Me “

“No doctor, not Hippocrates,

Sir Alexander, Fleming is

—Dr. L. Eloesser,

‘ Emeritus, ‘
Stanford University Medical
School
% * *

A study in greatness...

THE
SCALPEL,
THE
SWORD

by Ted Allan
and Sydney Gordon

Dr. Norman Bethune was a
Canadian, a humanitarian, a
renowned surgeon. His biog-
raphers describe him as a
man who “lived on many lev-
els, had many careers and be-
came the stormy petrel of
some of the decisive happen-
ings of our era.” As a highly
paid Montreal practitioner he
was an outspoken advocate
of socialized medicine. He
took his great skill to the
Spanish Civil War and later
to China where he saved
countless lives and lost his
own.

* * *

“Norman Bethune boasted he
was a Communist. I say he
was a Saint of God.”

—Dr. Richard Brown,
Methodist Mission Hospital,
Hankow

$5.00

PEOPLE’S
CO-OPERATIVE
BOOKSTORE
337 W. Pender Street

“VANCOUVER

MAIL ORDERS FILLED
Phone MA: 5836

All the: best in books. Send for
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nor Jenner, nor Pasteur, nor _

known and venerated by as
many people as Norman Be- |

{ Clinical Professor of Surgery

| P_

Ms GUIDE TO GOOD READING

‘Strange Empire’ sensitive
life story of Louis Riel

JOSEPH KINSEY Howard,
who, at the age of 45, died‘a year
before the publication of his
major work Strange Empire, has
recorded in this book for the first
time the history of those turbulent
years when Louis Riel led the
Metis in their struggle for auton-
omy in the old Northwest Terri-
tories. This is the first book in
English that describes the origin.
of the Metis, the first to treat in:
any detail the development of the
great annual buffalo hunt which
was the centre of Metis life, and
to tell the fascinating lore of the
Red River cart. It is the first book
that has related the complete story
of the two Metis uprisings
which had far-reaching effects
on the democratic pattern of our
country. ’ :

Howard has explored the possi-
bilities of the primitive state that

Louis Riel envisioned, and has ap- ,

praised the historical forces that
created and then destroyed his
vision. This is the story of a peo-
ple told in a warm, heart stirring
manner indicating the author’s
understanding of the true history
of the Metis.

The Metis country, the Great
Plains west of the Red River, is a
geographical unit, and the 49th
parallel which divides it meant
very little to the Metis who cross-
ed it unaware of the change in
sovereignty. Howard’s is the first
study of their dual citizenship, out
of which they hoped to forge
autonomy, ‘and the first detailed
examination of. the - geographical
factors as they affected history.

In his introduction, the atithor
states that this book was conceiv-
ed more than thirty years ago dur-
ing his life on the prairie of West-
ern Canada where he first learned
of the incidents which are the
“bare bones” of his narrative.

As a boy he was an American
in Canada with a sceptical at-
titude toward our approved Can-
adian history texts, and came to
understand that this War for the
West had been much more than a
series of isolated skirmishes be-
tween strange “primitive” colored
peoples and the “civilized” whites.
Rather it had been one of the most
dramatic and most tragic social
struggles in recent history.

“I grew up; I met and lived
among the ‘primitives’ who had
lost the war; I discovered that
they had a culture too, and that
the whites had not been quite as
‘civilized’ as they pretended,
When the Metis sought to achieve
nationhood, white men called it
treason, the: greatest of crimes.”
Yet, Howard points out, the white
race was guilty of genocide,
“treason against the human spirit.”

“The races with which we are
concerned in this book were mar-
tyred in the mame of Manifest
Destiny or Canada First or an
Anglo-Saxon God. There were
no gas chambers then, but there
was maleyolent intention; and
thére were guns and_ hunger,
smallpox and syphilis. and ‘back-
ward’ peoples, then as now, could
be used as puppets in the power
politics of dynamic , ‘civilized’
states.”

* * *

THIS IS A thoroughly docu-
mented history — even the dia-
logue has been taken from official
documents, contemporary = ac-
counts and from personal inter-
views. The author includes many
letters and written statements
which will forever condemn the
arrogant and ruthless way in
which the government of Sir. John
A. MacDonald proceeded against
these people, and their duly con-
stituted government.

Sir John had written William
McDougall (who had been sent

earlier to become go¥ernor of the
area known as Rupert’s Land and
who was to set up a government)
and warned him against crossing
the boundary and assuming auth-
ority because such action would
destroy the sovereignty of the
Hudson’s Bay Company.
would be no legal government;
anarchy would follow and .‘“‘no
matter how anarchy is produced,
it is quite open, by the law of
nations, for the inhabitants to
form a government ex necessitate
for the protection of life and prop-
erty.” Such a government, he
continued, would have certain
rights in law “which might, be very
convenient for the United States
but exceedingly inconvenient for
you.”

These things did happen, how-
ever. McDougall wrote a procla-
mation appointing himself — “our
trusty and well-beloved William
McDougall” — Lieutenant Goy-
ernor of Rupert’s Land. To that
proclamation he forged the name
of the Queen. On December 1,
1864, he slipped over the border
in a howling blizzard and “shout-
ed his forged proclamatién to the
heedless wind while one of the
party sucked happily on a bottle
of Scotch.” This incident con-
vulsed America, horrified Ottawa,
and made Riel’s provisional gov-
ernment legal in the eyes of the
world.

This is just one of the hundreds
of little known incidents in Cana-
dian history, and Strange Em-
pire tells of many such events
which prove irrevocably that
Riel’s government was responsible
ard he a trué démocrat. At the
age of 25 he - headed a government
which drew up a Bill of Rights es-
tablishing the moral justification
for the Metis movement, and the
Declaration of the People, which
gave it a sound legal base.

