iid: A al Bali

. in liberty, and dedicated to the

DUEWNG the past few years

the B.C. government has
been investigating health insur-
ance schemes that collected from
the hard-earned winnings of the
B.C. workers. Some of them
were proved fraudulent actually,
because they could not deliver
the goods and were being milk-

ed by their pro-
fessional organ-

izers. Some
were actually
liquidated and
serious financial
loss inflicted on
the unfortunate
people who in-
vested their
money in them. 558 | 4

Now we have a government
Health and Welfare scheme so
all fear of being gypped by pri-
vate enterprizers is at an end.
But not all fear of being gypped,
however! In the two months
this government scheme has
been functioning, there are
stories coming to. light which
prove that it is not delivering
the goods any more than some of
the health schemes that were
shut down. |

For one thing, there are not
enough beds to accommodate the
sick people who have made their
contributions in good faith, so
much so,-in fact, that people
are talking of this Health and
Welfare scheme as being just as
fraudulent as ithe others. Appli-

*XPRESSIVE of deep gratitude
and admiration, it was a gift
from the . young Republic of
France to a still younger Repub-
lic—the United States of America.
Completed and dedicated on Oc-
tober of 1886, the Statue of Lib-
erty, symbol of freedom, stands
serene and bold
in New York:
harbor.
Into its mass-
ive stone the
sculptor,, Fred-
erick | August :
Bartholdi, had.
chiselled the
strong lines of
a new

“

nation
. conceived

proposition that all men are born
free and equal.”

Across its base these lines are
cut deep in its imperishable rock:

“Give me your tired, you poor,

Your huddled masses yearning _

to be free;

The wretched refuse of your

teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless tem-

pest-tost to me— :

I lift my lamp beside the gold-

en door.”

An immigrant millions-strong
stream, sweeping westward from
the slums, sweatshops and ghet-
tos of Europe, fleeing from the
oppressive feudal-monarchies of

HN

al pl) A NA)
iE; ty NIB

cants for admission to hospital

_ say that they are told there are

no beds in the public wards but
that they may have*beds in semi-
private and private .wards if they
ave willing to pay the difference
out of their own pockets.

That may be smart business
for the hospitals but it is a
crime against the sick and suf-
fering who, we were told, were
the first consideration of the
Coalitionists who fathered this
phoney “scheme.”

But-the sick people of the pro-
vince are not the first consider-
ation of the government. The
hospitals come first. This is to be
seen in the report of Health Min-
ister Pearson, made to the Leg-
islature last week. In that report
fe said: of the act. “)°: 2 °1t: is
working extremely well for the
hospitals.” As an instance, he
cited one hospital which had been
unable to collect between 30 and
4Q percent of its bills, has now
reported that out of 11,152 patient
days treatment given since the

* first of the year, only 46 patient

days have not been paid for. (Sun
25, Feb.). :

He announced that buildings
are being erected to make pos-
sible 1,379 new beds, 1,090 of them
in mental hospitals. This provi-
sion of such a large proportion of
heds for mental cases is probably
to accommodate the rush of sick
who will be driven out of .their
minds waiting, but unable, to get
into the other hospitals.

e
The Chiang Kai-shek elements

TUTTE VA

the old world, found'new courage
in the symbol of its raised torch.
To ‘them it meant the simple
things, like bread, land, oppor-
tunity, freedom.

In this immigrant stream which
built America, were the Saccos
and Vanzettis, the DeLeons and
Parsons, the Haywoods and Fos-
ters—the fathers and. mothers of
working men and women who
have written an indelible page in
‘American labor history . . . writ-
ten it in the language and mean-
ing of Liberty, standing sentry
at the gateway of America.

Political refugees fleeing from
the tyranny and exploitation of
imperial despots and fascist jack-
als, found asylum and a new life.
None were denied who spoke the
language of the common toiler.
The heart of America beat strong,
enriched by the immigrant blood-
stream of many nations.

e

An era has closed. The torch
in Liberty’s hand “beside the
golden door’ of a ,Trumanized
America, has become dim.

There is no longer a welcome
on these shores for “your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to be free.” J. Edgar
Hoover and the un-American
“un-American Activities’ com-
mittee have designed a new
standard of weights and measures
to designate “freedom” in these
United States. Poets, publicists,
‘playwrights and pimps have been

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annette fort | some

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UC

Short Jabs

TT

in Shanghai are bracing them-
selves for the day, not far off,
when the Chinese Liberation Ar-
my will move in on that city. Chi-
ang’s stalwart there is Tu Yueh-
sen, known among the respectable
as chairman of the National As-
sociation of Industries (the
CMA of China).

He is referred to as “a ‘civic
leader” but is more accurately de-
scribed as “the poss” of the Shan-
ghai underworld.” He controls the
dope trade; is, of course, anti-
labor. Has helped Chiang to kill
thousands of Communists and
other Chinese workers.

When the Spanish Republican
government was elected in 1935,
one of the first reactionaries to
be arrested was Juan March, boss
ef the Spanish underworld. Hs
was engaged in smuggling every
kind of contraband into Spain, in-
cluding narcotics, the entire traf-
fic which was under his control.
He put up the money for the
Franco rebellion. He escaped
through friends on the inside. He
also was anti-labor.

