WP oril 5, 1940

THE ADVOCATE

Page Five

| Chinese Short Story

25

it waS announced along the ground with a leaden,
menacing sound as though it
were singing a song of victory, or
as though it were threatening to
erush the earth to pieces. A Jap-
anese sergeant stood on its tower
holding the rough pole of the flag
in his hands and looking straight
forward. immediately after it a
square block of Japanese soldiers
marched along in German goose-
step.

After the soldiers came another
ugly tank and after the tank an-
other square block of soldiers.
Tank and flag and soldiers.
Tanks and flags and soldiers
flooded the whole length of the
street. The city was deadly quiet
as if its inhabitants, awed at the

e streets in a few days, yet no
‘e seemed to be either stirred
bored. The people ate and
Meathed and carried on their
spisiness as calmly as they had
yiways done, as if nothing had
@ppened; as if they had already
rgotten the war. The sun con-
aued to rise and the wind to
Mow ... and the day of occupa-
>n approached.

i @it was a sunny day, From early
>. the morning, crowds idled and
)yandered along the streets where
\e Japanese troops were expect-
i to pass. They chatted and
pked and laughed gaily and leis-

a ely as though they were wait- presence of the Japanese troops
x g for a ceremonial procession and shrinking into dark corners,

© a festival day. “The policeman had deserted it

eept driving them back to the e

Savement as they persisted in UDDENLY, into the suffocat-
epping forward in the streets, ing silence, burst a clear and
Sid the whole morning slid away high-pitched boy’s soprano:

yt this childish game. “Down with Japanese imperial-
) About half past eleven, a low ism!”

Meimbling sound came unmistak- Everyone was startled, the
@ply through the dry, warm air. crowd and the policemen and
=. seemed to rise from under the even the Japanese. The dead
round, heavy and shaking. The street came to life all at once.
sowds stirred; -thousands of Someone sighed as if relieved
touths spoke together all at from the tension caused by the
ace. threatening tanks; someone
spoke; all the policemen began to
run along the crowds, and the
»* the far end of the street. Japanese soldiers turned their
) “Here they come!” some one heads to look aside; when anoth-
Priced, and suddenly the crowd er sharp thrilling shout cut
jiieted down. through all the noise:

The motorcycle approached fe i ec
fond drove by slowly. On it were Soe WER FEO ASTD UNO STE!

yiounted not Japanese but two i A

“olicemen. The crowd again burst And then a little lad, about nine
Thto clamor. Another followed at Years old broke through the peo-
4 ple and came out into the street

q distance, and then a third, .
“hile the rumbling sound grew He stood there against the Jap-
Jvuder and louder like dull long- 20ese Soldiers, firm and steady,
rawn out thunder rolling nearer. 0lding his left arm aloft and

) At last, from under the horizon ‘Shaking it in the air to summon

merged a large Japanese nation- the crowds to follow him, while,

"l flag, so large that it seemed With cheeks flushed and voice

= nreal. At the sight of it, the ChoKed with passion and anger,
: he yelled with all his strength:

Srowd became utterly silent and
7 till as though stupefied. Their “Long live the Chinese Repub-
lic!” ;

aces turned into rows of curi-

/Sus calm masks, without a trace @
=» f£ animation or feeling. HE parade halted and the
crowd quieted. A Japanese

The flag was flying above a
penk which trundled clumsily officer and four soldiers came

WHEN THE RED ARMY
)} ENTERED KEXHOLM

KEXHOLM.

* Two lone Finnish lumberjacks, who had hidden in the
/ orests to avoid the White Guard round-up of the civilian popu-
ation which preceded evacuation of this district, were waiting
'n front of the former mansion of a factory owner to greet the
Sted army when it arrived in this little industrial city.

) It was a bright, sunny morning The Soviet troops have just en-
hen the Red army moved for- tered the town. The Red army
vard into this old lakeside town commandant has already taken
m its mission of reconstruction. over public institutions such as
> The two Finnish lumberjacks, the bank, municipal offices, the
)°-oka Savolainen and Vilgo Lyulu telephone exchange, schools, hos-
nad travelled 30 miles on skis to  pitals, hotels.

