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Page Four

B.C. WOREERS’ NEWS

B.C. WorkKERS NEWS

Published Weekly by

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Telephone: Trinity 2019

One Year —. 1-80 Palteyeare = so U0
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Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Edoitorial Board.
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Vancouver, B.C., Thursday, December 31, 1936

1937 — Greetings!

HE B.C. WORKERS’? NEWS wishes to thank its readers

and many supporters who out of their scanty resources have

made the publication of the paper possible throughout 1936.

To them all, to the oppressed everywhere—especially the Span-
ish defenders of democracy and their international allies and
comrades-in-arms—and to the liberated and still advancing people
of the great Soviet Union we extend New Years greetings and
wishes for the happiness that the establishment of greater unity

against reaction and war in 1937 will bring.
Editorial Staff, B.C. Worker’s News.

More Non-Intervention

OW that the tide of the struggle in Spain has turned defin-

itely in favor of the government, and F Tanco’s mercenary
and fascist hordes are being hurled back beaten and broken, the
capitalist papers are showing their chagrin. While German and
Ttalian soldiers were pouring into Spain to help Franco and his
fellow traitors in their murderous drive on the Spanish people
and its elected government, these papers had not a word to say

against it.

Now that the Spanish people are being helped by the Inter-
national Brigades composed of defenders of democracy from
many countries and events are about to compel Mussolini and
Hitler to stop sending troops to Spain, the capitalist press sets
up a howl against men going from other countries to participate

in the struggle.

With characteristic duplicity and hypocrisy they say they are
opposed to men going to help ezther side. This, it will be observed,
is advocated only when the streams of foreign fascist support
are in danger of drying up. The old lie about the issue in Spain
being one of Fascism vs. Communism is again trotted out, and

with this as a premise they go on to say that such being the case,

there is no sense in helping either side because the only alterna-
tives for the Spanish people are dictatorships, either Fascist or

Communist, and that the one is as bad as the other.

With this false reasoning goes the assertion that the struggle
in Spain is a domestic quarrel. Even politically ignorant edi-
torial prostitutes of capitalism know all this to be false.

Insofar as the struggle over forms of government is con-
cerned the conflict is not between Fascism and Communism but
between Fascism and Democracy. But the war in Spain is in
no sense a civil war. It is a war launched, after many months’
preparation, by German and Italian fascism, using as its tool
Spanish traitors to the government they had sworn to defend.

With their home economy breaking down, their populations
facing starvation, Germany and Italy seek a way out by securing
colonies. Using the Spanish traitors, they are seeking to make
Spain a fascist colony and at the same time strengthen their
positions in Europe. A fascist victory in Spain would spread
the fascist scourge and endanger the people of democratic
France and other countries, including Canada.

The people of Canada have every right—and it is their duty
to render all possible aid to the Spanish people, for the cause
for which they are fighting is the cause of all freedom-loving: peo-
ple in the world.

Trotskyists Discrediting the C.C.F.

N another page there appears a letter from A. Jordan, of
Nanaimo, in which he protests against a G.C.F. opponent

of unity there writing for The ederationist in the name of the
©.C.F. Jordon, with a lifetime of struggle in the militant work
ing-class moyement, is a strong adyoeate of the united front of
all working-class and progressive organizations, including the
Communist Party, in the present menacing situation.

Jordan knows whereof he speaks. He saw the value ot the
united front of the C.C.F. and the Communist Party in his own
djstrict. He saw experience prove the sincerity of the Commun-
ists in the united front struggle against starvation and reaction,
against the ghost towns ereated by a ruthless corporation, and
against the predatory utilities corporation. :

Moreover, he knows, as every person 1 the Nanaimo district
knows, that the election of Taylor, C.C.F. eandidate, in the last
federal election was made possible and was due largely to that

_tnited front.

‘And yet there are those in the C.C.F. who persistently seek
to destroy that united front which in life itself proved its worth,
as well as throw every possible obstacle in the way of its ex-
tension and further deyelopment.

Many of these people are sincere and are moved to their op-
position to unity out of fear that the united front or the forma-
¢ion of a farmer-labor-progressive party or bloc inchiding the
C.C.F. against encroaching reaction would impair or eyen en-
gulf and destroy the C.C.¥'.—a eroundless even if real fear.

