i lee Li | WUT AT | OPEN FORUM Explanations due WORKER, New _Westmin- ster, B.C.: In the recent civic elections in New Westminster, I was astonished to find that the Buzz Saw, our local IWA paper, did not carry the names of our three Labor candidates, * even though it did carry the names of the Labor candi- dates in Surrey, Coquitlam, Port Moody and Vancouver. Furthermore, the B.C. Lum- berworker, the IWA district paper, apparently stated that a Mr. D. Stout was a labor candidate in New Westminster. As far as I have been able to find out, Mr. Stout was not only not a labor candidate, he even declined to run on a la- bor ticket. One wonders what is going on among some of our IWA leaders here. Why didn’t they support our labor candidates in New Westminster? Do they or don’t, they support labor political action? It would seem that an explanation is due to the membership for what ap- pears to be some underhanded action. Indians’ plight in U.S. H. L. D., Vancouver, B.C.: I am enclosing some clippings from the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota with the, thought that they may be of interest to your, readers who, no doubt, will draw the same conclusion I myself draw: the United States government, which professes to be so con- cerned for the welfare of the people of Hungary, Lebanon or whatever country it is cur- rently intriguing against, might well concern itself with the plight of its own first citizens. 5 © at wt First of the clippings en- closed by reader H. L. D., dated November 27, reads in part: BISMARK — A State Wel- fare Board representative was sent to Fort Yates Wednesday (November 26) to investigate charges that government neg- lect has resulted in Indians going hungry and in need of clothing. Gerald Shaw, member of the Welfare Board staff, was sent to check on claims by Theo- dore Jamerson, head of the Sioux Tribal Council at Fort Yates, that the government has failed to provide aid to needy Indians. Carlyle D. Onsrud, state wel- fare director, said here mean- while that government policy apparently varies among the state’s five Indian reserva- tions. a At Fort Berthold and Turtle Mountain Reservations, Onsrud said, the government is pro- viding assistance of $10 a month to employable Indians who are out of work. At Fort Yates, however, fed- eral Indian Bureau officials said aid generally is not of- fered to employable Indians prior to December 1 .’. . xt $03 x A second clipping elaborat- ing the situation, dated Novem- ber 29, says: FORT YATES, N.D.—There is no starvation on the Stand- ing Rock Indian Reservation Congressman - elect. Quentin Burdick of North Dakota said Friday, (November 28), “al- though living conditions are the lowest I’ve ever seen.” “There is evidence of ab- normal diet,” he said, “but this is a chronic situation. Per- haps it became more acute be- cause of the snowstorms.” Burdick toured the reser- vation Friday in the wake of reports of mass hunger among the Indians .. . Burdick’s estimate of condi- tions came after the reserva- tion superintendent, Harold C. Schunk, scoffed at reports of “starving Indians.” Burdick, a Democrat and son of retiring Rep. Usher Bur- dick (RND), said he went to more than a dozen homes scat- tered through the reservation. “Housing and general living conditions are the lowest of any place I’ve seen,” he said, “The standard of living is rock bottom. What alarmed me most was the stare of the children. Fresh milk is not.in evidence any place and there is no fruit, not even dried fruit.” But, he said, he found con- siderable flour and cornmeal in the tribal council warehouse, smaller amounts of dried milk and some sacks of rice. “There is no near-starva- tion but evidence of an ab- normal diet,” he said... N A GRAVEL bank just 0 after you cross the Fra- ser River at Hope, a few weathered buildings look down on the road. If you are high-balling through, the chances are you won't even see them. And if you do, you ate not likely to give them a second glance unless you happen to notice the weatered sign and the old treadle loom in the win- dow of one of them. Here, until her death on October 4 this year, lived Mrs. V. S. Maclachlan, surely one of the most out- standing women of her gen- eration in this province. You may feel that three months is along time: to wait to pay a tribute, but it has taken me that long to piece together the details of her life. Sometimes it ‘is strange how little you know about a person you know so “well. Once or twice a year, on my way up-country, I would call in to see her at the little cottage cluttered with hooked rugs and the materials for making them. She was among the finest hooked rug workers any- where, as those who have seen her work at book fairs sponsored by the Pepole’s Co-op Bookstore Association in past years will know. She