Page Siz PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE EDITORIAL FEATURES tation Association, although initiated only a August 13, 183%. The People’s Advocate Published Weekly by the PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN. Room i0, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BS. Telephone: Trinity 2019 One Year ...-.----- $1.80 Half Year ....-.---- $1.00 Three Months ....- -50 Single Copy --.----- 05 = fem —amnits Y Ne (@) ea) re months as being on the side of the bondholders Canadian Boys in Spain Make All Checks Payable to: The People’s Advocate. Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Editorial Board. Send all Monies and Letters Pertain- fug to Advertising and Girculation to Business Mer. Vancouver, B.C., Friday, August 13, 1937 Labor's Awakening OT the least of the signs of the tames is the growing realization by the trade gnions that labor's hard-won rights can only be secured by organization on the political and economic fields alike. With both old-line parties in a state of Hux and reactionaries and progressives not yet dei- jnitely aligned, the Canadian political scene is nndergoing rapid change and development. Certainly, for all their pseudo-demoeratic plat- forms, the Conservatives offer no genuine guar antee to organized labor. The Liberals, with an ever-widening split in their ranks between reactionaries such as Hepburn and progressives like Croll, because of this very fact cannot be relied upon to follow a consistent policy even if adopted. And the GCE, so long as it elects men such as Angus MacInnis in federal and Pettipiece in municipal polities; so long as it claims to represent the trade unions while de- nying them representation as such and a voice in its affairs, is by no means a satisiactory spokesman for organized labor. This attitude of “you look after the eco- nomic kitchen and well attend to the political drawing room’ leaves the trade unions without any control over the CCE’s policies, although they are expected and asked to proyide the wherewithal to keep the CCE going. Labor has had ditticulty enough in ridding itself of opportunists within its own ranks and jt is tired of returning opportunists to legis- lative office because they have CCF endorsation. That is why it is goimg into politics in its own behalt. With politicians like Duplessis and Hepburn. threatening their basic rights the trade unions cannot afford to be represented by any but men of their own choosing. The time is ripe for the development of a powerful political labor movement based on the trade unions. In Ontario, the Labor Represen- short time ago by the trade unions, las made great strides, despite the short-sighted oppo- sition of right-wing CCF ers whose attitude, as stated by Herbert Arloff, CCE provincial secretary, is “to discourage its formation.” Organized labor elsewhere in Canada is watching Ontario very closely. In Vancouver there is also a strong sentiment among trade ymionists for independent political action. Pettipiece is neither a eredit to the CCE nor to organized labor, which, according to the CCF point of view, he also represents. Or- ganized labor, however, thinks differently and is awakening to the fact that, if it wants true representation, then it must choose for itself. £ Class Interests in City Council MAT G. G. McGeer might well be back in the saddle is the thought which must per- sistenly intrude itself on the mind of the average citizen. One could almost hear that harsh, metallic yoice when Mayor G. C. Miller used Gerry’s time-worn ruse and applied the label of ‘agitators’ to some 300 young fellows who want to live like normal begs instead of social castaways. The same dominéering note is detected im the mayor’s threat to prevent the democratic expression of a body of young people who wish to draw public attention to Republican Spain’s agony by picketing the oftice of Italy’s vice- consul here. And the McGeer brand of hypocrisy was used in an attempt to justify this threat when Miller opined that Canada is ‘neutral’ on the Spanish question and therefore the viee-consul should not be embarrassed. The Youth Committee to Aid Spain is tear- ing away the veil of lies and half-truths im the leatlets now being distributed. While the impossible is not expected by progressive people, there is need for a sharper cleavage in the city hall. Blected people must declare themselves one way or the other, and definite policies must be fought for. Those aldermen of the mayor’s kidney have certainly come into the open in the last two who maintain their strangle-hold on civie at fairs. What is the precise position of the three or rather two, CCF aldermen 4 Pettipiece has definitely branded himself as a tool of the bondholders and a mouthpiece of a relief-slashine proyincial government. Pettipiece, on his labor record alone, should never have been endorsed by the CGE. Hie is doing infinite harm to a movement that can quickly become a great force for progress. Aldermen Hurry and Gutteridge have the respect of the progressive movement but much more is expected of them. They can quickly show the difference hbe- tween socialist and capitalist aldermen by boldly going to the people, their organizations and trade unions, demanding that strong back- ing be given by them for progressive policies. A strone lead by the CCF aldermen at this time will attract wide support for better treat- ment for the unemployed, a better housing scheme, reduction im interest rates and maiy other questions that people will rally around. There is everything to be gained and nothing to lose by the pursuance of a bold, constructive program by the CCF aldermen with a depen- dence upon the common people by whom they were elected and to whom they should Q1ve stronger lead. No Union at Copper Mountain JT came as no surprise to see the Hndings of the “investigation” of the near-fatal accident in the Copper Mountain Mine. “Dust on the brakes of the cage hoist,” brought a guffaw from experienced miners who have travelled up and down in these cages for years. An eight-year shut-down of the Copper Mountain mine and the mad rush to reopen at the behest of the Japanese military machine which has contracted for every pound of cop- per taken out, gives a background to the broken legs and backs of miners now in hospital. Eyery miner knows of the Yapid erosion caused by copper, which will render impotent “fool-proof” safety devices under great strain, but it takes a union to see that regular imspee- tions of these devices are made—and thor- oughly. An open investigation is now needed. HE impact of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, composed of Canadians, fight- ing for Republican Spain, npon Canadian peo- ple is becoming more foes on. noticeable as time Scores of letters from Spain are read daily in BC and hundreds throughout the Dominion. Those fighting anti-Fascists have captured the imagination of industrial and professional workers and it is becoming increasingly evi- dent that first-hand information on the ereat struggle against international Fascism has strenethened the progressive forces in Canada. The work of the Friends of the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion, which is to strengthen the line of communication and ties should be sup- ported by all who wish the defeat of Fascism. Tt is around these living causes that people will rally. Practical support and personal can- yassing not only secures the immediate eb- jective—sending comforts to the boys—but it also moulds and influences public opinion on big political issues. Spanish aid committees that are springing up everywhere are drawing many people into the orbit of the anti-Fascist movement which needs greater strength to combat reactionary tendencies now evident. Get in touch with one of these committees and assist their all-important work. “We must no longer have a pacific concep- tion of peace.’—Iranz von Papen, Nazi leader. “The world has gone backward instead of forward in the last few years, but we are not going back and we can set an example to the wore = Mayon F. H. LaGuardia, New York July. : “Tt is an established principle that employees should have freedom to associate together tor all lawful purposes and have a basis tor collec- tive baredining with their employers.’—Ca- nadian Minister of Labor Norman Rogers. “No worker in this country can possibly buy er ride in one of your automobiles without visualizing the dark blotches made by the spilled blood of their fellowsvorkers.” —Pyest- dent Homer Martin, United Automobile Work- ers, ur an open letter to Henry ford. HARVEST TIME IN SPAIN By VALENTINE ACKLAND ORGHESTER, Eng. —I1 have just returned from the Writers’ Congress in Madrid, bringing back with me many stories, some of events I witnessed, some of things told me by other dele- gates. This, told by J ef Last, a Dutch writer who has been fighting with the Spanih army. since the beginning, is one of the best true stories of the war. The haryest in Spain is now ripe for cutting. Fields just be- hind the front line, fields even in Wo Man’s Land, are yellow with corn. The crop is not very well grown, but it does not need an agriculturalist to tell the fighting _men how urgent it is that this potential food should be gathered. Jef Last's battalion had been in the front line for about two months, not fighting actively all the time, but watching ceaselessly, qinder the terrific strain of anxiety, constant alertness, indescribable heat in this burning summer. The soldiers, many of them farm labor- ers, watched the corm ripen and ‘one day they called a meeting (Gn the Spanish Republican Army soldiers can call meetings and Inake their decisions known to their officers) and after some dis- cussion it was decided to reap the corm .in the fields just behind the jine. Volunteers (and no one failed to volunteer) went out with sickles and, in small parties, during their rest-hours, they cut the corn and managed to get it carried back to satety. All the time, of course, they were qnder fire and exposed to air bombardment, but—as if this had mot been enough—when that har- vest had been carried, the soldiers called another meeting, pointing out to their officers the corn be- tween them and the enemy—the corn-ftields of No Man's Land. After careful discussion it was arranged to send out small bodies of men to cut that corn, too. And nightly ihese harvesters went out, hand-cutting the corn that would feed them in the autumn. But in this adventure there was one immense difficulty — how to carry the corn? Then someone found the solu- tion. Hach Spanish soldier wears a lJarge blanket strapped around him; this is his bed or his coverlet or his extra coat according to need, for they fight ina mountain_ ous country where sometimes the night-chills can lay a man out with fever if he has not got some woolen material to wrap himself in. These blankets solved the dif- ficulty. The harvest was carried in great sacks made from the blankets and—working all their rest-hours—by night always and even sometimes by day, the sol- diers gathered all that harvest * without leaving any portion of the field to waste. China Confident Of Victory By GC. ¥. CHEN Former Secretary-General, Political Bureau of Kuomintang APANESE imperialists publicly declare, “We will not only dominate North China, but also teach the Chinese people a military lesson.” It means when Japan gives China a blow China should not return it; other- wise Japan will give more deadly blows. Japan regards herself as a wolf while she regards China as a sheep. The wolf bites the sheep and on top of that, the wolf ac- cuses the sheep of being the pro- voker and therefore must be se- verely punished. , Here is a brief history of Japan’s aggression in China during the Jast six years, and the determina- tion on the part of the Chinese people to resist that aggression. Since 1931, Japanese imperial- ism, using its so_called continent- al policy—which is, let the Chi- nese fight among themselves So Japan can conquer her without fighting—has seized Manchuria, Jehol, Northern Chahar, and East Hopei. Now, she is trying to take all of North China, to create a second puppet state. During the last six years, Japan succeeded in occupying one-fifth of the Chinese territory, and to enslave one-tenth of the Chinese people. She has taken away from China 80 per cent of her iron ore, 40 per cent of her best forests, and 40 per cent of her export trade. Now she has occupied Pei- ping and Tientsin, each with a population of over 4 million, and both centres of cultural, political and economic activities in Worth China. The Japanese bandits not only want to annex Chinese territory, but also to destroy the Chinese people as a nation. Judging from their darkest, most barbarous poli- cies adopted in regard to all parts of Manchuria, it is clear that they are acting not as human beings but as beasts. They have monopolized all large enterprises, mining, forestry, and railways in Manchuria. They con- fiscated land belonging to the Chi- nese without any compensation. By T. EWEN Bel," clone is your trade?” “A hard-rock miner.”’ “The stone-shed for you.” The stone-shed in Kingston Pen- itentiary is the punitive depart- ment of labor—hard as the stone itself. This Croatian immigrant worker must be taught a lk Tt is bad enough that Britishers like Tim Buck should subscribe to “foreign doctrines,” but when these foreigners come to Canada “to.spread subversive propaganda, well, we'll show them.” And so, Zom Cacic, being a hard-rock miner, a Croatian and a Communist, must go to the ‘stone-shed. Protesting against this They treat Chinese workers and toilers as slaves; when miners in Fushun coal mines went on strike, they were driven to a hilltop and mowed down with machine-guns. They compel the peasants to plant opium, and burn the Kaoliang erop within 7 miles along both sides of all highways in order to facilitate Japanese attack any time. In schools Japanese imperialism forbids teachers to relate stories about the ancient Chinese rulers and sages, to have the word “China” in any textbook, or to teach Ghinese history or geog- raphy, even climate. The ecurricu_ jum is based on the principle htat “Manchurians are allowed only to use their hand, but not their brains,’ and the students can not have any scientific training. A few hundred teachers, in- eluding the Chairman of the Edu- cation Department of Kirin prov- ince in Manchuria, because they had mentioned “China” by acci- dent, were buried alive by the Japanese. They bind the eaptured soldiers hand and foot and neck, compel them to kowtow before the Japa- nese flag, and then execute them by shooting. * d Paes Chinese people have never submitted to Japanese aggres- sion. In Manchuria, anti-Japanese volunteers have grown into a pow- erful united force of one hundred thousand. In Jehol, Chahar, and Eastern Hopei, Chinese people are also harrassing the rear of the Japanese army. The heroic resist- ance of the 29th army in Hopei adn the nation-wide movement to support it, further demonstrates the unconquerable determination of the Chinese people in order to drive Japanese out of China. Even the Nanking Government has taken a firmer stand than be- fore. The Chinese people welcome the militant declarations of Nan- lking’s government, at the same time they demand that the ov- ernment immediately act to moh- ilize the whole nation to fight Ja= pan. Had the Nanking govern- ment and Chiang Trai-shek carried out the demands of the Chinese persecution, Tom Cacic was de- prived of all his “sood time,” thrown in the ‘‘hole” and, hands high overheac shackled to the bars during working hours. “We'll show then.” Tt is a far ery from the rat-in- fested “hole” of Kingston Peni- tentiary to the Jarama front in Spain, yet a Canadian-Croauan hard-rock miner binds them to- gsether with his heart's blood. That democracy might live in $ throughout the world, this hard- rock miner has fought a magniti- cent fight on all fronts, and paid the surpreme sacrifice that his ideals might live. His name will live when those who persecuted people, Japanese forces in Hopei would have been wiped out. Unfortunately, Nanking hesi- tated to act in this critical mo- ment, despite its strong words. Consequently, Peiping and Tien- tsin fell. even Chiang Kai-shek has ad- mitted that this is due to his de- lay. in sending central troops to the front. But the battle is not ended for the Japanese are advancing on all fronts. If China continues to be patient and retreats, we will follow the rout to the terrible situation of the people in Manchuria, we will lose more of our territory and more of our sovereignty, we will only in- vite more attacks from the Jap- anese imperialists whose appetite grows as they swallow more Chin- ese territory. We will Jead our entire Chinese nation to extinction. > Alea heroic volunteers in Man_ eburia, Jehol, Chahar, and astern Hopei and anti-Japanese fighters of the 29th Army and other armies in the front will con- tinue to fight. The whole nation is demanding that Nanking fulfill its militant declaration by sending central troops to the North to recover Peiping and Tientsin, to reinforce the coastal defense, to grant dem- ocratic right to the people, to re- lease anti-Japanese patriots, to mibilize and arm all Chinese peo- ple, to resist Japanese invaders. I am glad to say the Lukouchia incident is different from Mukden incident Six years ago. The Chinese people is more united today than before. Today the Chinese Soviets and the Chin- ese Red Army stand out as the spearhead of an anti-Japanese movement and as a fortress of in- ternal peace. The Chinese people demand that Nanking ‘immediately co- operate with Chinese Communists. The co-operation between ISuom- intang and the Communist party is important in realizing the na- tional anti-Japanese front. Thou- sands of people in the Kuomin- > army favor this. The co- operation between juoemintans him shall be long forgotten. On the day they spirited him out of Kangston Penitentiary for safe delivery to the Wugo-Slay Fascist hangmen (so they hoped), they re- fused us even a Simple plea—to be permitted to shake hands with Tom Cacie in a last goodbye. The shame is theirs, and the honor ours, to have known the comrade- ship of this Canadian-Croatian; of- ficer of the International Brigade —this hard-rock miner. The steel that bound him’ to the bars in Kingston and tore his body in mortal wound on Jaramia are the same. His blood, watering the warm soil of Spain, will melt that steel into new fabrications; from and the Communist Party is the demand of the Chinese people. When the Chinese nation unites and fights, victory will finally be ours. * APANESE imperialism has torn J fo shreds all international law and agreements, particularly the Wine-Power Treaty and the Kel- lors Peace Pact, both sponsored by the United States. T hope that Canada, in its sym- pathy toward China’s liberation and in its desire to maintain world peace, will collaborate with all the interested powers along the Pacific for collective security, to stop Japan’s barbarous actions toward China, to apply political, economic and moral sanctions against the Japanese ageressors. T also hope the Canadian peo- ple will give every material help and moral encouragement to the Chinese people in their sacred struggle. I want to state, that we, the Ghinese people, abroad and at home, have unanimously asked the Nanking government and General Chiang Kai-shek to declare war jmmediately against Japan. In the yery near future the en- tire Chinese nation and its troops will rise up spontaneously to re- sist the Japanese invaders, to make them understand that the Chinese people cam meyer be con- quered. Before I close, I would like to make another remark. It is ob- vious that Japanese Fascist armies dare outrageously to invade China as a result of an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. If the German-Italian invasion of Spain has created an unprecedented erisis in Hurope today, undoubtedly Jap- anese militarist invasion of China will create an unprecedented erisis and chaos in the Far East and North and South America. We are fighting not only for China’s liberty, independence and progress, but against Fascist ag- gression and for world peace. If you, in the maintenance of world peace and the defeat of Fascist aggression, come out openly to help China in her struggle, then, I am confident that the ultimate victory will be ours. Tribute To Tom Cacic symbois of capitalist hate and Fascist destruction, to imst ruments of peace and human brotherhood. Well done, geod and faithful Comrade Cacic. You have fought 4a good fight and Kept the faith. Your example will heip us who re- main to carry on. With others, you have given a new lustre to Ganada—our Canada. The little star that we used to watch of an evening from the tiny window of our cells when time was draggine- heavy and philoso- phize on its progress and being, looks down upon another scene; the torn battlefield of a murderous Fascism. There also it finds you in an honored place. UNREST GROWS IN ITALY By M. ERCOLI BMARKABLE things : have been taking place for some time in the towns and villages of Italy. De- tachments of police, bands of Fascists, armed with clubs (as during the civil war and at the time of the Matteotti mur- der) rummage about everywhere, bursting into public places and private houses, searching every corner, threatening, terrorizing and thrashing everyone who falls into their hands. What do they want? What are they looking for? i In Genoa all public places where there are radio sets which could be used to listen in to sta_ tions other than the local ones have been raided and the sets smashed. In the evenings, groups of specialists set up special noise- creating apparatus around the town so as to drown the voice of the mysterious radio station—the radio station of the Communist party—which regularly, at a defin- ite hour every evening, broadcasts to hundreds of thousands of listen- ers that which the Italian people are seeking for; that for which they are hungering as for bread, and more than bread—the truth. The truth about what is taking place in Italy and throughout the world, the truth about the heroic struggle and the first victories of the Fascist invaders, the truth about the People’s Front in France, the truth about the Soviet Unicn. But the feverish activity of the Fascist authorities continues to be fruitless. Whispered from mouth to mouth, painted on the walls in indelible colors, passed on by every means from village to vil- lage, the call, the wave-length and the hour of transmission of the mysterious station are becoming known to hundreds of thousands of people, and every eyening new - thousands of listeners await im- patiently and listen ereedily to the new voice, the voice of truth. The mere fact that not merely do thousands of Communists and their sympathizers read the illegal Communist press, but that it has pecome possible for hundreds of thousands of Italians to compare the truth with the falsehoods which cram the official press, this fact alone is driving Mussolini and his general staff frantic and is something which the Fascist dictatorship cannot tolerate. Tt serves to show that the state of affairs in Italy is not all that which official articles and the speeches of the Fascists would like people to believe it is; that discontent is