OPEN FORUM

Prizewinning letters

Each week the Paci-
fic Tribune will present
a book to the writer of
the most interesting, en-
tertaining and _ topical
letter published on this
page. Contributors are
urged to keep their let-
ters to a reasonable
length.

The prize-winning let-
ter in our last issue was
written by Skookum,

Ladysmith, B.C.

Axel grease

C. R., VANCOUVER, B.C.:
Axel Wenner-Gren’s story of
how he made his first million
dollars, published in the Van-
couver dailies recently ((pre-
sumably as an example of how
hard work, honesty and thrift
7 off) has encouraged me to

pe
reveal my own story.
To start with, I
that I do not come from a weal-
thy family. When I was born,

must say

the family wealth, if you can
call it that was no more than
some three or four million dol-
lars. So in the process of grow-
ing up I was forced to become
a self made man.

, My first experience in busi-
ness was at the age of three
years when my sister had two
orange suckers and I had one
strawberry sucker. We made
the exchange of two for one
when I convinced her that mine
was tastier than the two she
had.

This piece of experience kept
me in good stead later on in life
when at the age of ten I en-
tered the world of finance.
There were two gangs of kids
in our town and I figured it
this way:

1. They were hostile to each
other.

2. The little fools used their

fists to fight with.

3. If I could get my friends to
cut broom handles to foot
lengths, I could sell them to
both sides for 10c each and
pay my friends 2c each for
making them.

This project gave
first capital.

I was still on the road to be-
coming free, because you can
only be free if you have your
own business. Of course in the
newspapers they say we are all
free if you have capital. The
more capital you have the more
freedom you have.

It is quite obvious that peo-
ple (specially those who equate
money with success) look upon
me as a successful man who can
give a few pieces of good ad-
vice on how to climb the money
ladder.

The first thing to do is to
quit your job and get into busi-
ness.

me my

1. Buy a $200,000 apartment
block.

2. Buy a railroad.

3. Buy a few good paying
mines.

If you can’t see your way
clear to doing any of these
things—go find another boss.

On fluoridation

LEWIS AGASSIZ, Vancou-
ver, B.C.: Your article on fluo-
ridation seems misleading and
avoids the basic questions—
intentionally it appears.

The basic questions to many
are these:

Can flouridation (even if be-
neficial) not be handled in a
democratic way?. That is, in
such a manner as to make it
possible for even the minority
(any minority) to have its own
wish. In other words, can it
not be done personally (pur-
chasable food, pills, etc.)

And again, have the benefits
of fluorine been thoroughly
proven?

From the Toronto Star

THE SHADOW OF THE BIG STICK

Dr. DuBois wasn't there

yice President Richard M.
Nixon of the U.S. was there.
But not Dr. W. E. B. DuBois

Dr. DuBois, the renowned
American Negro scholar and
author who celebrated his 89th
birthday on February 23, had
been invited: by Premier Kwa-
me Kkrumah to attend the ce-
lebrations at the birth of Gha-
na, the world’s newest state.

But the U.S. State Depart-
ment would not let him go. It
declined to Give Dr. Du-Bois
a passport unless he submitted
to a quiz of his political be-
liefs and associations.

Nkrumah and Dr.

worked together at the Pan-
African Congress in Britain in
1945.

The irony may be lost on the
U.S. State Department, but not
on Ghana’s leaders.

Delegates from 72 nations at-
tended the independence fete,
and these ranged from Nixon
to Ivan A. Benediktov of the
Soviet Union and China’s Mar-
shal Nieh Jung-chen.

But Dr. DuBois was not

there. And his absence was em-

barrassing to Nixon, who was
being plied with questions
about the state of civil rights

DuBois and liberties in the U.S.

Hal Griffin

HAVE not been in Cuba for 24 years
and in that time much has changed
and yet, despite great popular victories,
remains unchanged. Over those years
seized

Fulgencio Batista has
won popular acclaim, relin-
quished office and again
seized power to repress the
very people who once up-
held him.

Two impressions of Cuba
remain with me: the violent
beauty of the island, so
vivid in its coloring after
the soft greys and greens
of our own British Colum-
bia, and the violent poverty
of its people.

I can still hear the deep
voice of the Negro taxi
driver who took me to Ha-
vana cemetery — he insisted
that it was one of the sights
that no visitor should miss.
And it was. Nowhere else
in the Americas has such
wealth been lavished on
marble tombs and crypts to
shelter the dead while only
a short distance away in

a

the festering slums of the
city people live in splendor.

power,

“Yes,” said the taxi driv-
er bitterly, “here the rich
do take it with them. Death
is cheap until they bury
you.”

