of DP violence.

%

oe Fe

William Bennett, 1881-1949.

‘6 Continued from page one)

For close on 40 years Ol’ Bill was a tireless
worker and advocate for the building and exten-
sion of a fighting labor press. In every progressive
left wing paper published in British Columbia, Ol’
Bill stood out ds one of the leading Marxist-Lenin-
ist exponents of socialism. For the past 14 years
he had been a columnist for a succession of such
papers, the B.C. Workers’ News, People’s Advo-
cate, Pacific Advocate and Pacific Tribune, writ-
ing his famous “Short Jabs’’—a profound, sharp,
often witty interpretation of current issues of the
day-to-day struggle. Sa

When the Borden “Union” government sup-
pressed the Western Clarion, official organ of the
Socialist party, during the First World War, Ol’
Bill promptly responded by- publishing the Red
Flag. Numerous. mimeographed and printed pap-
ers, many of them shortlived but all glorious efforts,
giving expression to the needs and struggles of
employed and unemployed alike, found in Ol’
Bill a tireless dynamo of energy, leadership and
example.

The pages of labor history are replete with
instances of the manifold activities of this grand
old fighter. Financial aid to the Soviet Union fol-
lowing the 1917 revolution; financial aid to help
Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh liberate China from
Chiang Kai-shek and his imperialist bankers; cam-
paigns to keep a working class press going strong
—all these were the warp and woof of Ol’ Bill’s
life. To Ol Bill “resolutions” of moral. support

Stamp out

XX 7ITH the exception of the fracas at Pioneer

abe Mines, when a group of DP’s boasted to the
hard-rock miners of that area that they’ (the DP’s) -

“liked living under Hitler better than in Canada’’,
‘British Columbia has been relatively free of the threat
But that is no reason for our re-

maining unconcerned at what is taking place in other
Canadians centers.

Serious incidents, bordering on organized riot
and violence, have been precipitated by these nazified
DP’s in Winnipeg, Timmins, Fort William and
many other important centers where there are large
concentrations of Ukrainian and Polish-Canadian
residents,

\

“The Nazi hooligan pai: of these DP’s fol--

low a uniform pattern, well, rehearsed under Hitler’s
blackshirt regime, and now being applied against sec-
tions of Canadian labor. Cultural and educational
centers of Ukrainian-Canadians and other groups
have been wrecked, and men, women and children

im peaceful Sunday evening concerts or meetings, viol-

_ ently beaten up by these DP hooligans.
What about the police? Don’t they provide

rotecti o the properties and victims of these Nazi
assaults? gs

In Winnipeg a volume of sworn evidence points

to the fact that the police ‘stood idly by while these

selected scum of the Hitlerite regime smashed up
property and beat up Canadian citizens at a concert
meeting in the North Winnipeg. Ukrainian Labor

Temple. Similarly with the happenings in other cen- -

ters. Any arrests made were mainly of people de-
fending their persons and property against organized
fascist hooliganism, turned loose in Canada as part
of a government “immigration program”. :

It is no longer a secret that the central “‘screen-

Speak up

'N THE U.S. feverish athivities are proceeding to

‘ make an atomic bomb 1,000 times more destruc-

_ tive than the one dropped on Hiroshima.

_ Maxim Litvinov, in the League of Nations, once
warned the warmongers that no gun has yet been
‘invented which will fire only in one direction. -

_ It would be the utmost of folly for people in
North America to thing for a minute ‘that if atomic
bomb warfare is launched by the U.S. government—
and it is openly preparing to do just that—only other
peoples in other lands will suffer. And it would be

is the Soviets who plan war.

suicide to fall for warmongering propaganda that it

.

meant nothing unless backed up by active and
material support.

And there were many “little campaigns’,
sparked and led by Ol’ Bill, to help the widows
and children of the broken and dead working class
victims of the class struggle, to assure for them
the minimum comforts of life that he never knew

himself.

