AT, ca > st > Tew! nor - Na om: eve Hebe cks, nstil pent - the of le ons oli tic Wwitl ying By Als S ari rmec ‘sion ina um 5 in emnb« it ui unit, oni, i ft J mo | stance ple's thi on £+ tem] =! . pot oven Ul he —_— Page Four B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS September 4, 1936 B.C WorkKERS NEWS Published Weekly by THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Wancouver, Bee — Subscription Rates — One Year $1.80 Walk Year === 51200 Three Months J 450 Single Copy ———._._ -09 Make All Checks Payable to the B.C. W/ORKERS’ NEWS Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Edottortal Board. Send All Monies and Letters Pertatning to Advertising and Circulation to the Business Manager. Vancouver, B.C., Friday, September 4, 1936 Liberals Win—W hat Now? ITH a greatly reduced majority as compared with the majority received by McGeer in the last provincial election, the Liberal candidate in the Burrard by-election was elected over Dr. Telford, C.C.F., with the Tory candidate well in the rear. Telford conducted a strenuous campaign, and an able one, with the exception of his defense of Aberhart and “socialized finance,” which undoubtedly weakened him. He did not let the old party candidates make the issue one of Communist Dictatorship versus abstract Liberalism, but carried the fight to the Liberal government on the basis of their record of extravagance, waste and reaction. The Liberals had the advantage of a united party, whereas the G.C.F. had recently to contend with treachery within its own ranks. The Liberals brought the members of the government, from Premier Pattullo down, and many other prominent members and leaders of their party into the fight in support of their can- didate. Moreover, they had settled their inner party differences and presented a solid front. On the eve of the election, Mr. Connell, whom the C.C.F. had made parliamentary House leader, struck a treacherous blow at the party that had trusted and honored him, by repudiating the provincial executive, which was elected democratically by the convention,, and indulged in Red-baiting, which was expressly condemned by the convention. Telford was also handicapped by lack of an adequate number of speakers and, with the exception of two issues of the Wederationist, was without a C.C.F. press, the Commonwealth having gone into the rebel canip. Neither Connell nor any of his C.C.F. supporters in the Hiouse supported Telford, thus objectively supporting the Liberal ecandi- date. Of the seven C.C.F. members of the provincial House, only - Harold Winch and Mrs. Dorothy Steeves addressed election cam- paign meetings. There is no doubt that had Connell, Price and company not stabbed their party in the back, the C.C.F. would have been successful in Burrard. The Liberals conducted a vile campaign. They sought to cover up their record by screaming about Communism in the style of Hitler and General Franco. They baited the voters of the con- stituency by handing $50,000 of public money to the J ubilee racket, and with promises ef more to come. ‘Falsehood, deception, base trickery and demagogy was the stock-in-trade of this party of the brewery interests, the exploiters and despoilers of the province, and the bankers. With all of these means of fooling and 1mpress- ing the yoters, they had their tail feathers badly singed and barely inched out a victory. As it is, the vote shows that whereas 47,405 voters supported the Pattullo government, there were 12,634 who voted against it. Considering the treachery of Connell and his group, together with other handicaps and disadvantages, the inereased strength shown by the C.C.F. in Burrard as compared to the last provincial election is 2 vindication of the more progressive position taken by the recent provincial election, and an endorsement of its provincial executive, and a condemnation of the Connells and Prices. It is a vindication of the policy of participation in the day-to-day struggle of the workers in unity with all other anti-capitalist organizations. Telford and the C.C.F. and their supporters can be congratu- lated on the fight they put up. The fact must be faced, however, that the two old capitalist parties with their means for corrupting the voters and beclouding real issues, are yet strong even when divided on the matter of getting votes. The C.C.F. as an indi- vidual membership party is limited in its appeal. It should be clear that in order to defeat the old line parties, what is needed is a broader-based party which will melude trade unions and all work- ing-class and progressive organizations—ain other words, a Harmer- Labor party- The bringing into being of such a broad party would not mean the destruction of the C.C.F. or any other progressive body. On the contrary, as the tremendous erowth of the Socialist Party of