QNE of the peculiarities of our time and on which we often pay too little attention, is the concentrated hor- Tor and threat contained in a single 0rd... words that contain terrible Meaning, ‘ _ X€gardless of race or language, just mention the word Lidice to any decent fe Uman being, and immediately there Surges Up within him a feeling of hhor- Tor and revulsion. This word Lidice aot Only conjures up a past horror, Wy Middle 20th century of war and hate. pe avora Guernica needs no élabora- ed to a ‘Spanish, Canadian, or other _, tker. It means that a city was mur- ,, 8d, in silence—to pave the way for © Murder of other cities.+ Other Words like Louvian, Coventry, Dieppe; : se ibs also “‘words that weep,” preg- _ “it with meaning—and fear. When some old Vet mentions the Ms Lusitania or Athenia, even 4gh two decades stretch ‘between *m, most folks know what is meant: me ™ knowing, fear! _Peabulary which not only speak vol- ne i one word, ‘but produces a hor- " Which mere words can never ade- f a nr. S@ Words, a few among many, Snly denote violence and death ten, an unprecedented scale — an at- ‘Pt at the brutal extermination of a W, a People, but they also mean that tar. 4s the highest expression of cap- me Politics, knows and recognizes’ in qr ohAl code of civilized behaviour y.~ Preservation of its class rule. Scions have been written into our con- th ae words which have become Dire ‘cial language of those who con- “Cefe for war behind the pretext of pee” peace. — Mo “ween two world wars we all got, Benga or Jess acquainted with the es- ati oe content of the word pact. Wy titish poet Kipling once describ- as | : in.a speech he made in 1923 “ng “. . . the most powerful drug » by Mankind.” Certainly we didn’t Pac ee “drugs” in the Versailles Wtern be Locarno Pact, the Anti-Com- Whole bore: to mention only a few-in a Dag. TOod of similar or lesser woe Pacts all contained one com- Wieser minator, viz, a pretense at fo, .. "28 peace to hide a conspiracy, wan “2t! They were conspiracies for My, : ; Wag i, 8 class whose ‘prime objective Wik hold onto the Pact; arrest and ‘Sey, the terms of life for the Pre- _ tperialist class interests. “tof these pacts have became less Tajn). © Proverbial “scrap of paper,” ihe because, in the “etiquette” of ann, ngle ‘hyenas do not observe table Dea When moving in on the kill. aking in the British House of time ws on April 16, 1919, the then ey ninister Lloyd George said: Ut no; nt @ Peace ‘that will be just, .c, . Vindictive. We want a stern eG because the occasion demands ‘Stime demands it. Every clause SUCTION MCE UOT OA ee eM Yee Oe Mee ee nt ee ed AVAGO aevevanmimuanauaneieuanauanauauaneianane gue ea in the cold-war language of the . mes, mirrors new ‘horrors being plan- | Similarly with other words from this » take some later additions to our Wor S recent years a lot of new - Wn Ae secure the Future — for their - and term in those conditions must be justified on those grounds. And in this fateful hour it is the supreme duty of statesmen in every land, or parliaments * upon whose -will statesmen depend, to consecrate the sacrifices of millions to the permanent redemption of tthe hu- man race from the scourge and agony of wars.”: Fine words; a ifine pact, -labelled “Versailles” and bearing Lloyd George’s signature. Also a conspiracy for a war which drowned his fine Welsh oratory in a sea of blood twenty years later; a confirmation of Burke’s classical observation that “a very great part of the |mischiefs that vex this - ‘world arises from words.” Of later words which the daily press, radio, and numerous other media for the distribution of “drugs” heave at us hourly, we can include NATO, Col- ombo, ANZUS, and a host of others, and to which may be added Schumann “plans,” Yoshida “plans.” Marshall “plans,” Abbott “plans,” and so on Together with these words, our infant- - ‘ile concept of geography is also up- ended by the inclusion of countries, like Turkey into our “North Atlantic community of| free’ nations; » with . Tokyo, Lisbon, London and Madrid -now designated as U/S. “frontiers;” with Franco, Syngman Rhee and ‘Chiang Kia-shek elevated to the fore- front as champions of our “free dem cratic way of life!” 4 Benelux, NATO, Colombo, ANZUS! ach of these words are a conspiracy for war; each are designed by an im- perialist wolfpack, determined. to hold onto the Past, bring the Present to heel, and shape the Future to their own class interests and greed — or trans. form the earth into a holocaust of flam- ing death and disease. And every one of these sinister words which, when: spelled out, mean war, are draped by their designers with pretentious words of “peace.” nines Strange as it may appear: 'this one word Peace, when ‘taken up by the. common people and echoed around the world, is considered to be subversive. of all the other fine words in ‘the lexi- con of $-imperialism. Genuine peace to those who pay homage to ‘Wall Street is equivalent - to Communism, therefore something to be fought as the Yankee General Grow said in his | diary, “. . . to ‘hit below tthe belt ... _-with all weapons.” This business of trick wordage is not a new invention, but in generating the required atmosphere of ‘cold-war in preparation for a hot one, words are important weapons. Such words are designed first and foremost to fool and hoodwink ‘the people. They also come in handy at times among the imperial- ist crooks themselves to double-cross - each: other when ‘the inherent contra- dictions of the capitalist tyranny they espouse, overtakes them. : In fact we spend millions of dollars training a whole corps of “diplomats” how to say No when they mean Yes, and how 'to say Yes when they only mean Perhaps. There are rare excep- tions in this as will be recalled when ‘the Canadian diplomat, Hugh Keenley-. side gave a definite No to a proffered * handshake by 'Hitler’s top banker, Hjai- maar Schacht. Our yellow press “de- plored” Keenleyside’s “bad taste.” pub-. licly, and Mike Pearson’s external aif- ' fairs department gave a sharp rebuke to its errant diplomat for using the right words at the right time! The most of Canada’s common people said “Well done, Keenleyside.”