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