We bow our heads in deep sorrow in the
loss of a valiant comrade and friend. * His ‘‘Short
Jabs” «cannot be replaced, for it was the unique
product of a talent that drew on the experience of
half a century of struggle. And the staff of the
Pacific’ Tribune will miss» him no less’ than the
hundreds of friends and supporters to. whom his
office door was always open. His loss to the labor
movement is a heavy blow at this time, when all.
the enemies of labor and the people, aided by the
treason of social democracy within the ranks of
labor, seek to destroy the unity of labor to facilitate
their policies of reaction and war.

Our pledge to the memory of Ol’ Bill, to
strengthen the cause to which he dedicated his life.
must be to build the Labor-Progressive party of
which the was an honored member and reach the
goal towards which he strove so hard, the goal of
a Socialist Canada, free from fear, want, and war.

Ol’ Bill was a Communist, cast in the special
mould of selflessness and devotion to his fellow
men. That was the pattern of his life. Let us
build on that pattern as our memorial to his exam-
ple and teaching.

P violence

ing” technique employed by the St. Laurent immi-
gration officials in the,selection of DP immigrants to
Canada was to make sure that the prospective ‘“‘im-

‘migrant’’ was anti-Soviet, anti-communist. Other

factors were of minor importance. The objective was
to secure a type of “immigrant’’ who could be readily
used as a strike-breaker or an anti-communist “‘shock-
trooper”. Their special nazi training in ideology and
violence is regarded by Labor Minister Mitchell and
those he speaks for, as an asset in smashing up the
progressive and cultural organizations who do not
conform to the anti-Soviet, anti-progressive policies of
the St. Laurent government.

The Bridge River miners taught the imported
“Hitler lovers’? a salutory lesson in Canadian demo-
cracy. It is time Canadian labor followed suit, and
let it be clearly understood by all that, while labor
welcomes to Canada DP refugees who are prepared’
to fit into Canadian institutions — including labor's
right to think and act independently—it will not per-

mit the DP Hitlerite scum, brought in as a potential

army of scabs and terrorists to wreck the House of

Labor must also demand, even if far removed
from the scene of such disgraceful activities, that the
law enforcement authorities deal expeditiously and

firmly with all DP. hooligans, who get encouragement

from their ‘Project X’’ centers of Western Europe,

and even from Ottawa, in carrying on their Nazi ac-
tivities against Canadian citizens and organizations.

Those Nazi DP’s responsible for the Winnipeg
and Timmins outbreaks of organized violence must be

brought to account. Failure to do so places the law

enforcement authorities in the role of accomplices—
a well-founded suspicion that can only be erased by
prompt actions against these misplaced Gestapo-train-
ed hooligans, miscalled ‘‘displaced persons.’’

for peace

The, Soviet Union time and again has proposed
(1)

and (3) a pact of peace. /
_ Why isn’t that done? Because U.S. imperial-

ism, backed by the Bnitish and Canadian govern-

ments, rejects a policy of peace in favor of an attempt |

to dominate the world. 2 pea
‘Peace can be won; the world can be saved from

atomic slaughter, if the ordinary citizens speak up for

peace. aE

That is why the Canadian Peace Congress peti-
tion to “‘Ban the Bomb’, now circulating, should be
taken to every Canadian home. i

column.” ‘

progressive disarmament (2) the banning of at-'
omic weapons and a system of inspection and control’

TOM ‘McEWEN

As We See lt

s¢A]O matter how long we travel together,” wrote Ol’ Bill in his

“Short Jabs” in the December 23 issue of the Pacific Tribune,
“we come to the parting of the ways. I regret that I have to record
one of these partings now. Perhaps it should be printed in another
part of the paper, but because old Ben Sparks and I were such close
friends, I would like it to appear in this column.”

Seven days later’ our beloved comrade and friend Ol’ Bill reached

the “parting of the ways,” bidding us a cheerful goodbye, and leaving

an unsurpassable pattern of a life devoted to the

service of his fellow men. ‘

', About 30 years ago, the world’s greatest social-

ist architect, Lenin, in describing what constitutes
a full and useful life, wrote these words:

“Man’s dearest possession is life, and since it
is given to him to live but once, he must so live as
to fee] no torturing regrets for years without pur-
pose; so live as not to be seared with the shame of"
‘a cowardly and trivial past, so live, that dying, he
* ‘can say, all my life and all my strength were given
to the finest cause in the world, the liberation of
mankind.”

