Page Four Bice WaOiRekK ERS NEWS BC. WorKERS NEWS Published Weekly by THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASS’N Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Vancouver, BG; a — Subscription Rates — One Year —____$1.80 Half Year = =. 1-00 Three Months _$ .50 Single Copy —_ 05 Make All Checks Payable to the B-C. WORKERS’ NEWS Send All Gopy and Manuscript to the Chaiwman of the Editortal Board — Send All Monies anc Letters Per- faining to Advertising and Circulation to the Business Manager. Vancouver, B.C., January 3, 1936 THE TORONTO VOTE 4 ABOR and its sympathizers and support- ers can find much encouragement in the results of the city election in Toronto. True, there is no room for rejoicing in the defeat fo Mayor Simpson, C.C.F. candidate for re- election. But then, it must be remembered that Simpson this year ran as a straight G.C.F, candidate and had all four daily news- papers against him, whereas last year he had the support of three of them. The vote re- corded for Simpson, although he failed of re- election, can not be taken as a decline in C.G.F. strength, for there can be no fair com- parison with the vote he received last year. There is also the consideration that Simp- son, particularly during the first part of his term, did not act in the interest of the work- ers on all occasions, thus causing some dis- trust of him which reflects on the C. C.F. The proof of the growing radicalism of labor and the growth in the numbers of its sup- porters is seen in the tremendous vote re- ceived by Tim Buck, Communist candidate, who although falling far short of election, reached the great figure of 21,000. In 1932, less than two months after his conviction and sentence of five years in the Kingston penitentiary, he received approxi- mately 6,000 votes, and last year 10,000. To have doubled the vote in one year is some- thing that the reactionary mayor-elect, Mac- Bride, will have to reckon with before he tries to renew the reign of terror which he helped inaugurate in 1928. Tt is clear from the votes received by Simp- son, and especially by Buck, that the C.C.F. can no longer safely ignore the appeal for the united front with the Communists and all other anti-capitalist forces. This is the solid foundation upon which to build, and not the shifting sand of vacillating bourgeois sup- port. — “WHINING,” SAYS ABERHART BERHART, Social Credit premier of Al- berta, has been visiting Vancouver, and was entertained by a group of Social Grediters here who hope to be able to peddle the same kind of political gold brick in B.C. as the Alberta political Aimee MacPherson found so profitable in Alberta. At a dinner given to him he upbraided those who took his $25 a month dividend seriously for asking him to keep his promise. Said he: “How Christian people can whine for something for nothing is more than I can figure,’ and feeling sorry for his dupes, he added in unctuous tones: “Poor people, bless their hearts.” While in the city he found time to have a confab with Vancouver’s greatest charlatan, Riot Act McGeer, whose monetary reform humbug he endorsed, and a copy of whose tome of monumental ignorance, “The Con- quest of Poverty,” he carted off under his arm. The people of British Columbia—and this applies particularly to the lower middle class and the “‘white collar’ workers—should take warning from the experience of the people of Alberta who allowed themselves to be se- duced and swindled by the grandiose prom- ises of Aberhart. The people of B.C., fooled by Pattullo’s promises of Work and Wages, and now thor- oughy disillusioned, should not in their des- peration go from the Pattullo-Liberal frying pan into the fire of Aberhart-Social Credit charlatanry. EATING AND DRINKING NDER the heading, “Drink Like a Gent,” the Vancouver “Sun” gives instructions on what to eat and what to drink, and what combination of each should be used. The bourgeoisie who live off the unpaid labor of the workers are coached as to what to drink with their eats. For instance, they should have burgundy, dry champagne or chablis—-whatever that is—with oysters; dry maderia or sherry with the soup course; elaret with an entree; burgundy with game; haut sauterne with sweets; port, sherry or maderia with cheese; and brandy, liqueur or whisky with coffee. Such advice is of no use to workers on ecoolie wages, to the unemployed and their families on Pattullo’s and MecGeer’s starva- tion relief, nor was it intended to assist the blacklisted Slave Camp boys who are denied relief by the class which advises their less _—- sophisticated brethren on the art of gour- mandszing and guzzling. What these workers would like to know is what the “Sun” would advise should go with coffee an’s, slumgullion and the contents of garbage cans, and above all, how to get any- thing to eat at all, never mind the drinks. COSSSOSO LOSS OS OSS OSOSHO OO GOH SOO OOOTT B.C. Workers’ News 3 Radio Broadcast FRIDA Y¥Y—S8:45 to 9:00 P.M. WEDNESDA Y—9:15 to 9:30 P.M. CKMO PRAYER