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McEwen

Review

TOM McEWEN, Editor — HAL GRIFFIN, Associate Editor — RITA WHYTE, Business Manager.

EDITORIAL PAGE

Comment

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| Tom

BACK in the Roaring Twenties Wall
___ Street decided that the common herd
ete becoming much too materialistic.
Saving” democracy from Kaiser Bill’s
8008e-steppers had been quite a profit-
enterprise for the big ‘boys, but
When the common people who did the
_aving” wanted a greater share of what
. ad saved, something had to be
done about it — and quickly.

R at we need,” chorused old Henry
ord and the big shots of United States
Steel, “is a good old fashioned revival
racliminate ‘this “materialistic sordid:
: No sooner said than done. Overnight
8Y Picked up a nondescript tramp with
“Tich “gift of the gab” well interlarded

With 8ridiron slang, and turned him loose
the n

Plenty of funds to “sell” God to
ation’s hoi polloi. That was Billy
Unday, evangel king of the sawdust
tro » Who “saved” souls by the thousand
ieee “sordid materialism” with all the
hnique and vigor of a big league
Umpire,
ee venture paid off for both. Billy
No € a fortune running into the mil-
the’y 22d Wall Street turned the
Waren of the masses to higher “val-
than porkchops. (ae
its ‘4me the Hungry Thirties, again with
ang Materialistic? urge for work, wages,
Vive, er incidentals to common sur-
ed l. Once again Wall Street got alarm-
dew, Vbat to do to scotch these sordid
“aes. Billy Sunday, fat, gouty, his
ton”? punch gone with easy living,
¥ Out of the ring.
vac ©n a stroke of luck; a coy and cur-
in angelic maiden was holding forth
billy, bible belt” sending scores of hill-
thins, Tustics home every ‘night from
virtu, iP Meetings, full of “Christian
Prom..2d sex appeal. Wall Street
eats Mptly decided—“This is our woman,”
| turned Aimee Semple MacPherson
Vatig On a nation-wide crusade of “sal-
; a ain material things. oe
tee did very well, financially a
pnerwise, Unlike Billy Sunday with
ae 18 league baseball description of
tion” 20d hell, Aimee cooed “salva-
Went With angelic coyness. The Babbits
ang tase and at home looked over their
thee? fraus with a jaundiced eye as
thoughts ruminated on Aimee’s
‘kia curves. Then Aimee’s manager
at 3 Pped” Aimee for a long vacation
Zenit Secluded resort, thus marking the
§ thor “nodal” point in ther Wall
Si t campaign to “save” sinners.
Inclair Lewis’ book Elmer Gantry
ue fine job of pathological surgery
ny eSe two top salesmen.
One Ri comes another “world saviour,”
~ ing 5 ily Graham, with plenty of back-
« ean the same source, a fine aie ng
Wa})., Oratory, a powerful political an:
| y toiled “Graham machine” supported
Dot eS of church ministers who can-
Old their congregations together
heave and a redeeming “message” from
Having «00 the unwary.
an] DS “saved” Great Britain, the U.S.
3 sectors of our. “Western al-
ee 7 ; "4 “ .. re ss
Tonta oe nae busy “saving” To
essence of this Billy Graham
Sie’, 18 Neither new nor true. It
the «.S ‘Of cold-war anti-Communism;
Assure aetity” of the H-Bomb, ‘and the
Mines nce that if it is used against
holding the “godless” doctrines

ahd ;, ) :
te ‘deologies of Communism, that will

Clin gj

| Und Sely as “God” and Wall Street
doy Rs it. Such “moral rearmament”
Ptails

Cleg exactly with the war conspira-
‘The 7 o2kee imperialism.
Vation » 74 Preserve us from such “sal-

i 7 97 SS pA

ABOR DAY of 1955 marks-the
| Dicer of a new era in Can-
adian labor unity and struggle. The
concept of merger — the uniting
of all existing unions into one sin-
gle congress, is already on the
agenda of history.

The difficulties, obstacles and
setbacks on the road to this unity
are, and will be considerable, but
not insurmountable.

.At the top the merger is still in-
terpreted as a move to eradicate all
Communist and progressive ideals
and aims from the house of Labor.

~ At rank-and-file level it finds ex-

pression in the preservation of
union democracy and fusing of
many ideologies into one — that
of a united labor movement consc-
ious of its destiny and the preserva:

aaa SnD

Opening of a new era

tion of its heritage; of the inde

pendence, traditions and freedom
of Canada against foreign usurpa-
tion, and against those interests at
home who sell its birthright for a
quick profit.

