By HAL GRIFFIN

able and are Tecords are not immut-

"W facts ee to the revision of
i subs € changed perspective
| a nt events,

H) been revisiniticians, however, have
Nt history, ee major events in
he Wonas Not in every case to
| as

revented smortunate that protesters
te : peice minister John Tur-
| ittish com aking at the University. of
ne of Rola on March 6, for the

Ve leg hi Prepared speech would
dian bistory vulnerable to any Cana-
i ie a see in his audience.

et do a Order’ under law and
| i he cee and how do we de-
WK guides; Certainly we should
fl wit, Cane rom our past. By any
Ty Pty. We He has not been a violent
| ‘i have in ave known no civil war.
Fen We piitered racial confron-
Be aSs2ssinatinn aia

On :

sf dis uted of those statements could
) tee Which the historical exam-
Bs 1S argument rested was

4 too; Ct th

f nae Boe have not had our tur-
Shy TOunded and bitter struggle
M tric’ led to the Winnipeg General
ay Was oe Mot on June 21, 1919;
entj ed only after the in-

€ military, the strik
! S Were : rike
ty tition, cos bsequently convicted
; mation te Aspiracy and sentenced
S ranging up to two

mtongha meet Heroes

{ st Ortho ee twenties and thirties

1 tag Ptense nrcferences perpetuated
tne conspir, the strike was the

the ted i¢ ie Tacy the government
pits of ent aS a result of which

Seog O88 t adians were abrogated

Tanteeing f
mn tim & free speech
| ay of Section Code and the inclu-

n 98 defining unlawful

ty in 19§9
Of the <7.When the 50th anniver-

th

Winn’ 8

batgeintd ne Was commemorated

hg an © right to collective

Whartevement PurPose and ulti-
jgeen = ant the strike—larg-

| the fag tory Could poUghout the coun-

Wy cts € revised to admit

q

| thhy Were the Teal heroes of the
ty ho 88ebal] Workers who defied

. . ats, bullets and hors-
ate ous The @ cause they believed
Mahi Mbereg nes of most of them
n ae Or on Only in dusty family
the x but < Weatherbeaten tomb-
ang ingeoRSible™ Paved the way for
May eStria) iontective bargaining
: 4sm that we know

"eChificat;

ed Tumep< ation of history did not
ti the ea pose: For that he

lang - the fa, ‘er distorted version
ti] the the sae order was main-

se * -

of One Scations of the “caer
m-

B iy iret With end” provided the
the’ mili © pretext for send-
ent 4 Liberal ry; evading the fact
“hyittest” a cay Teen etvative satan
ise - t Strik Ing legal grounds
“Om 8Oung € leaders, created

of 'S aft
a Igyg°ction 98. the arrests in the

sty Whip tfeat a“
Ng eve
now nN gover fs
the a Stry 1etcknowledge to. ve
eminent for legitimate rights,
legislation

Seditious con-

| Builder o
British Columbia

i
bon 133 Ss years by removal of —

In 1970, to forestall an “apprehended
insurrection” which it has failed to
substantiate, the government invoked
the War Measures Act abrogating civil
liberties, actually in Quebec and po-
tentially in the country as a whole.

For all Turner’s revival of the origin-
al distortion, the Winnipeg General
Strike is not the only event in our his-
tory to have been rewritten in recent
years.

Restoration of Riel

The transformation of Louis Riel
from traitor to patriot is an instance
of the readiness of ruling circles to
facilitate the rectification of histery to
serve a new purpose when the original
distortion has served its end.

Except in Quebec, the orthodox his-
torical portrayal of the man who led
the Red River uprising of 1870 and the
Northwest uprising of 1885 has been
as a religious mystic, a madman, a
traitor.

“Riel’s mental aberrations grew
more apparent as the years passed and
landed him for a time in mental insti-
tutions . . . His religious obsessions in-
creased until he became convinced that
he was an instrument of divine revela-
tion .. “’ Edgar McInnis was still writ-
ing in his textbook Canada in 1962.

But a full decade earlier, the rectifi-
cation of history to present Riel as
the patriot he was had been begun in
ruling circles by Prime Minister Louis
St. Laurent.