would push aside the clutter, put the kettle on and then, with a shrewdness and enthusiasm that belied her years, ply me with ques- The empty cottage tions, on China, the Soviet Union, the H-bomb anything and everything that was topical in the news. The last time I was there she insisted upon my taking a whole cooked salmon along with me. The Native Indians had given her far more than she could use. They were her friends, the. Native Indians, which is ’ among the highest tributes you can pay to the worth of a person. The Native In- dians do not give their friendship easily; it must be earned as Mrs. Maclachlan earned it through mutual kindness, respect and trust. Thirty years ago, in 1919, Mrs. Maclachlan was largely instrumental in establish- ing the first VON nurse at Saanich. She helped to es- tablish dental clinics in many other centres. For 10 years, from 1916 to 1926, she was provincial secretary of the Women’s Institutes and for another 20 years, until 1946, she was superin- tendent. Her last years were de- voted to the handicrafts on which she was an acknowl- edged authority. The little cottage among the tall trees where she worked is empty now, but the skills she pass- ed on live in homes through- out the Frasér Valley where- ever the creative talents of plain people are the richer for her having been. HAL GRIFFIN NOW MAJORITY IN USSR World's first woman doctor listed in 185 Ao 100 years ago, the first Medical Register in Britain, published in 1859, saw the inclusion of one woman’s name on it — Elizabeth Black- well — the only woman doc- tor in the world at that time. It is true that she had not been trained or qualified in Britain (there was no chance for a woman to be accepted for any medical training), and the term ‘female physician’ had for many years past been used as a cloak for the word “abortionist.” Elizabeth Blackwell obtain- ed her training in the United States, but only after 29 medi- cal schools there had refused her application. She qualified in 1849 and in 1850 returned to London for a year’s study. There she was allowed. to work in Bart’s Hospital — al- though not, for some reason, in the department of female > diseases! Back in the U.S. again,-. be- tween 1851 and 1858, she founded a dispensary and in- firmary in New York. It seems likely that she returned to Britain in 1858 only because she foresaw the value to wo- man of having a woman’s name on the Medical Register in her own country. As soon as she was register- ed she went back to her work in the U.S. During the next ten years she opened a medical school in New York and,organized a nursing service for the North in the American Civil War. She had to face fierce op- position — not only when she was refused entry to other hospitals there, but because her own hospital cared for Negro and _ white patients without distinction. But she returned to Britain again in 1869, this time for good — because the women’s struggle for recognition was becoming harder, and she felt she had a part to play. In 1866 Elizabeth Garrett had qualified as a doctor, after being refused admission to or a) BEELER ESE BS MPRA Ae We Na A Re BE Ne A A EE VA es Ne Ye Se December 19, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FA thrown out of almost ev medical school in .Britain. She finally managed to her qualifying examinatio! on a technicality; but as 5 -ag she had passed (with ing colors, incidentally) outraged males - changed regulations to. prevent other° woman from sitting future. 3 The British Medical Asso™ tion, which now had two men doctors as members,’ began to wonder how it allowed this terrible thin! happen, and refused any ther women~ for membe!® Despite opposition from medical schools (London un in the association. Nh versity, supposed to be ps to “alk classes and denom tions,’ ruled that .a wo was neither a class nor @ nomination), seven moré men did manage to qualify” 1873. q In. 1874, one of. the s@ women, Sophia Jex-Bl founded the London Schoo! Medicine. Elizabeth Black was a member of the b?% and the school, of coursé mitted women students. Even so, it- was to be® other two years before thé amining bodies consenté recognize the London of Medicine, and to exal women candidates. It was to be anothel years before the British Met cal Associaion accepted | men members, in 1894. E beth Blackwell, who die 1910, had lived to see doors of’ medicine fil opened to her sex. In 1858 she had writt? letter, “100 years henc® ’ men will not be what ie are now.” Certainly Bi and other countries have ™ a long way. But now © have a long way to 8 catch up with a country the Soviet Union, wher .J- majority of doctors are W? BRIS BAK VERVE VES PIS YORE VEN YEN BERN LE ES VRE MIE BE VE YA BE Na FOR HOM Da SHOPPING PEOPLE’S CO-OP BOOKSTORE |) OPEN’ TILL 9 P.M. : MONDAY .& TUESDAY DEC. 22 & 23