AND POLICE HE Boys’ Parliament, a bourgeois insti- tution for training the youth along bourgeois lines, was addressed last week by no less a personage than Premier Pat- tullo. Previous to the Premier's speech the “par- liament,” aping the bourgeois parliament, fave “second reading” to a “Supply Act” which pledged the “house” to raise $2,000 for religious work. One of the youthful statesmen had given a talk just before Pattullo spoke. The Pre- mier endorsed the address, which had upheld the power of prayer. He also urged every- body to “be fair” and to “do unto others as you would have them to unto you,’ and more tripe of the same kind. None of the misled youths present asked Pattullo if he relied on prayer or on his pro- vincial police during the Slave Camp Boys’ and longshoremen’s strike, or if he was doing to the workers in the towns of B.C. whom he is terrorizing, as he woud have them do unto him. COMMISSIONERS AND CAMPS ROM reports coming in from the Slave Camps, particularly those from the Dun- durn compound, it is clear that the King gov- ernment are carrying out the iron-heel policy of the Bennett government. Not one of King’s pre-election promises regarding the camps has been kept. They are still under military control, discrimination is practised, R.G.M.P. are terrorizing the inmates, mail is being tampered with to keep working class literature out of the. camps and to prevent union organization, feod is rotten, men are dying from lack of medical attention, and sport and recreation are denied. Realizing that the most militant and best organized slave camp workers are in the B.C. and Alberta compounds, and fearing another and greater strike than that of last year, the Minister of Labor has stated that the camps in these two provinces will be the first to be transferred to the Department of Labor. By holding out this promise, together with what little confidence the camp boys may have in the Rigg commission, it is expected that the inmates will ease up on their demands and neglect the work of organization. Instead of abolishing the camps, as prom- ised by the Liberal candidates, or putting them under the control of the Department of Labor, there has been nothing done except the appointment of yet another commission to investigate what has already been thor- oughly investigated. This commission made a beginning by mak-| ing a trip to the United States to have a look at Roosevelt’s slave camps. Upon their re- turn to Canada, one of their first acts was to go to the Dundurn Camp in Saskatchewan as strike breakers, and try to trap the boys into calling off their strike without redress of a single one of their many grievances. The Slave Camp workers have had much experience with Commissions, whose pur- poses are to delay with false hopes in order to prevent strike action, and to provide a basis and excuse for the government to per- petuate the forced labor camps. The unsav- ory MacDonald Commission with its strike- preventing efforts, and white-washing of the slave camps, is well remembered. The Riggs Commission is another of the same stripe. Organization in the camps, organization into their Relief Camp Workers’ Union, which the government is attempting in the Regina trials to outlaw—this, and strike action, are what the Slave Camp inmates must rely on, and not on King’s promises nor on his tricky Commissions. “NEWS” AND THE DRIVE HE need for a workers’ press has been urged countless times. Almost every worker knows that the capitalist press is dominated by the big monied interests and gives prominence to “news” that is not news, but to unimportant sensational occurrances in order to divert the attention of the people from things that really matter. A good example of capitalist press “news values” is seen in the New Year edition of the News-Herald, a local sheet which has re- ceived much money from the fascist Citizens’ league for printing large advertisements slandering the locked-out longshoremen and every other organization that fights against poverty, fascism, war and corruption. Under a three-column head the capitalist sheet tells all and sundry what three great events headlined the news during 1935. Did the three events include news of any- thing done to advance the well-being of the human race? Here they are: The assassina- tion of Huey Long; the conviction of the kid- napper and murderer Hauptmann; and the death of Will Rogers and Wiley Post. Wot one of these things would get more than an inch in a worth-while working-class paper, if they would be mentioned at all. Yet it is such sensational tripe that the bourgeois press feeds the people in order that in the morbid interest aroused they will forget their exploitation, their misery and their op- pression. This is another reason why the workers and all other oppressed people should rally to the support of the workers’ press, all the more reason why they should take advantage of the extension to January 18 of THE WORKER-B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS drive to raise the full money quota and secure the number of new subscribers which was set as our objective. ORDER EXTRA COPIES qe B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS will be one year old on Friday, January 17. On that day the Anniversary Issue will be on sale, and all organizations, press agents and salesmen are requested to order extra copies as early as possible so that an estimate can be made of the extra thousands required for the province. Order extra copies now! 2 Years Ago Workers Of The World Hailed Dimitroff As Their Leader By GD. George Dimitroff is one of the four communists who was arrested by Hitler’s Nazi police immediately after the Riechstag fire in 1933 in Berlin, charged with “arson” and tried at Liepzig in December of the Same year. The trial was staged by the Hit- ler government in an attempt to make the world believe that the Communist Party of Germany had planned a revolution of blood, mur- der and fire, and that the Nazis were the saviours of the people of Germany. Hitler and his cohorts had planned with a double purpose; they planned to give Fascism a firmer base through this deception, but they also planned to murder *the four communist leaders, along with Tizaelmann and others so that Hitler would have a free hand to commence the preparations for the lowering of the standards of living of the German working population. Greatly due to the heroic conduct of Domitroff in the Nazi court, Hit— ler and his murdering colleagues were confounded. At the trial, Geo. Dimitroff turned the evidence against the Wazi leaders, exposed the frame-up, and instead of being the accused became the accuser. When the trial judge told him to “shut up” and admonished him with the advice to “use his lawyer’ (who was a Nazi tool) Dimitroff boldly told the court, “You have kept me in chains day and night for five months, but now that I am nere I am going to defend communism.” Even after the frame-up failed so miserably, and the accused com- munists were acquitted on Decem- ber 23, 1933, they were not released, but were held in prison for nigh on three months. Power of Mass Movements Is Demonstrated Mass campaigns for their release were conducted in many countries. Dimitroff is a Bulgarian, but the Bulgarian government did not want him. We had been sentenced to death by a2 Bulgarian Fascist court in his absence from that country. Appeals for the release of the Wazi victims poured into Germany fTrom such international organizations as: World Gommittee Against War and Fascism; World Youth Committee; International Labor Defence; Workers” International Relief; European Bureau of the B.-L E.G: (Revoluiionary Trade UWuiens) ; Huropean Bureau Sports International; Educational Workers’ Interna- onal; International Association of Revolutionary Artists & Authors; International League of Vic- tims of War and Labor; Proletarian Freethinkers Inter- national; 7 Women’s League for Peace and Freedom. Besides protests fram these huge international organizations there were thousands of protests from labor organizations, trade unions, and fraternal bodies in many coun- tries as instance in the U.S-A. in response to the appeal of the In- ternational Committee there were demonstrations in practically every large city. From Chicago i19 telegrams were sent to Nazi officials in Ger- many or U.S.A. in ten days ending at Christmas, 1933. Fifteen com- mittees visited the local Nazi con- sulate in Chicago protesting the frame-up- “a In New York 4,000 workers struck in shoe factories for fifteen minutes on December 19 in protest. Members of 50 workers’ organiza- tions paraded in New York to the offices of the German consulate. In Boston several thousand dem- onstrated before the Wazi consul- ate’s office. In Los Angeles the same. In Philadelphia the crowd dem- onstrated before the offices of the Worth German Lloyd €o- In Glevelaud two delegations visited the consulates, one of work- ers and the other of professionals. In Seattle the Lumber Workers’ Union, representing 2,400 employed workers, sent protest resolutions. Heroes Are Made Soviet of Red Gitizens Similar mass militant movements were conducted throughout the world and the heroic defence by the prisoners was beginning to be felt by the Hitler government. The Soviet consulate in Berlin in the meantime had appeared at the de- partment of justice offices in Ber- lin with passports “stamped with the hammer and sickle’’ announc- ing that the prisoners were now “Citizens of the Soviet Union” and he “demanded the release of the three.’ Torgler is a German and could not be deported. Dimitroff, Taney and Popoff were Bulgari- ans. Goering ,one of Hitler's most in- human ministers and a drug addict had “openly threatened vengeance upon the four prisoners as soon as they were out of the hands of the Supreme Court-’ Dimitroff sent a letter to the head of the Hitler police through a Miss Woodman protesting his utterly unjustifiable sre-arrest after the acquittal. The head of police told Miss Woodman that “he was unsatisfied with the ver- dict’ and said “he had no instmuc- tions to release them and would not do so, but on the contrary. it may be possible that they will be removed and dealt with further by another authority.” The masses of the toilers through- out the world kept up the campaign for their release. Protests came from Paris, Sofia in Bulgaria, Am- sterdam in Holland, from Prague and scores of other Slav cities, from Stockholm, and from the Scandi- nayvian workers of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, from Oriental, black, brown and white workers through- out the world. The mighty voice of labor from all over the world range out in protest against this inhuman frame-up. Hitler is Forced by the World’s Workers to Release Them When Hitler saw that the mass indignation throughout the world was not dying down but was gain- ing momentum, the three Bulgarian communists were released late in March, 1934, and secretly placed on an aeroplane for Moscow. it was only one hour before their arrival that word reached Moscow of their coming. Even at that, there was 2 mass demonstration of workers with bands of music at the airport to welcome them. George Dimitroff was elected Secretary of the Communist Inter— national at the Seventr Congress of that body held last July in Moscow which Stewart Smith, the chair- man of the Canadian delegation at- tended. Every man, woman and youth who believes in freedom, peace and the right to live decently should read the pamphlet, “The United Front Against War and Hascism’’ by George Dimitroff. The World Japan has been sometimes eallea the Great Britain of the Hast. This has been due to the geographical similarity of the two, both being eroups of islands off the northerly eoast of a continent. There are other resemblances; their methods of empire building. They both have used military might to subdue and exploit weaker nations, and they both claim that they are doing this in the best in- terests of the conquered nations. They both claim to have a “right”’ to do this, but right in this case is just another way of saying “might.” Micht is always right in the inter- national relations of the capitalist world. The Chinese are said to be the in- heritors of the world’s oldest cul- jure, but this 5000 years old eulture was participated in only by the rich Mandarin Class of bygone ages, the ereat mass of the people had no culture, their whole lives were taken vp in producing the means by whieh the Mandarins might become cul- tured, while they and their families were amongst the most degraded in the world. But China was rich in other things than culture. It was the most populous country in the world, and no country had greater natural resources. Byer since the year 1517, when Portugese traders visited China, every great power in the world, the Soviet Union being a unique exception, has wanted to “stick in its thumb and pull out a plum.’ Japan, Czarist Russia, Ger- many, United States, France, italy, and Germany, are all equally guilty in the pillage of this vast area. Beginning in 1839 Great Britain conducted a three year war to force China to open her ports to opium. For daring to fight against this iniquitous traffic China was forced to cede Britain Hong Kong and to pay her a huge war indemnity. China still being desirous of stamp- ine out the use of opium placed a high tariff on it, which JBritain forced her to reduce in 1885. Since then Britain has waged no more Wars against China but has, through loaning her money and the threat of force, obtained rich concessions in many parts of the country. In 1895 Japan seized Formosa from China. Japan was able to easily defeat Chinese troops because she has adopted the Western military equipment and methods. Duing this period Czarist Russia took over Port Arthur, the Germans Kiachow, the French Annam, and jhen the whole gang, along with the United States, set up the MInter- national Settlement at Shanghai, and demanded and received extra territorial rights, which is to say that whatver they did was not to be interfered with” by the civil law of China. They were to be extra, or above or outside, the jurisdiction of Chinese law. The great powers, with the ex- eeption of Japan, seemed to be temporarily content with the pos- session of territories which could act as bases from which they could conduct their economic penetration of the country. Japan continued to seize and occupy great areas. By the Russo-Japanese war, 1905, she took Russia’s possessions; in 1910 ¢ This Week she formally annexed Korea; the Treaty of Versailles gave her, under a League of Nations mandate, ail Chinese German possessions, aS well as German Islands in the North Pacific. In 1931-32 she gobbled up Manchukuo; in 1933 the province of Jehol, and at the present moment is getting away with five more Ghinese provinces. Since their oc- cupation of Manchukuo the Japan- ese have encouraged the use of opium and other narcotic drugs manufactured in Japan.