Page Four

Be

Gee We OPReKe ERO

NEWS <

B.C. WorkKERS NEWS

Published Weekly by

THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN
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UNITED FRONT OF RED-BAITING

Wot since the days prior to the arrests of
the Communist officials in 1931 when Chief
Draper, Attorney-General Price, R. B. Ben-
nett and Company, were fulminating against
the Communists, has there been a more Vici-
ous or more slanderous attack against the
Gommunists than that launched in an edi-
torial appearing in the Commonwealth of
April 18th.

This attack is part of an organized cam-
paign by the C.C.F. leaders to cover up their
refusal of the united front in the Federal
elections proposed by the Communists, and
is accompanied by an extensive whispering
campaign along the same lines, all of which
coincides with the recent attacks upon Com-
munists by Pattullo and MceGeer.

In the first paragraph of the editorial re-
ferred to, the provocative question is put
squarely up to the capitalist state as to why
the authorities do not make the paroled Com-
munists serve the two and one half remain-
ing years of their five-year sentences. It
says:

“Tt is a Strange situation where an or-
ganization that is admitted by its leader,
Tim Buck, to be ‘still an outlaw party’ un-
der Section 98 of the Criminal Code is now
permitted to function openly without hin-
drance from coast to coast.”

The deduction from the foregoing is that
the Communists are working in collusion
with the government in order to defeat the
C.C.F., and that their release from the Kings-
ton bastile was not the result of united front
mass protest, or that the jailing of the Com-
munists did not stop the revolutionary up-
surge of the masses, but was the result of a
deal between the imprisoned men and the
terrorists who put them in prison.

Gan baseness stoop much further than
this? This slander is the best answer they
can give to a proposal for a united front of
struggle against the attacks being made
against the workers of Canada.

With this invitation to the capitalist state
to renew the terror against the vanguard of
the working class, there is a cowardly at-
tempt at justification for the refusal of the
united front, to wit: that inasmuch as the
Gommunist Party is an outlaw organization
any agreement with it would endanger the
liberty of the reformist leaders who might
enter into it. To fortify this excuse the name
of the infamous Esselwein (Leopold) the
Police Secret Agent is introduced, with the
conclusion that the Communist Party is led
by poiice agents.

Any labor organization that fights for
the workers, and whose leaders can not be
corrupted, have the menace of the police spy
and agent provocateur ever to contend with.
Lenin had them to fight against and to up-
root: one even from the Central Executive
Gommittee of the Bolshevik Party. Leopold
was discovered, unmasked and expelled from
the party as early as the spring of 1928.
Others have been discovered since, and will
be discovered, But there is no need for the
papitalist class sending agents into an or-
ganization whose leaders support the fascist
measures of their government.

The Commonwealth editorial quotes: “Be-
ware of the Greeks when they come bearing
gifts.” This is completely in line with the
support rendered Bennett by the CC. Go
leaders in the House of Commons. The
“Greeks,” i.e., the enemy, are not the Ben-
netts, but the revolutionary workers, whose
“sifts” (the united front of struggle) must
be rejected in order to prove to the capitalist
class that they can administer capitalism as

THE CORBIN TERROR

“The bourgeois of our day considers him-
self the legitimate successor of the baron of
old, who thought every weapon in his own
hand fair against the plebian, while in the
hands of the plebian a weapon of any Kind
constitues in itself a crime.”—Marx.

The murderous attack by the police on the
miners of Corbin has shocked the people of
Canada. The ruthlessness of the armed
forces of the ruling class in assisting a gang
of Spokane exploiters by clubbing and
erippling working men and women, serves
to drive home to the workers the real charac-
ter of the capitalist dictatorship clothed in
hypocritical democratic forms.

The clumsy lies of the police and the dec-
laration of the provincial government that
they accept the word of their sluggers
against the mountain of evidence piled up to
show the unrivalled brutality of the police at-
tack, fool’ but few. And neither does the
equally clumsy attempt to win public sym-
pathy away from the workers by wild
charges of “subversive” activities of Com-
munists fool very many.

A united front of the federal government,
the Pattullo outfit and the Vancouver City
Council is working, in the best Hearst style,
to attract attention from their strike-break-
ing activities, and at the same time work up
a fascist sentiment and public hysteria to
prepare the way for a reign of terror against
all militant workers, and particularly against
the cenanisis who are the most militant
of all.

