People’s Co-operative
Bookstore, Canada’s finest
srogressive bookshop, has a
ew manager.
_ He is Bill Philipovich, out-
standing Ukrainian Canadian
cultural worker. Bill has
spent 23 of his 44 years in
full time cultural work for
‘the Association of United
' Ukrainian. Canadians. His
- work included the conducting
of string orchestras, folk
dancing, choral work and the
_ teaching of the Ukrainian
language.

During the war he served
with the First Canadian
Parachute Battalion and saw
action in France, Germany,

_ Holland and Belgium.

After the war he spent one
year at the famed Kiev Con-
servatory of Music. Here in
addition to widening his musi-
cal training he secured broad
literary and artistic contacts
that will be invaluable in his
new job.

Philipovich came to B.C. in
Jate 1957 to help in the prep-
aration of the Ukrainian Cen-

- tennial Festival. His work as
narrator at this outstanding
production was of such high
_ quality that he was invited
__ by the Canadian Folk Society

LETTERS
DIGEST

_* JACK PHILLIPS, Vancou-
ver, writes to correct a typo-
graphical error in last week’s

issue. An article reprinted
from his union’s Newsbulletin
referred to the National Un-
ion of Public
having “some 40,000 mem-
bers” but our linotype man
“dropped a zero, Sorry.

Employees as”

BILL PHILIPOVICH

to do a similar job for their
annual Festival.

Philipovich is married and
has three children. His wife,
Marian is a talented poetess
and many of her works have
appeared in the Pacific Tri-
bune.

Philipovich succeeds Mer-
win Marks, who for 11 years
was manager of the store.
When Marks first took over
the managership of the store
it had a limited stock and
cramped quarters. Under his
leadership and with the help
of a board of directors the
store has grown considerably.
Today it has a wide range of
stock and an excellent new
lay-out. - ;

Marks’ decision to. resign

to accept a job in another

bookstore will be a consider-
able loss to the Co-op Book-

store and the progressive’

movement.
The board of directors are

‘grateful for Marks’ past serv-

ices and are preparing an ap-
propriate token of their ap-
preciation. ,

RADIO-TV

How ‘fighting’ are the words in
Nat Cohen's Fighting Words?

ONCE UPON a time .a
young man entered the tough
but soul-satisfying world of
Canadian labor journalism.
His place of entry was Cape
Breton, Nova Scotia, among
the miners of Glace Bay. He

- took part as editor of the

Glace Bay Gazette in the
heroic effort of the miners to
establish a labor daily paper.
The paper did not live. Times
were not favorable.

Coming to Toronto, he
worked on the Canadian Tri-
bune, Later on, describing his
experiences on this paper, he
told a national magazine that
when he was asked by Tim
Buck to go on the soap box,
he quit. He found it necessary

to invent this silly fairy-tale ©

to explain to the public what
he perhaps regards as an em-
barrassing episode: in his lit-
erary career.

Embarrassment has haunted
him constantly. The ideals of
hig youth (if they live in him
now) are at war with the
goddess Success. For- he has
become the slave of the god-
dess, and one of the rules she
establishes for her worship-
pers is that they must cast
out from them such alien

emotions as devotion to the

ideal of socialism.

This is not as easy to do as
it sounds. To an intelligent
man a rational understanding
of Canadian history is a con-
stant lure. So, to appease the
goddess, to curry favor with
his fellow-worshippers, and to
pursue her charms _ success-
fully he has to become a most
devout worshipper. “More
holy than the Pope”, as the
saying goes. The memory of
his essay into Communist
journalism and the fear that
he may be regarded by his
employers as having still an
affinity to his youthful ideals,
“his youthful indiscretion,”
his embarrassment, goads him

‘into the crassest philistinism.

503 53 50

Our young man is Nathan
Cohen, drama critic for the
Toronto Daily Star, moder-
ator of the CBC panel, Fight-
ing Words, Peck’s Bad Boy of
the Canadian arts, the self-
conscious enfant terrible of
the Canadian intelligentsia.

As an employee of the CBC
(which recently spent $174,-
000 on finks and “special pro-
tective services” to try in
vain to break the gallant
strike of Quebec’s CBC pro-
ducers) and of the Toronto
Daily Star, he is not a free
agent, that is clear. He can-
not and does not therefore,
dictate the policies of the Tor-
onto Star or the CBC. ~

How far he can choose his
panelists is not known to
those outside the CBC offices.
But one thing is certain: he
stretches out a helping hand
to all the rag-tag and bobtail
of the reactionary band who
often clutter up Fighting
Words. And there are damn
few progressives to be seen.

Let Nagy of the Hungarian
“freedom fighters” try to de-
fend the actions of his col-
leagues in the USA when
they flung eggs at Anastas
Mikoyan, and there ig Cohen,
johnny-on-the-spot, rescuing
Nagy from the barbs flung at
him by his fellow - panelists.

BS

NATHAN COHEN

Let even an obscurantist like
Prof: Marcus Long point out
the obvious truths about
strontium-90° and there is
Cohen virtually forming a
united front with Dr. Blatz,
who proclaims the murderous
credo: We just don’t know
about strontium-90.

A man named Castle came
from New York to denounce

the Bolshoi Ballet as a group |

of spies. Our Cohen actually
defended him by telling the
press later that after all, you
couldn’t expect Castle to talk
about the weather. Let J. B.
Salsberg denounce his form-
er communist views and there
he is on Cohen’s program.

So co %

Our readers can fill in for
themselves the blank spots in
this record. The point we
wish to make is, that there
are other ways of making a
living than acting as a shill
for political reactionaries in
this country, inside or outside
of the CBC. There are other
programs on the CBC which

do not so brazenly offend the
truth or engage in ignorant

‘and vulgar political attacks

on the Left. For, let Cohen de-
fend himself as he may,
let him raise the banner of
“moderation” and “imparti-
ality’ to high heaven, the
truth -is that these are fig-
leaves to cover a misleading

.and dangerous tendency in

his CBC programs. Let him
demand that his program be-
comes a genuine Fighting
Words, with the real issues
argued, and with spokesmen
from. the Left included.

It is as reprehensible to
poison the people’s mental diet
as it is to poison their food.

xt xt xt

Cohen has become a public
figure since he left the Cana-
dian Tribune. He has “ar-
rived.” He is a “success.” And
things being what they are in
this country today, his suc-
cess is not unmixed with
charlatanry, with opportun-
ism, with the exploitation of
political backwardness, with
kow-towing to authority.

No one expects him to
change the CBC programs.
That is the job of the Cana-.
dian public, and firstly of

' Canadian labor, which gets

the dirty end of the stick
on the CBC, just as the Soviet
Union, Khrushchev and the
socialist states do. For the
CBC is a part of the state
structure of this country. And

the state is not in the hands

of Cohen and his friends.

What one can expeet of
this man (and many more
like him) is that he puts upa
fight and refuses to loan him-
self to reactionary political
purposes. How he and his as-
sociates in the world of cul-
ture will fight, and what they
can do, is for them tu say.

: % & be

Our intellectuals in Can-
éda are not yet a fighting lot.
They retreat into all sort of
murky abstractionist corners,
and they are far removed
from the people. But there
are some with a social con-
science. Let them start fight-
ing, for integrity and the
truth, and the battle will be
on. It is no harder or more
sacrificial for them to do this
than for a worker in a non-
union shop to risk bread and
butter to get the union going.
The CBC employees, and the
newspapermen, have their un-
ions. Let them end the fiction

that their responsibilities as .

Canadians stop at the union
door, the door to the CBC
studio or at the editor’s desk.

LESLIE MORRIS

June 12, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5