3e on time to greet the Red army. The Re 2 :

e Sane d army command im-
gen atter dodging the Finnish of- mediately made arrangements to
*icers in the forests. They let go pepne GeeADESS Sers2e. onthe
ja shout when the column of Red 7°? BE aE ee ya

ze a Pie St ings, public institutions are being
\ paar Pan eee Rs. Senet put in order; abandoned motor
q 2 ae ag ying 2 oS 2 cars and other property are be-
je sole ing collected. Arrangements have

| The Red army men returned been made to resume the o
; pera-
) their shout with cheers. Soon the tion of the town’s water supply

Red flag was flying from the tall- 204 power plants.

est flagpole in the town. Im Throughout the Karel isth-
mus energetic work proceeds to
repair the damages caused by
war. Hundreds of telegraph and
telephone workers, engineers-and

e
MOTORCYCLE appeared at

| Postal and telegraph seryices
will be restored scon. The railway
llieading to the town is already be-
Sing repaired and the general work
Sof reconstruction is proceeding
Jrapidly.

A few miles north is Sortavala
which suffered only slight dam-
age as a result of the war, but
many houses were burned by the
White Guard soldiers when they

cipal workers, have been dispatch-
ed to the new districts.

which were formerly the property
of a private firm, are now being
converted into a state farm, first
to be established in the former
Finnish territory. The farm will

railwaymen, building and muni-~

At Terijoki, large greenhouses .

out of the ranks to the boy. The
crowd gazed calmly at them. No
one stroke, none whispered, none
coughed. But the lad did not
tremble. He was not afraid. He
was furious and he began to sing
the “March of the Volunteer’:

“Come! Ye who do not want to
be enslaved. :

Build a new Great Wall with
our flesh and blood.

Qur fatherland is in danger . .”

He looked like a giant and his
voice seemed very loud, so loud
that it was heard by the whole
street. As he sang, the Japan-
ese officer stabbed him through
the chest with the sabre. The boy
groaned. Low and brief, yet so
loud that everyone heard his
shouting and his song. The crowd
Was curiously calm. They were
not angry, nor sad, nor excited.

SLOGANS

THE WALL OF NEW CHRISA

| By HUO KUN -
) HE sky was high and clear “and placid. Alight with the bright sunshine of late July, clouds hung low over the horizon

¥- like fancy, transparent sills lanterns. Neither the roar of the guns nor the tramping feet of the soldiers marching to the

font could be heard. War had left the old city of Peiping and life had resumed its peaceful tranquility.

They just stood there and looked
at the boy and the Japanese offi-
cer and soldiers—mute and still.

The Japanese officer threw the
dead child in the middle of the
street. The parade started again.
The tanks rolled over the boy and
the soldiers tramped over his
erushed body. ‘The soldiers look-
ed straight ahead as tg@ough they
were blind and could see nothing

‘before them, and the crowd looxK-

ed at them; and they, both the
soldiers and the crowd, were sil-
ent.
e
N HOUR later, the procession
was over. But another pro-

cession took place. It was a long
procession, for it was a religious
one. The people carefully lifted
the crushed flesh and bones of
their hero, and buried them, and
built for him a shrine beside the
street,

And a god was born.

EXPRESS

THE NEW MEXICO

By WALT ANDERSON

MEXICO CITY.

AN SEOs the scarred face of a huge serambling wall in
Tlacolula, a slogan is splashed in Jetters so large that he

who runs may read:

“Cleanliness is the Luxury of the Poor.”

It is the outward face of Mexico’s new social art-sloganeer-
ing, and proof that the public health department has come to
stay; that a heroic effort is being made to bring a measure of
cleanliness to this primitive spot. It speaks eloquently of the
liquidation of illiteracy. And well it might for the Union of
Teachers flaunt its own slogan as a challenge:

“No One Illiterate by 1942.”
Compare the domineering:
“Stay Off the Grass — This

Means You!”

‘with the sign in the central plaza

of the city of Oaxaca:

“Protecting the Trees Shows
the Culture of the People.”

The anti-alcohol campaign has
brought forth a barrage of public
slogans, but none so pungent as:

“Alcohol Poisons and Degrades
the Race.”

The Confederation of Mexican
Workers closes all its correspon-
dence with the slogan:

“For a Classless Society!”