The Pacific Tribune greets La
bor Day of 1955 in full confidence
that labor unity will be won in
Canada; that the mighty forces
which produced the Geneva con-
ference for world peace and co-ex-
isting friendship, will inspire with
equal force the basic sections of
Canadian labor towards the goal
of national independence, and the
building of a powerful trade union
movement, serving as a mighty bul-
wark for Canadian independence,
peace and progress. .

The government must act

HE ghost of the lad who coined
T the phrase ‘‘the public be damn-
ed’? must haunt the sessions of the

Public Utilities Commissions.

Back in July the Pacific Tribune
ran a headline of PUC-BCE se-
ances which read, ““BCE case de-
molished in PUC gas hearings.
That headline and its news presen:
tation was correct in every detail.
The B.C. Electric case for control
and distribution of natural gas in
metropolitan Vancouver and the
Fraser Valley was properly demo-
lished by all the rules of logic and
reason. But a grasping monopoly
like the B.C. Electric and its pliant
PUG do not operate on the rules
of reason and honesty.

That much has been demonstrat-
ed over and over again, and now
last week the PUC, despite wide-
spread public opposition, handed
down another of its infamous “‘the
public be damned’’ decisions,

awarding the BCE all that it’s

“case”? demanded.
Purely aside from what such

a “decision’’ will cost gas consum-
ers in high gas rates to satisfy the

'. profit appetite of the BCE, it also

established a dangerous precedent,
best expressed in the old adage
“give them an inch and they’ll take
a mile.’” Awarding the BCE the
sole right to distribute natural gas
in Greater Vancouver opens the
door for giving it control of gas

distribution in all of B.C.

‘This latest PUG decision places
a duty and responsibility squarely
in the lap of our so-called anti-
monopoly Social Credit govern-

ment: the duty of setting aside this
brazen award without any lost
time, and the immediate dismissal

of this B.C.. Electricified Charley

MeCarthy outfit misnamed a PUC;
and by doing what a majority of
the people of B.C. desire — endow-
ing the B.C. Power Commission
with the authority and finances re-
quired for the distribution of na-
tural gas in this province.

Hal
Griffin

Most people in Whiting, Indiana, were
still in bed and asleep last Saturday
morning when ‘an explosion in the Stand-
ard Oil cracking plant sent pieces of
steel ripping through their homes like
so much matchwood. Even before they
reached the streets, burning gasoline
tanks at the heart of the 1600-acre re-
finery were rearing pillars of flame into
the sky and threatening the entire city.
The explosion: completely destroyed
several homes and damaged scores of
others. Windows were broken over a
20-mile distance. Miraculously, only one
person was killed, a three-year-old boy
crushed to death in his bed five blocks
from the plant, but hundreds were in-
jured. 2

Three days later, when the fire was
finally brought under control, an area
two miles square had been devastated.

_That explosion could have been in the
Greater Vancouver area and the conse-
quences even more disastrous.

5° 57 xt

Over the past few years, since com-
pletion of the oil pipeline from Alberta,
Vancouver has become an oil port.

Three cracking plants have already
been built or enlarged and a fourth is
now under construction. Already oil
tanks stretch along Burrard Inlet from
the Second Narrows to Ioco.

A far-sighted policy would thave re-
quired that these refineries be placed far
away from residential areas, far up In-
dian Arm or Howe Sound. This would
have increased the cost of construction,
but it would have secured citizens
‘against the possibility of any such dis-
aster as befell Whiting last week.

The oil companies, of course, were
concerned in obtaining the cost access-
ible site: and keeping their construction
costs down. For Shell and Standard’ that
meant the sites they already occupied in
North Burnaby and for Imperial the
property it held at Ioco, all originally
acquired for small plants. Of the four
companies, only British American, on
the east side of Burnaby Mountain, is
removed from populated areas.

By various deals and trickery, such as
the plebiscite by which Standard Oil
acquired its easement across Confedera-
tion Park, the oil companies got the
land they needed for expansion from a
compliant Burnaby Council and a my-
opic provincial government placed no
obstacles to construction.

The result is already apparent.

The explosion at Whiting wrecked
homes within a radius of several blocks.
Yet in North Burnaby there are three
elementary schools and one high school
within the same radius of either the
Shell. or Standard refinery. One school
is only two blocks-from the nearest oil
storage tanks. And now Burnaby is
building another high school directly
across Hastings Street from the Shell
plant.

How reckless can governments be-
come? Or do they claim some divine as-
surance that no disaster can happen
here?

‘ The most logical course would be to
move the refineries. The most feasible
would: be to set immediate limits on
their expansion, to move schools and
homes within a certain radius and to
prohibit residential construction within
this radius.

It would cost money? . Of course. But
the cost of the Whiting disaster is plac-
ed at $100 million. And one small boy
dead and hundreds of people injured.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 2, 1955 — PAGE 5