To review the whole of Strange
Empire (obtainable here at the
People’s Cooperative’ Bookstore,
837 West Pender, price $6.75) is
to reveiw the historical events for
20 years of unparalled activity.

Howard has exposed the part
played by the government of Can-
ada, the Hudson’s Bay Company,
the CPR directors: and the Cath-
olic priests. He describes the dig-
nity of the Indian people’ taken

prisoner by General Middleton '
’ after the Battle of Batoche. The

Englishmen asked contemptuously
if a great chief had no power.

“~ am not sure that I am a
chief,” Poundmaker retorted calm-
ly. He explained that when, as
chief, he had appealed to the gov-
ernment for relief for his starving
people he had been ignored. It
would seem, he said, that he was
not recognized as chief. When
Middleton became more insulting
the chief glanced coolly at the
general, at the circle of Canadian
officers surrounding him, and
puffed slowly on his long pipe.

*“*T am sorry,” he said. ‘I feel
in my heart that I am such a per-
son asl am. If I had known then

that I was such a great man, I’

would have made them recognize
me as such.’ ”

When. an aged squaw wished to
speak, Middleton stated that they
didn’t listen to women. Then how
was it, one of the Indian speakers
said, that orders for the govern-
ment of the country came from a
queen. The general was stumped.

* x ea

STRANGE EMPIRE déals ex-
tensively with the farcical trial of
Riel and the brave efforts of those
who fought to free him. When
Judge Richardson sentenced him
to be-hanged thousands of protests
rocked the country.

There’

In the vestibule of the rectory at Batoche is a tribute to Louis
Riel, Gabriel Dumont, the Metis and Indians who fought for their

independence.

’

“The Dominon Government tot-
tered, religious and race hatred
swept across Canada like a with-
ering wind, angry speeches in
Parliament split parties and
wrecked lifelong friendships, On-
tario newspapers spoke openly of
secession or armed subjection of
the clamorous French. The Prime
Minister, angrily stamping his
foot, made his position clear in
an Ottawa interview. ‘He shall
hang, said Sir John, ‘though

every dog in Quebec bark in his |

favor!”

All efforts to save Riel failed
and on November 16 he. went
calmly ‘to his death—a democratic
hero of the people. He lies buried
afew steps from his gtandparetits
in St. Boniface with but a simple

ON THE STAGE

granite shaft to mark his grave,
inscribed “RIEL, 16 november,
1885.” His grandmother, first
white woman in the Northwest
died only seven years before the
grandson “who had dreamed of
building, in the country ‘she had
dauntlessly invaded and made her
own, a strange empire of another
race,”

It is a tragedy that the author
of Strange Empire died aft such
an early age, for, as Bernard De-
oto points out in the preface, “Joe
Howard was born a fighter, an in-
stinctive member of minorities,
and a champion of the exploited
and the oppressed.” Novelist A. B.
Guthrie, Jr. said of him when he
died, ‘“‘We have lost our con-
science.”—BETTY GRIFFIN.

Everyman choice crime
with murder of theatre

IT’S UNFORTUNATE - that
Everyman Theatre should choose
a vehicle in such poor taste as the
current production of Murder
Without Crime at the Avon. When
‘compared to past productions,
Down in The Valley and Ferenc
(Molnar’s The Play Is The Thing,
Murder Without Crime falls woe-
fully short of the high standards
of which this theatre is capable.
TIntrinsically it would appear that
selection of this play is an appeal
to crass, commercial potential.
But the Everyman company must
surely realize that the road of
commercialism is a road without
end, as Totem Theatre is current-
ly demonstrating.

Everyman deserves a _ ‘good
measure of support in that it does
on occasion rise above commer-
cialism and prove to its following
that it is capable of finer theatre,
but with such plays as Murder
Without Crime it betrays the high
trust placed in it .by those who,
refuse to accept commercialism

as the only way 1a theatre an sur- |

vive today.

. Where is the bold initiative of
Macbeth, Down in the Valley,
The Play’s the Thing? Can it be
that this initiative is lost in the
furtive search for overwhelming
financial return.
many plays of real substance
which could be profitably done,
it is appalling to theatre lovers
that a production such as Murder
Without Crime should appear un-

There are so ~

der the aegis of Everyman

‘Theatre.

Any deep pondering about the
worth of the acting within the
bounds of such a poor play is @
waste of time. Dean Goodman
and Angela Wood stand out by
doing a capable job with the poor
material at hand. ‘Ron MacDon-
ald is passable as the tortured,
almost-a-murderer playboy. Rae
Brown seems to be capable of
better work. :

The production might have been
directed by telephone or letter
for it does not bear the stamp of
Sydney Risk’s direction. All in
all, an evening spent iat Murder
Without Crime could be much
more profitably devoted to read-
ing a play by Shakespeare, Tche-
kov or Sean O’Casey. j

Everyman should approach the
question of Canadian theatre from
the viewpoint of Toronto’s Jupi- —
ter Theatre, which has replaced
commercial outlook with an hon-
est attempt to bring fine Canadian
play to the public. At the same
time, it might also offer an op-
portunity to Canadian playwrights
who discern above the golden gates.
of Hollywood the words “Abandon
art all ye who enter here.” There
is no easy answer to the problem
Everyman producers are attempt
ing to solve, but it’s certain they
won’t find it where they are look-
ing.—CHARLES WATT.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 28, 1952 — PAGE 8

*