y% Lieut. General Joseph Kammhuber, shown above with
Theodore Blank, former West German war minister, is
the Nazi general who launched the bombing of open cities

in the Second World War.

Now he is touring Canada and

the U.S. campaigning for atomic weapons for the West

German army and air force.

Observers seated at

U.S. Communist parley

NEW YORK
HE intense and wide public
interest in the recent na-
tional convention of the U.S.
Communist party was indicat-
ed by the 52 applications. for
press credentials’ submitted
before the opening session. The
applications were from the ma-
jor press services and the ma-
jor New York newspapers, as
might have been expected from
foreign press services, and
from an unexpected number of
small town papers.

Papers in Milwaukee, New-
ark, Trenton and Chicago were
represented, as well as the
Christian Science Monitor,
the big TV and radio networks,
the big Italian News Agency
ANSA (Agenzia Nazionale
Stampa Associata) several It-
alian newspapers covering the
convention through their own
correspondents, Tass and the
Polish Press. Agency.

Delegates grouped in state
or regional delegations sat at
tables around the ballroom of
the Chateau Gardens on New
York’s lower east side. What
they said or heard or decided
was funneled to the world
through a small anteroom
jammed with reporters, pho-
tographers, television and film
crews. and radio newscasters.

The day the convention
opened the reporters direct-
ed their questions to two men.
One was Simon W. Gerson,
public relations officer for the
convention. The other was Rev.
A. J. Muste, leader of a group
of impartial observers attend-
ing the sessions.

Muste, secretary emeritus of
the Fellowship of Reconcilia-
tion, handed out a statement to
the press about the origins of
the observer group.

“The idea that it would be
in the public interest and that

4;

’ Friends

the Communist party would
be well advised to invite a
number of non-Communist ob-
servers to its national conven-
tion originated in conversations
in which Norman Thomas and
I, among others, participated,”
the statement said. “The sug-
gestion was communicated to
C.P. people and we were noti-
fied soon afterward that it
was acceptable.

“It was understood that ob-
servers would not act as re-
porters during the convention;
but that they were completely
free thereafter to speak and
write, individually or as a
group, about the proceedings
of the convention and, of
course about Communist the-
ory and practice in general.”

Muste was accompanied by:
Dr: Stringfellow Barr, former
president of St. John’s Univer-
sity; Dorothy Day, Catholic
Worker editor; Rev. John Paul
Jones, Bay Ridge Prebyterian
church; Lyle Tatum, peace ed-
ucation secretary, American
Service committee,
Middle Atlantic region; Roy
Finch and Bayard Rustin, War
Resisters League; Alfred Hass-
ler, publicity director, Fellow-
ship of Reconciliation; Bernard
Rosenberg lecturer, New
School of Social Research;
George Willoughby, director,
Central Committee for Consci-
entious Objectors.

In addition, there were three
observers from the New York
Civil Liberties Union — Carl
Rachlin, Lester Migdalt and
Dr. Marie Jahoda.

When the proposal to admit
these observers was placed be-
fore the convention, a few del-
egates expressed fear that the
presence of outsiders would in-
hibit the discussion. But the
delegations voted almost unan-
imously to admit the Muste
group, and if any one was in-
hibited it was not noticeable.

INDEPENDENT STAND -—
U.S. Communists —

united on policy

By AL RICHMOND

NEW YORK

_ There will be a Communist party of the United States, but it will be different,
more independent in shaping its program and more unified than it has been in the past

year.

That appeared to be the will of the 300 delegates to the party's 16th, national
convention, which concluded four days of turbulent, at times bitter debate here on

Tuesday last week.

In their four days of delib-
eration, following almost a
year of intense discussion, the
delegates:

@ Voted to retain the name
and form of their party, while
leaving the door open “‘to all
constructive exploration and
discussion” of a change either
in name or form “as may be
organized by the (party’s) in-
coming national committee.”
@ Approved an amended draft
resolution, submitted by the
party’s national committee,
which asserted that the U.S.
Communist party “interprets,
and applies, and strives to de-
velop further” the principles
of scientific socialism devel-
oped by Karl Marx, Frederick
Engels and V. I. Lenin “in ac-
cordance with the require-
ments of the American class
struggle and democratic tra-
ditions.”

@ Adopted a new constitution
that reaffirmed an independ-
ent application of Marxist-
Leninist theory and provided
for a new democratic regime
within the party, including the
right to dissent in intra-party
discussion.