The attack upon the Corbin mniers has
another sinister purpose besdies direct as=
sistance to the Spokane gang. It is a move
calculated te assist the Alberta government
to put into effect their infamous Trade and
Industry Act with its slave codes, by smash-
ing the greatest obstacle in their way, the

ilitant and heroically led Mine Workers’
Union of Canada.
in Corbin will sweep through the Crows Nest
Pass and over the whole mine area.

Only working class unity, and especially
Trade Union unity, can defeat this diabolical
plan of the bosses and their governments.

NO CO-OPERATION WITH
COMMISSION

The impression given by the capitalist
press of co-operation between the Relief
Camp strikers and the Royal Commission
supposed to be investigating conditions in
the camps was for the purpose of restoring
a measure of confidence in the Commission.

The statement of Arthur Evans and other
speakers on behalf of the strikers should
help to remove such an impression. The
strikers are NOT co-operating with the Com-
mission; they are utilizing the sittings of the
Commission to get facts before the public in
spite of anything the Commission may re-
sort to. Workers giving evidence openly told
the Commission that they had no confidence
in them and that their report would not be
in fayor of the camp slaves.

well as either of the old parties.

The Communist leaders fought against
hunger, fascism and war before they went
into prison, and while in prison. And since
they came out of prison they have given
strength to the anti-capitalist fight by fur-
ther proposals of unity to other labor organi-
zations in the struggle against the attacks
being made against the workers. And if a
Heaps or a Melnnis go over to the side of
Bennett they cannot expect to come off un-
scathed. The united front means closed
ranks: against the common class enemy and
those on the opposite side will get hit,
whether it be a Kerensky, a Ramsay Mac-
Donald or a Simpson. The attacks against
the Communists is no answer to the united
front proposals; on the contrary, because of
thei splitting effects they bring aid and en-
couragement to the capitalists in their at-
tacks upon the working class.

The demand for a united front is growing
in the ranks of the C.C.#. despite the efforts
of their national] leaders to prevent it, and
joining the capitalists in Red-baiting, work-
ing up a Red Scare and another Terror will
not prevent its eventual consummation.

FORCE AND VIOLENCE USED

AGAINST B.C. WORKERS

Monetary Reform mean showers of

bullets for the workers? His high-

sounding humanitarian utterances
from the platform differ not at all

from the hypocrisies of all capitalist

By F. BIGGS.

tullo has a rival in Mayor McGeer

class politicians.

The most significent feature of | of Vancouver. This Moses of West- After the reading of the Riot Act

the Pattullo policy of government) erm See BD nee ane the shooting of workers becomes
i i- ttitude. This] ine and raving abou hele en

yas Veen Tis: apices = ; . E 9 64 ~ a ‘legal.” This is an example of
attitude has expressed itself in his Rule, The money changers in the : nee ;
refusal—through Pearson, his Min-| Temple,” about “Social injustice,” justice’ under the capitalist sys-
ister of Labor—to recognize the rep-| who infers that by striking the air| tem. Justice becomes another name
resentatives of the Lumber Work-} with the rod of Monetary Reform} for force and violence when used

ers’ Union during the strike nego-
fiations a year ago; in his Fascist-

there will issue forth a stream of
everything everybody needs—like

against the workers.
a

Unless halted, the terror |"

like Minimum Wage Acts; in his
qse of force and violence—through
the brutality of the Provincial Po-
lice—against the Corbin mine strik-
ers who are striking for the Tight of
collective bargaining, the right to
erganize into a union of their own
choosing ;jand in his everlasting
passings the puck to the Mederal Gov-
ernment when the unemployed de-
mand adequate relief. The Work
and Wages that Pattullo promised
before his election, has brought
svork and wages only for the sang-
sters of the Provincial Police, and
for the high-salaried Grain Trust-
ers of the Industrial Relations
Board who inyent schemes to de-
prive the workers of a decent stan-
dard of living.
Force Their Trump Card
In his anti-Labor attitude Pat-

conjuror producing rabbits out of
an empty hat—is also not averse to
using: force and violence against the
hunsry unemployed workers when
they demonstrate for bread.