But the worst inspirers and promoters of such opposition are
those who compose as ruthless, as anti-working-class and as
eounter-revolutionary a2 group as ever poisoned and disrupted a
labor organization. And these are the Trotskyists who, ever since
their counter-revolutionary leader and his colleagues were eX-
posed in the Moscow trials as assassins in league with Hitler and
his bloody Gestapo, try to hide the fact that they are Trotslyists.

Before the Moscow trials’ exposures of the Trotskyists, they
were blatantly proclaiming themselves as his followers. Some of

them, those who were misled by the ultra-revolutionary left writ- |

ings and fake Marxism-Leninism of Trotsky and his followers,
have had theix eyes opened and have renounced him and_all he
stands for. The rest, the dyed-in-the-wool ones, no longer able
to face the contempt of all decent people if they openly pro-
elaimed themselves Trotskyists,
the Moscow Centre and cover up their connections and purposes,
worm themselves into working-class organizations and there carry
on their nefarious anti-working class worl. ;

They entered the Socialist Party of the U.S. and almost
wrecked it. They did the same in the I.L.P. in Great Britain.
And they have entered the C.C.F. to use it as a base from which
to hurl slanders at the Communist Party and sabotage the build-
ing of a People’s Front against reaction and war. And like their
eounter-revolutionary master they cover up their antiavorkine-
elass work with “left?? revolutionary claptrap. eer S

A prominent leader of the LL.P. of Great Britain, Fenner
Brockaway. who at one time permitted himself to be lured by
the sien sone of the ultra-revolutionary Trotskyists, found
through experience what their real role and function was and is
today. Writing in the Vew Leader (London), he said:

“<The Trotskyists are everywhere a source of mis-
chief in the working-class movement. They destroy and
do not build. They remain eonspiratorial cliques in what-
ever party they attach themselves to, disintegrating it,
making it less effective in the class struggle, antagoniz-
ing other sections of the working-class. Even in the midst
of the crisis in Spain, that is the effect of their influ-
ence there at this moment.”

And that is the effect of their influence in the C.C.F. On

follow the advice Trotsky gave |

|Book Review|

“A WORLD I NEVER MADE”
By James T. Farrell.

This is one of the foremost Amer-
jean books of 1936. The setting is
in Chieago and the time a genera-
tion ago. It has no plot or thrill-
ing climax; the story consists of the
lives of the characters during 2a
period of less than one year.

Farrell has given very little
space to descriptive writing, the
impressions he wishes to convey to
the Treader are created through the
medium of the conversations of the
various characters. He has such an
unusual talent for dialogue that no
deseription of the characters is
necessary, the reader visualizes
them as he reads. Apparently Far-
rell has chosen his figures, turned
them loose and then followed them
around listening to what they talk
about and then writing it down.

Another unusual feature is the
frank lansuage. Opinion of the
book will be sharply divided because
of it. many will condemn it because
it is not “nice’’ or because it is
“too vulgar.”” But it must be rec-
ognized that as larrell did not make
the world he writes about, neither
did he invent the foul language in
which people give vent to their
feelings,

Al O'Flaherty, a smug travelling
salesman, lives with his mother and
Sister Margaret. The mother is il-
literate and fond of beer, and Mar-
garet is somewhat of a woman of
the world. She has a clerical job,
and in her spare time consorts with
several gentlemen friends of means.
The other sister in the family is
married to Jim O'Neill, the only ad-
mirable character in the book. He
is a teamster, hard-working and in-
stinctively class-conscious. They
have six children, but unfortunate-
ly Liz is altogether sluttish, too
lazy to wash her own face, let alone
look after the kids. Jim swears off
drink when their last child is born,
but instead of using the money
Saved by his self-denial to make
the home more liveable, Liz runs to
one church to have high masses said
for her dead parents, to another to
buy holy medals and to still an-
other for a particularly potent
brand of holy water. Jim is highly
resentiul when their relations take
a couple of the children to raise to
relieve the Situation; he is terribly
afraid they will be brought up
“dam dudes.”’ |
The story ends with a Christmas
tree at Al’s apartment, with he and
Margaret and the old mother utter-
ing their usual insincere banalities.
It is one of the most human stories
met With in a long time, and even
if Farrell does not say plainly that
conditions that produce such lives
Should and must be changed, it is
impossible te read the book with-
out being imbued with a desire be-
ing created to do something about
it. If this is Farrell’s purpose in
writing the book he has been very
successful.