That was how Ol’ Bill lived his life, leaving us a patter of a great
heritage of courage and devotion.

‘There are thousands of Canadian workers in mines, mills, factories
and farms, deeply saddened by his death, who will reply with pride
and a challenge in their voices, “Yes, we had such a comrade and
friend, who spoke for us always... Ol’ Bill.”

Ol’ Bill has many friends, young and old, more perhaps than any
other man living in British Columbia. Old-timers, workers who had
traveiled down _life’s long hard road with him; old-timers who cracked
their jokes with him on the skidvoad, or in his little home, who looked
to him to supply the verbal ammunition to give vent to their feelings
and confound their class enemies. Old-timers who became part of
him wheh he girded for battle to keep a fighting labor paper going.

Of the old-timers, Ol’ Bill wrote in his “Short Jabs”: “There’s old
Bob Kydd up in Prince Rupert, for instance, who has been selling subs
and getting donations for our papers ever since the Cutty Sark (a
noted four-masted sailing ship) was launched in Dumbarton, And
there’s old Neil MacDonald up in the Portland Canal country; there’s
W. K. Bryce back in Saskatchewan, who's been donating ever since
the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone trial at the beginning of the century.

And there’s old Mrs. Campbell on Georgia East who is always there:

... their ages run anyway from 75 to 90, and they are all part of this

There are others, many many others, columns of them, who were

Ol’ Bill’s close friends and comrades; old age pensioners (whose names

cannot be mentioned in this column, lest their miserable pensions be
endangered—such is our “way of life’), burned-out veterans, disabled
and discarded workers, fighting working class mothers, who found in
OV Bill a mighty gladiator in their fight for a better world, and who
loved him with a deep and lasting devotion.

OV Bill’s comradeship with the youth was no less than with the
old-timers who had shared the struggles of his generation. Ol’ Bill was
himself a “young pioneer” and has often said in his current columns
that he “learned as much from his young pioneers as they did from
him.” I remember not long ago sitting with him during the meeting to
hear the report of the 1949 “Beaver Brigade” on their tour of the
New Democracies of Europe.
don’t have to» worry much now. The cause we've been fighting for is
in good hands.” E ; Y =

' What a vast fund of anecdote and story beamed on the class strug-
gle Ol’ Bill possessed, and how he laughed, deep and hearty, as he
drove the point home. ' Here is one he liked to tell. An old Socialist:
crony of his had come into a modest estate, and decided to invest it in
a small tourist cabin business. In the late “hungry thirties” his, ten-
ants were generally workers having. a stiff time to keep a roof over
their heads. Their “landlord” didn’t bother them haggling about rent
arrears—but did keep feeding them socialist classics and pamphlets;

i

Happening to make a call on one of his “tenants” one evening, the
‘landlord” noticed the charred remains of one of Daniel De Leon’s

. pamphlets lying in the ashes. Obviously others, had met the same

fate. Next day was rent day, and here was one “tenant” he was going
to collect from. | ! ‘

Rapping on the door bright and early the “landlord” demanded the
rents due, iat SORE

Tenant: Well, I haven't got it now, will next week be all right?
Landlord: Not by a damsight, I want it now’or you get out.

Tenant: Hmph, and you call yourself a Socialist. Do you call this
socialism? ; 3 \ f

Landlord: No, this isn’t socialism. This is a goddammed triple-'

plated double-distilled capitalism. Now pay your rent or git. Yl
learn you to burn°up my pamphlets. _ ;

When Ol’ Bill bade us a cheery goodbye a couple of nights before
his Scottish “Hogmanay’—the day when he too reached the “parting

I won’t be able to see this time.”

of the ways,” he asked us to “say a Happy New Year to all the folks

6.59 Ne , < * 3 et or) ‘ :
. The banner he carried with steadfast courage and dignity through

many “new years’ is in our hands now. Ol’ Bill showed us how it
should be carried, : .

Ut

=D ia rf A ly i

isabel Hiaunasiiniinll

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street

By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 6, 1950—PAGE 8

/ ‘ XN

“Tom,” he said, “ola duffers like us.

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