France shows, the C.C.F. by not trying to stand still, but ad- yancing to a federated basis, based on the trade unions, will grow and play a bigger role than that of merely an opposition group. The all-inclusive federated party is the need of the hour! Ship-owners Frame Earl King HE indictment of Earl King, secretary of the Marine Fire men, Oilers, Wipers and Wrater-tenders, and other members of that union, on murder charges, 1s a serious threat to labor. (See story on page one.) yen the evident aspects brand it as another “Tom Mooney” frame-up, where militant trade-unionists are to be persecuted and probably jailed for long terms on purely trumped up charges at the behest of the profit-znad shipping magnates. And when the background is surveyed, the calousness of the frame-up becomes revealed. The seamen’s and longshoremen’s unions of the U.S. Pacific Coast are operating under a yearly agreement based on the award of the arbitration board, following the 1934 strike. The em- ployers have indicated their desire to break the terms of the agree- ment, to cut wages and alter working conditions more to their liking. The agreement terminates this month, and negotiations are now about to start for the 1936 agreement. & The maritime workers face these negotiations with-a united, militant organization, composed of 40,000 union members 1m various crafts, welded together in the mighty Maritime Federation of the Pacific. The employers have on several occasions attempted to spbt the unity of the maritime workers, both by forcing premature struggles and by attempting to discredit the leaders. The answer of the workers to the attacks of the shipping barons has been to perfect their organization, to strenethen their ranks, so that today the employer realizes that he cannot put over his program of wage euts, speed-up etc., without first weakening the morale of the militant maritime workers. Other attacks on the leaders jailed, beaten by company thugs, ‘Anonymous threats against their lives have been received, and within the last few days, by Bridges and other leaders. All this has failed to turn them from their duty to the workers who elected them. Now, on the eve of the opening of the award, the employers have hit upon this plan to remove the leaders. The charge against King and his brother union members is a pure frame-up, engineered by the shipping barons, to break the morale of the workers and their leaders, and to confuse public opinion. It must not succeed! The economic power of the mari- time workers of the Pacifie Coast united and militant ean and will keep Earl King and his brother members out of the clutches of the shipping barons. There must be no more “Mooney cases” ! have failed. They have been shot at by hired assassins. The World This Week By F. B. With each week of the Spanish civil war the unity between the sec- tions of the people fighting to maintain the government is being cemented into an unbreakable whole. Their forces still hold San Sebastian, Bay of Biscay seaport, which the fascists have tried des- perately to capture, and farther south the fascists are no mearer capturing the capital city, Madrid, than they were at the beginning of the fighting. Fascists’ hopes for success in their uprising must have been based on their expectations that the sud- denness of their initial attacks would have so demoralized the People’s Front force that organized resistance would be impossible. But as history shows, the greatest deeds of heroism, the highest ex- amples of human fortitude, courage and resourcefulness, arise when the common people have been fight- ing to defend their rights. tas these qualities of the common peo- ple that in situations similar to that in Spain have always con- founded the most learned and ex— perienced military strategists and tacticians, who are reduced eventu- ally to impotence before the un- quenchable thirst for freedom of half-armed, poorly equipped men and women untrained in military science. As it is in Spain today, so it was in the Soviet Union, in Soviet Ghina, and so it will be in other parts of the world when the capitalists in their insane greed for profits attempt to turn back the march of human progress and force the producers back into the eondi- tion of Middle-Age serfdom that ex- ists in Italy and Germany. There is no unifying element in the ranks of the Fascist forces. Many of them are deluded workers who will learn sooner or later they are fighting against themselves, others are dyed-in-the-wool sup- porters of capitalism, hangers-on of the capitalist class, and some, like the Foreign Legion and the Moorish troops, are simply mercen- aries, who fight and murder for whoever pays them. Mutiny in the ranks of the Moorish regiments is reported to have broken out be- cause they were not receiving their pay. They defeated