| April 12, 1940

THE ADVOCATE

Page Five

| 4

F True to type, MacInnis blames
) the people who, he says, “in times
fof crises, look to leaders ... 9
;sttong man or a strong party to
. ‘protect them from the threaten-
‘ed danger.” But why didn’t they
turn to the CCE for protection?

What is the greatest danger
j facing the Canadian people? it
jis the war which the leadership
y of the CCF supports. And in that
Support lies the explanation of
y the failure of the CCF, a4 failure
despite its increase of represent-

jation from seven members to
/eight, for that increase was due
% to the distribution of votes, the
total vote being less than in the
1935 elections.

Even MacInnis, running in the
best constituency in all Canada,
received less votes than he did
in 1935, although there were
more ballots cast. While his vote
fell, that of both the Liberal and
Conservative candidates increas-
ed. In Vancouver Burrard and
Vancouver Genter, where Web-
f ster and Lefeaux came within a
® tew votes of winning in 1935, the

Liberal candidates won by ap-
proximately 2000 majority each.
And that despite the Bren fun
‘tarnish that McGeer and Mac-
kenzie could not polish off with

smooth explanations.

eS

4 eee Plain fact is that the CGR
did not offer the electors an
alternative to the war policy of
the old-line parties, for by de-
cision of its National Council

government on Dec. 30, 1939.

After Wang accepted these
Japanese terms, Tokio extended
a $40,000,000 gift to him. =

Supplement TZ to the first sec-
tion of the agreement declares
“the essential conditions for the
establishment of new Chinese-
Japanese relations” are:

i—The recognition of Manchu-
kuo by China, that is, the dis-
memberment of the four Chinese
northeastern provinces from
' China;

-  2-—Renunctiation by China of
her independence in questions of
foreign policy;
3.—Renunciation by China of
her independence in questons of
domestic policy.
The fifth point of the supple-

Ment reads:
| “Japan will send her advisers
- to the new Central government

of China with the object of as-

sisting in various undertakings
in the recognization of the coun-

“In addition to this, Japan wil
also send her advisers to various
organs in the zones of close Chin-
ese-Japanese collaboration.”

The second section of the
agreement speaks of including
China in ‘defense’ against com-
munism. What is meant by ‘de-
fense’ is seen from the following
points in this section. Point two
Treads:

4 A® WAS to be expected, The Feder
| _~ fall in its party’s support in the rece
es Mannerheim’s brand of socialism,
/ responsible for the sorry showing of

cos TEXT of the secret agreement which
China, stood revealed last week by the C
The agreement, abandoning China’s indep

. By MALCOLM BRUCE

his party.

(with the exception of Woods-
worth) the CCF tore up its Re-
gina Manifesto declaration of op-
position to imperialist war, and
jumped into the imperialist war
camp.

Waturally, then, to the confused
electors, insofar as the war was
concerned, there was nothing to
differentiate between the three
War parties except on the ques-
tion of which party could prose-
cute the war best. And they
chose King and the Liberal party.

In order to cover up their sup-
Port for the imperialist war, the
CCE talked loudly of defending
civil liberties, workers’ rights and
war on poverty—all a swindle in
view of its support of continuing
a@ war situation in which it is
infinitely more difficult to carry
out such a program,

And now that the CCF in BC
has elected only one candidate,
whereas in 1935 it elected three,
and Came very close to electins
three other candidates, one would
think that MacInnis would have
had his eyes opened. But no, his
great regret is that the CCF
candidates did not more strongly
come out for the war.

He writes: “The CCF in BC
allowed itself to be put on the
defensive as regards its war
policy. The statement of the
National Council was never put
before the people as it should
have been—as a better war pol-
icy than that proposed by the
government.”

“Japan and China will con-
Sider joint defense against com-
munism as their common aim.
Japan will station the necessary
number of troops in North China
and Mongolia.”

Point four of the same section
reads:

“The troops which are at pres-
ent stationed in North China and
in the zone down the Yangtze
Tiver will remain in these dis-
tricts until full peace and order
are restored.”

ie IS further pointed out that 4
“political committee in the af-
fairs of North GChina’ will be
formed, which will deal with all
local and other questions relating
to Japan and Manchukuo.

