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REVIEWS

WE WERE THE SALT OF THE EARTH!
A narrative of the On-to-Ottawa Trek
and the Regina Riot. By Victor Howard.
Canadian Plains Research Center, 1985.

Though U.S. born and educated, histo-
tian Victor Howard — he has also used the
Name Victor Hoar — has written fre-
quently on Canadian history, particularly
On the Depression years. In 1968, he pub-
lished The Mackenzie Papineau Battalion,
the first full account of the Canadian volun-
teers in the Spanish War which portrayed
the men as heroes of a war that official
histories chose to forget. A year later, he
Published a small booklet of documents
and interviews on the On-to-Ottawa Trek,
and followed it up in 1973 with a reprint of
Ronnie Liversedge’s Recollections of the On-
10-Ottawa Trek to which he added an intro-
duction and a substantial appendix of
documents.

In his introduction to Liversedge’s
Memoir, Howard called the Trek a struggle
“with an epic quality about it” and added
that the “support given by thousands of
Canadian citizens to the relief camp strikers
+. Suggests that the ‘craving for life’ had
become a national appetite.”

Given that background, it was with some
anticipation that I looked over We Were the
Salt of the Earth, Howard’s own historical
account of the Trek, published in October
by the University of Regina.

It certainly is one of the most thoroughly
Tesearched of any work on the Trek. How-
ard has combed the records of the Regina
Riot Inquiry Commission and the archives
In several cities as well as newspapers, jour-
nals and the records kept by police in both
Regina and Vancouver.

_ Butresearch is one thing; writing history
AS another. And on that score, We Were the
Salt of the Earth! is a mighty disappoint-
Ment. It not only fails to demonstrate the
Promise of his earlier work but also fails to
deliver any new historical understanding on
the substantial research that has been done.

In fact, the sheer detail overwhelms the
text. It’s true that the book is intended as
Narrative history and Howard’s narrative is
Well filled out with local color and detail,

* ven snippets of conversation. But the real

history is too often missing.

Howard accepts, uncritically, R.B. Ben-
Nett’s argument that a national work and
Wages program would be “too expensive”
— and therefore omits any coherent analy-

Geason's Breetings

Finnish Organization of Canada

sis of the economic policies of the Tory
government. There is only superficial back-
ground information on the establishment of
the Workers’ Unity League and the early
campaigns to organize the unemployed —
and both are necessary to a full understand-
ing of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the
massive public support that it generated.

What makes Howard’s account particu-
larly annoying at times is the inclusion of
trivial details and the flippant, even snide
tone he frequently adopts. Although it
appears sympathetic to the trekkers, the text
is peppered with such things as the Relief
Camp Workers supporting “‘policies of agi-
tation and disruption”; of strikers “trying to
force negotiations by tempting riot and dis-
order”. May Day becomes the “revolution-
aries’ holiday.”

One of the new sources of information
that Howard tapped is the archives of the
Vancouver City Police Department. It is a
dubious source, as he notes, since many of
the agents and informers were given to the
worst prejudices of the time. Howard him-
self acknowledges that the police reports
were often “‘a blend of alleged facts, specula-
tion, advice and gossip” and adds “an
extensive caveat has to be appreciated with
respect to their material.”

Yet he uses them extensively throughout
his text and as the pages go by, that caveat is
less and less observed. Nor is the informa-
tion in the reports just incidental detail; in
one case, police reports are the sole source
of information in commenting on relations
between the CCF and the Communist Party
and Arthur Evans’ position in that relation-
ship. The result is a picture that becomes
increasingly distorted, an historical account
that more and more begins to echo the
reports that it quotes.

The sections that perhaps suffer most
from reliance on police reports and the
excessive detail are those dealing with the
Regina Riot. Howard takes us hour by
hour, street by street and” ‘eyewitness
account by eyewitness account through the
police attack on the July 1 Market Square
rally and the ensuing riot. But in the end, he
fails even to ask, much less to answer, the
fundamental question: why did the police
attack a peaceful citizens’ rally?

The police would always maintain later
that it was to arrest the Trek leaders but the
historical record shows that they could have
been arrested at any time during the day,
particularly as they had been meeting with

and wishes for peace
in the New Year.

Local 55

Association of United
Ukrainian Canadians

Greetings to our members and
supporters for this holiday season.

May the New Year be the year of peace
throughout our planet.

You are invited to the special Malanka
celebration, on Saturday, Jan. 18,
805 E. Pender St. Advance tickets on

(Ukrainian New Year)

1986, 6 p.m. at
ly. Phone 253-3032.

Ee Se

ih

' Trek history lost amid police records

e | °

. : A j

—@

Trekkers at the Exhibition Grounds the day the Trek arrived in Regina.

Saskatchewan premier James Gardiner to
try to negotiate the organized dispersal of
the men back to B.C. In fact, even a per-
functory reading of the historical evidence
put in context of federal government poli-
cies, leads to the conclusion that the police
attack Was the culmination of the Bennett
government’s intended policy throughout
— to break up the Trek and disperse the
movement that had created it.

Instead Howard ends his account with an
inconclusive debate as to whether the riot
was touched off by bad police timing or
possibly by premeditated action by the
trekkers themselves.

Is there anything redeeming about We
Were the Salt of the Earth? Actually, I read
it through twice, hoping to put aside some
of my disappointment. There’s no question,
there is a real sense of the color of the relief
camp workers and the comradeship in
struggle that was created by the trekkers.
There is, particularly for readers unfamiliar
with this part of our history, a glimpse of the
campaigns against unemployment and the
relief camps which are all but ignored in offi-
cial histories. And there is a wealth of detail,
some of it useful and informative. But many
of the details are also suspect, products of
police informers and officers who were any-
thing but objective observers.

tinuing th
ND WAGES

from

In the end, the “epic quality” Howard
earlier referred to is missing from his
account. It was not because the Trek fell
short; far from it. The Trek was an event
unique in labor history — a climactic battle
in the decade-long struggle for work and
wages that not only helped to change a
government and the policies in which it had
cloaked itself, but also helped shape this
province’s militant labor traditions. It’s just
that Howard, in coming back to the issue 18
years after he conducted his interviews with
trekkers, has lost some of his vision.

— Sean Griffin

Action Coalition

Season's Greetings to all
our friends and supporters {

Let’s make 1986 a year
to end apartheid

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Phone: 734-1712

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to all readers of the
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Veterans of the

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 18, 1985 e 25