: | Bs ee cE Audience’s firm stand blocks fascist attempt to disrupt peace By MARK FRAN! rally TORONTO Four hundred hooligans shouting-war slogans, anti-Semitic epithets and Hitlerite “Seig Heils” tasted bitter defeat as their efforts to disrupt the great closing public Massey rally of the National Assembly to. Save Peace crumbled about their ears. Hall It ‘was a-mag~ nficent demonstratidh of heroism, determination and discipline by thousands of. peace- loving Toronto citizens and hundreds of Assembly delegates from every part. of Canada. | In a stirring declaration to the Massey Hall audience Dr. James G. Endicott said: “This great meeting is the answer to the Canadian gov- ernment which brought fascist DP’s over here to prevent us from having meetings such as this. Those rem- nants of the scum of Hitler Europe don’t want the ordinary people fighting for peace—but they cannot stop the people.” With fine restraint the organiz- ers of the rally quickly filled the hall with close to 3,000 supporters of peace. An estimated 3,000 more, including hundreds from evening church services, were unable to gain entrance or be directed to over-flow space provided, because police failed to clear the streets or run the armed, violence-bent mob into jails. Not a single hood- lum was arrested. Evidence of the attitude of the audience to the fascist war threat outside was a record collection of over $3,000 in cash and pledges. Unable to carry out a well-or- ganized plan to enter Massey Hall, the hoodlums, identified as mem- bers of the Canadian section of a Project X organization, called the “Anti-Bolshevist Bloc of Nations,” (linked to ex-Hitlerite elements in West Germany) shouted them- selves hoarse and later dispersed with their tattered banners call- ing for war against the Soviet Union. (Reports ate that nearby St. Mi- chael’s Hospital was thrown into an uproar because of the shouting out- side. Many patients were upset by the filthy shouted epithets.) Significantly enough the war press reported the event sparsely, though giving a fantastic account of. “8,000 anti-Communists.” No pictures of the demonstrators were taken. Dozens of policemen stool silent- ly by while open intimidation was going on. At least 1,000 gallant peace supporters walked through a veritable fascist gauntlet to enter the hall on the Victoria Street side. All the time police stood by refusing to clear the streets. Citizens were physically -threat- ened. Othe demonstrator in open view and hearing of police shouted: “We'll remember your face,” to citizens walking single file through the fascist mob. ‘ Others continually shouted anti- Semitic slogans. Insulting tones using the names “Mrs. Greenberg!”’; “Mrs. Herscovich!”; “Mr. Rosen- berg!” were heard. One peace supporter shouted back at them “You Nazi butch- ers!” He was stunned when a po- licemen in leather jerkin took the side of the fascists and said, “There are more butchers inside than outside.” One young person, one of a greup of young people who stood on Yonge and Shuter singing peace songs and shouting defiance at the fascists, was sharply slapped by a police officer. This reporter had an exchange with Inspector William Semple in charge of a detail of police at the Shuter street main entrance. Upon arrival at the meeting at 8:15 p.m. I noted all the doors closed. I immediately went up to Semple and asked “Can’t I get in? I have to cover this meeting for the press.” “What paper?” he replied, “The Canadian Tribune,” I ans- wered. ‘ “Oh, we don’t want any of that ‘Communist stuff’ here.” At this moment a uniformed po- liceman butted in shoving me back into the crowd. “We're neutral, we're neutral! Stand back,” he shouted. As I protested he asked: “What paper did you say you represented.” “The Canadian Tribune.” “You mean the Stalin paper. You can’t get in.” { turnéd to Inspector Semple, the same official implicated in the brut- al beating given Sam Michnik in the Toronto CNE police room for circulating: the Stockholm Peace Petition. He pointed to the scream- ing fascist mob waving their war banners and deliberately said: “You try and get in and those boys will have you.” With one or two exceptions, not- ably war vets, the police seemed sympathetic to the disruptors. Many citizens seeking entrance were not told that they could get in at the Victoria Street side. At first this entrAnce was completely blocked off, but police then per- mitted the fascists to form their gauntlet of violence, leaving only a thin pathway to come single file along. - Sent into the hall early a few of the mobsters were identified and eased out by-quiet-talking but per- suasive ushers. The order that pre- vailed at the meeting was tribute to the forces of peace. As each was removed from the hall, the audience broke into cheers. Bruce Mickleburgh, chairman of the rally, in a heart-warming an- onuncement at. the height of the screaming outdoors firmly said: “We're going to have a wonderful meeting, an orderly meeting con- ducted in the Canadian tradition. Anyone who attempts to disrupt it will be removed.” ~ NAZI NETWORK BARED