Se Se

or the umpteenth time since the years of the

F Hungry Thirties I have read the autobiography

of Clarence Darrow — The Story of My Life. In all
contemporary literature published then and since, it has few

peers.

It is the story of America’s greatest criminal lawyer, of one
who equated Justice with ‘‘law’”’; who held the deep conviction
as did Abraham Lincoln, “that all men are created equal’’, and
if “‘the law’’ meant (or means) anything, it means precisely

that. And because it didn’t (and doesn’t), Clarence Darrow
grieved deeply— and fought to make it so.

Theoretically Clarence Darrow wasn’t a Marxist, not even
an avowed Socialist. But in his fifty or more years at the
American Bar, he was ever on the side of the poor and down-
trodden, the working class, the prime victims then and now of
a ruthless exploiting class; a class to whom violence, frame-
up, prisons, and outright murder was their class code of ethics.

Nor has the intervening years since Darrow’s day altered
that very much— except for the worse.

Any exception to this instinctive class orientation in his
legal practice in defense of the guilty, (as in the famous
Leopold-Loeb murder trial of 1924) stemmed from his life-long
struggle against capital punishment, regardless of the class
origin of the accused.

In Darrow’s moral code the State had no more right to take
the life of a human being than that human being has to take the
life of another. Even much less since one resulted from a blind
emotional disturbance — the other from a cold and calculated
impersonal action, often following months or years of legal
deliberations, all in the name of ‘“‘justice’’, to murder legally.

Today, as the crisis of capitalism deepens in our country of
Canada, with crime and its basic causes steadily increasing,
our Establishment, i.e. a° monopoly-dominated ruling class,
are running true to form; to protect its own class interests. It
yearns to restore capital punishment to a full-time vigor asa
“deterrent” to others, and secondly, a resurgence of prison
construction, “‘maximum security” or other modifications for
the “protection of society’? — from the multiple crimes of its
own creation and incubation.

The recent “riot’’ in Kingston Penitentiary (it brought
back memories of a similar event in October of 1932, in which
eight Communists incarcerated there, were credited with the
whole ‘‘blame’’), once again lifted the lid off this unsavory
cesspool of crime, to reveal above all, the futility, ineptitude,
and archaic maladministration of Canadian penal institutions.

Now we are having a binge of ‘““maximum security”’
concepts and structures; bastiles where electronics will
supplant “‘screws’’ (guards) stool pidgeons and the general
prison “‘lumpen”’ so essential in the operation of most of our
“‘modern”’ hoosegows. :

Of course, the inmates of all such ‘““maximum security”

institutions will all be taught “‘a trade’’, but any trade learned .

in prison and applied in the outside world of bourgeois anarchy
and economic rat-race, is about as useful as an asbestos suit in
the proverbial Christian hell. It just doesn’t work — and is not
intended to.

When, however, all the real estate sharks; wheeler-
dealers, and other patrons of the Establishment have settled
their difference on locale, share of the graft, etc. etc. we are to
have a new spate of capitalism’s “‘solutions”’ to its chronic ills
burgeoning into crime— more ‘“‘maximum security” prisons—
bigger and better jails.

There is no mystery about this; every worker added to a
steadily growing army or unemployed, youth and adult, man,
woman, boy or girl, also adds to its own created crime index.

Clarence Darrow posed a question, or rather a conjecture
long ago: ‘‘You don’t hear the people, the dispossed, the
underdog, those who suffer most, calling for more prisons.”
You sure don’t. They seek only the opportunity to work, to
create, to challenge, to be free. That is the exclusive right and
privillege of a decadent Establishment, concerned primarily
with its own “‘maximum security” — and the Devil take the
hindmost.

24th CONGRESS

of the

COMMUNIST PARTY of the SOVIET UNION

Hear

NIGEL MORGAN — Fraternal Delegate to
‘Congress from Communist Party cf
Canada...

DELL HOTEL in WHALLEY
TUESDAY:2% MAY 25th — 8 P-Mo

“oe AUER: FRBEMolley Regional C'ttee.

yet ost Ot ME Lag of

Vancouver citizens are making
known their opposition to
freeways in no uncertain terms.

Meetings held in the past two
weeks have brought out
hundreds of people who protest
proposed freeways which would
see homes and parks torn up to
accommodate cars.

More than 500 people attended
a meeting in Renfrew school,
most of them ratepayers, to
hear alderman Harry Rankin
and others make a strong case
for a start on rapid transit now
rather than the freeways which
would link 401 with the downtown
area.

Residents of the East End are
particularly incensed with
proposals to further cut into
their districts for highways,
industrial development, etc.
They are determined to have a
say in future plans, and the
Renfrew meeting demonstrates
they mean business.

The next evening, at Langara
Campus, the opening round in an
organized campaign for rapid
transit was launched by a
citizens committee.

