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PHE PHEORLE’S

ADVOCATE

June 3, 193f

THE PEOPLE’S
ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the
PROLETARIAN
PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

Room 10, 163 W. Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C., Phone, Trin. 2019

(Oyrtyy Ves he gern AG ea aOR ao Soe $1.80
Bialf “Mear 2 ses eS Se eee $1.00
mMnree Months oes cicitoel aie = -50
mincie) COpy, nee teas oe eee -05

Make All Cheques Payable to:
The People’s Advocate

ERIDAY, JUNE, 3, 1937

Holding The Fort

T WOULD seem that re-
actionary preservers of
“Jor -n - order” are quite
peeved because the “sit-
downers” in the post office
and art gallery are orderly,
tidy, and careful of property.

Were they otherwise, or if
they were less vigilant against
proyvocateurs, the  much-
sought-for excuse for forcibly
evicting the sit-downers
would be provided.

Feelers have been thrown
out, however, to find other ex-
euses. The attempt to work
up a scare over the possibility
of “communicable diseases”
in the ranks of the men was
such an effort. But again the
alertness of the men defeated
the scheme.

At Ottawa the government
is being shaken out of its
complacency and a move in
the direction of road building
has been made. Opposition
leader Bennett, he of the heel
of iron turned to clay, is
again bellowing for the use of
force against the men. Ap-
parently he wants King to
give the boys a blood bath
such as he, Bennett, gave
them in Regina in 1935.

Try as they may, the sov-
ernments and the interests
they serve cannot evade the
issue: Peaceful, industrious,
capable workers demanding
the right to live, and willing to
perform useful and much-
needed work for that inalien-
able right.

It is the rightful demand of
the men that the people of
Vancouver recognize, and

this explains the tremendous

and growing public support
they are receiving.

This Is Not True
Catholicism

i RCHBISHOP DUKE was

not speaking for a ma-
jority of Catholics in Vancou-
ver when he went out of his
way to condemn the single
unemployed men who are
calling attention of the public
to their plight by their pres-
ence in the post office and art
gallery.

His efforts to sow dissen-
sion and cause confusion by
conjuring up a red bogey is
redolent of the actions of the
small cliques of higher clergy

which supported Hitler in
Germany and Franco in
Spain, thereby putting the

material interests of reaction-
ary capitalists and landlords
those of the

above even

church as an institution. The
Catholics of Germany and
Spain, imprisoned and de-

prived of civil and religious
liberties in the one and blown
to bits by bombs in the other
country, have little to thank
the reactionary section of
their hierarchy for.

And neither have the
Catholic boys in the ranks of
the men in the post office and
art gallery anything for which
to be grateful to Archbishop
Duke. When in their ex-
tremity they ask for bread he
gives them a stone from re-
action, and when they ask for
fish he produces a serpent in
the form of an attack upon
their leadership.

Weither is Rev. Andrew
Roddan rendering assistance
to the boys by joining Mayor
Miller and Hon. George Pear-
son in their bawlings for the
men to submit to deportation
from British Columbia to the
inhospitable steppes of Sas-
katchewan where there are
even more on relief than in
BC. No matter how sympa-
thetic Rev. Andrew Roddan
may be toward the homeless,

jobless men, he should not
line up on policy with the
forces which have toyed with
the problem of unemploy-
ment for eight years. He
should be guided by the coun-—
sel of the men’s tried and true
leaders.

Despite two or three clergy-
men having gone against the
men, the overwhelmins body
ef Vancouver clergymen are
bravely loyal to the cause for
which the single unemployed
men are enduring so much
and displaying such  ex-
emplary discipline and re-
straint.

Fascism Can Be
Beaten!

MONTH ago there was a
wave of sloom and pes-
Simism over the HEuropean
situation. When Franco’s
troops reached the Mediter-
ranean, just as Hitler was go-
ing into Austria, many people
threw up their hands in des-

pair and repeated the pro- .

fascist ery that “Fascism is
inevitable!”

How wrong they were has
been shown by later develop-
ments. Franco’s successes in
that drive have served to
stimulate and unite the
Spanish people behind their
government as they have
never been united before.
European observers are now
writing that Franco is aware
that he will be fighting a year
from now in spite of all the
help Mussolini and Hitler are
givins. This statement is cor-
rect, and if they were to say
that Franco can never win
over the Spanish people they
would be stating only the
truth.

