RED RIVER FLOOD

By ALD. M. J. FORKIN

Flood ‘monument to governmental
crass stupidity and inertia’

WINNIPEG

ANADA’S greatest peacetime disaster caught all three

levels of government unprepared. This year’s Win-
Nipeg flood will be long remembered and, once the im-
mediate scramble to save life and property is over, will
remain in people’s minds as a:monument to governmental
complacency, crass stupidity, and inertia.

When Winnipeg City Council met on May 1 the
nature of the crisis that faced our city was already evi-
dent. Numerous communities to the south had already
been flooded out, thousands of evacuees were in the
city or headed here with nothing but the clothes they
wore. Local citizens were throwing up dykes with what-
ever material was at hand to try and protect their homes,
yet their civic representatives meandered along discuss-

ing routine business in the usual fashion.

When Ald. Jacob Penner, and I demanded that the
Provincial government be urged to call a conference of
all flood-stricken municipalities at once to fight the flood,
relieve distress, provide compensation, and work out a
comprehensive scheme of flood prevention in the future,
Acting Mayor Simonite left the chair to condemn the
Proposal as “premature.” His colleagues took a similar
line and laid the motion over for two weeks.

Before many days Simonite was forced by the raging
Red River to call an emergency meeting of the council,
to admit a national emergency and hand over control to
the army. Alive at last to the danger, the council set
up a committee of department heads with the city engin-
eer in charge, and gave them a blank cheque to draw
©n unlimited credit from the Bank of Montreal.

The provincial government was still acting like a
Spavined donkey doing lots of heeing and hawing, but
making no financial commitments. The federal govern-
ment had been invited to come and take a look. And
flimsy dykes built in a hurry were going down like nine-
Pins, while hundreds, soon to be tens of thousands, fled
their homes and sought shelter with friends.

ry
The remorséless river continued to rise, an inch or
two an hour—there was no let up. But the people of

Winnipeg remained calm, refused to be panicked, and
worked like beavers. I have seen wars, strikes and
numerous disasters in my lifetime, but the courage and
energy of the common people in a crisis is still g thing
to cause wonder and reverence. I am proud to belong
to such a city, wrecked as it is, with over 10,000 of its
homes under water, its three civic-owned hospitals in-
undated and nearly half of its population scattered over
the country. Its people cannot be surpassed. They re-
fuse to be defeated.

One thing is in their favor. The virtues of “private
enterprise,” “individual initiative,” and so on may be
dinned into their ears 24 hours a day, but Winnipeg
people will have none of it in their civic institutions.
They own their own power plants, hospitals, stone quarry,
gravel pits, asphalt plant, and other civic enterprises.
These were put to work.

The huge pumps of the fire brigade pumped out
the. sewers and kept them operating; huge solid stone
ramps were built through the flood waters to keep
bridges open and take material to vital "power sub-stations
surrounded by eight feet of water. Fifty thousand work-
ers toiled round the clock on a voluntary basis to main-
tain the vital civic service and build new dykes to hold
back the waters. The women of Winnipeg fed them,
often from depleted larders. People worked 24, 40, and
in some cases 70 hours without sleep.

Premier Campbell of Manitoba finally announced that
“substantial” aid to “needy cases” would be given with
federal government help. This qualified promise has a
hollow ring to the homeless people of Winnipeg. The
civic engineering department has already spent over one
million dollars, charged to Winnipeg taxpayers, in fight-
ing the flood. Damage in the Red River valley has been

- estimated at $300 million.

The big job of rehabilitation still faces us, and the
need for immediate aid from the senior governments
cannot be postponed. Should it be delayed or skimped,
a mighty tide of public wrath is likely to sweep away
these governments as the Red River has swept away the
homes of the people of Manitoba.

The Dean of Canterbury stopped in Winnipeg en
route to Vancouver and viewed the flood areas. He
Said he was shocked by the devastation caused by the
flood, but greatly impressed with the. people’s mag-
nificent self-help effort. At dykes and relief centers
he was impressed by the “enthusiasm of the mass of

Dean of Canterbury at flood ‘Ecatie

the ple for work.”
Himself an engineer, he realized the vast effort

that went into dykes such as those he toured with
Ald. J. Pynoo at St. Boniface (above).

In a radio interview over CJOB, he said such dis-
asters could be avoided if we were not spending
colossal sums for armaments. ,

.

ee

LABOR FOCUS By WM. KASHTAN

Union wreckers’
‘blitzkrieg’ fails

new and more favorable phase of the struggle for
unity has been reached in‘the trade union movement.
That new phase arrived because of the serious defeat
suffered by the right-wing CCF-CCL leadership in their
raiding and wrecking activities aimed at the UE and
Mine-Mill, as well as the United Textile Workers. They

were out to take over or destroy these two militant
unions, They failed.

The CCE-CCL leadership thought they would achieve
a cheap and easy victory when they embarked upon their
raiding policies. They hoped that with the government
the daily press and the companies to help them, and the
cold War to confuse and paralyze the workers, they would
quickly carry the day. ‘They based themselves on the
false notion that the electrical] workers and metal miners
would look upon them as “liberators” and would flock
into the ranks of the Steel union or other unions “demo-
cratically’ assigned to them by Mosher, Conroy, Millard
and company. They said the progressive, militant and
unity policies pursued by the leadership of the Interna-
tional Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers and the
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of Am-
erica (UE) had no rank and file support.

— ers step was directed at trying to remove
elected leadership of th i i

cnc an rete ese unions while they were
directed to suspension and expulsion from the CCI, of
Mine-Mill and UE which they hoped would weaken and
isolate both unions. Again they failed. They then under-
took a direct, frontal attack, hoping that by blitzkrieg
methods they would destroy them,

How mistaken they were! H
or- understood the rank-and-file!
tories? They certainly have not be
upon thousands of dollars of worke
could ‘have been used to win wag
ganize the unorganized, have been misused to weaken
the organized labor movement. And they certainly have
not been easy, for the workers fought back.

Ow little they estimated
Cheap and easy vic-
en cheap. Thousands
r’s dues money which
e increases and to or-

Above all, they have not been victories, for instead
of Sudbury, Peterboro; Brockville, Trail, Port Colborne
and Dominion Textile” toppling over, as the right wing
hoped they would, the - workers stood firm. And, -in-
stead of isolating the progressives, the right-wing CCF-
CCL leaders have succeeded in exposing themselves as
union wreckers and bosses’ helpers. Today Peterboro
and Brockville stand with the UE; Trail, Sudbury and

Port Colborne stand with Mine-Mill. The right wing cold
war mission has failed.

The raiders and wreckers have suffered a severe
defeat while the fighters for unity have achieved an
important victory. The advocates of cold war and red-
baiting in the labor movement have received a serious re-
buff while the champions of the fight for peace have been

strengthened. That is no small victory. But it doesn’t
end there. “ ar

The fact that the right wing suffered a severe de-
feat will have important repercussions in the ranks of
organized labor. Those who have been consistently fight-
ing for unity are now gaining the initiative ang will be-
come stronger, while those who have advocated policies
of wrecking and raiding are losing the initiative and will
become weaker. j

The. fight for unity and an end to raiding is bound
te rise in ever stronger form within all unions as the
workers feel the whiplash of capitalist exploitation and
capitalist crisis on their backs and right wing cold war
policy in their pockets as a result of less take-home pay.

It would be wrong to ‘consider that the right wing
CCF-CCL leadership will now give up the battle. Like
a late and unlamented French king, they have learned
nothing and forgotten nothing. They will undoubtedly
try to step up their raiding and wrecking activities in
line with their role of ‘loya] opposition” to big businéss
and their support of the cold war.

But the working class is learning that red-baiting,
disunity, raiding and wrecking aids the employers. It is
learning the hard way, the right-wing splitting policy
and the cold war from which it stems is responsible for
the wage freezes and cheap settlements imposed on them
by the companies this year. Above all it is learning
that mutual] aid, labor unity and united labor action «is
what is: most needed today to defeat the attacks of big
business in its living standards and to maintain the peace.

The unity built up against the raiders now néeds to
be directed towards winning the wage increases the work-
ers sorely need. It must be directed towards organizing
the unorganized. Above all it must be directed towards
ensuring that labor plays its rightful role as the leading

‘fighter for peace and security.

The boceeal dream

EVELOPMENT of a race of human-like
animals capable of doing laboring work might be
possible through artificial insemination of apes with
human seed, a University of Virginia scientist (Dr.

S. W. .Birtton) said last night.
— New York Herald Tribune, April 26, 1950.

At sub-human wages, no doubt.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 2, 1950 — PAGE 9