* im When we hhear the 'Acheséns, Church- ills and ‘St. Laurents spouting about NATO, ANZUS, Benelux, etc. as “in- struments of peace” when ‘they mean war, we are reminded of some. of our earlier biblical instruction on the sub- ject of words. “The words of his mouth. were smoother than ‘butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet-*were they drawn MBWORds. Ge a ‘ e AN expert on Dack-stabbing ‘ , . o : : i gece! our local TLC Horatio, Tom Alsbury, takes up the cudgels (as he frequently does) on the “menace of Communism.” what he thas to say is seldom factual or educational, but always highly entertaining. ‘ At ‘the recent ‘Winnipeg convention: of the Trades and Labor (Congress, this stale red-herring occupied much of the TLC executive’s time. That body, with much praise and prompting from the monopoly press, had planned to have the convention adopt their resolution calling upon the St. Laurent government ‘to outlaw the Labor-Progressive party. Doubtless the U.S. state department's official “observers” also approved the TLC executive plan — if they didn’t actually concoct it. The daily press whooped up the possibility of a nation-wide witch-hunt in numerous provoca- tive articles and headlines, in anticipation of the TILC convention being led into such a'trap. Such “news” would have produced a spate of screaming headlines well calculated 'to warm the heart of any ‘Chamber of (Commerce coupon clipper. But glas! The delegate body of ‘the TUC convention rejected its executive’s pro- posed ‘ban on political freedom by an overwhelming majority. In the “menace of communism” debate, Horatio Alsbury of B.C. was well to the fore. “Communists only want to use the labor movement,” orated Alsbury, “in order to destroy it. They were stabbing it in the back.” This line of “argument” is neither new nor true — but it does reflect the mentality of those who are doing precisely that. It is a matter of record in B.C. labor circles that Tom ‘Alsbury has never. built a trade union organization in his career to date. It is also a mat- ‘ter of record that while he was orating in Winnipeg about “stabbing in the back,” that is exactly what he has been, and is now trying to do in Vancouver; tostab an old-established union of civic workers in the back, because it declines to have Messrs. Bengough, Berg and Tom Alsbury dictate its policies, choose its officers, and run its affairs. We do not question Tom Alsbury’s ability as an authority on “back stab- bing” in the labor movement . But his aim is atrocious! feet acts -CNE, PNE i same boat W and again a PT reader gives us a rap across the editorial knuckles for failing to compliment some col- umnist or some commercial paper or ‘other when they inadvertently stumble upon a basic truth in the course of . their meanderings. This week, with the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) upon us, and still wilting from the effects of its opening- day military parade with U.S. troops in the lead, we were heartened to Jearn that we are not the only journal Which takes a dim view of this US. annexation of Canada. The September 1 edition of Maclean’s Magazine carries a leading editorial on the ‘Canadian National Exhibition’ at Toronto, entitled, “CNE; Not Can- adian, Not National.” We don’t need ‘to elaborate what Maclean’s mean. { PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 29, 1952 — PAGE 5 That can be seen any day at the PNE. Down the Midway is “little America” ‘with its shows, barkers, “talent,” clip- games, Yankee Shriners with a itypical stock-in-trade Yankee circus. That is the PNE. Maclean’s Magazine puts iit this way: “As we were saying, it’s hard to get_ really indignant about a good summer fair and as fairs go, the Toronto fair is_a very good one. It. doesn’t, never- theless, happen to be the Canadian National Exhibition and we wonder © how. long it will be before someone seeks a court ruling to make it desist from using a name so foreign to its spirit?” ; S That fits the PNE, right down to ~ the latest corny joke at the Shrine Circus, ; Whatever it is, it is least of all Canadian! ¢ acific Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Maift Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. Tom M Editor Hal Griffin, Associate Editor Subscription Rates: — Canada and British Commonwealth countries (except Australia) One Year $3.00 . . . Six Months $1.60 Australia, United States and all other countries One Year: $4.00 Six Months: $2.50 Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver 1, B.C. Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa.