ustre of Robbie Burns’ genius
shines brighter with each year

| N THE many- tributes to the
| Immortal Memory of Scot-
\nd’s nationa! Bart, there is
: ttle that can be said on the
O1s! anniversary of the birth
Robbie Burns that can add
‘the imperishable lustre of
is genius. Time, with its for-
ard march of the common
eople in all lands towards the
*bal of a new Socialist society
~~ peace and universal broth-
hood, has taken care of that.
He who tuned his poetic
rp to the heart-beats of Scot-
d’s humble men and women

the soil, has now become
ie beloved tribune - of all
ruggling humanity seeking
Nace and international kin-
ip. Few are the lands indeed

i¢h today do not honor this |

ottish ploughman, because
his poetry and song they
‘nd the clarion note of their

Vn struggle.

On the historic visit: of Sov-

' Premier Nikita Khrushchey
America in 1959 and his

so

appeal to the’ nations of the

world for total disarmament

and a turning to the ways of

peace, Robbie would undoubt-

edly add a new stanza to his

Tree Of Liberiy hailing the

French revolution’ of 1789.

Then Burns wrote:

“Wi' plenty o’ sic Trees, I

trow,

Th’ world wad live in peace,
man;

Th’ sword wad help tae mak’
a plow,

Th’ din o’ war wad cease,
man.”

Today he would probably

add—

“Yon tree in Russia’s bonny
land,

Is sure a sturdy oak, man:

It gie’s us a’ a hope fu’
grand, :

That peace is here to stay,
man.”

Only those who have tasted
the bitter fruits of exploitation
poignantly told in the
Bard’s Man Was Made To

BiG PHIGIPOVICH ss

S IT not time, ladies and

gentlemen, to use open-
‘arth furnaces to melt down
e stockpiles of weapons, is
not time to beat tanks into
actors and guns into thresh-
and to direct the entire

>

‘ight of the atom to peaceful:

+Xrposes only? As far as the
“viet Union is concerned, as

Ihave already said at the} ~

hited Nations, we are ready
do it this very day.”
So declared Soviet Premier
kita’ Krushchev in Pitts-
irgh, during his visit to the
‘ited States which was, un-
 tubtedly, the most significant
‘Id event of 1959.
Elis speech at the UN Gen-
1 Assembly on universal
d complete disarmament,
ich Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois,
~Yowned U.S. Negro scholar
author, called “‘the great-
‘speech of this century,” will}
down. in history as an im-
ant milestone.on the way
genuinely human civiliza-

oO

e Joint Soviet - American
mmunigue, declaring ‘that
outstanding international

=stions should be settled not.

the application of force but

peaceful means  through|-

Fotiation,”’. isa document of
amount importance to fu-
e U.S.-Soviet relations.
the minds of the Ameri-
2 people, the visit establish-
a completely new image of
rushchey’ and the country
represents. How different
‘image from that portrayed
the. cold war propagan-

“He talked ‘peace wheréver |’
he went,’ commented Jamés
Reston, in the New York
Times.

Readers of this column have
had occasion to read some of
these “speeches, whole,or in
part; to hear excerpts from
them on radio or TV.

Now you can obtain the com-
plete . record of them, plus’
pertinent documents, ~ contain-
ed in one beautifully bound,
illustrated, 437-page book, pub-|

lished in the Soviet Union and|For A’ That.

available at the Co-op Book
Store, 307. West Pender, - at

only 75 cents!

Titled ‘Let Us Live in Peace

and Friendship, this book rec-|
ords. everything: from the offi-].

cial announcement on the ex-
change of the Visits between
Krushchev and Eisenhower to
the speeches delivered at the

mass meeting in ‘Moscow on

the occasion of Krushchev’s re-
turn. It includes the speech to
the UN General Assembly, the
Joint Soviet-American Com-
munique, Khrushchev’s  tele-
vision speech.on September 27,
his meeting with the US. trade
tnnion leaders, etc.

There is much in it which
the reader will perhaps see in
print for the first time: radio-
grams from the TU-114 airliner

en route to, and from Washing-}

ton, and replies to them;
speeches by Henry Cabot
Lodge, Christian Herter, var-
ious mayors and governors,’
press-group reports, and _ so

forth.