Following upon his con-
quest of Austria, Hitler tried
the same tactics in Czecho-
Slovakia. But this time they
did not work. He encountered
a severe set-back in his latest
step, because the Czech peo-
ple were not alone. They had
prepared for such a conting-
eney years before by uniting
with France and the Soviet
Union in a mutual assistance
pact, whereby each promised
to go tq the other’s assistance
if invaded by a hostile power.
It was this pact, which both
France and the Soviet Union
gave Hitler to understand
they would adhere to, that
ealled his blui and made him
back down.

Chamberlain’s -government
hastened to cash in on the
event and claimed that it had
influenced Hitler to retreat.
This, of course, was a lie, as
Britain’s whole policy has
been pro-fascist and one of
encouragement for Hitler to
expand in an easterly direc-
tion. In trying to save his
face Chamberlain is only
making it blacker. If he really
were interested in avoiding
war he would have united
with the other democratic
powers long ago and prevent-
ed both Mussolini and Hitler
from becoming powerful
enough to menace world de-
mocracy.

The other member of the
fascist trio, Japan, is likewise
having difficulties in her
plans of aggsrandizement.
Having bitten off more than
she can chew, Japan is chok-
ing to death in trying to swal-
low China.

Fascism can be stopped.
Events are proving this every
day. The fascist nations are
powerful, but not nearly so
strong as the democratic na-
tions—if the democratic na-
tions unite against them!

Governments can be swung
into this anti-fascist unity if
the people insist upon it. This
has happened in France,
Czecho-Slovakia and China,
and a democratic front of the
people of Great Britain is not
far from realization.

We here in Canada must
not lag behind the people of
Great Britain who are unit-
ing against fascism. Unity of
the’ people here can force
Mackenzie King to take a def
inite stand against the fascist

nations, a move that would do
much to preserve world de-

mocracy and prevent world

war.

SSS

Collective Security Still Stands

By T. Maguire

iTH Europe and the world tottering on the brink of a war the phrase, collective se-

curity, is being heard everywhere.

This is as it should be, for it is not yet too late for the nations to adopt a system of col-
lective security that would enable humanity to draw back from the precipice.

Recent editorials in The Fed-
erationist indicate that there is
no unanimity of opinion, no uni-
form policy, on this vital ques-
tion. Apparently, the editoriai
writers of The FPedetationist are
taking a position in direct oppo-
Sition to that of the CCF na-
tional leaders in the House of
Commons. Woodsworth, Mac-
Innis, McNeil and Coldwell dur-
ing this session have on various
occasions warned of the danger
of war and demanded that the
King government state clearly its
foreign policy.

This position, however, is not
supported by those who are re-
sponsible for the editorial view-
point of The Hederationist. These
editorials have expressed the opin-
ion that no system of collective
security is possible under capital-
ism, and they quote from, the Re-
gina Manifesto to support their
claim. But the Regina Manifesto
was issued in 1932, before Hitler
came to power, before Nazism
became a world menace to all
democratic states! In this re-
spect the Regina Manifesto needs
to be amended to bring it up to
date.

During the year of 1914-18 Lenin
wrote of the necessity of the
workers overthrowing “‘their own’’
eapitalist governments and estab-

‘lishing socialism, but this tactic

does not apply to the present war
danger. The war that is looming
ever closer is not one between
“rival imperialist powers.’ It is
a war for the continuation of the
destruction of democracy; a war
to carry it outside the states
where fascism already prevails, to
destroy democracy everywhere in
the world.

The financiers in the fascist
states have their allies in the dem-
oeratiec countries Chamberlain has
been always ready to spring to
the aid of Hitler and Mussolini.
Me is pro-fascist. He would
rather see a Nazi government in
Britain than a Labor one. He is
in complete accord with Hitler
and Mussolini in their hatred of
democracy.

@

WORKABLE system of col-

lective security has existed in
the League of Nations. But Japan
withdrew. from it to invade China.
italy withdrew to conquer Eithi-
opia, and Germany to carry out
her program of Anschluss, the
latest move in which has been the
annexation of Austria. Every one
of these moves was permitted, if
not encouraged, by Great Britain.

