%

. mote his.

UTUCHANAEEU TTT ERSEEEEGUAAA ETL

MONG the trends and tenden-

cies of the U.S. military brass
hats and their side-runners in
the Wall Street end of civil life
to carry the-banner of fascism
from where Hitler had it knocked
out of his hands, it is good.to see
that the musi“!

cal world of
that country is
peopled by men
and women of a
different type
than the Gen-
eral Lucian
Clays and the
* Forrestals.

While Clay. at fi
the head of the administration of
affairs in the American zone,
cuts the life sentence of the sad-
ist Ise Koch—men unfortunate
enough to have tatoo marks on
their bodies were murdered so
that she could make lampshades
ef their skins+to four years, it
restores our faith in the American
people to learn that Wilhelm Furt-
waengler, Hitler's top-ranking mu-
sical conductor who had been
engaged by the brasshats to con-
‘duct the Chicago Symphony or-

' chestra, has been compelled to

resign that engagement.
' The artists who make up the
orchestra refused to take part in
any program if Furtwaengler con-
ducted, because of his Nazi con-
nections. Furtwaengler says he
must protest against artists who

Hal

THUY

‘HE first copies of a new vol-

ume of Hansard, the record of
the fifth session of the 20th par-
liament, are going out across the
country. In unadorned solid col-
umns of.type they present the
speeches of the men who usurp
“your name and
mine—“I speak
for my constitu-
ents, to
voice the de-
mands of the
trusts and
the monopolies.
But unfortun-
ately they will
be read by rel-
atively few of the millions of
people who this summer in all
likelihood will influence the issues
of peace and war by the way they
mark their ballots at the polls.

The daily newspapers, which
fashion public opinion as much
by their Selection of the news they
print, their inflation of some items
into scare headlines and reduction
of others to obscure paragraphs,
as by their editorial lies, cull from
“Hansard only what suits their
various shades.of common policy
~of anti-Soviet war incitement.
So the ‘public in this province-
reads that Howard Green, the
Conservative member for Vancou-
ver South who sometimes talks
like a liberal the better to pro-
arch-tory proposals,
wants a Pacific pact, a counter-
part of the Atlantic pact. Green’s
speech, however, is summarized
in a few paragraphs, a quoted
sentence, that obscures the real

CSEUUUCHUUAHULLUUTAT UAE

“perpetuate hatred indefinitely.”
_But these artists are not “per-
petuating hatred indefinitely.” It
was Furtwaengler who was doing
just that while they were help-
ing to drive Naziism back into
hell from whence it came. If
Furtwaengler doesn't like the per-
petuation of hatred indefinitely,
why didn’t he take up the fight
against fascism as Toscanini did?
Why did he remdin a servile
lickspittle to Hitler during all
the years of Hitler misrule?
Walter Gieseking too, Hitler
pianist. would have liked a piece

“of the juicy American pie that

is to be cut up among visiting
musical celebrities. He also, has
been driven back to the shelter
of the brasshats in the Ameri-
can zone. His first press notice
after V-E Day was over his re-
fusal to play at a concert staged
for U.S. troops.

The musicians who are keep-
ing these Hitlerites from get-
ting a foothold in American cul-
tural life are doing a great ser-
vice to their people, for if the
American people accepted them
as artists, they would be like the
man in the Bible who took a vi-
per into his bosom.

It is to the simple and unknown '

musicians, violinists, | pianists,
flute players, clarinettists and
cthers like them, that American
cultural life must look to save it
from fascist propaganda, not to
the alleged “top leaders” who
would accept the scum of the Hit-
ler empire complacently as “ar-

TU

significance—and the danger —
of his far-reaching proposals,

Reading that speech in Hans-
ard you might be deceived for a
moment into believing that Green,
like a great many other Can-
adians, is awake to. and what is
more important, alarmed by the
government’s betrayal of our na-
tional interests to Yankee impe-
rialists whose arrogant lack of
concern for our welfare—Canada,
our country, will be a battle-
ground of another world war, they
tell us—is equalled only by their
desperate efforts to tear up their
own proud constitution.

So Green. cannot resist a jibe
at the Liberal. government. ee
sometimes think they are so busy
looking south to Washington to
see what the Americans want
done that they have not time to
look out west to see what is go-
ing on in the Pacific.”

Green, of course, knows better,
“He knows that Ottawa is also
looking south to Washington for
an indication of what-the Ameri-
cans want done in the Pacific
that they prefer the St. Laurent
government, rather than the Tru-
man administration. to take the
initiative in, as with the Atlantic
pact itself. In fact, Green him-
self is voicing what may well
prove to be Washington’s propo-
sals for defending North Ameri-
ca from “the menace of Asia” and
thus sustaining America’s war-
geared economy. ;

For Green’s proposal, strippe

_ of its nostalgic references to Com-

monwealth ties, its deceptive crit-
icism of U.S. policies in Japan, is
4

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warrant

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’

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.

As We See lt

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_ Short Jabs

MK

tists” for these same “top lead-
ers’ do not “perpetuate hatred
indefinitely” against fascism but
they do against the American peo-
ple and their democratic way of
life.

@

The red tape and monkey busi-
ness that hedges around the rou-
tine of the unemployment insur-
ance offices was well described
to me the other day by a worker
who had gone through all the
farces connected with collecting
unemployment insurance. After a
long time, visiting and arguing,
he had at last convinced the bu-
reaucrats at that office that he
was long enough out of work
after paying his shot for several
years, to be entitled to collect.

