EDITORIAL PAGE

May Day ‘big leap’? Too much ‘accord’ —

The Old Lady of Cambie Street,
to = the Province, invariably
reaches the peak of her eloquence
when wallowing in one of her own
distinctive anti-communist smears.
On this subject her ‘““May Day”
editorial (May 3 edition) really hit
the jackpot.

In this feverish blurb the Old
‘Lady executed a truly “big leap”
of her own, right from Moscow’s
famed Red Square into the Pender
Auditorium.

Having disposed of Soviet
“sabre - rattling”, Khurshchev,
Castro and Malinovsky with a few
bilious paragraphs, the Old Gal got
to work on Homer Stevens, secre-
tary of the United Fishermen and
NDP MLA Cedric Cox. By some
unexplained oversight she omitted
mention of NDP MP Bert Her-
ridge, also a speaker in the Pender
May Day rally.

Since Nikita Khrushchev and
Fidel Castro “couldn’t make it to
the Pender Auditorium,” the Old
Gal sees them “well represented

. by Homer Stevens . . . with fed-
eral and provincial representatives
of the New Democratic Party’’?

What apparently got the Old
Lady’s dander up with Mr.
Stevens was his reference to U.S.

coldwar policies in turning over
Pacific fisheries rights to Japan
without concern about fisheries
conservation or the livelihood of
Canadian and American fisher-
men. To the crotchetty Old Lady
“this is just palpable nonsense’’,
but good stuff to do a red- smear
with.

‘Mr. Cox fared no better. Not
sharing the Old Lady’s brainwash-
ed “opinion” about Nikita Khrush-
chev and Fidel Castro, the NDP
MLA expressed the hope that
someday Canada might celebrate
May Day ina manner equalling
the Socialist countries, which the
audience approved with hearty
applause. That just got the Old
Lady “plumb het up.” Just think
of it, they “‘cheered references to
Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrush-
chev as if they were national
heroes’?

Dear, dear, what are thingscom-
ing to, moans the Old Gal editori-
ally as she adjusts her specs for the
final punch-line; “It is a far step
from the Pender Auditorium to
Red Square, but the connecting
link seems pretty clear’?

Such “vision” would be highly
commendable — if dedicated toa
worthier cause than a distorted
choleric red-smear.

Editorial comment...

sf am not a hatchet man, buta
physician here to advise”’ said the
late CLC executive Carl Berg back
in 1950 when he was “‘on loan”’ to
B.C. to do a surgical job on an old-
established civic union.
_ It may be recalled that “‘ Dr.”
Berg’s diagnosis and surgery weren’t
too successful. The union “patient”
emerged from this “physician’s”
operation with flying colors—with
not even the stitches showing.

All of which sparks our curiosity
when a new batch of CLC “doctors”
arrive in B.C. “on loan’; who’s go-
ing to be “operated” on next?

* *« *

There’s a move afoot to remodel
Mayor Rathie’s office at City Hall
at an approximate cost of some $42,-:
000. This remodelling is based on
the argument that it will add
“dignity” to that august office. Ex-
mayor Tom Alsbury has expressed
himself as being “broken-hearted”
to see all that good “mahogany pan-
elling ripped out” for no good reason
whatsoever.

The overloaded small home- |

owner taxpayer is also becoming
“broken-hearted” but for more spe-
ays cause; that of a spiralling taxa-

~ Pacific Tribune

Ediror — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor—_MAURICE RUSE
Business Mgr.—_OXANA BIGELOW

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Authorized as second class rail by
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and for meyrnent * Shay he in Sesh

Pee ae tp Ps a4
~ SR%% sa Set nt Se a 4

tion with nothing to show for it ex-
cept a reckless extravagance in cost-
ly civic adminstration—which the
needless remodelling of the mayor’s
office is a typical example.

“No money” for the jobless, for
needed civic social services, for over-
due repair, sewage, etc., but ah; for
“dignity’’, scads of it?

Prior to the opening of Parliament
on May 16 and in readiness for thé
NATO ministers’ conference in Ot-
tawa on May 22, Prime Minister
Pearson’s recent visit to Britain will
be topped off by a’Visit to Hyannis
Port, Mass., the home of U.S. Presi-
dent Kennedy. There, instead of
Washington, the junket will look a
bit less like getting ‘“‘orders” on just
what Washington expects from its
new Liberal adminstration in Ot-
tawa.

Reports on the prime minister’s”

British safari with Tory Macmillan
indicate that prime aim was to “‘re-
establish good relations”, which are
alleged to have deteriorated under
the Diefenbaker regime. To pave
the way for ‘“‘mutual understand-
ing’, “accord” etc., on such matters
as nuclear arms, increased trade,

Commonwealth ‘‘ties” and so forth. °

With Buckingham Palace host-
ing the Canadian prime minister

and Mrs. Pearson,.it would appear -

that all the “strained relations” cre-
dited to Mr. Diefenbaker have now
been ironed out, and that end of the
“Western Alliance” put back ona
“stable” footing?

In the homey atmosphere of

Hyannis Port it may be expected
that a similar “accord”’ will be ac-
hieved by Prime Minister Pearson
and President Kennedy, with U.S.-
Canada “relations” and “commit-
ments” which Dief is also alleged to
have nearly scuttled, put back ona
“mutually agreeable” keel.