Included in the committee are
Paddy Neale, secretary of the
Vancouver Labor Council, Jim
Cork, president the Central
Council of Ratepayers, Bruce
Yorke, secretary the Tenants’
Council, and alderman Rankin. A
representative number of
citizens from several unions and
other groups were in attendance.

The meeting decided to press
for immediate construction of a
rapid transit system and opposed
the priority given to freeway
expansion by civic officials.

Chairman Paddy Neale
pledged the support of labor in
the public demand for rapid
transit. ‘There is much concern
at the way freeways are being
pushed ahead of the plans for
rapid transit. Let us see that
steps are taken to widen public
support and get some action on

’ this question,” he urged.

Jim Cork pointed out that the
Georgia Viaduct is a key link ina
planned freeway system, and
this is the reason for the delay in
rapid transit. It bears out the
contention that city council is

. mainly concerned with plans for

the movement of cars and not
the movement of people.

RANKIN WARNS

Unless speedy action is
forthcoming on rapid transit it
may be shelved indefinitely,
according to alderman Rankin.
He warned that ‘“‘plans for a
freeway system are in an
advanced stage. Right now we
are faced with the priority —
what comes first, the freeway or
rapid transit?’’ ;

He said the latter would not
require an elaborate system to
Start with. ‘“‘We could start in the
downtown area now and extend
to other areas later. The thing is
to get started with it before
traffic and construction costs get
higher.”

Citing cut-backs in B.C. Hydro
bus service, he foresaw the need
to expand the present bus system
in line with the demands for
rapid transit. Dealing with costs
for the initial stage of financing
rapid transit, he proposed that
the complete. costs of
construction bi i

nanced by.‘
Senior governments instead of © Wh:
the city taxpayers whom it is

proposed to assess 25 percent of
the $300 million required.

Ted Collins, president of the
Amalgamated Transit Union,
welcomed and pledged strong
support by his union. Observing
that a public transit system
could take up some of the slack
by providing jobs, Collins
forecast that ATU members
would no doubt be faced with lay-
offs as the result of the present

cuts in bus service. Bee

The conference decid?
widen the representation ® 5.
sponsoring committeé
increasing it to some ©
members. Consideratio?
given to holding public ™
in North Vancouver, BUP
and Richmond. It was.
decided to issue an infor
leaflet urging public action
rapid transit.

SHARKS’ DIET

*Calarca in vox Proletaria, Bogota, Colombia

are too

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN
Increasing the admission fee

to the aquarium in Stanley Park.

from $1.50 to $2.00 for adults was
completely unjustified. In fact,
it was an act of discrimination
against the majority of the
citizens of Vancouver and the
Lower Mainland. Its effect is to
limit the use of the aquarium to
tourists and the well-to-do.

The aquarium is an educa-
tional service. It belongs in the
Same category as a library, art
gallery or museum. It is publicly
owned and publicly financed. All
the citizens of Vancouver
contribute to its operation and
expansion. It should be equally
available to all. Yet by the
simple act of raising the
admission fee to an exhorbitant
$2.00, a big section of the public
is effectively excluded. Citizens
are being taxed for a service that
is not open to them.

How come?

The answer is that although
the aquarium is publicly owned
and publicly financed, it is not
operated by any publicly elected
body over which- citizens have
any control. It is operated by a
small self-perpetuating society
of businessmen. They are
determined to operate it as if it
were a private business, to
charge all the traffic can bear
and to hell with the majority of
the citizens who pay the bills.
They and their friends can afford
the admission fee, and so can the
tourists they are catering to —
the ones who stay at the Hotel
Vancouver, Bayshore Inn and
who will be at the Four Seasons
( 3 ie de

ae :
akés the whole thing
even more despicable is that the

Aquarium fee

high

+ 009
Parks Board okayed tS nt
fees and didn’t stop it NPA E
had a chance. The © ab
TEAM parks board do
have some explaining !”
public who elected the™

ot?
~ (We have the same t er
situation in the P
small self perpetu
of businessmen ality Ny
publicly owned fach aiid
tens of millions 0 ves
strictly in thera F
rivately owne™
ore: — the raced
the U.S. owned
Canucks, etc.).

ating :
eo

d be
i

The aquarium)

ublic control — 0
pono City coun cl
Parks Board. }! J
effectively deal with
acts as raising the ord
fees so high thay ant’
citizens can’t take 4 y
the facilities they es
support with thelr s

rents.
deh

The admission for smal
children is 25¢. FY 60h
shouldn’t be more ©" agp
Age Pensioners 42" 5 hol
welfare or unemploy ast 9
admitted free at 16% at
year. The park is ful nl
on weekends who i $5.0
afford to pay $4.00 ®
to the aquarium. é

ivi
I hope that every
group that bell
will raise holy
private beet
arium an A
board too. This digs
against the majority
favor of tourists 4”
must end. The 4;
reduced so that 4
this fine facility