MAY DAYS IN REVIEW May Days Vancouver has known - By Mabel Richards of th let the Voice of th ® struggle for the 8- ac decade ne Day since that has a Volce of the people loudly. €ard, not always » Not alw j heard it has ie unitedly, but « Voice of ay Da hearts ae the workers on aS struck fear into the every = the Establishment of Bievea | ,, Most particularly Bill Bee, Of Which ‘O1 Bill, Worker nett, the socialist ee. Writer) had this to say: terror . lad an example of the Day «that the tradition of May ction S in the hearts of the Workers ‘aries. While the aa In Vancouver, mostly Tanks of the x ig gathered on estro et grounds, Estuimare?s brought over fidi Inlet ae It lay in Burrard Stations the Crew at battle the Ma hae funs trained on Y gatherin i : Was over g until the fiver Part May Days in ae In other B.C. Peacery we €en remarkably ee airs Considering the as of people SCipline, workers’ ne, was ho i t b oe C days + re dirty word Tanks to do th Bot Short shrift Mvoly, Wise, ss Unem € Pow Ployed, ) their own thing » there was too for it to be ay y Day, 1937, saw many ey, Day rally! €mploym of ful world” eed! i s the theme ; ay Day Rally in emple, 307 W. 2 tiday, April 30. 2 paca vice- © United Elec- tae (UE); alderman Bay 'n, Colin Snell, ve! £0-ordinator, and a IWA, who will ale 'ng, will address + Upt y Mt. Th ie Musical enter- m, S Meeting starts Proce e he co above costs will edj : am Civilians Aid for € guys who- | q . : nin Medal] by the : € medal, viet govern- @ people be heard!’’ — Alfred Parsons, martyr hour day, executed by the state in 1888. young B.C. men in Spain, fighting France’s fascists, and one of the highlights of that day during which some 9,000 people gathered at Lumbermens’ Arch, was a telegram from the B.C. comrades in the International Brigade. ‘‘Don’t be misled by the old idea fascism can’t happen in Canada,’’ they warned. (That year one million U.S. students demonstrated for peace, designating April 22 as the day for a nation-wide strike. Eddie Cantor, Lionel Stander and Erika Mann were amongst the artists and writers who addressed their meetings. ) In Vancouver 40 gaily decorated fishing boats weighed anchor offshore as the rally took” place. And in Nanaimo, Vernon, Mission and Cumberland, as in Vancouver, the theme was peace. Mayor Lyle Telford was the main speaker at the 1939 May Day rally. (Vancouver has had sympathetic mayors once or twice in its history). The main slogans that year centred on “Stop Hitler — Save Peace!”’ In the May Day edition of The Peoples Advocate there is a photo of Maxim Litvinoff, foreign minister of the USSR. The caption says ‘‘He offered Britain and: France the full economic and_ military assistance of the Soviet Union in- return for a definite military alliance of the three powers that would stop Hitler in his tracks. Chamberlain has given no answer.’’ How. different the world’s history might have been! And the reminders of the threat of fascism were there. One hundred veterans of the McKenzie-Papineau Battalion took part in that May Day rally in 1937. The Relief Project Workers Union was there, the Chinese National Salvation League; floats of three unions in the fishing industry; loggers, Ladies Garment Workers, and Farm Association. THE WAR YEARS May Day, 1944. The people were at war against fascism. . . the war that could have been prevented had not anti-com- tennial, was awarded for out- standing work in the field of working class journalism in promoting peace and friend ship. The medal was presented to Rush by Soviet ambassador to Canada, Boris Miroshn- chenko, at a ceremony in Toronto April 18. Also present at the ceremony receiving the Lenin medal was former Cana- dian Tribune editor William Beeching. The Soviet Union has awarded the medal to veteran Canadian communist editor Tom McEwen, who will be presented with the medal later this summer when a representa- tive of the Soviet embassy visits Vancouver ee This historic photo shows the 1937 May Day rally at Lumberman’s Arch in Stanley Park. munism and anti-Sovietism been the prime motivation for every move made by the capitalist- bourgeois ruling class of the western world, (just as it is today.) ““May Day comes this year as the Red Army thunders at the prison gates of Hitler’s Europe,” said The People editorial. The theme that year was worker-soldier unity in a firm front against fascism. Dorise Nielssn, M.P. told the thousands of people gathered at Brockton Point that they must see to it that such an evil as Hitler fascism was never allowed to grow again. Other speakers were the CCF’s Dorothy Steeves and Mine-Mill’s Harvey Murphy. In Trail that day 1,500 miners and smelter workers marched, and even in so small a hamlet as Webster’s Corners, 200 attended amass meeting that night. COLD WAR YEARS By 1949 the war was over and one of the main slogans, (in keeping with a new threat on our own continent), was one which demanded ‘‘No Wall Street bases for aggressive war on Canada’s soil!’’ By this time reaction against the great progressive momentum of the people had set in, and in B.C. the coalition government under John Hart was threatening repressive legislation against labor. In this parade there was a float carrying a coffin labelled Bill 39 — “Jt won’t work, John, so let’s bury it!”’ One of the speakers at the 1949 rally was Maurice Rush, war veteran, and former prisoner-of- war. He told the crowd: “The American imperialist eagle closely resembles the late German Fascist eagle!” Fifteen thousand people were out for the 1948 May Day which rallied around the call “Unity for World Peace!” Mrs. Effie.-Jones, staunch fighter. on the municipal front, rode in a car decorated with banners reading ‘‘Put reform policies in city hall.”’ Mrs. Jones was a near-victor in the mayoralty race the year before. Guest artist at the rally was Earl Robinson who wrote the moving Ballad for Americans, Which side are you on? and other labor and antiwar songs. Labor was on the march for peace that May Day of 1949, said the Pacific Tribune, and on guard against a new Hitler anda new made-in-the-US fascism. _ That was during the years of the worst of the cold war, and in Canada the vicious attacks on progressive unions and their leaders were carried on by the reactionaries, helped out by ‘labor fakirs and anti-com- munists. In that year the Tribune carried pictures of union leaders with smashed faces and bodies, victims of hired goons. One which no hard rock miner in Canada will forget is the memorable photo of Mine-Mill leader Maurice Travis, who lost an eye in an attack by thugs. Raiding thugs. Homer Stevens chaired the rally that year, and speakers included a well-known musician- teacher, John Goss; James Thompson, whose Seamens’ Union was being raided by a gang-up of Liberal government and Hal Banks types. Supporters for the Seamen showed their sympathy by tossing money into a blanket held by four husky members of the besieged union -as they marched in the parade. The venerable Tom Uphill, Labor MLA, Fernie, was also on the platform. The Vancouver Youth Singers entertained the crowd at the 1958 May Day rally in the PNE, while Harvey Murphy, vice- president of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers gave the keynote address. Andy Brogan, chairman of the Marine Workers Union Unemployed Committee dealt with the growing unem- ployment situation on the west coast. Peace was the central issue in the spring months of 1963. An editorial in the Tribune demanded Get out of Vietnam! while hundreds of banners in the May Day parade that year sent out the message No Nuclear Arms for Canada! ~ The more than 1,000 who attended the rally heard the respected M.P. from Kootenay West, Bert Herridge, say: “Students from four univer- sities came to my office recently and informed me the RCMP had asked them to join the NDP and the Ban the Bomb clubs and to supply the RCMP with member- - ship lists.” Homer Stevens of the UFAWU and Cedric Cox, Burnaby MLA, were other speakers at the meeting. Cox said, ‘“‘The trade union movement must accept the responsibility to activate the workers to celebrate May Day as International Labor Day.” So from the earliest years of this century, through a major depression, through two wars, through the vicious cold war, through the so-called affluent sixties, to today-May Day has been marked by labor and progressive forces. During those years May Day saw many labor men jailed — simply because they defended organized labors’ rights; others were hounded and persecuted and dis- missed from their jobs because they fought for peace. The celebrations of yes- teryears sought to put forward the vital issues facing working people at the time. This idea cannot be lost to the future, lest the original theme of inter- national solidarity and a main struggle in each and every country go by the board. In 1971 there is little doubt the main issue internationally is peace. On the home front it is jobs. Around these issues all people, young and old, employed and unemployed, men and women, can unite! MARINE WORKERS’ THE UNION LOCAL No. 1 1219 Nanaimo St., Vancouver 6, B.C. Endorses The MAY DAY COMMITTEE MEETING FRIDAY — APRIL 30th at 8PM LABOR TEMPLE —. 307 W. Broadway. & BOILERMAKERS’