Page 4 — April 21, 1945

P.A.

PEOPLE’S VOICE FOR PROGRESS

SRLERSUATUSEESSECESUAESRESESESFUELLATATIEELILAATESETINTIGRSESATEESEIELASTRESELEE

PACIFIC ADVOCATE

MECQUSUUTUCKUSCEUSESTSERSERTEUENECCAE ED ELLSAPSLLCESLECOEAPRTCSASESESLAEENI<3ERE

Published every Saturday by The People Publishing Com-
pany, Room 104, Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia and printed at East End
Printers, 2303 Fast Hastings Street, Vancouver, British
Columbia. Subscription Rates: One year $2, six months $1.

Editor
SAUNDERS

Associate Editor

GC. A. MYER SHARZER

Decision.

y [ ‘HE preliminary bouts are over and now the fight enters its
final and decisive stage. In less than two months the

people of Canada will have decided what kind of government
will mould the immediate postwar years.

The alternatives are clear and ample demonstration has’
been offered in contests in recent months. Quebec and Grey
North have pointed the result of division.

Ontario has demonstrated that a coalition of progressive
forces can defeat the Tories.

The Tory regimes in Quebec and Ontario have demon-
strated the path they would follow federally: Opposition to
all reforms and social legislation, open attacks on organized
labor at home; a narrow policy of Empire blocs and power
politics leading to destructive competition for markets and
inevitably to future wars, with all the distress, destruction
and suffering this prospect holds for the common people.

This is the demonstrated future that the Tories hold out
to the people of Canada. THEY MUST BE DEFEATED.
This stands out as the main task confronting all,forward-
looking citizens in the coming election.

The foundation of the future world has been laid. For the
first time in world history a plan for the economic and indus-
trial development of the world is being formulated—the pre-
requisite for peace, jobs and security.

«The question facing the Canadian people is primarily this.
Shall we continue to go forward in cooperation with the other
nations of the world to a future of Progress based on the de-
termination expressed by the three great powers to cooperate,
to win the peace as successfully as they have combined to de-
feat the common enemy? Or shall we stand as a stumbling
block in the path of such a prospect tied to the ambitious plans
of the Tories, a rallying spot for all the dissentient pro-fascist
groupings who have striven to wreck United Nations unity—
in war and peace? 7

These questions are of vital importance to the electorate.
Canada, more than perhaps any other country, is dependent
on export trade for prosperity.

Development of colonial countries, especially in the Orient,
friendship and cooperation with our two great neighbors and
allies, the USA and USSR, are absolutely necessary to the
future development of our country.

This can never be attained by those people who have fos-
tered anti-Soviet and anti-American propaganda—those nar-
row Tory imperialist interests who stir up the preudices and
hatreds that divide the country and lead to wars between
nations.

Of all the parties entering the federal elections it is un-
doubtedly only the Labor-Progressive Party which has con
sistently fought to unite the nation to win the war and con-
solidate the peace. This is the party which has most clearly
brought to the people of Canada the opportunities opened up
by the concord of Teheran.” :

And in the heat of the coming election campaign, when the
wild attacks and confusing issues, long accepted as part of
election campaigns, are ringing from the hustings, the eleven

LPP candidates in British Columbia will continue to bring
before the people the real issues at Stake.

The candidates of the Labor-Proeressive Party are with-
out exception people who have pledged.and devoted their lives
to the cause of progress, They include trade unionists who
have been instrumental in organizing the biggest industries in
the province, like Harold Pritchett and Harvey Murphy:
younger men like Leading Seaman Jimmie Thompson. and
Lieutenant Austin Delany, who went from the labor move-
ment to fight in the front lines against fascism; women like
Minerva Cooper who have devoted their lives to the people.

These are leaders of the people.
—they know first-hand the hopes and
ple. FOR LABOR PARTNERSHIP
TO ENSURE JOBS,
LPP!

They are of the people
aspirations of the peo-
IN GOVERNMENT,
PEACE AND SE@CURTRY == VOTE

In Passing 2 c. a. sounder:

AST week we carried an editorial on the then

approaching Provincial Convention -of the
CCF. We peinted out the opportunity facing that
gathering. The opportunity to grapple realistic-
ally with the basic problems eonfrontinge the
people of Canada. The opportunity to come for-
ward in a statesmanlike way.
with a program around which
all progressives could rally
to defeat the aims of reac-
tion. We classified this con-
vention as one of the most
important events in the life
of the province.