Life is cheap, too. At the
corner of a narrow street,
not far from where the
Royal Bank of Canada
building dominates — its
square, he stopped the car.
In the wall of a building
was a covered recess, much
like a parcel drop, where
mothers could place the
babies they could not keep.
The weight of the baby on
the metal plate sounded an
electric alarm. By the time
the nun on duty reached
the baby the mother could
be out of sight around the

corner, her shame hidden,
but the open shame of a
system exposed to all.

xt a at

Life is still cheap in
Cuba, in the cities and in
the countryside, on the
great sugar plantations.
Liberty for the member of
a trade union or an opposi-
tion political party exists
only in the shadow of Ba-
tista’s police.

The recent attack on the
presidential palace by an
armed group attempting to
seize Batista provided a
glimpse, and a distorted
glimpse at that, of what is
happening in Cuba.

This was only the latest
of a number of armed at-
tacks made by Batista’s ri-
vals against government
buildings in recent months.
The democratic forces of
Cuba — the Popular Social-
ist and other opposition
parties, the trade unions —
were not implicated. But Ba-
tista’ used the armed at-
tacks to suspend all con-
stitutional guarantees. His
troops ranged through the
island, searching homes, ar-
resting thousands, beating
many of them and, in Ori-

ente Province, murdering
21 trade union and opposi-
tion political leaders.

As in British Guiana and
Guatemala, the Cuban peo-
ple are struggling to lift
from their backs the intol-
erable burden of pdéverty
imposed by the great plan-
tation operators, the com-
panies whose real control
is held in the United States
or Canada.

Batista has become the
agent for these foreign
owners, just as the govern-
or of British Guiana served.
as the agent, for the British
owners who deposed Prem-
ier Cheddi Jagan. His meth-
ods are more violent, for he
came to power by violence,
but their purpose is the
same.

All trade union leaders
must be approved by the
government. No trade union
meetings can be held with-
out government consent.
and when these methods
fail, there is always the
resort to arbitrary arrest
and jail.

Presumably the “free
world” also includes Cuba,
Guatemala and British Gui-
ana.

Speaking |
Briefly |

IT’S ALL WET |

The German Bishop, Johant
Fugger, died and willed that
“ . . a bottle of liquor might
be annually upset upon
grave so that his body might
still sop in that delicious
fluid.’ This happened years
ago, and of course no one ha
left a similiar-will here in Van
Gouver, because who wants 10)
be drenched with water?

xt 3 Lo

CALM DOWN

“While the number of busi
ness failures have been. ris
ing, there are still just about
as many concerns in existence

“Since everything else is al
so increasing—population, im”
comes, spending, production—
the increased number of fal
lures isn’t too. disturbing.”—
Los Angeles Mirror News, De
cember 31, 1956. .

5° 3 m Le

IDIOT’S CORNER

Gloomy dispositions in Rus
sia may-simply be a matter of
poor mattresses according to
J. W.. Hubbell, mattress com
pany executive who recently
returned from a trip to the SY
viet Union. He declared thé
“Russia is not sleeping prope!
ly.”

| 5° bos
FUTURE SECURE

Japan’s welfare ministry h@
a new program, for helping thé
poor. One point calls for ope

ing 200 more pawnshops.
Ee ot bes

CHANGE 28?

If you changed $28 all pos
sible ways — cents, nickels
dimes, quarters, halves and dol:
lars—it would require ov#
22,300,000,000,000,000 differet!
changes and if you m
change every second, it would
take over a hundred years #
do it. But don’t bother, b®
cause Social Credit will hav!
it all back before you tut
around. ;

oy tt
NO DOUBT |

With the cost of living sti
going up (and no end in sight
a wise man of tht local pub i?
forms me that what this coun
try needs is a good five ce
nickel.

This, of course, would meal
taking some of the nickel ov
of the arms budget and som
of the profit out of nickel. ~

5° at

NO FREE LOVE? ;

“In Paris; when a girl do®
not know love by the time sh
is twenty, it means one of th?’
things—she is not pretty, sit
has led a sheltered life or st
is a Communist.” — Franco®
Sagan, 21-year-old French nov
elist.

tt

i %

ONE FOR BERT: _,
Q: What is the longest tig
recorded? ie
A: At the Olympic club #
New Orleans in 1893. Andy
wen and Jack Burke fought 1)

rounds—7 hours, 19 minute®

MARCH 22, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE