ruge Four

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BC. WORKERS NEWS

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Vancouver, B.C., November 22, 1935

UNITY IN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

HE approaching municipal elections in

Vancouver are of more than passing or
easual interest to the people of Vancouver,
and to the workers in particular. Neyer in
the history of the city has Vancouver been
cursed with so reactionary and incompetent
a bunch of aldermen as the present incum-
bents. Almost without exception they have
proved themselves as brainless but willing
tools of the enemies of labor, and rubber
stamps and yes-men to the one-cylinder dic-
tator who rattles around in the mayor’s chair
and who jumps and jabbers whenever the
fascist Citizens’ League pulls the strings.

The record of the present gang 10 control
of city affairs stinks of subservience to the
industrial and financial overlords.

The mayor, with both feet in the fed-
eral trough and his swelled head in the civic
swill barrel, is not up for re-election this
year, and thus will escape the boot of the
electorate. But there are a number of alder-—
men who will likely seek re-election; Or if
not, there will be others of their kidney in
the field.

They have sqandered money, wrenched
from the taxpayers, to assist the shipping
interests in smashing trade unionism and
lowering wages; they employed hundreds of
thugs, the scum of the underworld, put uni-
forms or badges on them, and turmed them

loose against the struggling Slave Camp
strikers and the locked-out longshoremen—
all at the behest of the union-smashing Ship-
ping Federation and the fascist Citizens
eague.
S They have browbeaten and starved the
unemployed on the plea of “economy. They
have flouted the citizens’ will in their jug-
gling with the question of a site for a new
city hall, which is not needed at all, in the
interest of a coterie of real estate sharks.
They have cut down on appropriations for
education, compelled overcrowding in the
schools, and neglected elementary medical
and dental care of the children.

In such a situation the people who have
suffered from their cheese-paring policies
as applied to them, while lavish spenders in
the interest of the boss class, must unite to
oust from the council those of the present
gang who may have the effrontery to seek
re-election and to prevent any of a similar
stripe taking their places.

The leadership in such : a
provided only by the working class political
organizations and trade unions, supported by
all other organizations of the people who de-
cide and end put to the wasteful and incompe-
tent administration of civic affairs.

Tt is particularly necessary that the C.C.F.
and the Communist Party come together and
co-operate in the election of labor aldermen
to represent the interests of the common
people on the City. Gouncil. :

The achievement of this aim is the desire
of both parties, and fundamentally differ-
ences on final aims or the methods of
achieving them need not and should not
stand in the way of this urgently needed

unity.

an effort can be

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

HE victory of the National Government in
the recent British elections was made pos-
sible by the wholehearted and uneritical sup-
port given them by the leaders of the Trade
Union Congress and the Labor Party on the
foreign policy of the government. The Trade
Union and Labor Party leaders, after par-
ticipating in the imperialistic, war-monger-
ing jubilee celebrations, continued their sup-
port of the government in‘the diplomatic
erisis brought on by the Italo-Ethiopian situ-
ation.

Ten months ago the National Government
was exceedingly unpopular because of their
attacks upon the standard of living of the
workers, their support of Nazi Germany's
rearming, and the growth of armaments in
Britain. The invasion of Ethiopia by Italy
gave Baldwin an opportunity to pose as the
champion of the League of Wations in avert-
ing a world war, when Britain was merely
utilizing the situation to manoeuvre in her
imperialistic interests and openly preparing
for war. That she was doing so was made
plain in her proposals to give Italy a generous
slice of a dismembered Ethiopia in return for
a stronger position for herself in Africa, and
the Near Hast.

Because of their support of the govern-
ment’s imperialist foreign policy, when Bald-
win, taking advantage of the labor leaders’
blank cheque, announced the elections, they
were forced to rely on domestic issues only.
And this was not enough, because the men-
ace of European or world war overshadowed
everything .else; and the people, thanks to
the leaders of the Trade Unions and the
Labor Party, had been led to believe that
- the foreign policy of the government was a
policy of peace, and hence, worthy of sup-
win’s call for “national unity.”
port. Hence also the effectiveness of Bald-

But the unpopularity of the government
could not be overcome entirely, and the Labor
Party made noteworthy gains. Particularly
eratifying was the overwhelming repudiation

of the old traitor, Ramsay MacDonald, and
his son who sprang to prominence through
the nepotism practised by his place-seeking,
greedy and vain old sire.

The old Judas in his doddering descent to
political oblivion pretends to be unable to
understand why the Seeham miners turned
him down -and out. But down in his heart
he knows why. The Seeham miners are a
section of the working class which made it
possible for MacDonald to occupy the posi-
tion he did,—only to have him betray them
for pelf, position and the kisses of duchesses.
And since he didn’t emulate Judas and pro-
eure a rope, they gave him the boot.

The election of the Communist, Gallagher,
in West Fife is the most hopeful happening
in the whole election. He defeated the old
reactionary trade union official, Adamson,
betrayer of the workers on numerous occa-
sions. The government starvers of the work-
ers and imperialist war-mongers will know
that a doughty fighter for the workers and
a deadly enemy of fascism and imperialist
war 1s present in the House of Commons in
the person of the Communist member.

An indelible stain on the record of the
Labor Party was their united front with the
Liberals to accomplish the defeat of Harry
Pollit, Communist candidate, who surely
would have been elected had it not been for
that.

In spite of the majority received by the
Baldwin party, its path towards war will not
be smooth, nor will its plans for further
starvation of the poor go unchallenged. The
workers of Great Britain have learned a
great deal about the value of united front
struggle outside parliament, where such

struggle can accomplish much for the people
against the strongest sovernment.

THE NEW TRADE PACT

HE recent trade agreement arrived at by

Prime Minister King and representatives
of the U.S. government, it is asserted, will
assure a wider market for British Columbia’s
chief products,—lumber, fish, and pulp and
paper.

But the concessions were given at a price,
for the U.S. capitalists are not giving any-
thing away; and the lowered tariff on fruit
and vegetables coming into Canada will drop
the price of the products of the farmers of
B.C., which reduction is not necessarily
passed on to the consumer.

The lumber barons are jubilant over the
new agreement. But what have the loggers,
the workers in the lumber mills, and the
fishermen to be jubilant about?

The lower tariff on B.C. products entering
the U.S. can benefit the workers in the B.C.
industries affected only if the workers de-
mand and fight for increased wages which
the bosses can very well pay.

_ THE BLACKLISTED CAMP BOYS

OME 200 former inmates of the Slave

Camps, who participated in the memorable
strike and trek to Ottawa, have been refused
relief by the mayor and city council of Van-
couver.

They are also refused jobs in the Slave
Camps because they had the courage to par-
ticipate in strike action to expose conditions
in those forced labor compounds.

Those boys are now condemned to starva-
tion or a life of crime because they are “agi-
tators,” because they dared protest aaginst
forced labor and the rotten conditions under
which it is enforced; and condemned by a4
city council and mayor who throw money
away to supply armed forces for the ship-
ping interests to smash trade unionism.

Although collecting money from those
who sympathize with the Camp Boys, in or-
der to feed them, is not the way to solve the
problem (that can be done only through or-
ganized united struggle to make the author i-
ties either give them work or furnish re-
lief), nevertheless the “Commonwealth,
C.C.F. organ, and the Action Committee of
the blacklisted men are to be commended for
their effort to furnish poee =) relief by

isi money by subseription. : :
a Tnese Ee at to assist in this praise-
worthy effort can send donations of eash,
foodstuffs and clothing to the office of the
“Commonwealth,” 689 Hamilton Sis where
the Joint Relief Committee will take charge

of its distribution.

MAKE THEM DO THEIR JOB!

CCORDING to press reports, the Com-

mission appointed on the pretext of in-
vestigatinge the Regina riot of last Dominion
Day is concerning itself, so far at least, with
enquiring into the Relief Camp Workers’
Union and the Workers’ Unity League. __

Already the four lawyers paid by the Lib-
eral Governments to defend Bennett and the
R.C.M.P., have introduced evidence to excul-
pate Riot Act McGeer for his provocative ac-
tions at the peaceful Victory Square meeting
in Vancouver on April 23rd.

What has all this got to do with the ques-
tion of responsibility for staging the Regina
riot ?

The “investigation” at Regina has all the
appearance of a fake insofar as finding out
who started the riot is concerned. What its
purpose appears to be is to throw discredit
upon the Union to which the trekkers be-
long and upon their leaders, as well as a red-
baiting performance to arouse public preju-
dice against the trekkers before their trials
and against trade unions that really serve
the interest of their members.

The trekkers would be well advised to
compel the Commission to confine itself to
that for which it was ostensibly set up, viz.
to find out who are responsible for the Re-
gina riot, all of which can be learned in Re-
gina, and without leaving Regina.

Contented Builders Of Socialism

SOVIET WOMEN RAILWAY WORKERS

he

By F. BIGGS

When the capitalist class are faced
with a dilemma, such as a severe
political ersis, when they are threat-
ened with the rising indignation of
those they exploit, they generally try
to hunt up a bogey in order that
they might divert or sidetrack the-
mass resentment away from them-
selves. One of these bogies takes the
form of anti-Semitism.

During the Middle Ages in Eur-
ope the Jews were persecuted every-
where, at first on religious grounds.
In most European countries they had
practically no civil rights, they were
denied the right to own land and
property, they were rigidly forbidden
to live outside the confines of a
specified district in cities, and in
Czarist Jussia there were some
cities that Jews were not allowed to
even enter.

The Struggle for Existence

But the Jews are an aggressive
people, they have had to be in order
to survive, and when denied the right
to live on the land they turned to
other ways of making a living such
as buying and selling commodities,
and becoming skilled in the handi-
erafts, in the study of medicine and
of the law. Some accumulated wealth
and became money-lenders.

The feudal barons and even mon-
arehs were always in need of ready
money to carry on their military
squabbles and very often had to bor-
row cash from the Jewish money-
lenders. When the debts came due it
was sometimes found they were
easiest cancelled by murdering the
lender, ‘the damned Jew.’ Gangs of
thugs were given legal immunity to
zo ahead and wipe out the unfor-
tunate Jew and his family.

Victims of Persecution

In no country were Jews worse
persecuted than in Czarist Russia
right up to 1917. Particularly during
labor troubles and peasant uprisings
was persecution practised, the people
being told that their condition was
due to the robbery, extortion and
ruthlessness of the avaricious Jews.

Im that country an organization
known as the Black Hundreds was
formed of criminal and blacksuard
elements, and sent into the Jewish
quarters of the cities where they

murdered, raped and looted, without |

fear of arrest or punishment.

The attention of people would be
turned temporarily from their own
condition to the spectacle of horror
brought about by these expeditions,
or Pogroms as they were called.

Pogram Preparations in Canada

Faced with the severest crisis in
history the capitalists have been par-
adineg the old-time bogey of the Jew,
one of the latest bits of anti-Jewish
propaganda being the book “The
Truth about the Protocols,” written
by Gerald B. Winrod of Wichita,
Kansas, and being circulated locally
by the. British Israel Prayer League.

One of the books published about
1920 was the Protocols of Zion, which
was claimed to be the written report
of the deliberations of a secret con-
ference of Jewish leaders held to lay
plans for establishing on a world-
wide scale Gomination of the Jewish
people over all others. The plan was
to be financed by international Jew-
ish bankers.

In addition to the Protocols, there
was an added chapter givine the old
anti-Soviet les, the nationalization
of women, mass murders by the
Cheka, cannibalism, etc.

Rotten Forgeries

Many people read the Protocols of
Zion and believed them, particularly
those who are opposed to socialism,
until in 1932 the New York Daily
Worker printed a confession by a
Russian White Guard named Bak-
metieff admitting that he had forged
them. He boasted that he had done
more harm to the Soviet Union by
his forgeries than had been done by
all the armies of intervention.

But memories of some people are
short, and it is a sad reflection on

Protocols Of Zion

their originality that the British
Israel] Prayer League has to trot out
the old exploded lies with a new
book, The Truth About the Proto-
cols.

Vicious Anti-Semitism

The truth about the Protocols
elaims that an international Jewish
financial group brought about the
revolution in Russia, the general
world crisis that now exists, and is
preparing a world revolution.

Communism is said to be a Jewish
scheme—how all this sounds like the
theosophical mental maunderings of
Tom (Mad Tom) McInnis, the anti-
Labor radio speches of Mayor Mc-
Geer. And what a resemblace it has
to the literature of the Citizens’
League, the present day counterpart
of the Black Hundreds of Czarism!?

Like the Black Hundreds, the Citi-
zens’ League would use the Jewish
bogey to smash up all Labor organ-—
izations, and will surely attempt it
Sometime if Labor is not constantly
on guard.

In this situation it is very regret-
able that so many middle-class Jews
still say, ‘“What can we do about it?
The Jews have always been perse-
cuted and always will be!’ Such de-
featism will lead to a repetition of
the anti-Jewish atrocities in Fascst
Germany.

Where The Money Comes From

This book says that Lenin and
Trotsky were financed by Jewish
bankers. People so gullible as to be-
lieve this will answer a denial with
the question: ‘“‘Well if it isn’t so,
where did the Bolsheviks get the
money to carry on after they took
power? They must haye got it some-
where!’ Yes, the Golsheviks did get
the money somewhere; they got it
just where it was—in the banks.