Meeting him on the street, I
asked him where he was headed
for. Without hesitation he an-
swered, “I’m on my way to the
unemployment insurance office to
EARN my unemployment insur-
ance benefit.”

6
Another worker came into our

.office with the announcement

that he had just had a nice two-
bit meal. Some one asked him

-what did he have. “Bowl of pea

soup, two pork chops, two vege-
tables, bread and butter, coffee
and ice cream,’ he_ replied.
“Where did you get that for two-
bits?” some else asked. “Oh.” he
said casually, “I didn’t get it for
two-bits. It cost me 95 cents, but
it was a two-bit meal, just the

”

nothing more nor less than a pro-
‘posal that Canada take the first
step in organizing intervention
against the people of China. He
wants us, “the people of British
Columbia who live on the Pacific
“slope; and Canada as a nation,”
to accept responsibility for mak-

“ing war on the peoples of Asia

now fighting their own corrupt
rulers and the Dutch and French
imperialists openly for their lib-
eration. He wanis to use the heat
of conflicts in China, and Indon-
esia and Malaya to fan the cold
war to hot. : :

“If a regional pact is to be set
up for the Pacific, I urge that
Canada should become a, full part-
ner in that pact. We have our
dead lying over there in Hong

Kong. We have taken a most act- .

ive part in the Pacific in the
days that are gone, and we must
not turn our backs on the Pacific
at this time,” he declares. “There
is another reason why we in Can-
ada need a Pacific policy, name-
ly the happenings in China and
Japan.”
remind him (the minister for ex-
ternal affairs) that the Pacific

. may be far more dangerous than

the Atlantic for Canada in the
years that lie ahead.”

Green is concerned for the
“marked decline in Canadian
trade with Australia and New
Zealand,’ but he prefers to ig-

nore the opportunities for Can-—

adian markets—and jobs for B.C.
workers—in a trade with a new,
democratic China, weary of war
and fighting for peace, just as his
fellow Tory and Liberal MP’s ig-
nore the opportunities of trade
with the New Democracies of
Europe for the dubious offerings
of Wall Street. j

We in B.C.. whose homes, and
jobs and perhaps lives are being
offered as “security” for such
suicidal alliances will be the first

_ to oppose and: reject Green’s pro-
‘posal. And the best way we can

‘do it is through our declared op-
position to the Atlantic pact, re-
pudiation of which is the key to

“keeping our country out of war,

And he concludes, “I~

Wind at Victoria

ITH its- feet firmly planted in mid-air, the B.C. legislature

opened Tuesday at Victoria. If the speech from the throne
can be taken as an indication of what the government intends to do—
and that is the purpose of the throne speech—then it is quite evident
that the Coalition fully intends to shadow-box its way through a
barren session and never come to grips with the problems facing the
people. .

No mention was made of the Sales Tax, though this is a
burning issue which affects the lives of the common people, who are
demanding its immediate repeal.

No mention was made of the serious unemployment crisis
existing in B.C., with over 40,000 jobless at the present time, though
flowery phrases were tossed: about referring to public works programs
and industrial expansion “by private concerns.”

@ No mention was made of the province acting to increase
old age pensions, though thousands of senior citizens who helped to
build B.C. are today living on the borderline of starvation.

No, the speech from the throne avoided mention of these things;
it confined itself to windy promises and vague generalizations, without
any concrete plan of action.

So devoid of meat was the throne speech that even the Liberal-
heeling Nems-Herald felt compelled to comment: ‘Unless the gov-
ernment has plams further than those nebulous ones announced in the
speech from the throne, the public will wonder why the House has
been called together. Most certainly there will. be wonderment why
time should be wasted reading as barren~a speech from the throne
as has ever been heard in the B.C. legislature.’

But if the Coalition wants inaction in an election year, the people
of-this province have different ideas. Public pressure on MLAs can
force debate and action on such matters as:

@ Repeal of the unjust and unnecessary Sales Tax.
@ A public works program to ate unemployment.

@ Better treatment of our old age pensioners.
3

Flood control to prevent a repetition of last year’s disastrous
floods; a fortified dyke system along the Fraser and a patrol service
which will ensure quick action in the event of danger.

@ A probe into the reasons for the power shortage; and a
carrying out of the government’s post-war promise to take over all
hydro-electric resources.

The legislature is now in session. Now is the time for the people
to tum'on the heat. sNow is the time to WRITE YOUR MLA
demanding that he fight for these proposals on behalf of the citizens
of British Columbia.

“My husband says ire cheaper in the long run than using
the BCElecinic.” * 4 5

‘ : e bi ;
Looking backward
(From the files of The People’s Advocate, February 10, 1939)
ED, by Lieutenant “Joe” Kelly, some 50 Mackenzie-Papineau Bat

» talion veterans will step from a CPR train at 10.30 p.m. tonight
to the welcome cheers of thousands of Vancouver citizens. Mayor

Lyle Telford will be there to bring the official greetings of the
civic administration. : See : an
Two years ago these veterans were among the 300-odd Vancouver
men who joined 900 other Canadians in Spain to form the famed
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Nearly 150 of the 300 were killed
during the hard fighting at Jarama, Belchite, Teruel, the Ebro.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY ll, 1949 — PAGE 3