The fifth point allows Japan to
have warships on the Yangtze
river and in the district of the
islands in the south of China.

In the sixth point it is pointed
out that “Japan reserves for her-
self the right to control the ac-
tivity of the railways, airports,
the post, the main ports and the
water communications in the
zones where Japanese troops are
stationed.”

And finally this section gives
Japan the right to send advisers

THE CIO AIDS :
AMERICA’S JOADS

By ROBERT GOMEZ

McALLEN, TEX.

HE South Texas Joad families who are brown-skinned and
speak Spanish today mourn their dead. In the dark, leaky
huts where half a million Mexican agricultural workers—men,
women and children—exist almost without food, there is grief
for the 23 fruit-pickers Killed recently when their decrepit
old truck was struck near here by a speeding Missouri-Pacifie

passenger train.

. “They were our friends al-
though we never met them as
men meet men,” said my friend,
Pablo Cervantes, who wears the
button of the CIO United Can-
nery, Agricultural, Packing and
Alied Workers of America

‘We wander around like them
Pickng fruit in the spring, veg¢-
tables in the summer, and cotton
in the fall. We starve like they
do in the winter. And we are
probably as mad as they were
because we have no homes but
Shacks and no jobs that are
steady.

When the 23 were killed six
“miles from this little town in the
rich Lower Rio Grande Valley,
their kinsmen by race and by
poverty rushed to the railroad
tracks and began clearing away
the remains of the dead.

Women gathered in their bare
kitchens and said, “It might have
been my husband Miguel, or my
Son, Ramon.’ And faces were
dark with hatred last night when
the Mexicans of McAllen gath-
ered in their yards to discuss the
crossing wreck—“the worst of its
kind in Texas history,” according
to State Police Director Homer
Garrison.

3

NCE the Mexican farmers
owned this Lower Rio
Grande Valley with its orange
groves and its fields so fertile
that a man needs merely to
punch a hole in the ground to
grow anything. Then, a man
did not have to wander the roads
with his family, begging a day’s
work to buy a bag of mear and
a sack of beans. There were
food and strong, homemade wine
for all] while the warm, friendly
climate of the Valley produced a
warm, friendly people.

The people of the Valley were
especially friendly to escaping
slaves before the Civil War.
Black-skinned runaways from the
plantations in other parts of the
states were fed and sheltered by:
the brown-skinned farmers until
they could cross the Rio Grande
Valley into the free republic of
Mexico.

“Tt is not right that one man
should be owned by another
man,’ reasoned the farmers
whose own <Aztee ancestors had
once been enslaved by the Span-
ish conquerors, ancestors of those
same men who today enslave the
people of Spain.

Here is unashamed opportun-
ism of the worst kind. Its (the
CCF"’s) war policy! A better war
policy than King’s or Manion’s,
or Drew's! Gan Social-democratic
degeneration go lower?

e

acINNiIS tries to make a
show of optimism, however,
for a provincial election is in the
offing. He assures the reader
that while “there is no use in hid-
ing our disappointment,” never-
theless “it is far from being a set-

back for socialism.”

He is referring, of course, to
the setback received by the CCF
which certainly is net a setback
to socialism, but a repudiation
of crass opportunism for the CCF
is not a socialist party, but a
Social-democratic party.

The treacherous abandonment
of the Regina Manifesto, the
joining with King, Manion, Drew,
Chamberlain, Reynaud, Franco
and Mannerheim is a setback to
the struggle for socialism, as is
every betrayal of the working
class.

Garnishing deeds in support of
blackest reaction with socialist
Phrases and pretentions of what
will be done in the future—after
it helps its pet imperialist group
to victory—does not make for
Socialism nor is it the work or
program of a socialist party.

e
OW that the reactionary

King government is returned
to power, what is the next step?

THRE CCF °EXBLAI&S:

ationist, BC organ of the CCF, in its issue of March 28 made an effort to explain away the
nt federal elections. And, fitly enough, the one selected to do the job was that champion
Angus MacInnis, who with Coldwell, Douglas and other opportunist leaders, was largely

Is it to mobilize and organize the
people to resist the advance of re-
action and fascism in Canada, to
struggle against the War Meas-
ures Act, to fight against the
forced lowering of the standard
of living?