Japan, Germany and Italy had
additional reasons for trying to
wreck the League. They wanted
to dissociate themselves from any
mutual peace policy with the
democratie nations in the League.
The fascist nations have no peace
policy; their attitude toward
democratic countries is one of
epen hostility and aggression.
Since their desertion of’ the
League they have formed the
Berlin-Rome-Tokio axis, which is
at once a threat and a challenge
to democracy everywhere.

The League of Nations was
formed after the last world war
to promote peace and prevent an-
other world war: For years the
soviet Union was denied member-
ship, but as its influence in world
affairs became ever greater it
was admitted. Ever since, the
voice of its representatives in the
League has on every occasion
been the most insistent for the
maintenance of world peace.

The peace policy of the Soviet

Tf it
Soviet Union
would be banished

Union has never changed.
rested upon the
alone war
from the earth.

The Soviet Union has always
championed the rights of small
nations and colonial countries
against the imperialist powers,
and for this reason, among others,
the great imperialist powers have
developed a terrible enmity to-
wards her. The fascist powers
are not alone in this hatred;
Great Britain joins in the chorus.

@

fAREAT BRITAIN’S enmity is

being expressed not so much
vocally as organizationally-
Strangely enough, it is under the
cloak of “collective security.’’
After having, to all intents and
purposes, crippled the best sys-
tem of collective security in exist-
ence, the League of Nations, hav-
ing deliberately refused to use
League machinery to curtail the
aggressions of the fascist powers,
the Chamberlain ‘government is
endeavoring to unite them in a
“new” League, one in which the
Soviet Union will not be allowed
to participate. :

This is a travesty on collective
security. dt is a plan for collec-
tive aggression against the Soviet
Union. Britain, Germany, Italy,
France, and maybe Poland, are to
be united. The plan is not as yet
adopted, for their are two ob-
Stacles in the way—the opposition
of the British people as expressed
in the capture of three Conseryva-

tive seats by Labor on a “Back
to the League” platform, and the
existence of the anti-fascist
People’s Front in France which
will insist on any French govern-
ment adhering to the FBranco-
Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact.

if Chamberlain wants a new
system of collective security, why
does he not join with France,
Czecho-Slovakia and the Soviet

Union? Because the British peo-

ple have for a number of years
been indifferent to the pro-fascist
tendencies of the British fovern-
ment. However, they are at last
awakening to the danger of tthe
fascist wolves within their own
gates, and it is most probable
Chamberlain will never be able to
link up with Hitler and Musso-
lini because the British people
will not stand for it.

ile MAY sound very “leftist” for
The Federationist to advocate
the immediate need for socialism.
In reality it w% very far to the
“right,” because it is drawing a
red herring across the anti-fascist
trail.

Tf The Federationist really
wants to see socialism, it should
come out openly in support of the
People’s Front against war and
faseism. To remain outside is to
weaken the struggle against fasc-
ism and to strengthen the strug-
gle for it. If fascism comes, hu-
manity will have to go through
another dark age of indefinite
duration. If the world capitalists
can be prevented from bringing
fascism to power, if democracy
can be preserved in spite of this,
then they will have suffered a
great defeat at the hands of the
common people. The eventual
realization of socialism will be
brought nearer.

Hirst things should be deali
with first. Collective security
against war can be attained, but
only if the people are so united
in favor of it that the govern-
ments will have to adopt it. In
introducing the question of so-
eialism The Pederationist is pre-
venting that unity. It is sowing
dissension not only among the
broad masses of the people, but
within the CCF ranks by taking
a contrary position to the CCE
leaders in the House of Commons.

Are the editors of The Federa-
Hionist aware that the position
they are taking is drawing dan-
gerously mear to the splitting
policy of Trotsky?

Letters

He Answers

Mayor Miller

Eiditor, People’s Advocate.

Dear Sir: “Take Me Back To
The Lone Prairie” is the latest
song, but how can a fellow go
back when he never came from
there? I ask. Our leaders do not
hail from Moscow, and our men
are not all prairie chickens.
Many loggers, miners and fisher-
men are in our ranks, and most
of them would not know a gopher
if they met one.

They have devoted the greatest
part of their lives to building
this great province of British Co-
lumbia, and many of the lads are
right from Vancouver itself, so
it is easy to understand their ob-
jections to Mayor Miller’s desire

to ship them out of the country.
ONE SITDOWNER.
Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC.

Grassy Plains
Celebrates

Editor, People’s Advocate.

Dear Sir: To the music of a
seven-piece orchestra we danced
in the First of May this year. It
is five years since the Unem-
ployed Council had their May Day
dance here and four years since
the Farmers’ Unity League had
theirs. :

Last year two CCF clubs had a
joint May Day dance, and this
year the Communist party had its
Birst of May dance for the first
time, which shows, in my opin-

From Our Readers

ion, that progress is being made
in Francois Lake, Northern BC.

There were about 100 people
present, some coming eighteen
miles in buggies. The hall was
nicely decorated and suitable slo-
gans put up. At supper time,
midnight, a local speaker talked
on May Day. Out of the net
proceeds the committee sent $2 to
the Mac-Pap office for the June
shipment; $2 to the press drive;
51 to the Communist party organ-
izational fund.

Due to the poor condition of the
ice on Francois Lake, there was
no attendance from across the
lake, nor did we get our May Day
literature. iB SS kh

Grassy Plains, BC.

af A Woman’s Diary ‘by Victoria Post

STIMATING that illness and unnecessary death cost Canada over $600,000,000 last year,
the Health League of Canada in its brief to the Rowell Commission last week urged a
national health education campaign and more adequate use of preventive measures.
The league particularly urged re-establishment of a venereal disease control scheme
dropped by the dominion government in 1932. More than 500,000 persons had been brought
under the care of this scheme up to that time, and remarkable results obtained. In Toronto

General Hospital the percentage
of syphilis had dropped from
10.6 to 1.5 percent. Tests on 1,000
successive women entering Burn-
side Maternity Hospital, a divyi-
sion of Toronto General Hospital,
showed only three with any ten-
dency towards venereal disease.
establishing what is probably a
world record. Typhoid was proved
to be one of the most prevent-
able diseases, tuberculosis took
6,597 lives in Canada in 1935, but
the fact that it is preventable is
proved in. the last 25 years by the
reduction of the death rate by
half, with only imperfect machin-
ery to combat this particular dis-
ease.

Urging periodic health exam-~
ination by competent officers, the
league showed that such exam-
inations revealed the presence of
cancer while there was a good
chance of curing it. The league
stated, however, “that such ex
aminations were not a Matter for
government action, but the de-
velopment of a new attitude to-
wards the organization of medi-
cal practice.”

Se

REATER equality of status

between men and women and

clarification of marriage laws
were proposed to the Rowell
Commission by the National

Council of Women. “Canada has,
to a large extent, given effect to
the principle of equality of status
as between men and women, but
investigation has shown that
there is discrimination against
women owing to the mere acci-
dent of domicile, between one
province and another,’ the coun-
cil observed.

The Civil Service Superannua-
tion Act was held to operate un-
equally for women, particularly
where it provided annuities for
Widows and small children of
contributors but denied benefit to
women employees.

Submitting that the wage earn-
ing power and tax contributions
of women was “teo great to ig-
more,’ the council urged a sys-
tem such as the “family allow-
ance system” in Hurope, whereby
men and women receive an equal

minimum wage and graded al-
lowances for dependents. The
council reviewed the various

regulations covering wages and
hours throughout the dominion;
and recommended more uniform

conditions and more legislation

to protect women in dangerous
occupations.

@re of the reasons why the sale
ef face creams is so high in
this country is because of the
widespread belief that soap “is
harmful to the skin. This is, of
course, fostered by the manufac-
turers who make fortunes out of
such productions as ‘“EJldora,”
sold for $3.50 a jar but costing
actually 6 cents to make! This
production is supposed to con-
tain gold, which creates an elec-
trie charge to draw out dirt par-
ticles from the skin! Consumers
Union estimates that there is ap-
proximately three cents worth of
gold in a $3.50 jar of cream, and
the American Medieal Associa-
tion blasts the theory that gold
ever did any good to the user’s
skin. So much for that little
myth.

Facial creams never do half
What they promise in the glow
ing advertisements. The real
cleansing value of a cream is that
solid dirt particles are knocked
loose by the massage necessary
to rub the cream in. Therefore
soap and water can do this job
quicker and more efficiently The
most important thing is to get a
really good soap, not necessarily
expensive. Five cents a bar buys
soap that cannot be excelled in
quality and cleasing value.

. keene

CoD
By
OL’ BILL,
= While sympathy
“Valuable and support are |
Art Works! being expressed ||

from all quarters
for the unemployed single men
and boys in the post office and
the art gallery, our babbit mayor
remains consistent in his insult-
ing attitude to them. A couple of

-weeks ago he insulted them by

insinuating that they were crim—
inais; now he looks upon them
as yandals. He is perturbed at

“the possibility of damage to
valuable art works” in the art ©
galiery.

Besides expressing the con-

temptible meanness of our stooge
mayor, this perturbation is noth-—
ing more than propaganda, for
the unemployed boys, and their
fellows of the working class

eee eee a Pe ae ee

lucky enough to have jobs, are

not vandals, not destroyers, but
builders. Miller’s tribe are the
vandals.

During the camp

workers* _

strike of 1935, the biggest meet ~

ing ever held in BC gathered at
the Malkin Shell, when 25,000

workers celebrated May Day. A

member of the Parks Board said
later, “INot one blade of grass was
destroyed.” A few months later,
on the death of King George the
Fifth, a memorial service was
ealled at the same place by
“Gerry MecGeer and his hench-
men in the city council, including
Miller. Those participating be-
haved in a most scandalous man-
ner. They climbed into and
broke the limbs off trees, des
stroyed hundreds of shrubs and
Hlower-beds and tore down, the
public address system. They did
about $600 worth of damage ac-
cording to the press at the time.
Who are the vandals?

Mayor Miller’s record enables
us-to interpret his meaning when
he -speaks of ‘valuable’ art
works. Certainly he does not
mean “valuable” in an esthetis
or cultural sense. Undoubtedly he
means, according to a dollars and
cents standard, the only one un-
derstood by the capitalists and
their official Dogberrys
Bumbles. :

it is a “valuation” in which the
most magnificent products of
artistic genius, the paintings of
Raphael and Rembrandt, the
marbles of Phidias and Michel
Angelo, the Bambinos of Della
Robbia and the bronze doors of
the Baptistry of the Domo of
Florence are placed on an equal
ity with stable manure, provided
there be enough loads of manure.

Nothing is sacred in commodity
production, the basis of the capi-
talist system; art, literature,
science, like potatoes, poison-gas
and snooze, are ail estimated in
quantities. Quality emeans noth-
ing. “All that is holy is profaned”
as the Communist Manifesto
Says, and beauty, to the uphold-
ers of capitalism, assumes its
most sublime form in the yulgar-
ly elaborate stock certificates
that represent gilt-edged securi-
ties when they are buying them
and salted mines when they are
selling them.

Marx knew the Millers
their attitude to art He wrote,
in The Jewish Question: ‘Under
the rule of private property and
money ... contempt for theory,
for art, for history, for man...
is the real conscious standpoint
and virtue of the monied man,”
and in another place: “Capitalist
production is hostile to certain
branches of spiritual production
such as art and poetry.”
(Theories of Surplus Value).

The unemployed single men in
the post office and the art gal-
lery, may falsely be called crim-
inals and vandals but no one can
call them grafters, a charge that
some of their oppressors might
have a hard time evading.

The anti-fascist
Matteotti And Partisans of
“Lavoratore” Peace will com-

memorate the
i4th anniversary of the assassi-
mation of that brave fighter for
democracy, Matteotti, on June il
at the Hastings Auditorium. The
affair will take the form of a
banquet and dance beginning at
7 o'clock. The menu will consist
of italian dishes and J. Minni will
speak in Italian and English on
“Why Maitteotti Was Murdered.”

A charge of one dollar will be
made and all surplus will go to-
wards the upkeep of Lavoratore,
the only paper in Canada that
the Italian anti-fascist can us¢
to reach the immigrants duped
by the agents of Mussolini.

it is needless to stress the im-
portance of Lavaratore to those
who know the activities of the
italian fascist government in
this country today. Just read the
story of the Circola Roma in last
week's People’s Advocate.

Go to the banquet and support
Lavoratore. =

Winning ticket for Lenin sil-
houette, drawn at 6116 Chester,
May 28—No. 95, Jack Ross.

i
|

and

and