(On sale at the New
Store; price $2.50.)—T.M.

PRAYER FOR 1937

Wineteen hundred thirty-six

Has left us in an awful fix;

And so, Omnipotent in heaven,
We pray for cure in “thirty-seven.

Age Book

We plead that we will not be cursed

With blurbs from William Randolph
Hearst

Hor ever bigger and better navies

And cinemas with Marion Davies.

We hate to hear Herr Hitler utter:
“Noble Nazis, eat less butter;

Do not fear for malnutrition—
We need arms and ammunition.”

All-knowing One who regulates
The fate of mice and men and states,
Be kinder in the coming year
And make these worries disappear.
—John Paine.

Note on saving Christianity in
Spain: Fascist planes, in a Christ-
mas Eve raid, killed and wounded
many Madrid worshipers who
were on their way te 2 mass in
praise of Christ’s birth. :

Buy at one grocery store, and no
bargain hunting, Hitler warns Ger-
man women. It may be just a
hunch, but we think Handsome
Adolph is headed for complications.

NOTICE

Will all those desiring
extra copies of our special
six-page issue of the B.C.
Workers’ News on January:
15 ‘send in their orders
without delay so that the
management will know the
approximate number to
have printed. Orders com-
ing in to the office too late
may not be filled.

Negroes In Soviet Deep South

Descendants of African slaves brought to worit on tobacco plantations of the Caucasus 300 years
ago by Turkish feudal lords, the families of these children today belong to an Abkhazian pollective
farm, where they live and work with white families on a basis of equality.

Split

By a clever’ maneuvre aimed at
raising factional controversies
within the ranks ef the strikers,
and making the issue not one of
the merits or demerits of the pro-
posals of either side, but one of
“CGommunistie” leadership, the ship-
owners have again managed to de-
lay a settlement of the US: Coast
Maritime strike*

When the unions of the Maritime
Federation of the Pacific decided
on the strike call for October 30
last, it was done so after a vote
of the entire membership of the
unions, and only a referendum bal-
lot of the unions can call off the
strike.

It was also decided that no single
union would vote to accept or re-
ject any tentative agreement ar-
rived at by a single union, until all
eroups had reached a tentative
agreement, and balloting would
take place simultaneously. This was
to prevent the possibility of any
single local being jockeyed into the
position of having reached a settle-
ment and prevented from return-
ing to work because of another
local. The weakening effect such a
situation would have on the strike
generally, and the wealth of ad-
verse propaganda the shipowners
would be able to build around such
a situation was evident.

It had happened before, and the
maritime unions did not intend to
fall into the same trap again.

However, the shipowners, unable
to weaken the ranks of the work-
ers by any other method, reverted
again to the old trick.

Recently at a meeting in San
Francisco the shipowners concocted
a plan to undermine the leadership
of the strike. They divided the
striking forces into two camps: the
supporters of Harry Bridges, long-
shore leader, in the one, and those

of Harry Lundberg, of the sailors’
union, in the other. Their first at-
tack was to be directed against the
most formidable enemy, the Bridges
forces, for which attack they would
enlist the Lundberg forces. Once
successful in their first drive their
attack would then be directed on
the Lundberg forces.
The Plan in Operation

For weeks, negotiations between
the shipowners and the Sailors’
Union had gotten nowhere. The
shipowners were reluctant to rec-
ognize the Seamen’s hiring halls,
and the Sailors were determined
that the old unfair and vicious sys-
tem of hiring. seamen must end.
The longshoremen had union hiring
halls, and without negotiations
nearly all the shipowners had noti-
fied the longshore unions in writ-
ing of their willingness to grant
the new demands.

But the employers would not
deal with the sailors.

However, following the Frisco
meeting, Lundberg was called in
as a lone negotiator for the Sailors,
and immediately the capitalist
press changed its publicity attitude
towards the sailors and their leader,
Lundberg, and in glaring headlines,
announced that the end of the
strike was near.