Not according to MacInnis who
believes in a “strong opposition”
— preferably CCE — in parlia-
Ment whieh he assures his read-
ers is the “only guarantee of
good government.”

The only recommendation he
makes is: “To prepare for the
next election.” Now, there is
nothing wrong with preparing
for a next election, unless the
preparation includes formulating
a ‘better war policy.’ But wnat
about the period between elec-
tions?

Are the workers to take docile-
ly every act of aggression against
them by the government, the
rapacious employers and the
whole reactionary section of the
ruling class which, in the guise
of fighting for democracy abroad,
are steadily introducing fascism
in Canada?

The governments and employ-
ers would like nothing better
than for the workers to regard
parliament as the only arena of
Struggle and be idle and sub-
Sservient while waiting for an-
other election. The workers will,
however, continue the struggle
outside parliament and between
elections no matter how many
Social democratic parliamentar-
ians urge them to inaction.

JAPAN PULLS THE STRINGS

SHANGHAT.

and instructors into the Chinese
army and police system.

The conditions outlined in the
third section of the agreement
place China’s entire economy un-
der complete control of Japan.

Point three of this section pro-
vides that “Japan receive special
privileges to exploit the natural
resources Of North China and
Mongolia, and particularly to ex-
ploit and use the natural re
sources of Mongolia and Tibet.
To insure economic collaboration,
China is also to give Japan the
necessary privileges to exploit
the special resources of other dis-
tricts.”

C)

N A NOTE attached to this sec-
tion it is stated.

“The new Central government
of China will pay Japan indemni-
ties for losses suffered by the
Japanese government since the
outbreak of the incident.”

The agreement then enumer-
ates in detail the future ‘organiz-
ation’ of the territories under the
jurisdiction of the puppet ‘gov-
ernment’ established by the Jap-
anese in Peiping and Nanking.

The points in the agreement re-
garding Inner Mongolia call for
special attention.

HEN in 1916, there came

Strange men from the North-
ern states who insisted on buying
for a fraction of its value the
land held by the Mexicans of the
Valley for centuries. Texas rang-
ers, wearing big hats and biz
uns, were brought in to help
‘persuade’ the farmers that they
should sell.

Those who stubbornly held on
to their farms were either butch-
ered or driven across the Rio
Grande. There are instances on
record of Mexican families, who
were native American citizens
from having lived in the state
for 300 years, beng forced to flee
as ‘aliens’ into the neighboring
republics. Mexican farmers were
found dangling from mesquite
trees where they had been way-
laid by lynchers. Others were
found dead on the roads with
their throats cut.

Those who seized the land sold
it to Anglo-Saxon settlers who
came in from all over America.
Wow these same Anglo-Saxon
farmers are being squeezed out
of existence by the big corpora-
tion farms which are taking over
the Valley as they have already
taken over California.

e
HE Mexicans have remained in
the Valley as a group treated
at times even more cruelly than
the Negroes in the rest of Texas.
In the section once represented

preceded establishment of Wang Ching-wei as Japan’s puppet ruler in Central
hina Weekly Review, a Shanghai publication.
endence, was entered into between Wang and representatives of the J apanese

The agreement provides that
all questions without exception
relating to Inner Mongolia “to be
solved on the basis of accom-
plished facts,” that is, on the
basis of the fact that this section
of China is occupied by Japanese
troops.

This section of the agreement
states:

“The Central government of
China recognizes the anti-Com-
munist and autonomous charac-
ter of the federated autonomous
government of Mongolia as an
accomplished fact.”

in the fourth section of the
agreement it is pointed out that
“Wang Ching-wei recognizes as
an accomplished fact that Amoy
is a special administrative dis-
trict.” The same is said in the
fifth section about the islands off
the south coast of China, includ-
ing Hainan Island.

Thus Amoy and these islands
would actually be included in the
Japanese empire for the ‘accom-
plished fact’ is the present occu-
pation of the mentioned districts
by Japanese troops.

This point like the other points
in the agreement, destroy the in-
terests and rights of third powers
in China,

by Vice-President John WN. Gar-
ner in Congress, they live under
conditions as bad as those en-
dured by the Joads and their
Oklahoma kin who are described
by John Steinbeck in his great
book.