1a

Mourn, can fully understand
the challenge of his protest.
In today’s long lines of jobless
and dispossessed workers, de-
nied the opportunity and right
to- earn a livelihood, and: re-
duced to objects of “a weel-
strained charity,” there we can
find the synthesis of his chal-
lenging .protest.

In these long and growing
lines of destitute humanity we
ean visualize a Robbie Burns,
the “Man. O’ . Independent
Worth” who, from childhood
to. the last -sad note of his
broken harp.- knew poverty
and. hunger .so -well. Today,
pensive and- sorrowful that
such. things. can still be, again
voicing a rebel challenge:

“See yonder poor, o’erlab-
ored wight,

Sae abject, mean.,and vile,*

Who begs a brother of the
earth

To give him leave to toil;

And see his lordly fellow

worm

The poor petition spurn...

(* Descriptive relates to pov-
erty, not character.)

Today Robbie Burns would
add’ something like the follow-
ing, only more challenging: |

“Th’ day. o’ cringing: Jang

has passed,
Nae need tae pe 6
_ grovel;

Stand up like men in union
- grand,

Earth

model.”

The heritage Robbie Burns
bequeathed -to his- fellow men
is as broad as the world and
brilliant -as the noon sunshine;
a heritage rich with the crown-
ing glory. of the brotherhood
of man, embracing.all races and
peoples...and. written deep in
the scroll of tomorrow’s history
in the Bard’s A Man's A Man,

an’

Th’ is yours. tae

.. . It’s coming yet; for a’
that,

That man to man, the world
o'er,

Shall brothers be for a’
that.” —
HLT OOS et
Since few PT readers may
know what a ‘bothy’ is in the |

Scottish idiom,-it-is that build-|}-

ing on a Scottish farm where
unmarried farm workers live;
where they eat their ‘brose”
(oatmeal), sing their Sankey
argue, and sieep. -

‘Out of these. farm bothies
have come the ‘Bothy Ballads’
famed on Scottish cultural and
"FV. programs and. sung by

many talented groups, one of |

these -being The Reivers, sim-
ilar to our own Canadian folk-
‘song groups.

One of The Reivers popular
songs on Robbie Burns is en-
titled The Battle of the Plaque.
The opening. verse tells the
story of some snooty people of

St. Giles. who oppose having A
(memorial tablet)!

“plague”

itive. concluding ‘stanzas, and

of St. Giles “off the hook.”

‘ballad:

ROBERT BURNS

placed in that nistoric centre
of Edinburgh. The Reivers
popular “ballad. opens with:
“There was a lad was born
in Kyle.
But ye widna ken it in St.
Giles,
For there they
worth their while
Tae hae a plaque for Robin.”
A Scottish folksong critic,
Norman Buchan, has comment-
ed upon this popular ballad on
Burns, suggesting that it
should contain one or two pos-

think na

has invited others at-home and
abroad to’ repair. the omission, |
thus “taking the good people

To this Peter: (Rete) Munro,
a Vancouver Scot and staunch
proponent of the great inter-
national family of Robbie
Burns, has supplied the posi-
tive verses for -The Reivers

“For Shame ye bodies O02 Sf:

Giles,

We're o’er the sea twa thou-
sand miles,

But weel we ken it’s worth
o’or while

Tae hae a plaque for Robin.

Tae us, there’s deil a chiel
aboon :
The lad that sang o’ Bonnie
Doon,
We think ye'd better change
yer tune
And haw a
Robin.”
Thus 201 years after his
birth the great:debate goes on.
beginning beside the ‘cradle of
a humble-.Seottish ploughman
poet, and ending-~for all hu-
manity in the triumphant re-
alization of his life-long dream
of universal brotherhood and
peace:

“Still closer knit
_ ship’s ties,
Each passin year.”

TOM McEWEN

plaque for

3 Friend-

ROBBIE

Friday, January
AT 7PM.

Adults $2

Grand Scottish Banquet & Concert

Celebrating the 201st Anniversary
of Scotland’s National Bard

Pender Auditorium
339 WEST PENDER

Children $1

Tickets "Available at
People’s Co-op Bookstore and
Pacific Tribune. office.

BURNS

22

January 22, 1960—PACIFIC

TRIBUNE—Page 5

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