I am sorry to have to re-
cord a pricked balloon. An
absolute flop. A convention
which undoubtedly ranks as
one of the least gonstructive,
most unrealistic events in
the life of the province. Far
from grappling realistically
with the problems of the
people, a great deal of the

time was spent in fruitless debate on such airy

subjects as which brand of the 57 Heinz varie-
ties represented should be the official socialist
brand of the CCF,

The convention did not do justice to the hun-
dreds of earnest CCE members and supporters
who looked for some lead to the solution of their

problems. It resolved itself at the best into a
small mutual admiration society, laying plans
for an immediate transition to a “Socialism”

Around Town

(pe women of the world, during the last few

days, have felt a deep sympathy in their
hearts for Hleanor Roosevelt, one of the finest
helpmates a man could have, in the loss of her
husband and our fine neighbor, Franklin’ Delano
Roosevelt. Mothers and wives of men in uni-
form, particularly, can share
Mrs. Roosevelt’s sense of loss,
for it can be truly said that
PDR, as we called him, died
fighting the same battle that
our soldiers fight, and he
died a great man. There are
those, of course, who take
the homage paid to him very
lightly, protesting that he
“wasn’t a working man,”
that he was “a capitalist, a
landed aristocrat.” Well,
perhaps they are right. FDR
didn’t starve in the thirties,
he didn’t live on beans and
smoke rollin’s.

But he was a man who was called upon to
lead his people in a changing world and was
willing to change with it, a man who saw
the death of many old things, and was ready
t) readjust to the new. to learn from the past
and accep: the challenge of the future. He
was intelligent enough to know that world

peace means world cooperation, fearless
enough to weather -the rottenest election
campaigns unscrupulous Opponents could
devise.

He was human enough to wisecrack about his
wite’s travels, kindly enough to love a little
black dog, and simple enough to enjoy the homely
Songs of the people, songs like Home on The
Range. And in the war against fascism he was
great enough to choose sides, fight shoulder to
shoulder with his allies regardless of idealisms
and systems, and to make clear to the common
enemy that the terms of its surrender would be
just, but unconditional.

FDR is dead, but we know that Pleanor will
earry on. She wasn’t the kind of wife who sat
at home repeating her husband’s arguments,
parrot-like. She has opinions of her own, and a
lot cx good common, sense which the president,

as well as the rest of us, respected. Gomedians
make jokes about her travels, but they don’t
phase her. She has work to do, and she does it.
And she will continue to do it. The road may

be a little harder now that she travels without

the president. But she doesn’t travel alone. Our
kindest thoughts, our best wishes, and our deep-
est admiration, are always with her.

which they have not yet decided upon and.
admit does not exist.

One thing emerged very plainly. It w
dent in the debates and manifested it
many of the resolutions submitted to #
vention (some so raw they never react
floor), that is, that the convention and q
were greatly influenced by a noisy gr
super-leftists. It was also noticeable th:
eral prominent CCF people were absent t},
out the entire sessions. The debate and
tions did not and could not represent the :
and desires of labor. —

It is doubtful if the resolution on the
Union passed by the convention would —
Support frem the majority of the CCE m
suip, This is strangély familiar. It migh
been penned by the most rabid Tory in the
try. It tries to draw the usual distinct
tween the Soviet people and the Systen
live under. It calls upon the GCF to “Co
to distinguish between the benefits derivec
nationalization of property in the USSR a
methods employed by Soviet bureaucrats
under the guise of protecting socialism but
actually serve to weaken the position ¢
working class throughout the world.”

The millions of Soviet dead point the
of seorn-at such twaddle. The accomplish
of the glorious’ Red Army and the Soviet -
under the leadership of Stalin, laugh in th
of such unmitigated balderdash.

The convention is over.
very succintly in one sentence. The GG i
ship in BC is bankrupt, financially and polit |

By € ynthia Carter

[ESENG the year I spent covering city ¢

meetings in Vancouver, the actions ¢
aldermen left me with mixed emotions —
times I was angry, sometimes disgusted,
times downright nauseated. This week,
amused.

A group of citizens had protested that

It can be summ_

was being drunk unlawfully in city night |

The couneil’s answer was frankly funny.

there were bottles on tables in local club:
aldermen, but how did anyone know the
liquor in them? Now, really, Mr. Mayo:
be willing to bet you couldn’t water a ger
with all the contents of all the bottle:
brought to the clubs filled with iced tea!
law, of course, must be precise.

a

|

There is —

ing illegal in carrying an empty bottle to a —

club, it’s the liquor
must agree with the citizens committee th
law should be obeyed or stricken from the /

This type of administration pays off w

that’s forbidden. B

the polls. “The law is on the books, ani >

pleases the

more conservative voter. H

enforced, and that pleases everybody else F-
be good polities, but it isn’t good govern:

The fact is’ that Vancouver jis getting ¢ |

reputation. Here in Vancouver crime doe
otherwise sO many people wouldn't be en
in it. Bootleggers are making gq killine.
badly lighted streets aren’t safe after nine
—witness the number of holdups «and as
in the poorer districts. Young war workei
gamble their paychecks away, high schoo

can get cheap marijuana if they know the —

people, and the women who nightly patre

corner of Main and Hastings aren't out ju

the fresh air and view.

Parents, teachers, social workers are gen
alarmed. Countless petitions have been mi

the council for additions to a ridiculously —

quate police force. Social workers maintall

bad housing is the root of much evil. =

authorities ery,

“Give our young people
trainine

facilities, turn them into the

equipped with a trade or profession,” and ¢:
izations of every type are demanding m

sensible, and properly enforced, laws 01

city statute books.

¥et what leadership is the Vancouver
The sha:
Next De
ber’s election may well be a day of reck-

Council giving in such matters?
answer is “almost none at all.’