@ Elected 20 members at large
to a new national committee,
with 40 more still to be el-
ected from the various states.

In presenting the declaration
of the party’s new approach
to the theory of scientific so-

cialism, the convention resolu-

tions ‘committee emphasized
that the intent was to break
with the previous practice of

leaving the interpretation of
Marxist theory to 6ther Com-
munist parties — and most spe-
cifically the Soviet party —
while restricting the American
party to a “creative applica-
tion” of this theory as interp-
reted by others.

The final convention session
was featured by a demongtra-
tion of party unity by the prin-
cipal antagonists in the pre-
convention debates.

These were William Z. Fos-
ter, party chairman; Eugene
Dennis, general secretary; John
Gates,~ editor of the, New
York Daily Worker, and Ben-
jamin Davis, who had the twin
distinction of being New York’s
first Negro and Communist
city councilman. ;

The occasion was a propos-
al submitted by Dennis on be-
half of all 20 members of the
newly elected national com-
mittee that 11 committee mem-
bers resident in New York
serve as a temporary adminis-
trative body until the full 60-
member national committee is
filled out by election from the
states.

“We should end this conven-
tion on a high note of militan-
cy... unity,” said Davis in
seconding the proposal.

“We have stressed — all of
us — many different points of
view at this convention,” Gates
said. “Some of us have lost on
some points. But no matter
who lost, the party has won.”

Foster agreed with Gates
that the convention was a vic-

tory for the party and not a
victory of any group or fac-
tions

Referring to the many reso-
lutions adopted by the conven-
tion, some after long committee
hassles and heated debate on
the convention floor; Foster
said, “I want to say that I have
voted for every one of thos
documents.” .

Most of the reporters who
clustered like bees about the
convention looked for a story
of either a split or a rejection
of change by the party. They
found neither. The delegates
asserted their desire for unity
—and a change.

The 20 national committee
members elected at large re-
flected this desire and the as-
surance was given that a new
complexion of the party’s lead-
ership would be reinforced
with the 40 national commit-
tee members still to be elected
from the states.

Aside from Dennis, Davis,
Foster and Gates; the 20 el-
ected were:

Charlene Alexander, Los An-
geles; Claude Lightfood, Chi-
cago; James Jackson, New
York; Dorothy Healy, Los An-
geles; Earl Durham, New
York; Fred Fine, New York;
Doxey Wilkerson, New York;
Carl Winter, Detroit; John
Hellman, Montana; Carl Ross,
Minnesota; Al Richmond, San
Francisco; Anna Correa, Col-.
orado; Sid Stein, New. York;
Charles Lohman, New York,
Dave Davis, Philadelphia;
and George Blake Charney,
New York.

Cabinet ministers get $17,500
and most never had it so good

Old age pensioners, trying to live on $6
hiked his own annua

that Premier Bennett had

sessional indemnity) and boosted cabine
Opposition leader Robert Strachan’s speci
$5,000 sessional indemnities of the legislature.

from $3,600 to

This means that Bennett
now draws $20,000 a year,
making him Canada’s highest
paid provincial premier. Cabi-
net members draw $17,500,
Strachan gets $8,500 and
MLAs are’ paid $5,000.

Are they worth it?

The argument is that Ben-
nett, a prosperous hardware
merchant and former presi-
dent of a Kelowna winery,
made much more than $20,000
in private life and conse-

quently is “working for pea-
nuts” as premier.

Even if one accepted this
argument, how about the
cabinet members? Many of
them never made $17,000 or

anything like it in their
former occupations.
Attornéy - General Robert

Bonner and Education Min-
ister Les Peterson were law
juniors, barely out of school,
when they climbed on. the
Socred bandwagon.

Highways Minister Phil

VICTORIA, B.C.

0 a month or less, must have been startled to read
1 salary from $9,000 to $15,000 (plus. a $5,000
t col leagues from $7,500 to $12,500. He also upped
al leader’s allowances from $2,000 to $3,500, and raised

Kamloops
Minister
a’ bus;

Gaglardi
evangelist; Labor
Lyle - Wicks. drove
Municipal Affairs Minister
Wes Black was a_ school
teacher; Mines Minister Ken
Kiernan ran a gas station;
Health and Welfare Minister
Eric Martin was a clerk and
bookkeeper.

For these cabinet members
things have nevér been so
rosy. The premier is Santa
Claus, and all’s right with the
world.

was a

MARCH 1, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 14 ©