And \the grapes of wrath are
ripening down here in the Valley
—ripening along with the oranges
which the Mexican workers pick
with hands that are thin from
starvation.

In 1937, organizers from the
CIO United Cannery, Agricul-
tural, Packing and Allied Work-
ers of America began talking to
the people of the Valley. Some
of them were men who had or-
@anized workers in other parts
of the country. Some of them
were men who had grown up in
the Valley and whom many of us
had known all our lives—iMexi-
cans like ourselves.

They call meetings; they talked
to us and gave us a chance to
talk, We began to join and now
there is not a town in the Valley
Which doesn’t have lots of UCAP
WA members.

Pablo Cervantes says that his
CIO button means that we won’t
starve always. I know Pablo to
be a man of his word and Tf know
that the CIO is an organization
which keeps its promises.

We won't always be wandering
the roads, and getting killed try-
ing to find work.

MEXICANS REJECT NINOTCHKA

MEXICO CITY.

VE workers, incensed by the violent anti-Soviet
slant of the MGM film ‘Ninotchka’ have caused it to be
banned in Mexico. Though the picture was extensively bally-
hooed in an elaborate advertising campaign, it has been with-
drawn from Mexico before it has ever been shown. Labor has
been aroused over the showing of the vicious film wherever
it has appeared, and in Mexico, through the Confederation
of Mexican Workers, has raised such protest that all plans
for exhibiting the picture have been abandoned.

SHORT
JABS

by OF Bill

In the last press drive we fixed our col-
Our Part In ; umn’s quota at $100. A few days after the
The Press Drive rive started we received a challenge from

an old lady (and I mean lady), who under-
took to donate $5 when we got our $100.

During the past week I received another letter from her saying
that she is raising the ante this time. She is making it $10. That ten-
spot is as good as in the bank right now. I know.

This is the spirit that keeps our labor press alive. It is the same
spirit that enabled New Age Bookstore agents to sell 60 copies of the
Dean of Canterbury's book, The Socialist Sixth of the World, in five
days. Our old lady will raise that $10 by her efforts among her friends.

If thirty-one others would follow her example we would go over
the top for the $305.02 our column has set itself to raise for the Ad-
vocate,

If you don’t belong to a press committee, give this idea your earnest
consideration.

Bill Green,
Strikebreaker

With all reactionaries who sell out the
workers after being boosted into office on
their’ shoulders, the downward path is a
slippery path and progress downward be-
comes accelerated in geometrical ratio with every foot of drop.

Bill Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, is a
typical example of this truth. The cumulative effect of this downward
progress is seen in the latest accomplishment of that outstanding mis-
leader of labor. A letter written on AHI stationery, dated March 4,
1940, and signed by Green, has been sent to hundreds of national ad-
vertisers urging them to use the pages of Hearst’s scab-produced
Chicago Herald American, for advertising their wares.

Since Dec. 8, 1938, members of the Newspaper Guild have been on
strike against the anti-labor management of that paper and still are,
Bill Green and his racketeer Chicago stooges and finks have done
everything in their power to break the strike, but without success.
They organized scabs to take the place of the 200 strikers. AFI, goon
squads beat up the Guildsmen’s pickets with guns, pick handles and
other weapons. A loud-speaker truck which they used was thrown into
the Chicago river by the same goons.

But these efforts at strikebreaking met with failure. Beside CIO
unions, 300 AHI locals supported the strikers, financially and morally.
They stopped buying the paper and 1200 advertisers ceased using it for
their business-boosting. So the strike goes on!

rs 3 But Bill Green, who officially praises the

Rats Of A anti-labor Hamilton Fish, endorses the un-

Feather speakable Dies committee and roots for Tory

candidates for Congress and Senate, and the

other reactionary leeches who use the AB, workers for their own

selfish purposes, are still behind ‘Rat’ Hearst: So Bill Green writes to
firms who advertise on a national scale:

“The employees of the Herald-American at Chicago are all mem-
bers of American Federation of Labor unions. . . . No strike, so far
as the American Federation of Labor is coricerned, is in effect. . . .
I am writing you officially, advising that no strike is in effect and
that it would be not only proper and fair to organized labor, but
highly advisable for your firm to advertise in the Chicago Herald-
American. You will help the cause of organized labor by doing so.
In fact, you will help the American Federation of Labor very greatly
in the efforts it is putting forth te promote cooperation and under-
standing between workers and their employers and to further the
cause of collective bargaining by carrying advertisements in the
Chicago Herald-American.”

