A TRIBUTE

The flaming heart
of Annie Buller

By JOHN WEIR

a OUR century of mighty
world upheavals there are
’ also events and people of
more modest dimensions,
which nevertheless stand out
-in brave relief in the history
of the working class. High on
the roll of our Canadian he-
roes stands the name of Annie
Buller.

Like many other Canadians,
Annie was not born in Cana-
da. Her birthplace—the date
was Dec. 9, 1895—was Cher-
novtsy, then an outpost of
the Austrian empire and now
a thriving cultural-industrial
centre in Soviet Ukraine. But
Annie was brought to Canada
as a child and from early
youth merged her life with
the forces working to make
Canada a land of peace, pro-
gress and plenty for all.
Montreal is her “home town”.

During World War I, toge-
ther with Mike and Becky
Buhay, Bessie Gauld and
others, Annie went house to
house distributing anti-war
literature and spoke at meet-
ings against conscription,
agitating for peace, helping
to heap the fuel for the great
anti- conscription demonstra-
tions in Quebec in 1918—the
first mass upsurge sparked by
the combination of the efforts
of socialist and labor circles
with the anti-imperialist, anti-
war movement of the French
Canadian people.

‘ When I first became ac-
quainted with Annie four
decades ago, she was already
something of a legend. She
had served her apprenticeship
in the strike struggles of the
miners in Nova Scotia and
Drumheller. She had _ partici-
pated in the formation of the

Communist Party and spoken:

at hundreds of gatherings
across the country — many
years later at places in the
West I heard people measur-
ing time by saying, “that was
the year when Annie Buller
spoke here”! When we were
fledglings in the Young Com-
munist League we used to
trot down to the office of
the “Worker” (Annie was its
business manager) and help
to mail the paper, after which
we would take a bundle to
sell at the gates of Massey-
Harris and other plants in
Toronto. Annie’s enthusiasm
and encouragement made
what could otherwise have
been just a chore and a duty
something that warmed and
uplifted our hearts in the
doing.

In 1931 the call of duty
led Annie Buller to the Este-
van coalfields in Saskatche-
wan, where the miners refus-
ed to live any longer in what
were practically feudal con-
ditions, and asked for help
in their strike. Annie inspired

them, advised them, worked
with them. On Sept. 29, when
the miners with their wives
and children made their way
from Bienfait to Estevan in
an orderly parade, the RCMP
blocked their way and opened
fire, killing three and wound-
ing more than 50. The autho-
rities followed up the mass-
acre with arrests of the
workers’ leaders. They were
especially eager to seize Sam
Scarlett and Annie Buller.
The miners provided refuge
to Annie, and railwaymen saw
to it that she got safely to
Winnipeg. There she told a
great public rally the truth
about Estevan and collected
money .to aid the miners’
defense (the workers outwit-
ted the police who wanted to
seize Annie, by sending them
off on a false trail—they ar-
rested another woman who
happened to be wearing a
coat like Annie’s!). She went

on to Toronto to help orga- ~

nize the Workers’ Unity
League before being arrested
and sent back to Estevan for
trial.

As Georgi Dimitrov faced
his nazi persecutors at Leip-

Annie Buller as she appear-
ed in 1916, when she was
active in the anti-conscription
struggle in Montreal.

zig, as Tim Buck hurled the
challenge back at his accus-
ers in the Supreme Court of
Ontario, so did Annie Buller
brilliantly conduct her own
defense in Estevan, refuting
the trumped-up charges and
perjured testimony against
her. She ended her summing-
up to the jury with these
words:

“I. am not guilty of this
charge . . . I have said before,
and I say again, that it is not
Annie Buller who is on trial
here. It is the great class of
producers that stands in the
prisoner’s dock, and no one
realizes more than I that» the
forces against us are very
great. But, gentlemen of the
jury, regardless of the out-
come of this trial, I am going
to remain loyal to my class,
the working class, the build-
ers of the future’.

She has never for one mo-
ment failed that pledge!

The one year she served
in prison then and the perse-
cutions she suffered later
never caused her to falter.
Her personal happiness as
wife and mother blossomed
all the more beautifully be-
cause her life and that of her
family was rooted in the fer-
tile soil of the progressive
movement. Beautiful in her
youth, she is beautiful as she
rounds out her “three-score
and ten’. :

Annie’s weapon is the word
—the word spoken from the
public platform, the word of
the workers’ press, the word
of progressive books. She has
ever been an untiring agita-
tor, propagandist, organizer
and a Communist leader—all
these rolled up into one in
Annie Buller. Although ill
health has caused her to
forego public appearances and
has made it impossible for
her to continue as manager
and circulation builder of the
press and_ distributor of
books, she has but slowed
down and not given up the
good work. She is of the sort
that will never “retire’’!

Seventy years . . . More
than 50 of them in the front
ranks of the Canadian work-
ing class, in hundreds of
battles for peace and for that
wonderful future which her
efforts have done so much
to bring nearer. A lifetime
devoted to spreading the light
with unwavering faith and
purpose, with unfailing deter-
mination and love.

Annie Buller-Guralnick is
like Danko in the story by
Gorky, who tore his flaming
heart out of his breast and
held it aloft as a torch to lead
his people out of the dark
forest.

Long may she live and may
her kind increase! oe

side by sid
J. $. Wallace -

HEN I WALKED in to McTamneys I passed uP ©}
“ chance to save $1,600 and compromised by askil
for a key for my 400-day clock. The salesi™
quoted $2.25 for one. When I pointed out two other pla®
sold new ones for 75 cents he gave a polite version °
What? And claimed their wholesale cost was $1.25. Eve!
true that was a nice margin; from my experience ® }
Warner and Swasey turret lathe operator I could havé “}
torted the cost of production was. probably five cents: —
Instead I went down Church Street to another pa)
broker, Donnellys: They produced one for 50 cents #)
unwrapped a boxed clock to make sure the key fit, adit
that if my clock was different, they would be glad to 7
a key specially or refund my money. r
e

HEADED north to Queen St. again and east to Sherbo
In the butcher shop there when I found bacon squ@

(smoked jowls) were 25 cents a pound I took fo
Twenty-five cents in a shop that buys from hand to mov,
Thirty-nine cents in Dominion Stores where they buy
the trainload. .

Interested now in such wild variations in prices
compared the pants I’d got at a Hobberlin sale for
and the ones I got through my daughter for $4. No™ |
ference I could detect. 7

e

OU KNOW from experience these are not freak € Al
ples: recall what happened to sugar prices last Y

Or take these words from a Canadian Press despa!

“The Canadian potato industry remains plagued by
problem of fluctuating prices. R. E. Goodin, marke’
velopment specialist for the Ontario Department of
culture told the annual Canadian Potato Industry @
ference yesterday. The persistent and serious problems
sharply fluctuating prices and low levels of income.t0 ©
grower remains, he said. Mr. Goodwin said potatoes
selling in British Columbia last week at $128 a ton.
fall, when supplies were ample the price was less th
$30 a ton.

“We are operating in a jungle’ — Alan Roe, spéé
for Lever Bros. ‘ ;

I know conditions are totally different under sociall® |
can you tell me in 50 words or less, in what way?

de}

=>

December 10, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Pag?