at the Soviet
Union, while in recent days De-
fence Minister Harkness (who
urged that all peace and anti-
nuclear petitioners be silenced), is
daily becoming more vocal in sup-
port of the Kennedy theme of

idiot would not be

“peak preparedness”,

The danger to Canada cannot be
over-emphasized. Even the Van-
couver Province (for its own par-
tisan reasons) stated editorially
that “Only an idiot would not be
concerned about the danger of war
over Berlin’,

Canadians must voice this con-
cern in greater volume than ever

The CPR vs

ae Vancouver electorate
turned thumbs down on the
bylaw which would have allowed
an NPA council to hand over $214
million dollars or thereabouts for
the 62-acre CPR-“owned”’ Shaugh-
nessy golf course for a public park,
things have been happening.

Mayor Tom Alsbury and CPR
president “Buck? Crump have
done a bit of post-plebiscite dicker-
ing’ on a possible deal, with Crump
upping the sale price considerably,

Meantime chairman Adam Suth-
erland of the “Save Our Parklands
Citizens Committee” is giving out
with some straight talk: “We have
no intention of giving up the cam-
paign to retain the course for a

: n 4
concerned ~

je

before; demand a break with Ui J

war pacts and conspiracies, *
for a sane and peaceful solut :
the whipped-up Berlin “crisis «

The lessons of two world

coldwar “integration” is
than sufficient reason for SU
course; the only one if civiliz4
is to survive,

ch 4

the people’

st
publie park,” said Sutherland

‘week, and if agreement canne

%”
reached “then the city should © 4

nists ¢
d itt

propriate the 62-acre site”.

That is what the Commu
and other civic bodies advocate aint
the first place when CPR’s Ore
like the U.S. monopolists in the
tried to “put the squeeze’ on the
Cuban people. Just expropriate ©
Shaughnessy acres, and wee
responsible committee of rateP te
ers and labor assess and ould
what remuneration (if any) sh ty
be allowed the CPR for prope
originally purloined from the Pid
ple.

That may not satisfy the Ea?
monopolists, but it will as§

Tom
McEwen

3 RGANIZE the unorganized”,

an old, tried and _= tested
slogan, one that is always new
because the job is never quite
completed.

The July 14 edition of The Dis-
paicher, organ of the International
Longshoremen’s and. Warehouse-
men’s Union, had a gem on the
subject entitled “Business Union-
ism”,

It appears that some years ago
the AFL-CIO got itself “pressured:
into doing something about organ-
izing the farm workers in Califor-
nia”, and as the writer observed,
“the AFL-CIO is not easily pres-
sured. The easy chairs are deep
and the posteriors that occupy
them are wide, fat, full and soft.
We'll never know how this lethar-
gic comfort got disturbed enough
to say go ahead on the farm organ-
izing program, but it did. It did.”

Then last week something hap-
pened. Mebby it was the anticipa-
tion of Kennedy’s latest war-drums
Speech. Whatever it was the long-
shoreman who wields a doughty
pen made the prophetic conjecture

that “the AFL-CIO went back to
its chosen destiny of plumping for
a bigger and better cold war, into
which, of course, the farm workers —
did not fit in any appreciable way.”

Since AFL - CIO president
George Meany “is a straight-out
business unionist” he probably fig-
ured that the per-capita income
organizing bitterly exploited farm
workers “wouldn’t add up to the
money expended’, So, “like any
other cost vs. profit entrepreneur”,
to hell with organizing the un-
organized, there’s more money
(and “prestige’’) Playing second
fiddle in the state department’s
coldwar anti-communist orchestra,
a job in which Meany excels,

According to The Dispatcher,
Meany refused to accept the
Farm Workers Organizing Com-
mittee’s report of Some 10,000 farm
workers organized, scaled it down
to 3,500 and “figgereq” that was a
cost of roughly “$333 per mem-
ber”. Much too much for a “busi-
ness. unionist” steeped in Chamber
of Commerce ideolo &y who
“thought that just by waving a
feeble hand from his easy chair he
could make somewhere between
250,000 and 500,000 farm workers
in California good dues-paying
members and fatten the treasury
that makes him secure’’,

What to do with such an encum-
brance on the backs of American
labor. The Dispaicher has the best
solution we’ve seen since Jim Mce-
Lachlan of the Nova Scotia miners

_the point. “Sorry I cannot be with

duced to peonage on a Californi4

auti i site.
Vancouver a beautiful par

wrote his- apology for not being
able to attend the funeral of Sam
Gompers, (Jim’s wire to the the?
AFL headquarters was brief and t0

you, but heartily approve of the
event’’.)

For Meany, as recommended bY
The Dispatcher: “The best thine
that could happen for Amerie
labor would be for Meany’s frien
President Kennedy, to appoint ae
High Commissioner of Collabora"
ation, with the single duty of co?
templating his navel”.

oe ae serious side of Mie:
question of organizing the ve
organized The Dispatcher presen f
the case in unison with the think:
ing of all progressive trade pees
ists. Never mind the cost, let’s 8&
on with the job. The economi¢
plight of California farm workers
is desperate. The need of unioniz@
tion for all workers, “blue” ©
“white” collar workers is ever 27
urgent one. Pes

“This”, says The Dispatcher, ‘15
what we invented America for. Let
the fruit be sour, the vegetables
bitter until simple justice comes t®
the fields.”

A good maxim anywhere,
whether among farm workers ©&

tomato ranch, or the striking wor
ers in Toronto’s posh Royal York
Hotel. Militant organization 22
unity in our way-of-life is still the
only tried and trusted cure £0F

tion 10 ~~
)

wars) ‘a .

Si
plus a decade and a half of uF ;

tion

a
BT

exploitation. ae

e 4
August 4, 1961—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Pa8®

CPR