: EDITOR‘s NOTE: The Vancouver
oe Office sitdown and. the
rutal, unprovoked attack on the
Tone ployed on Sunday, June 19,
~~ “mown as “Bloody Sun-
was one of the most im-
Portant struggles of the Thirties.
Ow Steve Brodie, leader of the
t Office sitdown, who was
ae iy and lay unconscious in
; Pital for 24 hours as a result of
eae attack, has written the
ne He story of that event specially
ie Pacific Tribune.
dee an exciting and human
een which sets the record
a on what happened in
he peer Struggle by the man
i ae pes wanted our paper
a y It first. We are happy to
The first installm
'S page. It
Succeeding is

day’ 29

Pos

ent appears on
will be serialized. in
Sues.

. *
By STEVE BRODIE

he Story of Vancouver's

often b Bloody Sunday,’’ has
n fen told. [have heard and
Which cus versions, few of
orited ars true, Politicians
see €magogically, and the
n a pulbit, and courts moraliz-
te aW and order while bury-
ie € truth beneath a flood of
dena half truths. Even the
oe eal of justice took great
bes pee cron the truth from
hoodwinkine gate. while
Was misled by t
ting of Fiat to

Was never t
0 be exerci
did serve * cised but it

at the time. usien HW, DELS

That heads w

thousands = ere smashed, and

dollars worth of

employed — brutal
SSar

that fel the days and weeks
1929 ar between the autumn of
bine int the transformation of
over 294 ) heroes, a decade later,
force Police actions, involving
of the ate recorded in the press
repress; — all of them aimed at
Unem ae any protest against
Ome °yment, hunger and
Where fhuess: The occasions
legally € courts were used, il-
number © Suppress such protest
thousand In the hundreds of
depart S. Even now the justice
thousands” _ Concedes that
Were on S of illegal deportations
Purpose ed out for the same

oe pcemen, from the local con-
pro € national force,
aa to a belief that only the
ee Rist Party and such peo-
belisveq under its influence

ny pel anything to be wrong.
was ho _ brutality, therefore,
governed, to be justified by

Wh » press and_ pulpit,
bing It was riding ae ine.
1935 "=, a8 at Regina, July 1,

tnemp| sooting the protesting

OY, , bee. j
Say ause it was to
3 Canada from Bolshevism.
ho Sa anes the small group
88, an ae conditions, the
People into peut. tried to lull the
8 req ° Submission. “‘Nothing
System Ht ons with the
YoWnturn j ey said. “The usual

“Progpanit the business cycle.” _
“Perity ‘is just “around: the”

corner.”’ ‘‘Be like Will Rogers.
At 800 a week, he makes depres-
sion jokes, so look on the funny
side.’’ One famous prime
minister, after promising to end
unemployment, when confronted
with his obvious failure, assured
the Women’s Club in Ottawa,
“God’s in his heaven, all’s right
with the world.”

As government, at every level,
became more and more inept at
meeting each crisis, it became
necessary to shore up the ex-
isting society with brutal polic-
ing, vicious court sentences, and
where possible, illegal -deporta-
tion. This could be justified by
creating a myth of imminent
revolution, led by Communist
leaders of the unemployed.

School teachers, like M. J.
Coldwell and Arnold Webster,
doctors such as Telford,
Mitchell, and Bailey of Van-
couver and Victoria, witha few
colleagues across the nation,
pleaded for years, that a real
program of public works be un-
dertaken to preserve the dignity
of Canadian parents and the
health and development of their
children. Such men were brand-
ed as dupes and ‘‘fellow
travellers,’ of the great Com-
munist conspiracy, set on upset-
ting ‘‘our way of life,”’ by under-
mining the initiative of the Cana-
dian people, by suggesting that
something was wrong with
“‘our’’ free enterprise system.

e
Year after year, as winter

came around, the unemployed ~

would march and demonstrate
against their hopeless condition
but as long as their activities
could be controlled by vigorous
police action, and the leaders
could be picked off and given

Tear gas. victims on “Bloody Sunday’ after. police brutally attacked

jobless ‘youth af Post’ Office. * °°

| LEADER OF POST OFFICE SITDOWN RECALLS

The story of ‘Bloody

CgeRs Kroresh Paere
a 2

Sunday’

Powell Street grounds rally Sunday, June 19, 1938 to protest police brutatity.

vicious jail sentences, nothing
would be done. .