a force of white troops sent to quell the trouble and then set in and pillaged and looted the homes of rich landowners and churehes. Units of the Foreign Legion are reported to have re- belled againts the extra-hard dis- cipline of their officers and de- serted to the government side. These incidents give foundation for the opinion that the Fascist forces are disintegrating, and con- firm the contention that without the support of foreign capitalists the Spanish Fascists would have been routed in a week or two after the uprising began. As the possi- bility of the collapse of the Hasc- ists’ fighting forces increases, Mus- solini and Hitler correspondingly add to the huge support they have already supplied them, and send more airplanes, more munitions and arms, and more trained flyers and instructors. Britain, hyprocritically saying she will give aid to neither side, acts in a similar way. An old-fashioned loyalist de- stroyer was patrolling the entrance of the Fascist-controlled port of Melilla in Moroceo to see that no supplies were shipped to the Fasc- ists there. The British tanker “Gibelzerjon,” loaded to the bul- warks with gasoline, hove in sight headed for Melilla. But she was not alone; escorting her were the pattle-cruiser “Repulse’’ and four destroyers of the British Navy. The gasoline has probably been burnt up by this time in Fascist airplanes transporting Moors across the straits. * ee ae Claiming that they fear an at- tack from the Soviet Union the Wazis are taking steps to increase their military forces by doubling the term of military service. Ger- many appears to be on the verge of an economic collapse; she has about exhausted every scheme to rob the people to raise funds to pay for the expenditure of four billion dollars for war materials her budget calls for. The intro- duction of inflation of the currency, as a final measure to extract every Jast mark from the people, is al- ready hinted, but there is also the ; probability that the internal fin- ancial situation will compel Hitler to spring his surprise attacks |manoeuvres, war games and such ‘We are with you, heroic workers of Spain, attracted 120,000 Soviet workers to Moscow’s Red Square. in helping the Spanish People’s Front smash the Fascist rebel attack. > yeads this banner exhibited during a mass meeting which Soviet workers are joining toilers everywhere SHORT JABS By ~ OL’ BILL three There are types of human animals so low as i to call forth no jf thing but disgust from the decent- minded section of the race—pimps, stool-pigeons and hypocrites, and of” the three the hypocrite is the least — worthy of pity. Lo use the name of an animal like the skunk ora | reptile like the rattlesnake in de- scribing this tribe of mealymouths » is an insult to these lowly forms of life. the Depths. Sounding To be an outstanding member of ; a the Oxford Group—which in New ~ York a week ago allied itself with Witler and Mussolini in its pro- claimed attitude to Gommunism— | he Truth Behind By HARRY POLLITT (London) Large sections of the British press are devoting all their energies to- ward stirring up feeling against the Spanish people by means of the same atrocity stories that did such yeomen service against the Germans during the last imperialist war. These started with circumstantial stories of the burning of churches, wanton destruction of monasteries and convents. But returning eye- witnesses soon blew the gaff by pointing out that the Spanish fas- cists had been using such buildings as munition dumps and recon- naisance posts. Then followed a whole spate of fearsome details of nuns raped and then shot, buried and then exhumed for public exhibition; of priests and capitalists submitted to the most horrifying mediaeval torture; of women and children being driven in front of the government forces to act as a Shield against the fascist bullets. Even the terminology of the press has altered in describing events. Julian Huxley points’ out, in a let- ter in this week’s “New States= man,” how “Lhe Times,” which for four days described the Span- ish events with comparative objec- tivity, then altered the terms used to describe the respective forces So as to conceal the facts. The word rebel became “rebel,” the fascists became the forces of the Right, the anti-government forces. The government forces became overnight the Communists and the Reds. Typical is the following from the “Daily Telegraph,” of August 7, purporting to be the narrative of an Englishman from Barcelona: “Byery morning there is heavy firing between two and three a.m- This, L discovered, is the execution of the day’s capture of priests, nuns, fascists or obstinate factory owners. The firing lasts for at least an hour.” But the atrocity stories of “The Times” and “Telegraph’’ are as child’s play to those of the Rother- mere