McGeer, who is being touted as a
great man, a strong man, a leader,
passes the feeding of the Relief
Camp strikers on to the Provincial
Federal Governments, and
when they demand food for their
empty stomachs he threatens to fill
their insides with—leads How does
he differ from other capitalist class
politicians4 Only in his line of
talk.

and

Bullets For Workers
Starve quietly or be shot! That
is what is means by the reading of
the Riot Act by Mayor McGeer in
Victory Square. Do the showers of
blessing promised in McGeer'’s

United Capitalist Front
The Relief
maintained

have
dur-
have been

Camp Workers

a great discipline

strike. They
very patient, and what the capital-
ist press calls a riot, is the self-
protection of the workers when they
are being clubbed and beaten by the
police. These fights, at Corbin and
in Wancouver, were forced upon the
workers by the Provincial Govern-
ment and the Municipal Government

ing the

of Vancouver.

MecGeer and Pattullo may conduct
frothy contests in the Pro-
vineial Legislature, but it
comes to a question of the relations
between the owners of the Corbin
mine, and the miners, or the feed-
ing of the Relief Camp ‘Workers,
they think alike and act alike—use
the method of terrorism.

wordy,
when

ruthlessly

SUPPORT THE CAMP BOYS

EDITORIAL]

Of the striking relief camp workers in Vancouver, the
great majority are youth. These younge men are striking
against a ruthless military machine, which has isolated them
from society, militarized them, and attempted to bludgeon
them into a state of servility to serve its war purposes.
These young men refuse to be slaves; they have left the
camps in an orderly manner; they have laid their case be-
fore the citizens of Vancouver ,and their actions have been
found justified by the vast majority of these citizens, as
the support given them evidences.
have received in support of their struggle are exhausted.
The responsible authorities have denied all responsibility.
The camp boys are determined, even though hungry and

[YOUTH

homeless.

Ask For Bread—Get Clubs

They gathered at Victory Square. They held a peaceful
meeting and elected a delegation to see Mayor McGreer to
demand relief. Eleven of the delegation were arrestd.
_ Our mayor, who made many sweet promises before be-
ing elected, proceeded to Victory Square and read the Riot
Act. He gavethem thirty minutes to disperse; his ultimatum
being backed up by three hundred police, Royal Canadian
Mounted, Provincial and City, representing a united front of
the Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments to starve

the relief camp youth.

Our Fight
Young people of Vancouver, this is our fight!
ployed and employed youth alike! Those of us who are un-—
employed do not know when we ourselves may have to go to

a camp. Those of us who are

cuts, due to the threat of unlimited twenty-cent-a-day labor.
The fight of the relief camp workers is a fight to better the
conditions of all the youth of British Columbia.
and protest against police terror; join the united front of
working class youth in support of the relief camp youth!

The funds which they

Unem-

employed cannot resist wage

Organize

FUTILE SEARCH
FOR JOB FORCED
ON UNEMPLOYED

Are Given Hopeless Test
By Contemptible
Bureaucrat

An unemployed worker of Van-
couver, one who was blacklisted in
the Slaye Camps because of his par-
ticipation in the strike of last De-
cember, and who for some time has
been on relief received a sudden
visit from one of the spies of the
relief office who snooped around
his house and asked a number of
impertinent questions.

The Work Test.

When he next called for his relief
he was told that henceforth each
week he applied for relief he must
submit a list of places, firms and in-
dividuals where he had been look-
ing for work each day during the
week; either that or no relief.

Treadmill Routine.

The “chief investigator’ who laid
down this rule gave not the slightest
hint as .to where work could be se-
cured, so the worker must go
through this useless, humiliating dis-
heartening and fatiguing work each
day to satisfy this well-fed bureau-
erat.

LEST WE FORGET!

Section of huge demonstration in Victory Square, Vancouver, of Slave Camp Strikers and sympathizers, follow-
img attack by police in Hudson’s Bay Store. In circle can be seen ‘Der Fuehrer”’ McGeer reading the Riot Act.

Whales And Thunderbirds

By K. G. JONES j
Mrs. Maloney on her
the Relief Office noticed a number
of people clustered about a store
window. Being in no special hurry,
and moved by idle curiosity, she
elbowed through the gathering until
she had a view of the window. In-
side was a large bowl made of Solid
gold and silver.
“What's that
asked a man.
“Qh, don’t you know?”
asked. “Why, that’s the gift of
B.C. to His Majesty, King George,
on the occasion of the twenty-fifth
anniversary of his coronation. It
twenty-two and a half

way from

thine fer?” she

the man

weighs
pounds.”