These the kind of people we
have to fight. Our press is ‘our
best weapon. That is why we

have a sustaining drive. for the -—

Pacific Tribune today. Our col-
umn raised $1,160 last year. We
can do better this time.

Will you help? Send your don-
nations to me or write for a col- |
lection card and get a few dol-
ars from your friends—but let
us get that $15,000.

A A

As We See lt

UL

assigned the collective task of
writing a new theme for Liberty.
Something that will combine
Marshall-planned usury with the
standardized “freedom” of a new
Herrenvolk.

Anti-fascism is frowned upon—
smothered in the tinselled muck
of Churchillian oratory. Peace has
become subversive, and treason
against the peoples’ democracies
of Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union has become the hall-mark
of one hundred percent American-
ism.

Immigrants now go through a

finely-woven screen, so construct- -

ed that only those who were and
are the enemies of progress can
pass through its silken-steel mesh.
Men and women from the Resist-
ance movements, from the Hitler-
ite concentration and death
camps, from the Franco prisons,
are met by a frowning Liberty

whose freedom torch has become ~

a club.

The Mikolajcezks, Nagys, Kas-
enkinas, Gouzenkos, Hitlerite col-
laborators, ex-Nazis, ex-kings and
their paramours—-all the motley
collection of stool pigeons, spies,
provocateurs and traitors—these
are the welcome ones to the new

, America. These are the disease-

carriers of the new fascism, the
center of espionage and counter-
revolution against the common
peoples of their homeland. These
are the welcome Fifth Column
of the Wall Street war-makers.
Their preference and their use
suggests a new dedication to
Liberty, standing immobile in
New York harbor:
Give me the scum of your au-
tocracy,
Your bourgeois schooled in ex-
ploitation and repression;
The outcast garbage from your
teeming shore. :
Send these, the fascist riff-raff
to me,
I lift my torch to light the way
\ to new treasons.

Freedom of religion

-ACED with. an ever-growing peace movement in opposition to

their war plans, the warmongers are now striving to foment a
“holy” war. The conviction of the confessed Hungarian fascist
Mindszenty and his aides has been seized upon by the Catholic
hierarchy to whip up a new frenzy of lying propaganda—to the effect
that socialism means the suppression of all religious freedom.

Similarly in the case of the indicted Bulgarian Protestant clergy-
men, who, behind the cloth of their calling, have been caught red-
handed in the treasonable business of espionage and black-market
currency intrigues against the Bulgarian government and _ people.
Lumping them with Mindszenty, their supporters in the Wall Street
war camp now howl to high heaven about “religious persecution.”

‘Official Canada bays with the rest of the imperialist wolf-pack.
Prime Minister St. Laurent demands that “‘a special observer’’ be
sent to Hungary and elsewhere to “study the situation.” ‘This is
part of the process of deception in conditioning the minds of the
Canadian people to a “holy” war. It also helps to cover up the 3
suppression of civil and religious rights in Canada. |

The lie that Socialist states persecute religion must be spiked.
Catholic and Protestant workers alike must know the truth:that the
Socialist constitutions separate the Church from the State, which all
democrats throughout the ages have fought for, and guarantees religious
freedom and religious beliefs as a fundamental right.

Churchmen who use religion as a coverup for treason are the
worst of criminals. .

In place of a “holy” war Prime Minister St. Laurent would
serve Canada. better were he to send “‘special observers’’ to his own
Quebec, where religious and civil liberties are daily suppressed by the
Duplessis government.

Reply to the “holy war’ crusaders of ‘Wall Street by hammer-
ing home the truth: Socialism alone guarantees freedom of religion
and freedom of science.

Foul non-partisan weather b

YORPORATION Counsel A..E. Lord has proposed that Vancouver
City Council turn a deaf ear to all claims of motorists who may
damage their cars while driving on rutted and broken-down city
streets. With fine civic cynicism Lord contends that the present t
horrible state of the streets does not result from “. . . any negligence
on the city’s part,” but purely because of the extreme weather of ©
the past months. : :

Lord’s argumentation closely approximates that of Tory Finance
Minister Anscomb on last year’s flood, which that worthy characterized
as “an act of God,” rather than governmental neglect of adequate
flood control measures. Vancouver’s motorists who pay a heavy
premium for the privilege of driving a car, will be more inclined
to view the roads as an “act of Lord,” or rather his elected em-
ployers, the city council. ’ :

Other cities and towns across Canada, where weather conditions
are much more extreme ,build roads to stand up to such conditions.
Many of our heaving streets and quagmires which face the motorist ;
today are the best proof that our city fathers have built with an t
eye to giving the Non-Partisan jobbers and contractors a break—
leaving the tax-paying motorist to take all the bumps.

If we are going to have “free enterprise” let us have it. The
motorist pays the skot in a full circle of taxes—gas sales and excise :
tax, car and driver’s licence, inspection, to mention only a few. :
Last but not least, he gets a thorough rooking by the city in operation |
of “parking” regulations. His one legitimate claim in return for
these levies is roads—which in Vancouver is’ the responsibility of
‘the city council ;

. That gives every motorist a legitimate claim upon the city for
“damage to his car from street hazards, despite Lord’s “expert”
advice.

=

oA

“Th? chiéf says we're takin’ a short course in economics—
_ says Gouzenko, Dorothy Thompson and Don Levine is top priority
in reading. Says it'll take a load off yer feet.”

~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 4, 1949 — PAGE &