Press, which is fully living up to its reputation for indiscriminate sooner than he had planned. Wo country in the world has plans to attack Germany. Why should they? Germany has no colonies or anything else that other capi- talist nations would fight her for, put just like Japan, she is trying to hide her plan to attack the Soviet {UInion behind a slanderous claim that the Soviet Union wants to at- tack her. : In practically every capitalist country of Europe there is a stirring in military affairs, like. Those who plan to attack are manoeuvring for position; those who fear attack do not intend to be caught napping. Wext month the British Navy will put on a spectacular display of strength of force in the Mediterranean. It will be recalled that a few weeks before the war broke out in 1914 the British fleet was mobilizing in Worthern waters. Light and Power Co. Ltd. four million dollars, are our armed forces also. protest to Ottawa, demanding Recall the “Saguenay”! HE Canadian destroyer, Saguenay, is hovering oft the coast of Spain, sent there secretly by the Ottawa government. There is no pretence that she is there to protect Canadian lives, not even the lives of the reporters who have been slandering the Spanish people and their democratically elected government in the interests of the fascists and their Moorish mercenaries. But Sir Herbert Holt, E. R. Wood, Rt. Hon. Thomas White and Miller Lasb, K.C., all higher rankers in the list of Canada’s Fifty Big Shots, are heavily interested in Bareelona Traction, This corporation has a bonded indebtedness of around thirty- which indicates its magnitude. were steady under Alfonso, dropped when he fled, and have been eomine back under the Gil Robles resume. “Asked” price on Barcelona’s common stock in Toronto have this week dropped twenty per-cent below last year’s record low; bid prices are more than twenty per cent lower still. of course, is the poor progress of the fascist forces. of the People’s Government, owners fear, would mean their stock could only be used as basement wallpaper. So the Big Shots have issued their orders, and the Canadian navy scurries to carry them out. Now is the time gor the Canadian people to register a powertul ihe withdrawal of this clenched fist flung in the face of a friendly government, fighting for the best Canadian ideals against the darkest forces in histery. Dividends The reason, The triumph Where their treasure is, there The “Red Atrocites’ lying. Day after day, night after night, the “Daily Mail” and the “Eyening Wews”” pour out their poison until now thousands of their readers must genuinely believe that the foul fas cist conspiracy in Spain is a cru- sade for Christianity, and that it is the Reds who have started a civil war against peace-loving patriots: The “Mail” has told the story of 5,000 Bolsheviks en route from Mos- cow to fight for Spain; they were said to have been seen passing through Warsaw2!! Our readers will know that this is as true as the thousands of Russian soldiers who jJanded at Grimsby in 1915 on their way to France. The Spanish government is repre- sented as a Communist government; its aim is said to be the establish- ment of Soviets. All this is supplemented by the most fantastic and absurd atrocity stories that the mind of man has ever conceived. In actual fact the only authenti- cated atrocity stories have been of White terror which, in Spain as everywhere else, shows itself cap- able of the most sadistic excesses. The fascists have organized the most savage and cold-blooded terror in whatever part of Spain they have momentarily, got control. That the generals have ordered that no ‘‘Communist prisoners’’ are to be left alive is unchallenged— and when they use the word Com- munist they mean any and every supporter of the democratic Re- public, which is fighting for its ex- istence and not for the creation of Soviets. Even “The Times” reports that: “Three garrisons revolted in this region—Albacete, Chinchilla and Al- mansa. The insurgents quickly im- posed themselves. All and sundry were forced to say: ‘Arriba Espana’ or ‘Viva Espana.’ All persons notori- ously Left in politics were extermi- nated.” Sir Percival Phillips—like “The Times’’—can hardly be considered as friendly to the government forces, yet here is a picture from his pen: “Wascist courts-martial are being held in towns where the principal officials openly sided with the Communists. There was one yester- day at Huelva where the civil goyv- ernor, a lieutenant-colonel of the Civil Guards and a lieutenant of carabineers were shot.”’ Sir Percival quotes with evident approyal, even using the fascist propaganda term of “Communist” as descriptive of all those officers and others whose crime was that they honored the pledge of loyalty they had given to the government.” In the “News Chronicle’ of August 4 there is a report of a typically fascist action on the parr of General Franco. This noble dis- ciple of Hitler notified the loyal air- man, Lieutenant Fernandez, whose seaplane came down at Gibraltar, that unless he comes back to Spain and hands himself over to the fas- cist chief’s at La Linea, his mother and sister, who have been arrested, will be shot out of hand. The same report records a threat by the La Linea authorities that unless the strike which is paralyzing the district is ended, all priseners in the hands of the fascists will be shot. Then, again, there was the inter- view given by Don Alphonso, ex- Kine of Spain, in which he said: ‘Don’t think I am dreaming of an immediate return to Madrid. In my opinion only the extermination 6nce and for all of the Left Parties will put an end to this civil war, and will give Spain the peace so much desired by all the true Spani- ards, and if my country calls me I will be ready.” Philip Noel Baker, M.-P., in a let- ter to “The Times” on August 8, 1936, writes: “The f. is that immediately the present government came to power the f: ts began a campaign of terrorism and provocation of the most dangerous kind. “Amone the staff of a certain ser- vice in the army six officers (of whom one iS a personal friend of of August 6 mine) were open partisans of the Republican regime. Three ot the six had been murdered by fascists before General [Franco’s outbreak began.”’ Another letter to “The Times,” Aueust 8, 1936, written from Malaga, states: “T do not believe that any Brit- and use the lies of the kept press — in an argument against a political opponent draws one wonderously near to deserving that undesirable | appelation. i been in any except accidental dan- ser. What we do fear is the arrival of troops from Africa or the bomb- ing of the towns by airplanes.” The “horrors of the Spanish In- quisition in the Middle Ages are known to every schoolboy. The fas- cists have unleashed a new Span- ejuehiet Qur pinchbeck dictator spoke + over the air one night last week in | support of the Liberal candidate | ish Inquisition on 2 democratic peo- ple. he terroristic measures of fas- cism are a reversion to the Dark in Burrard and in brazen and stri- = dent tones stated, “We don’t want 80 little children taken out of schoo} The Spanish people have been | in the hands of Gommunists as hap- slowly and painfully building up pened in Spain a few days ago,” their power against qmonarchism, } No such thing ever happened in feudal backwardness and clerical- | Spain or eleswhere, and the man Ages. and shot down with machine guns ism. They have brought the light of education and knowledge into millions of homes, What atrocities haye been com- mitted have been done by the fas- cists, for mass atrocities, slaughter, individual assassination and terror- ism are an inseparable part of fas- cism. And what the fascists have done so far is as naught to what they who would make such a statement is either a blatant hypocrite or an. ignoramus. In either case he has no right to occupy a leading po- sition in the public life of a demo- cratic country. If he had told his audience that his fellow fascists proposed to mur der the children of the sailors, loyal to the Spanish government, accord= f : 3 5 i to their own broadcast, or that” will do if they should gain power. IDE: = u The events in Oviedo in 1934 were the peice and troopers of John D, Sa caynest that the fascists). of Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel & Iron Spain are no whit behind their col- Company, emptied’ coat on the jeacues of Italy in Germany. tents of the striking miners’ chil | But the greatest atrocity of all dren at Ludlow end shen set thens : has been the fact, that Italy and on fire—with the children inslge Germany have been allowed to arm he would be within the truth. But» and finance the fascists, and that none. of these people were Cony the National Government has also munists — they were spiritual mutually helped the Spanish fas- brothers of McGeer. cists. @r if he hed told his audience” If there is any hesitancy on the] that the City Council with its Ox part of the French government to|ford Group mayor, consistently take a firm stand alongside the} starved the children of the Van Spanish government, the main. rea- | couver unemployed, by withholding son is the attitude of the National] from them the food that is neces Government sary if they are to grow up to The fascists have got the support} manhood and womanhood; that of all the powers of darkness, of | when the fathers of a family o2 All the forces of fascism in the|small children appealed to the world today. Council in the name of Christian They have friends not only in the |-charity, not te throw him and hij Ghancelleries of Rome and Berlin, | kiddies out on the street and go but also