“Why, it must be worth thousands
ay dollars,” said Mrs. Maloney, ap-
parently much impressed.

“Ves,” the man, “‘it But
then nothing is too good for the
head of our great Empire, it?
This beautiful sift carries with it
the love, loyalty and devotion of his
subjects in B.C

“Indade,”’ said Mrs.
“And would ye moind
what thim two big fish is?”

“They're whales. You
symbolic. The whales
B.C. is a maritime province.’

“Oh, is that what it is?
after thinkin’ they might riprisint
Pattullo and McGeer. The two big
ones gobblin’ up the little fish. The

said is.

is

2»

Maloney.
tellin” me

this is
that

see,
show

I was

boys in from the camp bein’ the

little ones.”

< “Ha, ha,’ laughed the man. “You

will have you little joke, I see.”
“And what's thim birds at the

top? I niver saw a bird loike thim.”’
she said.

“They're Thunderbirds. The Thun-
derbird, you know, is entirely myth-
ical, ereation of the imagination
of the B.C. Indians. On the bowl
they represent His Majesty's Indian

a

Ps

ot?
ts.

subjec

‘Wow grateful the poor,
Injuns will be to know they are rip-
risinted on the bowl!” exclaimed
Mrs. Maloney. “‘They’ll be so filled
with pride they won't want to ate
fer a month!’ i

starvin'

man, “It’s perfectly alright to have
a little joke, but this... . well, it’s
going a little too far! After all, this
is still British Columbia! [It isn’t
Bolsheyik Columbia!’

“True fer you!’ said she. “It ain’t
Bolshevik Columbia—not yit! Not
vit, but soon! And whin it is we'll

be after usin’ the gold to give the
Injuns daycint houses to live in, and
good food to ate, and good schools
to go to. And bedad, there’ll be no
slave camps thin, Oi’m after tellin’

you! Half the people on relief
haven’t got a dayecint pot to bile
pratiecs in, and here they go and

give a solid gold and silver bowl to
His Most Gracious Majesty! What
good'll it be to him? He won't know
what the divil to do with it!
Twenty-two and a half pounds av
fold and silver fer him, and not
of food for the relief camp
But after all, this isn't
Bolshevik Columbia!”

She moved away from the crowd.

a
serap
Strikers?

“Thunderbirds!” she exclaimed, half
aloud. “Thunderbirds! We'll eive
the birds thunder one of these foine
days?’

One Thousand Dollars
Offered, Not Accepted

OSLO,
Skater,

Norway. — The famous
Bernd Byensen, former
world champion in skating, who re-
cently joined the Workers’
Organization of Norway, received
an oifer of $1,000 from Madison
Square Gardens, New York, to put
on a display there. It was hinted
in the offer that other appearances
could also be arranged for him
throughout United States. Bernd
Evensen simply informed the offer-
ers that he is a member of an ama-
teur organization, at the same time
being a workers’ sport organization,
and he did not consider it proper to
help them exploit people for the
good of the Madison Square Gar-
dens’ owners. Eyensen proves him-
self a true Worker Sportsman, firm
in his convictions. :

Sports

If you don’t subscribs te this

Directory of Unions
and Organizations

Workers’ Unity League Council—
Meets first Wednesday in the month
at 19 Bast Hastings St. at 8 pm.
Executive committee meets every
Wednesday at 2 p.m. Send all com-
munications to the Secretary, 19 E.
Hastings Street, ;

C.L.D.~L. (Sam Carr Brench)—
Meetings first and third Fridays in
the month at 8 pm, Whist every
Saturday at 8 p.m., at 4265 Main
Street, Vancouver.
Socials Held Jointly With W.E.S.L.
Workers’ Ex-Servicemen’s League
in Vaneouver—Meets every Wednes-
day at 8 p.m. at 122a Hastings St.
West. Hall open every day. ~ Secre-
tary, B. Liss, at aboye address.
C.L.D.L., 5393 Victoria Rd., South
Wancouver—Whist Drive & Dance
every Saturday at 8 p.m. Cash prizes,
admission 15¢c: Swedish Drill every
Thursday at $§ p.m., admission 5c
Business meeting every Sunday at
2:30 p.m. JOIN UP!
Ronald Stuart Branch, C€.L.D.L.,
meets 8:00 p.m., first and third Mon-
Gay of each month at 2616 East
Pender Street.

The best and only way to fight
against Fascism and War is to build
the Wnited Front of Labor and fight

-gaged in the excavation work fc

April 30, 192 4
3

i |

FEDERAL JOB |

TRUCK DRIVERS)

=a

OUT ON STRIKI

Slave Driving Contrac_
tors’ Greed For Super 5

be

:
Profits Resisted |

.
:
|

WINNIPEG, April 16.—The ow:

Bs

ers and drivers of thirty trucks ez"

the new Federal administratix:
building now under constructic 4
here, struck this morning, demanc |
ing higher pay. ;
The trucks were lined up in fror
of the job with the drievrs formin
a picket line. Most of those involve”
who own trucks are “small men”
who drive their own trucks. ‘TE
strikers are demanding payment Gd
an hourly basis at the rate of $1.4"
per hour.

Truck Drivers Gomsg m Hole.
At present the truck owners ar
paid 55¢ per trip, which brings i
never more than $8.70 per day, an
most days considerably less. Out a.
this wages, gasoline, oil, and re.
pairs have to be provided.

In conversation with the worker
this morning it was learned that on
driver after being on the job sinc
it was started three weeks ago, wa:
now twenty dollars in the hole.
Another owner-driver was fire
off the job because he had a forty.
two dollar break-down, which he
paid for himself.
The contractors are Carter, Halls,
Aldinger & Co. Lid., and at noon te.
day only trucks directly owned by
this large firm were operating. |

Anti-Fascist
Meet, W’peg

Send Protest Resolu-
tions to the Spanish

Consul
WINNIPEG, April 21.—Over fif
teen hundred workers, Sunday

joined in protest against fascist ter
rer currently being exercised by thr
Lerroux government against the
Spanish working class. A. Brock ané
C. Hichin, representing the C.l.Du
and the Manitoba Conference
Against War and Fascism, spoke @
the meeting which was called by;
the @L.D.L.° In ursing unit
against fascism, Hichin drew atten
tion to the fascist terror in Corbin
15} Om where police Wednesda
brutally attacked pickets, woundin:
forty-five.

The meeting unanimously en
dorsed resolutions protesting th
Spanish terror, and copies of th
resolutions were sent to the Spanis
Consul in Montreal and direct to th
Lerroux sovernment.

TORY LEADER
ADVOCATES OPEN
GANGSTERISI

WINNIPEG, April 9. — (ALP)-
When the Manitoba legislature at
journed on April 1, charges of i
citing to violence in a recent speec
at Flin Flon were laid against Ralp
Webb, member of the House ar
Conservative organizer for Manitob
by S. J. Farmer, 1.L.P. leader.

Farmer read extracts from tt
Flin Flon Miner of Webb’s speec
calling attention to “we must n
depend too much on the police ar
British courts of law in dealing wit
agitators.” (Previous context refe
to Communists) and advises that 1
people take the steps to put sur
people out of town by giving them
eoat of tar.

“When a member of the Hou
epenly urges to take the law in
their own hands, things have con
to a pretty pass,’’ said Farmer.

Attorney -General Major, wh
asked by W. Ivens across the floc
what he intended to do about Wel
and his adyocating of mob violenc
replied, ‘‘Nothing.”

Join the Union—BSBe proud to be |

Capitalism.

active worker.

Several letters and report

tion of the editorial board to

No matter whether you

“My dear madsm!” protested the

-~

paper, send in a sub now.

Important Notice!

s of united front activity ha

been held over from this issue of our paper. It is the inte

commence with the next iss

a special page or part page for this question. It will take «
the form of an “open forum” and every reader is invited —
write in their opinions on this question. It is of the mo
vital importance to the workers of B.C. at this time.

belong to the old line partic

C.C.F., Socialist, or Communist organizations, or wheth
you are just sitting on the side lines, you are invited to wr
your opinions on this question to the News. Men, women
youth may write into our paper on this. The discussion
wide open. Try and write legibly, and on one side of &
paper only, and leave us room between the lines so that 1
can edit your letter. We are going to try our best to ha
clarity on this question, so that when election time com
the workers of Canada will elect some candidates to Parl:
ment who will fight for the workers’ interests. Unless yo
article is extra good, please confine it to 500 words.