Following continuous negotiations
for two or three days, during which

not had the

united front.

struggle for fascism.

ranks and take

© Ce to rian:

more than one oceasion this paper has warned the C.C.F. of the
danger of its harboring members of this breed who already haye
wormed themselves into positions of influence. The C.C.F. has
experience that the Communist Party has had in
dealing with such people. Whilst the Communist Party is the lead-
ing promoter ot ihe united front. it has never agreed and never
will aeree that connter-revolutionary elements be taken into any

The Communist Party cleaned these political degenerates
out of its ranks. So did Communist parties of other countries.
In Germany the expelled Trotskyist, Reese, is now the chief
radio propagandist for Hitler and his
chief lieutenant in France, is now head of a Fascist party making
war on the Popular Front government and
Col. de la Roque and the hig finance-indusirialists 10

Nazis, and Doriot, Trotsky’s

otherwise servine
their

Tt is better that they be driven ont in the open where they
will appear in their true colors than that they be kept in the
bosom of a labor organization. And the C.C.F. would do well to
cease being so naive toward the masked Trotskyists within its
steps to eliminate them before they bring the

Shipowners Clever Trick To
The Maritime Federation

< time the shipowners and their press
proclaimed that the strike was
nearly over, a tentative agreement
reached with the Sailors, and the
sailors were preparing to vote on
acceptance of the agreement, but—
sensing the manoeuvre of the ship-
owners to have the sailors vote a
settlement before the other unions
had even been called into negotia-
tions, Local 38-79 Ti.A. San Fran-
francisco, prevailed upon the Sail-
ors to withhold balloting until the
other unions had reached a tenta-

sive agreement.

The publicity of the Hearst
press that the strike was nearly
over had its disastrous effect. East
coast longshoremen, to whom Harry
Bridges was then persnnally ap-
pealine for support, asked why they
should strike in support of a stmke
that was nearly settled. “Trade
unions and other bodies who were
actively raising financial support
for the strikers saw no need of
further support.

The Hearst press, which up to
then had blackened the sailors and
their leaders, now eulogized Lunde-
berg. The sailors themselves, un-
warily fell into the trap, and the of-
ficial organ of the maritime work-
ers, the Woice of the Federation,
which was under the control of the
Lundeberg forees, took up the cry
of the Hearst press that the strike
was nearly over. It was actually a
Situation when the shipowners, the
Hearst press and the Sailors’ Union
Were in a united front to split the
rank of the strikers. It was a trap
into which the sailors’ negotiator

' would

had walked.

The strike was no nearer ended
than before the sailors entered nego-
tiations. The cooks and stewards
were deadlocked on the eight-hour
day; the masters and mates were
deadlocked on the question of pref—
erential hiring.

The longshoremen had not yet
entered negotiations.

But the trap into which the
Sailors? Union had fallen, gave the
shipowners the lead they had
maneuvered to gain.

They turned the issue from that
of the demands of the unions into
that of the ‘‘red’’ bogey.

Full page ads. in the MHearst
press throughout the length of the
coast blazed the name of Harry
Bridges as the man who was hold-
ing up a settlement of the strike.
They painted a picture of Commu-
nist control of the waterfront
unions, and tried to drive a wedge
between the sailors and longshore-
men.

But the trick did not work. Any
gains the shipowners made tempor-
arily were soon wiped out. A reali-
zation of what the shipowners were
maneuvering for, spurred the union
publicity forces into greater acti-
vity. The sailors refused to ballot
on the tentative agreement. The
masters and mates refused to be
kidded along any further, and in
Tuesday's negotiations notified the
shipowners that they would not bar-
gain further on whether or not they
demand preferential hiring
as they are adamant in their de-
mand for it.—G. H.

BRIDGES:

THE MAN

By JOHN MELDON.

It’s no accident
ing the news in
are men leading the vitally alive
progressive union movements. Next
to the name of John L. Lewis, Harry
Bridges is perhaps the most talked
of union leader in America today.

At least a score of well known
writers have, at one time or an-
other, interviewed Harry Bridges,
or written about him and his ac-
tivities as a leader of the marine
unions on the Pacific Coast. It’s
interesting tc note that almost with-
out exception, the writers (Mot all
sympathetic to labor) speak of
Bridges as an Unassuming, quiet
sort of a chap.

Some who taiked to Bridges for
their papers or magazines came
away surprised and a little baffled
at the man.

In a recent story in the New York
Times, Bridges was referred to as
a man lacking the usual colorful
personality expected of a nationally
famous person.

It may suprise a lot of people who
have received such an impression of
Bridges to hear that he almost
the opposite sort of a person.

Professional writers. for the most
part, are used to interviewing lead-
ine lights of the capitalist world—
who quite often are one part real
and three parts pretensions. “Front”
and affectation

that names mak-
labor these days

is

are the stock in
trade of such people. They ooze
“personality” and affect habits
“above the crowd.” They'll do any-
thine for publicity, from conduct-
ing a forty-eight hour filibuster on
cooking in Congress, a la Huey
Long, pretending to be bored-with-

it-all like Garbo; or shrieking blood-
thirsty threats over the radio while

wearins the collar of a priest. These
people, most writers will tell you,
are “eoloriul.’ or perhaps even
“prilliant.’’

Tt all depends on how you look
at it. .

Man ot Keen Mind.

Harry Bridges is a worker. He’s
been a worker all his thirty-six
True—he’s quiet—simply be-

he has no need to brag.

like any true workins-class
is not concerned with him-

leader,
self—his thoughts, actions and con-

cerns are motivated by the desires
and needs of his class, of scores of
thousands of exploited werkers.

A mere perusal of his victories in
the hard-boiled conference rooms
over ruthless shipping magnates
answers the question as to his
capability—and even his brilliance.

His mind is alert and sharp as a
whip.
His leadership in the lone fight

to oust the company-controlled of-
ficials of the maritime unions along
the Pacific testifies to his capal
bilities. His unyielding iron-—like
will, in the face of a bloody terror
during the 1934 Wrisco-General
Strike in which he became a lving
personification of the unity of the
working class—testifies further to

his ‘“‘personality,"’ which the capi-
talist press has dubbed as “‘color-
Jess.’”

Bridges has a tendency to freeze
up and become close-lipped when
surrounded by reporters. Not that
he’s hostile—he's definitely not. But
he had some bitter experiences the
past few years with the capitalist
press. and consequently is cautious
when being interviewed.

Among workers, Bridges feels at
ease. The sharp steely eyes the
ship owners have often seen when

dealing with
blue twinkling
clipped stacatto

him become

with humor.
speech. heard so
often at tense strike meetings re-
verts to a colorful flow of conver-
Sation, replete with phrases of the
waterfront and tinged with a soit
Australian drawl. He talks eagerly,
and a listener can note a vein of

warm
His

oom
By 4
OL’ BILL i
4 All doubts as to how af
nother Communism is to be +
Wise Bird. dealt with are now t
settled. However, some disputes ik

may arise as to whether Leacock = =~
was dealing with the subject as am 4
economist or a5 2 humorist. Stephen i
Leacock, MecGill’s clown professor +
of political economy, is one of those %
dual role, Jekyll and Hyde per
sonalities who flit across the stage
of history at rare intervals. He fe

is, or tries to be, an economist and \3
a humorist at the same time; a sort is
of jack-oftwo-trades. Like other= J

who try to sit on two stools, he suc- ‘
ceeds in sitting on neither. People {
who know anything of political
economy believe him to be a great
humorist and humorists agree
about his monumental worth as an
economist.

These judgments are both faulty
In his humorous writings what is.
original is not good, being of the
slapstick variety, and what is good 6)
is not original, some of it being older E
than sin as it undoubtedly passed a
between Adam and
garden before the Snake made his.
untimely advent.

Eve in the

= « *

}

i
When he told the Ca-— +
Gun nadian Club guzzlers. f
Wanted! jast week that a ‘shot |
gun is the only answer to Commun— |
ism,” we are hard put to know |
whether he was talking as a humor—
ist or aS an economist, but since |
it sounds funny, we presume he was HT

appearing in the role of economics.
professor. -

These words may be the Swal- = /
song of the clown-professor, of him /
who admitted his inability to solve i
the “riddle of social justice.” Had a
he advanced any good reasons why, 4
in a country where 47 per cent of £
the applicants for the army are re—
jected as unfit, milk that sells for
7 pence per quart for human con—
sumption, should be sold at 5 pence
a gallon when it is to be made inte
buttons, he might have had some
justification for discussing ©om-
munism. This was not in the Soviet
Union where they have a “low stan=
dard of living’ because they don’t
eat pie, but in the heart of our
glorious Hempire, Inngland, where
they HAVE a2 high standard of
living (fish and chips, pigs feet,
sheeps trotters, tripe and onions,
ete.)