The support given to the strike by the rank and file members of
AFL locals shows that they do not agree with the attitude of the Bill
Greens, the Matthew Wolls, the Daniel J. Tobins, machine-made dic-
tators who rope the workers to the chariot of big business.

I am reminded about a little piece of poetry, an epitaph, written
against the day when Matthew Woll is carried out to the boneyard
where he should have been taken long ago. Although it is about Woll,
it fits Green and the others too.

“Here lies Matthew Woll, with worms that creep and crawl;
Now you can’t tell at all, which is worm and which was Woll
Any more than you could tell which was which when Woll was well.”

Ss oviet P olicy “Sir,—As a subscriber to the Advocate there

are a few questions I would like you to
——And Why answer. If the Soviet people are free, how

is it that Stalin is supreme leader for life?
Why can’t the people vote him (Stalin) out of office? And why is it
that whatever Stalin says, goes, without a mandate from the people
on important issues? If Russia was not the ageressor against Finland,
why. is it that the American Red Cross Society has collected a huge sum
of money to help evacuate the Finns from territory now taken over by
the Soviets?” .

So reads a letter I received in the mail a few days ago. Qur friend
has a very skimpy idea of the political picture presented by the Soviet
Union. That country of the workers has the most democratic consti-
tution yet devised to guide the relations between individuals living in
2 social order. It is the constitution of a society in which there are no
distinctions of class, race, wealth or creed; a society in which the only
distinctions are the natural ones of physique and intellect.

The workers who are members of the Soviet are elected by universal,
direct, equal suffrage, and secret ballot. Between sessions of the
Soviet, it delegates its power to the council of people’s commissars to
carry out its decisions, At the first session it gave a mandate to the
council of the people’s commissars to go the length of taking military
action to protect the Soviet territories. So when the council of people’s
commissars took steps to protect the country from the White Finn
agents of Imperialism, it already had a mandate from the people to
do so. Can we say the same in Canada?

Stalin did not make war on ‘poor little Finland.’ Stalin is only an
ordinary member of the Soviet parliament. He is not even a member
of the council of people’s commissars. And the people can vote him
out of office any time they feel like it.

Stalin is not a dictator elected for life .He is not a dictator at all
He is not like Hitler or Mussolini in any sense. The dictatorship in
the Soviet Union is the dictatorship of the whole working class and
Stalin is only one member of that class. ; :

World’s Greatest Stalin’s influence in the Soviet Wnion de-

rives from his position as general secretary
Statesman of the Communist party and as long as the
members of that party are satisfied with
Stalin’s leadership and Stalin is willing to do the work, they will, no
doubt, re-elect him to the position. :

Among world statesmen of today, Stalin is undoubtedly the out-
standing figure. His understanding of world politics, his ability to
apply the teachings of Marx and Engels, places him in a different
category than alleged statesmen like Chamberlain and Daladier, Hit-
Jer and Mussolini (or even Angus MacInnis).

Stalin has led for years in pointing out to the Soviet workers and
to the workers throughout the world, what the outcome of the policies
of these ‘statesmen’ would be, that “fascism leads to war”; that “ap-
peasement leads to war.’ Was he right? Have we got war today?
In every other field of politics it is the same. It is his intellectual
Superiority that wins for Stalin the leadership of the Communist party
and the enthusiastic allegiance of the Soviet workers as a whole.

And the fact that the American Red Cross is collecting “a huge sum
of money,” has no bearing whatever on determining who the ageressor
was. A bigger sum of money was collected and sent into Finland in
the shape of the Mannerheim line, artillery, small arms, planes, shells,
bombs and other munitions of war to the value of several hundred
million dollars by Britain, France, Sweden, Italy, Germany and the
United States. This is what determined who the aggressor was. I hope

this will answer our friend’s doubts.

ORANGE HALL

Gore Ave. at Hastings

SUNDAY, APRIL 14, at 8 P.M.

Speaker: Malcolm Bruce Subject: “Blitzkries”
Chairman: W. Bennett Silver Collection

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