It may be expected that such
matters as a multilateral NATO nu-
clear force with Canada’s pledge on
all NATO-NORAD “commitments”
will be discussed. Informally of
course? Then there is the speeding
up of the Columbia River Treaty
sellout, with perhaps the nod from
Pearson to Kennedy to use the Lib-

~ the border,”

by Dam as a crowbar to press for
Treaty ratification, with or without
Liberal “modifications’’.

Then the issue of U.S.-Canada
trade and the matter of tariffs, a
matter which U.S. Dr. Paul E. Her-
bold of Washington highlighted in
Vancouver last week when he told
the Kiwanis Club that “a Canada-
U.S. customs union will come in our
lifetime,” and that the Columbia
River will be developed “‘to the ad-
vantage of people on both sides of
since we are all the
“children of an uncommon mother.”
“Uncommon” is right if one evalu-.
ates “mother” by her Columbia Riv-
er Treaty grab?

Then there is the OAS and Can-.
ada’s empty “chair” which Ken-
nedy wants filled and Pearson is
anxious to fill. With Haiti and the
Dominican Republic now adding to
U.S. “Alliance for Progress” trou-
bles in Latin America, and Canadian
membership in OAS badly needed
to run interference for U.S. imper-
ialism in the Southern Hemisphere,
is highly likely that a Kennedy-
Pearson “‘accord”’ will be found on
all these “‘urgent’’ problems?

No doubt the cordial and in--
formal atmosphere of Hyannis Port,
much less blunt and rigid than
Washington, will see Canada-U.S.

“relations normalized” as far as Mr.
Pearson and Mr. Kennedy are con-
- cerned.

Hence, with the opening of Parl-
iament it may be expected that this’
“accord” under the Pearson govern-
ment will prove to be a costly busi-
ness for the Canadian people in
terms of peace, Canadian independ-
ence, resources giveaways, and gene-
ral economic instability.

Mr. Pearson’s junkets to London
and Hyannisport point up one ob-
vious urgency; the need to keep a
close eye on Parliament during the
coming weeks.

Tom
McEwen

lsewhere in this edition is a gen-
eral summary. of May Day cel-
ebrations in Canada and around
the world. While the May Day
speeches in the Socialist world dif-
fer in some respects from those in
the ‘free world’ countries, the
theme is universal; international
solidarity for peace, Socialism and
human brotherhood.

It is difficult to conceive of a
May Day address or “message”
which sidesteps these fundamental
principles of workingclass  strug-
gles and aspirations, but, believe it
or not, it can be done.

All that is required is a 100-per-
cent 18-carat labor phoney who
manages to collect a fat salary
from Labor — and his brainwashed
coldwar ideology from the US.
State Department, and presto —
the Benedict Arnold of all the May
Days since 1886.

In the April 27 edition of the
AFL-CIO News, President George
Meany unburdened himself of a
May Day “message to workers
abroad”; a “message” which metic-
‘ulously avoided any and all men-
tion of workingclass unity, solidar-

ity or struggles. Through his Big
Business bi-focals Mr. Meany sees
the significance of May Day as
being nothing more nor less than
a “global struggle between freedom
and communism”’, with Mr. Meany
arrayed (of course) on the side of
“freedom’”’, as that much abused
term is defined by ‘free world”
word jugglers.

With that auspicious start-off Mr.
Meany pulls out all the coldwar
stops. The Communists “pervert
May Day to their own ends’’, their
speeches are just “pie-in-thesky”

promises, while the ‘“shabbiness
and Gespair behind their numer-
ous ‘iron curtains provide

- proof of communism’s failure’’?

And as for Fidel Castro’s Cuba,
why that’s “an even greater dis-
aster than the brutal dictatorship
it replaced”?

“It is in that spirit’, yodels this
($75,000-plus - expenses-per - annum)
well-larded caricature of American
labor that “I offer the May Day
greeting to workers everywhere’’?
AFL-CIO News adds that this
Meany May Day diarrhea would be
“broadcast to workers in other
lands through the Voice of Amer-

-ica radio network’.

These workers of other lands,
like ourselves, are not likely to
be moved or inspired by this sam-
ple of the Meany excretion — ex-
‘cept to reach for the smelling salts.
But they may pose a few questions
in defense of a great American
labor institution, one in particular;
does the ‘freedom’ Meany boasts

of, prohibit the millions of AFL-
CIO” workers marching on May
Dav?

Secondly, have the millions of
AFL-CIO workers nothing to say
when provocative coldwar bilge of
this nature is addressed to the
workingclass of the world in their
name and under the guise of a
May Day ‘Message’’?

* * *

The April edition of the Scottish
Miner features an article, entitled
“Moral judgements are part of the
class struggle’, which helps to set
the record straight on just what
constitutes ‘“‘morality’”’ and whose?

“Anything the workers do to
serateh these parasites off (the cap-
italists and their hangers-on, Ed.),
or at least reduce their numbers,
is good by workingclass morality,
just as anything the parasites do
to dig themselves in, is good by
parasite morality. Karl Marx
throughout assumes the standpoint
of workingclass morality; and his
strong language about capitalists
is justified by workingclass moral-
livie

Moral judgements are ‘herefore
riot so much an issue Of beliefs
and behaviour, but of determining
“which side of the tracks’’ we live
on. That settled, as the Scottish
“Miner puts it, class morality is in-
separable from the class struggie
—even with those who argue the
latter ‘no longer exists” as.
an excuse for switching their ‘‘mor-
ality” to fit their bourgeois ambi-
tions!

May 10, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4