Highways to border clogged by Canadians thronging to Peace Arch rally

‘Will rmg around world’ says Robeson

By HAL GRIFFIN

As Paul Robeson himself said, “Nothing can keep me from my
800d friends in Canada.” And on Sunday aftemoon his friends in
Gace. more than 25,000 of them (some estimated 30,000 and
0,000), clogged’ the highways to the border to join him and several
thousand American supporters in Peace Arch Park. It was the
dian people’s way of showing their contempt for the ban placed
ne Robeson’s leaving the United States by his government, their
tibute to a great artist who dares to sing and fight for what they

Mselvea want most—peace.
ie It is not the first time that the people of Vancouver have come
om mn their thousands fo demonstrate their utier repudiation of a gov-
: tment’ s policy. Nor is it the first time that the great Mine-Mill
non, at whose invitation Robeson came, has led their demonstration.
* at Ottawa, and their mentors at Washington, who think they can
ae Gusibly pervert the Canad® weple into alien ways of war and
quest, might reflect upon this.

Mine? might look back to the murder of Ginger Goodwin, the
Bee ill leader, in 1918, that brought the, working people of Van- |
ne oul into the sheets in Canada’s first general strike. Or they
the remember the Bloody Sunday” of* 1938 when police attacked
oll Pe rloved in Vancouver Post Office and 30,000 citizens turned
with : conuter government policies of unemployment and_privation

er own positive demand for work and wages. |
ee Sunday’s gathering at the Peace Arch was of a different
oe ut_ in the same high tradition. Neither obscure threats of
ane the studied smears of the daily press nor all the subtler
wh oe could deter people who felt a sense of personal outrage
ae aul Robeson was denied_ the right to sing at the Mine-Mill
ee 1on in Vancouver last February. Whatever their political
they ns, they came to the Peace Arch knowing it was the only way
aa could hear a man who is denied the night to leave his own
a ty because his government fears his voice—his songs and _ his

Tds—for peace.

»ccupied the points of vantage
ind settled down to wait.

They came to the Peace Arch
from Victoria, Nanaimo and the
‘P-Island towns, from all parts

the lower mainland and the

"aser Valley, Some came from
ay Okanagan and the Kootenays.

i Others drove hundreds of
ia €s down the Cariboo Highway

°m the north.

And over the rise from the Can-
adian side the people came in an
endless stream.

They filled the hollow until it
was one vast human concourse
from which the Peace Arch rose,
a brilliant white symbol in the
ca, sunshine, the Canadian,and Am-
ne Were ranged hub to hub inj 2rican flags whipping in the cool
Pek itself. Those who came | wind from Semiahmoo Bay.

"wards had to leave their cars * a *

the side of the highway, at They were still streaming into
*st afew hundred yards, then a|the park when a sudden quiet

"e and two miles from the park, | fell upon the gathering. The
children stopped their delighted
play. All eyes turned expectant-
ly in the one direction.

Ey cey started to come in the
‘ly morning and by noon their

The cluster
{oun

th

of early comers
5 dq the Peace Arch grew by

Minute, Blankets spread out
a © spongy turf, picnic baskets
aa - and children—all the child-
sin °r whom Paul Robeson would

8—playing around them, they

‘ “FHe’s here,’”? a thousand people
said at once in every part of the
yark. And a great roar of wel-
some went up. ¢

Paul
at his left.
Lawrence Brown at the piano.

Robeson
Ken Smith (right),

Then Paul Robeson was among
them, towering above his escort
of unionists, walking with an
easy stride, hand outstretched
and a score outstretched at every

, tried to close the gates.
| people. will
closed

|come back, as we promised you

step to grasp it.

From the makeshift platform,
the back of qa truck parked be-
neath the low-swept branches of
a tree, Harvey Murphy, Mine-
Mill’s regional director, made his
way through the throng to greet
Robeson. @hey embraced warm-
ly. A minute later Robeson: had
-lambered on to the truck and
Murphy was welcoming him in
the name of the Mine-Mill union.

And still the people were

A section of the huge gathering of Canadians and Americans, varto
thousand autos and thirty busses from Vancouver and

40
b 000, at the Peace Arch Park, Some four
Yasep

Jalley towns brought the record Canadian crowd to the rally.

usly estimated at 25,000 to

sings his Lullabye to a

rapt aucience,

Harvey Murphy stands attentively

Mine-Mill district president, and Ted Ward, hold tae music for

streaming in from the Canadian
side,

** . You can see these words on
the Peace Arch —~ ‘May These
Gates Never Be Closed.’ They
But the
never let them be
Paul Robeson has

”

he would. ...

Paul Robeson stepped forward,

“T have travelled in many
lands, fought many battles. I
cannot tell you how deeply movy-
ed I am to find that nothing...
nothing can Keep me from my
good friends in Canada.

“T intend to continue to fight
for peace, for a decent life for
all humanity, especially for the
rights of my people in my own
America, Only now I must fight
a little harder because our times
call for harder struggle.

“This is a most hiStoric occa-
It can mean that I will be
in Canada,

as I want to sing,

sion,
able to sing again,
everywhere,
freely.

“What is being done here will
ring — is ringing now — around
the world.”

* * *

hour, Robeson
sang for the people, his white-
haired accompanist, Lawrence
Brown, occasionally joining him,
the microphone carrying his peer-
less voice to the far edges of his
audience and beyond to the late-
comers still streaming down the
slopes—Love Will Find Out A
Way, Water Boy, Jie Hill, No
John, No, Loch Lomond, No More
Auction Block For Me, Lullabye,
Four Rivers.

Then, for an

Then, for an all too brief few
minutes, he was Othello, reciting
Shakespeare’s immortal words.
(‘Just to reming you that I come
from another section of the arts,
I hope to be back in the theatre
again in the fall.’’)

Next, in broad-smiling vaibeiies
to his audience, Ol’ Man River,
and finally an excerpt from Bal
lad For Americans and snatches
from “songs I would like to sing
for you,’”’ among them Chee Lai.
the national ‘anthem of People’s
‘China.

“Now,” he said, “I want to
spend a little time talking with
old friends here.”’

As the concluded, the assembled
thousands were on their feet ac-
claiming him, thrusting their way
to the ‘platform with dollar bills
in response to Harvey Murphy’s
appeal, the children swarming
over the truck, clamoring for his
autograph.

Slowly, reluctantly, the great
crowd thinned, dissolved again
into long streams of individuals
homeward bound with the mem-
ory of a day to stand out in days
of unceasing struggle for peace
and a decent life, Paul Robeson’s
promise following them as Har-
vey Murphy announced over the
microphone, ‘“‘Paul has just told
me that he’ll come back next year

unless the ban is lifted in the
meantime.”
At home that evening, the

thousands who had heard Paul
Robeson could ponder the dilem-
ma of glibly
trying to equate war with peace
—‘‘Ten thousand lined the streets
of Vancouver to see the troops
returning from Korea, ten thous-
and went to the border to hear
Paul And, knowing
the truth of their own great dem-
onstration, they could echo the
words of a song Paul Robeson had
them, ‘“‘Peace will tri-

’

radio announcers

Robeson.”

sung for

umph over war.’

PACIFIC "TRIBUNE — MAY 23, 1952 — PAGE 7