Walls in Mexico are used for
slogans; political, social, educa-
tional, Huge manifestos appear
regularly as clockwork, and are
eagerly read through. Often some
one will read aloud to those who
cannot read. Here a giant wall
informs you that:

“The Workers of Oaxaca are
With Avila Camacho.”

e@
OR Mexico has walls — huge,
whitewashed walls bathed in
strong sun, and she uses them.
And the new murals often seem
slogans in dynamic pictures.

Wot that slogans are confined
to the outdoors. A hotel-keeper
in Morelia, long suffering, it
would seem, decorates his rooms
with the following:

“Those Who Do Not Throw
Papers On the Floor and Who Do
Not Write Their Names on the
Walls, Thereby Ennoble Them-
selves.”

The habit referred to is that of
visitors away from home, who

leave a souvenir of their visit.
There is usually qa name, date, ad-
dress, reason for taking the jour-
ney, an honest opinion of the
town visited and like as not a bit
of excellent poetry eulogizing the
place of his birth. A wall soon be-
comes covered with such souv-
enirs, and makes good light read-
ing. For poetry and songs are
the birthright of the Mexican
people. A well-known. poet at-
tempted to harangue a group of
workers. Before they would con-
sent to listen to his argument,

. they insisted that he recite several

of his poems.

@
S FOR music, some of Mexico's
most beautiful popular songs
are the nostalgic creations of

these gifted troubadours who
often cannot read a note — the
‘mariachis,’

The ballad, too, belongs to the
people. Almazan, millionaire tool
of reaction, recognizes this when
he has a popular ballad composed
announcing his candidacy for
president.

When Mexico found it necessary.
to send Calles packing a popular
ballad appeared on the streets
which told how the soldiers found
him in bed reading a copy of
‘Mein Kampf.’

“How sad it is to awaken
Between coverlets of silk
Wrapped in blue and white
Like a beautiful courtesan .. .”

The Mexicans are an inventive
people and not the least of their
social arts is ‘sloganeering.’

INDIA’S STUDENTS

FIGHT FOR

FREEDOM

By JAMES GORDON

BOMBAY.

qe last few months have seen in India a rising tide of

. Student action against the war and for the independence

of their country, led by the All-India Student Federation.
The Students’ Federation, which was founded in Lucknow

in Aug. 1936, has grown from a small committee to a great
organization of over 100,000 members, with sections in every
province, uniting the students in the fight to defend their

China Correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian”

““The Government Blue Book’’
254 pazes Postpaid 23c
Includes Dispatches, Speeches and Memoranda of Conversations
between Chamberlain, Hitler, Halifax, Ribbentrop, Beck and the
Holy See, and others. Also copy of Non-Aggression Pact between
Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

NEW AGE BOOKSHOP

Wote New Address:

Room 14, 163 West Hastmgs Street. Vancouver, B.C.

i retreated. specialize in flowers.
f }
Z “Rien Who Lead Labor’’ liberties and rights ,against illit-
By BRUCE MINTON eracy, for reform and extension
270 pages Postpaid 75c¢ of education and culture, and
Candid biographies of outstanding labor leaders, struggle with the mass of the peo-
=e ple of their country for national
“The Right To Work’’ independence.
By NELS ANDERSON When war broke out last Sep-
152 pages Postpaid 75c tember the AISKF, in its organ,
At last, a Magna Charta for the Unemployed, the Student Call, at once con-
——— demned it as an imperialist con-
66 7 55 flict, declared its course to be
School For Barbarians ‘clear and unambiguous,’ demand-
By ERIKA MANN = tpaia oe ed ‘no compromise.’

Be) 2523 08 Editorial
; ; y the Student Call
qoducaM on andes ees called for action, wrote that a gov-
= ernment “which has proclaimed
“«Japanese Terror In China’’ India a _ belligerent country
By H. J. TIMPERLEY against her declared wishes,
228 pages Postpaid 75c which has promulgated ordin-

ances and passed Defense Acts
which snatch away from us even
our limited liberties, which has
today established in eight prov-
inces a regime which in its auto-
cratic and dictatorial nature will
make even Hitler blush, cannot
lay claim to be fighting for de-
mocracy.”

Action was not long in coming.
In September already mass anti-
War meetings were held by the
students in Bengal, Bombay, Mad-
ras and other provinces. At La-
hore the students organized a
47 mock trial of Hitler and Cham-

(cr

berlain — and found them both
guilty. In Bombay, on Oct. 2, when
90,000 workers downed tools in a
one-day strike against the war,
10,000 students came out into the
Streets to support the strike.
Three mass student meetings were
held in which the students de-
Clared their solidarity ‘with the
Strikers. Many colleges were

closed.
e

HE campaign took a step for-
ward at the fifth annual con-
vention of the All-India Students’
Federation, held at Delhi in the
first days of Jan. 1940.

The Indian students called on
the British students to join with
them in the struggle against im-
Perialism and the war.

This call has been heard in
Britain, where the campaign for
Indian independence has been
very strong in the universities.

The University Labor Federa-
tion at its Liverpool conference
(Jan. 1940) voted unanimously a
resolution condemning British op-
pression in India, and demanding
Indian independence and already
2 mumber of full University
Union meetings have voted sim-
ilar resolutions in open debate.

SHORT
JABS

by OF Bill

. Dorothy Thompson, an Englishwoman who poses

The Truth as an eathority on Americanism, writes a syndi-
Will Out. eated daily column which is published in several
US newspapers and occasionally in the Vancouver Sun. Being all-out
for ‘dee-mocracy,’ she is anti-Russian, anti-Soviet, anti-Stalin, anti-
Communist.

During the Soviet-White Finn war, she ‘knew’ all about it and
spread herself in her column, slandering and stirring up hatred against
the Soviet Union. Since the signing of the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty
she has been compelled to write instead, in the same column about the
war in Finland, “Most journalists, including this columnist, have been
ill-informed.”

She had not even acquired the knowledge, now being spoon-fed to
American readers by one of her fellow ‘journalists’ who was in Hinland
during the war, Walter Kerr of the Chicago Tribune. Kerr writes,
“Another lesson for the civilian is how to interpret newspaper corres-
pondence in a modern war. A reader in America simply has to read
between the lines.” (D. N. Pritt, I think it was, puts it better. He
writes, “Between the lies.’’)

In the same article Kerr writes, ‘Correspondents knew all along
that the Finns were suffering heavily.” But he did not write that way
from Finland. According to the stories he sent from Finland, it was
the Russians who were suffering all the losses.

5 = If the highly-paid but ill-informed Dorothy
Kyosti Kallio Thompson had read ‘between the lines,’ she
Gives Thanks. would have learned that the world capitalist
press was represented in Finland and the other sources of news about
that war, by a lot of newspaper ‘wrong-way Corrigans’ who write in
reverse, and she herself would not have filled her daily stint with a
daily dose of ill-informed rubbish.

Those who sent the news out, lied, and those who used it at home
were quite willing to be ill-informed, for together they helped to mold
the mind of the also ‘ill-informed’ public.

And they did it so well that, according to the United Press, 100 of
them were entertained in a palace in Helsinki, where tea was served
and President Kyosti Kallio made a neat little speech in which he said,
“Thank you for your reporting which enlisted world sympathy for
Finland.” He meant HIS Finland, not the Finland of the exploited
workers and peasants.

If you look back through the pages of the Advocate, you will see
that the journalists who produce it, including this columnist, do not
need to apologize to their readers. They were not ‘ill-informed’ and they
knew how ‘to read between the lies,’ although they do not pull down
as much wages in a year as Dorothy Thompson gets in a week. They
do not mislead their readers, either purposely, like Walter Kerr and the
other journalists who were thanked by Kyosti Kallio or through being
Sll-informed’ like Dorothy Thompson.

You who read the Advocate, remember, it is your paper as well as
ours. We get and analyze the news; you have to maintain the circu-
lation and the finance. You must be as proud of it as the writers and
4echnical staff. And you can show that pride in the press drive which
is on just now. -

You can help this column by your donations to do its part financially
as well as it exposes false alarms like Dorothy Thompson. We have to
raise $305.02.

x After the peace treaties were signed in 1919,
Black out military and other critics set themselves the task
Casualties. of writing up ‘the next war.’ One outstanding

conclusion reached by most, if not all, of them, was that “the next war
would be fought behind the battle lines, the trenches would be the
safest place.”

This estimate or prophecy, whichever it is, has proved to be correct
so far in this war, though maybe not in the same way as the critics
imagined: These writers envisioned the bombing and gassing of civilian
populations. So far, this has not occurred in any belligerent countries,
although it was the accepted method of smothering Spanish democracy
by the fascist friends of Chamberlain and Daladier.

The civilians are being mowed down by other and more certain.
means — the blackout.

The official figures of people killed in Britain during the blackouts
for the three months October, November and December, average 23
every night. Later figures released by the government showed that
more people were killed in Scotland, Eneland and Wales than met
death in battle on land, sea or air.

But it is in the number of injured that the full magnitude of this
war-horror become apparent. Recently the News-Chronicle published
the result of a Gallup poll made by the British Institute of Public
Opinion at the end of January. This poll showed that, from the night
of Sept. 1 to the taking of the poll, 5,000,000 adults in Britain had suf-
fered some sort of injury during the blackouts, an average of 1,000,000
a month or 33,000 every night. e

The questionaire was framed to find out injuries of all kinds suf-
fered in the blackouts, trivial as well as serious. It included such in-
juries as falling downstairs, falling over sandbags and kerbs, etc., as
well as traffic accidents. No children were included, but a cross section
of the British adult population was taken. The answers showed that 18
percent of those questioned had met with some kind of accident. Galcu-
lated on the basis of 29,000,000 voters, the 5,000,000 figure is arrived at.

There are no casualty lists from the front yet to match that What
was it Gen. Phil Sherman said?

B.B.C. To those two majestic and worshipful institu-

tions of the solid bourgeois Englishman, the
Hoax. Bank of England and the London Times, has
ben added a third, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC:

To that solid bourgeois, criticism of these sacred institutions, these
symbols of civilization, is on a par with high treason or the outstanding
crime of the Kaiser's Germany, lese majeste.

But in a recent copy of an English weekly, the Sunday Chronicle,
the BBC is proved, from the inside, to have the same slimy, shifting
foundation that the low-down Reds and other subversive elements
ascribe to the other two mighty institutions. Eric Maschwitz, formerly
Variety-Director of the BBC tells a nice little story about the corona-
tion ball broadcast.

Maybe you listened to the BBC Empire and world-wide broadcast
commentary of King George Vi’s coronation ball. You may have imag-
ined yourself at the Albert Hall in London that night and, in spirit,
hoofed the light fantastic with kings and queens and princes and prin-
cesses from all over Hurope. And as the broadcaster described the noble
lords and elegant ladies of the homeland, the dominion and colonial
pro-consuls of empire, the bejewelled Indian nabobs and African princes
and the lesser fry with them, who make our empire the bright spot it
is in the world today—you no doubt felt proud ‘to belong.’

Eric Maschwitz, who was the voice at the mike, now makes public
for the first time that it was all a hoax. While he was broadcasting
the hall was empty “except for Ambrose’s band and a few bored
a The bigwigs he described were all at a state banquet at the
palace.

But there had to be a broadcast, so the variety-director asked the
bandmaster to “get any of the boys who were not actually blowing
something, to laugh,’ and the waiters and attendants he instructed,
“When I give the signal, please dance ’round as close to the microphone
as you can, make as much noise with your feet as possible, and keep up
a buzz of conversation.”... “And while the waiters dance and chat-
tered, I launched into a frenzied description of all the gracious prin-
cesses, bejewelled rajahs and noblemen who were thronging the mighty.
ballroom on this night of nights.” _.. “So the world attended the
coronation ball of 1937. Listeners told me afterwards, ‘It sounded
marvellous. You made us feel as though we were actually there!’ ”

So if you listen to the BBC broadcasts in future, remember the coro-
nation ball broadcast. Fred Grange remarked to me, “If they will do
that in peacetime, what will they not do during a war?”

PUBLIC MEETING

ORANGE HALL

Gore Ave. at Hastings

SUNDAY, APRIL 7, at 8 P.M.

Speaker: MALCOLM BRUCE
Chairman: W. Bennett Silver Collection

vy

Ste Oe i he

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