They left intact the sayings of the
small depositors, they confiscated the
wealth of the larse corporations,
they made banking the monopoly of
the state, the’ workers and peasants
state, and if any Jewish financial in-
terests suffered it was “‘just too bad’
for them.

Race Pride

Communism is Jewish, says the
hook, and it points out that the great
Communist leader and theoretician,
Karl Mars, was a Jew.

That Karl Marx was a Jew is
something the Jewish workers can
be proud of, as the Russian workers
are proud that Lenin was a Russian;
the Germans that Ivrederick Engels,
Marx's co-worker, was a German;
the Georgians that Stalin is a Geor-
fian.

And the Jewish workers again are
justified in taking pride that Kaga-
novich, who supervised the construc-
tion of the Moscow subway after it
was considered impossible by Gritisn
and American engineers, is a Jew.

Kaganovich was not chosen be-
eause he was a Jew, but because he
was the best man available for the
great task, and under his leadership
the Moscow workers have produced
the finest in the line of subway
transportation.

The Soviet Union is the one coun-
try in the world where there is no
race prejudice of any kind.

What Is Gonmmnnicnee™

Communism is not a scheme of
Jewish bankers, it is the theory for

the emancipation of the working-
class of all nationalities. The Jews
are not a united people. Like all

others they are divided by class.

In Fascist Germany the rich Jews
financed and still support Hitler;
there are Jewish fascists in Pales-
tine, and in the dGothing industry
sweatshops in Toronto, Montreal and
Wew York the Jewish workers have
through their unions to conduct the
most bitter strike struggles against
their Jewish employers.

There is no greater hater of the
Soviet Union tha the counter-revolu-
tionary Trotsky who advocates mur-
Ger and civil war to overthrow it,
and in this dirty work he has the
blessing of the capitalists of all

countries, Jewish as well as Gentile.

Where Jews Are Free
The culture of a country or people
is the culture of its ruling class. In
the autonomous Soviet republic of
Biro-Bidjan Jews are enjoying for
the first time full liberty to develop
their own culture, but the ruling
elass there is the Jewish working
class; there are no Jewish capitalists
to exploit them.

Their culture will be, to use Sta-
lin’s phrase, *‘National in form, so=
Gialist in content.’ In other countries
the Jewish workers and intellectuals
are always in danger of being made
scapegoats, bogies, by Fascist organ-
izations.

A Class Issue

The fight against Jewish persecu-
tion can only be victorious when the
fight for a workingeclass sovernment
has been won, for the workingclass
when it assumes power automatic-
ally emancipates all exploited classes
and liberates all national minorities.

The House of Rothschild is just as
much opposed to workingclass rule
as the Canadian financial octopus,
Sir Herbert Holt, who hails from
Ireland, or the multi-millionaire R.
B. Bennett, whose ancestors came
from Scotland,

A Fascist Threat

The truth about the protocols is
that they are a pack of lies. Even if
they were true such a fantastic
scheme is as impossible of fulfillment
as the similar “Divine Plan’ of the
British Israel Federation which aims
to brine the entire world under the
yoke of British capitalism.
The British people, too, are divided
into classes of exploited and exploit-
ers, and the antagonisms between
these classes can never be recon-
eiled.
Any misguided person, or agent of
the capitalist class, who attempts to
introduce anti-Semitism into the
Labor movemen is an enemy of every
worker, Jew and Gentile.

ROMANCE AND
STARK REALITY

—Did You Ever See
A ‘Dream’ Walking On
The ‘Skidroad’ ?

“If you’ve ever dreamed of Kip-
lingesque ports “where the world
and steamers wait,’ or thrilled to
Conrad’s variegaied magic of the
faraway, put on your third best
suit Some night and discover
WVancouver’s Romance streets.”

So writes Arthur Mayes in the
Vancouver Province and these
streets of romance are none other
then Powell, Cordova and Carroll
streets, the “Skidroad.”

To this writer every logger, sea-
man, fisherman, etc, is a drunkard,
every man forced to beg the price
of a meal in order to live is looking
for the price of a glass of beer or
some canned heat.

The skidroad is a monument to
the contradictions of capitalism in

every big: city.

Thousands of workers, thrown on-
to the industrial serap-heap by a
brutal capitalist class, herded and
crowded into filthy rooming houses,
ragged and half staryved—this is Ro-
mance to a twenty dollar a week
hack writer for the capitalist press.
He little realizes that, unless he
unites with his fellow workers he is
headed that way himself.

BERLIN, Nov.
rights were taken from Jews in Ger-
many Friday by an official deeree.