arising and develop- ing there, that unrest exists which is causing the Fascist leaders and their regime tremendous diffi- culties. Ose By OL’ BILL i Wazi newspapers Oe Nazi ._ finding their way into Froth. Canada show the re- : : action of the bloody regime in Germany towards the trials and executions of the trait- ors who have been unearthed by the workers of the Soviet Union— particularly, the shooting of the eight Benedict Arnolds who sold themselves and would have de-~ livered their country to Nazi Ger- many. The reaction of the Nazis may be summed up, as one big how! of indignation like that of a doe that has had a bone taken from him. The Soviet Union is referred ~ to as an inferno built upon blood, between which and Western Hu- rope stands an impassable gulf; that such a bloodthirsty regime cannot be considered by the peace- loving nations of Christendom in forming a new Locarno (to replace the ore destroyed by the Nazis). The gentle Nazi is squeamish and sees nothing in the Soviet Union but—Blood! Blood! Apparently it goes over the heads of these scoudrelly murder- ers who control and write for the Wazi press that the eight agents of Hitler and all the others who have been shot recently in the Soviet Union, have had the benefit of a trial, a fair trial, at which their guilt was firmly established and admitted. Would they have received aS much in Nazi Ger- many ? Ernst Theelmann has been rotting in a Nazi dungeon for four and a half years; no charges have been brought against him; he committed no crime; he did not try to sell his country to its enemies. Thosands of liberals, socialists and communists are inearcerated in the concentration camps which are the outstanding features of the German landscape today, for no crime whatever and without trial, for years. Hundreds haye been slaughtered on the headsman’s block, men like Rudolf Klaus, Edgar Andre, Al- bert Kaiser, whose only crime was that they organized the workers for the bettering of their working conditions. For this they were charged with “‘preparing to com= mit high treason.” And the bloody purge of June 30, 1934, when 150 of the leaders of the National Socialists, the Tep= resentatives of the petty pourgeois in the Nazi ranks, including von Schleicher, were murdered in the night by Hitlers Praetorian Guard, the Schutz Staffel, led by Hitler in person— without any charges preferred against them Or any trial granted. Yet these blood-bloated butchers ask civilized peoples to believe that theirs is a white and shining repime, advance agent of the Prince of Peace. And the tragedy of it is, that unless the anti-Pascist forces of the world prevent it, the ruling classes of the civilized na- tions will accept them at their own estimate. x oe * Occasionally the Definiticn somnolent atmos— phere of t he Of a Scab. Mouse of Repre- sentatives at Washington is dis- turbed by some recalcitrant or filibusterer, but probably nothing ever woke the sleepers up so much as the description of a scab that was hurled at the members, Demo- erat and Republican alike, who acted as agents in the House for Henry Ford, the Tin Lizzie king, and Girdler, the “big squeeze’’ of Republic Steel. After blistering the labor-bait— ing defenders of these two indus- trial parasites, Jerry ©’Connell, Democratic representative from Montana, defined the term “sca Be “A seab, I learned at my mother’s knee,” he said, “a scab, I learned from my striking father, wounded by a scab’s bullet and by company gunmen, was the lowest scum on the face of the earth, & scab is the Judas Iscariot of the labor movement, a scab is 4 Bene dict Arnold of the working peo- ple of this country. A scab, my friends, is a traitor to his own fellow workers, a scab is 4 be- trayer of those who trusted him, a scab is one who would steal the money and the job of the man who works beside him. A scab is the most despicable thing that ever lived on this earth.” e Truth some- An Advertising timestakes2 Stunt. long time te make itself known, sometimes it is apparent _immediately. Here isa case where it took about four months to get round. When Mussolini made his triumphal tour of Libya last spring, 2,000 Arab notables pre- sented him with a “Sword of Islam” as a token of his sover= eignty over all Muslims. The presentation was described in the Italian press as a “SpoD= taneous tribute’ by Muslims te their great and invincible jeader.’- Wow we learn there was nothing: Islamic or Oriental about the sword. The design was selected by the Fat Boy Goering from an album belonging to the Doorn woodchopper, ex-Kaiser Willie and” manufactured in Florence. Pp. T. Barnum or the guy that edits the “Buzzer” have nothing on Mussolini or Goering!