Since Leacock has decided for the.
shotgun solution, we are willing
to lend him a gun, provided he goes
out in the woods to blow his head
off so as not to leave a dirty mess
in some hotel room for some useful
members Of society to clean up-

* = * *

The True

While the gang of |"
neurotics, dope -ad-
Germany. dicts and Sex-per-

yerts under Hitler, is attempting to
destroy every vestige of democracy :
and advanced liberal thought in |
Germany; while everything that
might be considered a monument
to Socialism or to German culture
with which Jewish names have been
connected, is being ruthlessly up-
rooted; while Ernst Thaelmann has
jain rotting in a Nazi dungeon for
four years without a trial, the true
spirit of the German people is be-
ing expressed on the battlefields
of the Iberian Peninsula where the
Thaelmann Battalion is hacking at

gangsters shoot without trial brave:
German workers caught collecting: A
funds for the support of the
struggle against fascism in Spain,
but on the war-torn Catalonian
plains and the invincible trenches
before Madrid, the iron battalion
of the real Germany—trade union—
ist, Social Democrat and Communist
exiles, victims of the Nazi brown

the roots of the Upas tree of “te
fascism. oe
In der Faderland, the Nazi 4

plague—singing the strains of the
“Internationale,” is meeting and
defeating the invading hordes of
Hitler's military machine, notwith—
standing their German-made planes,
bombs and guns.

Here in Spain these courageous
German workers have developed
the united front to its highest de-
gree, helping the Spanish people in
their struggle against fascism and
at the same time delivering decisive
hammer-blows at their own Naz
oppressors in the person of the mer—
cenary, unprincipled German in-
vaders of Spain. Not for “raw ma—
terials,’ not for loot do they fight,
but for the salvation of the race =

to pan

pride in his voice when he discusses

the martime unions of the West
Coast,
Bridges is the idol of organized

labor along the entire Pacific Coast.
Fruit packers inland swhen asked
by organizers to join a union, have
asked for a

ecard in ‘“Bridges’
union.’ Paper box makers have be-
come unionized because they first

insisted on being organized under
the Maritime Federation of the
| Pacific, led by Bridges. Tater the
| Pederation transferred them to their
| own unions.

| These things
| Bridges —and

typify the man
the fifty thousand
\raarine workers who stand by him,
| shoulder to Shoulder in the common
struggle.
Bridges is a brilliant fighting
union leader—a forerunner of scores
of other Bridges who are today com-
ine into leadership in a dozen basic
industries of this country. :

BRIDGES EXONERATED
coroner's jury decided after an in-
quest today that the death of Joseph
Miranda. eight-year-old bicyclist, in
a head-on collision with an automo-
bile driven by Harry Bridges, West
Coast labor leader, was “accidental
and unayoidable.””

from the criminal hordes of capi-
talism!
= * >

When Gen. Miguel

Clean Cabanellas, president of
-4= 9 the self-appointed Bur-
Eolbics2= s junta, declared that
“Spain will be governed in a fashion
which will make it impossible for
power eyer to fall into the hands
of dirty politicians, free-masons,
Jews and similar parasites on hu-
man society,’ he must have beer
thinking of the Roman Catholic
dominated Tammany MHail, the
worst expression of political vice
in any so-called democratic country.

So rotten is this grafting plunder—
bund, run by the same type of peo-
ple as Gabanellas, that Catholic
workers raise their veices in pro=
test against its corruption and
political skullduggery. One of them,

| Donald Powell, writing in a re-
cent number of “The Catholic
Worker,” says:

“Between Stalm and the
Crocker attitude towards politics,
I have a vast and unholy prefer-
ence for Stalin. Gladly would f
hire him to inculcate some ele-
mentary principles into the boys
of Tammany Hall’