in Downing Street and Fleet | the answer that it is a Communis) Street. These are powerful friends | plot—then he would not have laid to have. : : himself open to the charge of beinj The people in Britain who *»~ |a hypocrite, but with the line hi anxious to assist the Spanish people | and his Council does take, there i have not only the duty to expose | no alternative. the foul lies of the Tory press, to z collect money and send out medical While McGeer and his Oxforr supplies—and demand the suppres- Groupers are junketing and living sion of the lies of the Tory press. on the fat of the land at the Citys They have the duty to demand expense, there are little children in that the National Government shall | ‘is city who might be better off only recognize the legally consti- if they were mowed down by ma chine guns right now, than gf tuted Spanish government, and that it gives practical assistance to that through the hell that lies ahead 0 them, with TB, rickets ant eovernment by supplying it with all A anaemia, for many of them hay: things it needs—money, arms, Mu- nitions, airplanes and pilots—io en- not had a square meal for fiv sure a lasting victory over the dark | Yeats, Some of them never sine forces of fascism, which seek not | hey were born, not througn an only a victory in Spain, but to use fault of their parents, but throug the profit-greedy lust of the clas that victory as the prelude to bloody % military adventures all over Europe. | McGeer represents—the anti-Com munists. 2 9 = * - = Lewis’ Labor 2 D A ] Lawbreakers ag ig Ae ete ay ppea and ated against 4! Lawbreakers. the relief office who is retuset work on a project of any kind fo any reason whatever, goes out 0) the stem and attempts to par handle, he is immediately rushe to the bastile; if a group of une ployed workers make 2 demonstr: tion before the City Hall, they 4! ridden down by cossacks, clubbet gassed and jailed—they are preal ing the law. But if the B.C. Collectrie ru one-man street cars illegally du ing the rush hours, as they hal been doing for six or seyen yeal it can be fixed up by gettil “formal authority.”” It just wan a little discussion in the City Cou cil. Of course there will be no trout about this request. The B.C. GS lectric is very good at copying at thing worthwhile that they find other privately-owned compani and it has been whispered that some of these outfits a few w' placed electric ranges or other : pliances go a long way in help 4 recalcitrant alderman to make his mind. The cost could easily taken care of by the wages that ' street car men have been chea out of on the one-man Cars. But we don’t believe the B.C. ¢ lectric will stoop to such meth —not with the aldermen we havé this town. Qne thing we are sured of anyhow—the B.C. Col tric will remain easily the tf street car system in Vancouver To All Workers, Organ- ized and Unor- ganied There is today a most vital ques- tion confronting you. I refer to the organization of the workers in the mass-production industries, upon which organization of the workers in smaller industries and businesses must depend. What can a stronsly organized labor union do for its members? It can raise their wages, lessen their hours, and improve theic working conditions. It can be made an in- strument for expressing and secur- ing the social, political, and eco- nomic needs of its members. A mem- ber of a labor union is no longer wholly at the mercy of his em- ployer, of this topsy-turvy economic structure, or of some unforeseen blow of fate. He has a protection beyond that which his own efforts can afford him. Those who are in possession of such benefits must desire to retain them; those who lack them must yearn to attain them. To achieve such aims the unorganized workers must be organized, for it is my be- lief that the three million members of organized labor will not for many vears longer be able to withstand the continuous pressure of the masses of unorganized ‘workers. Moreover, we owe it to ourselves tu assist our brothers. Oreanization of the mass-produc- + =e & tion industries, followed by organ- In making the bt ization of all other industrial work- : ers, will mean a more stable eco- Confession that he would be nomic structure and a more demo- of Guilt. venged Trotsky eratie government. Tt may save us admitted his | from a catastrophic political up- guilt, his complicity im the cri heaval, which would surely cause for which Zinoviey and others I paid the penalty. Tf he had no ' nection with these assassins ~ should he desire to revenge th So even the cleverest criminals great suffering and might cause the loss of all our cherished liberties. I urge all the workers to do their ut- most to assist in this great en- ish subject who was content to keep —Daily Clarion. cool and remain neutral has ever themselves away! deavor.