“The Jews cannot be a Reich citi-
zen, cannot vote or occupy public
office,’ ruled the decree, published

that the play should be seen Bb:

16—All political |

By OI Bill

The attempt of the police
vent the further showing of
ing for Lefty” is a further

member of the working class,
liberal minded professional
every individual who is beginn
doubt the claims put forward
half of the capitalist systenz
sane social order.

The commandine position —
beinge assumed by the revolu
theatre is drawing the fire
bourgeois critics but apparently

help. The police, of course, a
expected to Know anything
art, except maybe the art o
bing and raining tear sas bon
defenseless demonsirators and
ers; but the critics do consider t
selves artists. Me, I don’t

Im not much of an artist |
but I had to laugh out loud
eultural level of the dramatic
who writes ‘At the Play” i
University news sheet “‘Ubyss
This young gent or lady @&
to tell which from tother wi

=)

ric and say ‘he’) doesn’t care
much for “Waiting for Lefty
thinks it is sentimental, t
obvious. By obvious we presun
means it is not subtle, it lace
fundity. ‘‘The Bear” which he
eribes as “a very gracious ap
for our present system,’’ on th
hand, “stole the show’ for
Waturally ! Since he is, on his
showing, a bourgeois, all he ex
of a play is that it be well wr
well staged and well directed.
don't ask him to think. Ben
author of the play “‘Mother,’
ed at the Theatre Union last
day night, said in an inte
few weeks ago that “the bow
resents thinking in the theatre,
workers enjoy thinkine.” :
“The Bear’ is described
comedy and the comedy
mainly, of an indignant lan
throwing an aged servant ¢
floor. Had the aged servant t
the landowner to the floor thai
have converted the play fre
comedy to a trazgedy—for the *
sey” critic. But the “‘Waiti
Lefty’ audience might h
preciated Chekoffs humor m
Although we go to the th
rest our muscles and minds we
on the stage a reflection oO:
prejudices, for art too, is a fi
class struggle. Maybe the
should not think either;
room comedies, bedroom f
things of no social significant
the bill for the dramatic criti
well as for the tired business
They level their criticizm at 1
yvolutionary theatre because of
over-emphasis on the content of
play, the theme; if the revoluti
theatre would confine its efforts’
dignified and forceful art forms Ii}
“Up in Mabel’s Room’ or “Charley
Aunt’ instead of laying bare —
facts of ‘class warfare by bringih
strike strugeles on to the stm
everything would be alright an
dramatie critics would not need
help of the cops. But to the workis
class the revolutionary theatre
good by the very fact that it 3
volutionary. This is where “Wa
for Lefty’ belongs and that is
the police and the Citizens’
are trying to suppress it. Let
five our full support to the P.A.G

Qne year in jail for a killer
year with hard labor for a strike
No court ever held in British Golt
bia demonstrated the class ch:
of “justice” more clearly than
assize that ended last week. Tt
not explain the sentences im
to say that the judge was 2
Catholic and so were the kill
Some of the striking longshorem
who received such brutal sentent
may have been just as devoui
lowers of the Pope as Judge M
we don’t say they were but ~
might have been and the bri
of their sentences not mitieat
the least.

Murphy is less clever in disgi
his class prejudices than somes %
the other local judges, but tha
only a matter of degree. Every jugs
Sits on the bench because, to
very bones, he is part and parce
the ruling class. If one of
“ornaments” of the bench disp
any sympathy with the :
class in their struggles even
Single case, he would be re
so quickly that he would nev
another chance. judge Stubbs 1
ease in point. Just because Mur
is the least wise of the B.C. ju
he is the most vicious and intolera
in hounding class conscious wor
to the pen. 7

This attitude of his is so glari
that public comment has compel
the attorney-general’s dep:
to issue a statement that they
Soing to appeal some of the
tences. Are they affected by ft
brutally sadistic punishment of 7
striking longshoremen fighting ~
better conditions? Not on your ii
They want to see the killers go
jail for a little while longer so #
the sentences on the workers ¥
seem a little more reasonable. ~
they see it always striking and pil
eting are worse crimes than robbe
and murder because class issues
involved. That is why a class jud
class jailers and class hangmen,
of the same moral calibre, deal¢
class justice to fiehtine members
another class, in this case the wo)
ing class. :

FISHERMEN’S ~
MEETING

A meeting of union members of
Fishermen and Cannery ‘Work
Industrial Union will be held
Lumber Workers’ Hall, 130 Hastit
St. West, on Tuesday, Nov. 2
2 p.m., for the purpose of fo

in the official gazette.

Vancouver local of the ECW.