Take as an example this
telegram from Hon. Gideon
Robertson to his prime minister,
reporting as minister of labor in
the federal government, on the

situation in Edmonton during the

winter of 1932.

“‘Trouble was averted by
restoring a minimum of food to
the extent of a bowl of porridge
twice a day, and the stationing of
a portion of the Lord
Strathcona’s Horse from Calgary
at the local barracks. After the
arrival of this force, the food was
discontinued, which seems to be
creating a threatening attitude
among some 4,000 unemployed
whose numbers are not growing
less.”’

Like the police, the armed
forces stood on guard for
Canada against those subver-
sives who expected their
motherland to provide two bowls

of mush per day.

By 1938 it became accepted
that during each winter some
provision had to be made to
house the homeless and supply
two minimum meals at 15 cents
each, but nothing would ever be
done until the threat of
“trouble,” was imminent. The
reluctance of the majority to de-
mand better treatment amazes
me yet but although a few hun-
dred put enough fear into the
hearts of the authorities to get
the winter program started,
thousands came to apply.
Presumably they had stayed in
the background for fear of being
branded as ‘‘Communist
troublemakers.”

Skid row missionaries have
always taken a great deal of
credit for their work among the
unemployed, giving their alms
with a great blowing of
trumpets. During that decade of
the nineteen thirties, coffee and
doughnuts were sometimes
available to any who could stand
two hours of hymn singing, pray-
ing, and preaching.

To qualify for a hot meal or
even sometimes a night’s lodg-
ing, it was necessary to “‘take a
dive.” This meant falling on
one’s knees, praying loudly for
forgiveness of sins, real or im-
aginary and the more lurid, the
better.

Some characters were well
known for backsliding and being
reconverted at least twice a
month. The various techniques,
accompanied by loud wails of
repentance, were the hilarious
highlight of many a skit, enacted
in box cars, camps, or jails.

These same missionaries
always took the view that pover-
ty, unemployment and all atten-
dant ills were sent by God as a
means of perfecting us for His
kingdom, and to rebel against
these things was not only un-
patriotic but sinful. Any sugges-
tion that R.B. Bennett, Sir
Joseph Flavelle, H.R. McMillan
and other millionaires must also
lead exemplasry lives to be so
blessed would have cost one any
chance of remaining for coffee.

In any case, who would desire
anything but poverty here when
that assured greater rewards in
heaven. Beware the socialists
who demand unemployment in-
surance, relief for the needy, and
medical care. Keep your eye ona
heavenly reward, which these
atheists cannot promise you.

- Some..genius invented: ‘un--

employed church parades and if
we attended we were sure of
some of the take. That gentle
arm twisting helped to keep
some of us from hunger.

In Vancouver during the three
winters 1935-6 to 1938-9, the crisis
was greater than in any other
Canadian city. Common sense
suggested that poverty, if it must
be endured, is more endurable in
the mild climate of the west
coast than in sub-zero conditions.
Hundreds came to the coast, for
that best of all possible reasons.

While this undoubtedly placed
an unfair burden on the B.C. tax-
payer, it never occurred to John
Citizen to join in the protest
against the enforced idleness of a
large part of society and to de-
mand a program of real work at
real wages to benefit all the na-
tion. Reacting in fear created by
lying propaganda, the taxpayer
went along for years believing
his property and indeed his
system of government. was in
grave danger of violent revolu-
tion. He firmly believed that
agents of the Kremlin were ex-
aggerating the crisis and were
about to take over the nation
with a few ragged-assed farm-
boys, loggers and fishermen.

The unemployed men’s
organization laid before the
federal and provincial gov-
ernments detailed plans for
fire trail work in our forests and
tree planting programs from
coast to coast.

These were dismissed as being

impossibly costly at $1.00 per
man per day and board. General
McNaughton stated such plans
would cost the nation an es-
timated $36,000.00 per day, and
would bankrupt the country. He
later presided over the defence
department, spending over one
million per day for direct war
purposes. The world’s greatest
gold strike, apparently was in Ot-
tawa September 3, 1939.
-Since work was too costly a
solution, a simpler method for
dealing with the unemployed had
to be found. :

A feature of Vancouver’s
police court during those years
was the lining up of groups of six-
ty to one hundred men of the
organized unemployed, in
batches of twenty. At the rate of
about twenty minutes per batch,
they were tried, convicted and
a to, various terms, in
jail.

ee aes