TORONTO | Open appearance of ex-Hitlerite elements in attacks on peaceful |citizens, such as took place at the |Massey Hall peace rally April 8, is lthe latest incident in a series of | well-organized assaults on freedom ‘of assembly. The episode follows hard on the criminal bombing of ithe Thanksgiving Eve concert at the Ukrainian Labor Temple; the street murder of Michael Bortnick; the demonstration of fascist Hun- garians before a Labor Forum meeting at the Belvin Hall and similar attacks in Winnipeg, Tim- mins and Montreal. Meeting secretly in Munich on February 22, a band of ex-Nazis held discussions with British agents, “wartime experts on subversive op- erations in the Balkans,” according to a Reuters despatch. The group called itself the Anti-Bolshevist Bloc of Nations — the directing or- ganization for the violent hate-filled mob that milled about the Massey Hall peace rally. ad The Reuters despatch notes that | the new group “is reported to be well financed by the Ukrainian colony ‘in Canada.” Daniel Stokal, ehairman of the Ukrainian Cana- dian Committee which helped bring elements of the fascist SS Halych- yna Division to Canada, reported to the conference that a new “associa- tion in Toronto formed mostly of displaced persons from Europe” was “morally behind them” and had sent, funds to the Munich head- quarters. The despatch reported that the conference boasted that many of its members “preferred to join the Nazis in 1941 . . . and were taken prisoner inside Germany or else- where in 1945.” Released by US. authorities they are now being Mob got orders from organization abroad ' | Foundation. readied as part of the general re- armament of Germany program for a war in Europe. Leader of the group is Jaroslav Stetzko, self-styled prime minister of the Nazi-established ‘“Independ- ent Republic of the Ukraine” of 1941. It lasted four days. He is now resident in London, according to Reuters. Early on the same day the out- rage before Massey Hall took place a group of 17 attended a meeting at the Wakunda Centre at 346 Bloor Street East. Called for 3 p.m., it was sponsored by the so-ealled “Champions of Freedom.” Its ad- vance publicity urged attendance to fight against the growing peace movement and named the National Assembly to Save Peace. Copies of the Anti-Bolshevist Bloc leaflets distributed by the Massey Hall de- monstrators were given out at this meeting. Chaiping the meeting was Hugo W. Wolter, executive director of Polaris Foundation, claiming finan- cial support from the O'Keefe Wolfer was onetime recreational director for the City of Toronto. Acording to reports of the meet- ing it was called to plan for “low- ering attendance of the evening ‘Peace Congress’ session.” Attack~ ing his small audience as apathetic, guest speaker. Malcolm Robb, KC. Belleville, inflamed them with refer- ences to an undefined ‘threat from within.” He attacked family allow- ances, old-age pensions as “fraudu- lent boon-doggling” and said he was seeking aid from the Canadian Leg- ion to advance his “anti-Commun- ist” plans. Also addressing the small meeting was Walter Lyaniwsky. The presi- dent of the United Canadian Com- mittee, the group of Hitlerite ele- ments behind the mob action at Massey Hall, was identified as a Dr: Kaskalis. GIANT CORPORATIONS MONOPOLIZE B.C. LUMBER INDUSTRY MacMil BY MAURICE RUSH The recent $100-million merger of H. R. MacMillan Export Company Ltd. and~ Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Ltd. represents a big step_to- wards monopolization of British Columbia's lumbér industry in very few hands. ‘It has been obvious for some time that a sharp struggle was taking place between top financial. inter- ests for control of the woodworking industry, evidenced in December, 1950 when the powerful eastern Abitibi Power and Paper Company merged with Alaska Pine and B.C. Pulp and Paper Company in a $30 million deal. . This later merger of the two giants. in B.C. lumber, MacMillan and Bloedel, is undoubtedly their answer to Abitibi’s challenge for control of the lumber and pulp in- dustries. Labor will see in this merger a new threat to trade union organiza- tion in the woods and-mills, for Bloedel’s contsant intimidation and infringement on workers’ rights and conditions has given it a no- torious anti-labor reputation. The new power of this huge monopoly, which will employ over 8,000 men, will have to be matched by strong and. more militant organization of woodworkers. Another important feature of the merger is that it represents a closer tie-up of MacMillan with powerful U.S. capitalists. The Bloedel out- fit represents large American inter- ests. This merger strengthens U.S. control of the economic and politi- eal life of the province. Recent ap- pointment of H. R. MacMillan as Canadian representative on the North Atlantic Defense Production Board is tied in with U.S. capital. lan, Bloedel merger threat to labor Here is a view of the Bloedel operation at Port Alberni, recently expanded by addition : _ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 20, 1951 — Page 7” of a new gang mill.