Visiting the North Battleford nation-
al historic site in 1951, St. Laurent took
strong exception to some of the Royal
North West Mounted Police displays
there. The rebellion, he said, should
properly be referred to as an uprising
because the Métis led by Riel were
seeking responsible government, not
fighting law and order.

And in 1968, Prime Minister Tru-
deau, unveiling a monument to Riel in
Regina, described him as the “unofficial
leader of his people, president of a pro-
visional government, founder of the
province of Manitoba, fugitive in exile,
member of parliament, outlaw, leader
of another provisional government, and

prisoner.”

So, three quarters of a century after
Riel died a traitor’s death on the scaf-
fold, ruling circles found it desirable,
in the light of the resurgent French
Canadian struggle, to rectify history.

Maker of Canada

No such rectification is being made
to accord his rightful place in history
to Amor De Cosmos, editor of two
crusading newspapers, the British Col-
onist and Victoria Standard; founder
of the Reform League and leader of
the British Columbia colonists’ strug-
gle for responsible government; mem-
ber of the legislative assembly and
executive member of the Confederation
League; second premier of the province
after Confederation and member of

parliament. ve :
This is British Columbia's centenary

of Confederation and it would seem
fitting to place De Cosmos beside Wil-
liam Lyon Mackenzie, Louis Joseph
Papineau and Louis Riel as one of the
makers of Canada. :

But the when the bells ring and the
guns fire their salute to a century with-
in Confederation this. July 20, no
monument will be unveiled to the man
whose leadership and vision set Canr
ada’s borders on the Pacific. aor

At De Cosmos’ death in Victoria on
July 4, 1897, even his erstwhile politi-
cal opponent, J. S. Helmcken, who had
advocated annexation of British Colum-
bia to the United States because he

saw no future for the Canadian state,
was constrained to protest “the mock-
ery of honor” paid to the man whom
people had “considered a hero, a pat-
riot who fought for the emancipation,
improvement, progress and welfare of
the country.”

And 74 years later, just‘as few Cana-

dians outside British Columbia know

his name, so few in the province itself
could identify the obscure creek that
perpetuates his memory.

Historians can.argue that the mater- .

ial available to them is scanty. Re Cos-
mos wrote no books. He left no mem-
oirs. What is known about him must
be pieced together from the editorials
he wrote in his newspapers, his
speeches as reported at the time, the
sketchy reminiscences of those who
knew him and the impressions of his
political opponents.

The real reason De Cosmos’ name
remains in obscurity lies deeper. The
ends for which he fought, responsible
government and entry into the Cana-
dian Confederation, long since have
been realized. Socialism is still in
Canada’s future.

‘Glorious Harbinger’

In this of all years, when millions
the world over are honouring the cen-
tenary of the Paris Commune, that
“slorious harbinger of a new society,”
in Karl Marx’ words, ruling circles
prefer to bury the memory of the man
who defended it as “educating all Eur-
ope up to the higher notions of true
human government.”

When they write of him at all, as
the Vancouver Sun did on March 2 in
a feature headed, “Amor De Cosmos:
A Worthy Hero To Match Our Image,”
newspapers in the province ignore his
statements defending the Paris Com-
mune.

In his own time, for making such
statements, De Cosmos was called a
communist by the British Colonist, the
paper he founded at Victoria in 1858
to fight Governor James Douglas’
Family-Company Compact, only to find
it championing the pro-U.S. annexa-
tionists after he sold it in 1863.

In our time the daily press finds it

less worthy to restore the full tower- .

ing image of the man—“a sort of so-
cialist,” in Helmcken’s words—whose
sympathies lay with the Communards
creating, as Marx discerned, “the poli-

tical form at last discovered to work
out the economical emancipation of
labor.”

Instead, it makes much of the youth-
ful romanticism that led the man born
William Alexander Smith at Windsor
Nova Scotia on May 19, 1825 to change’
his name to Amor De Cosmos—Lover
of the Universe. They dwell on his

personal eccentricities that became

more pronounced in his declining
years, using the taint of insanity as it
is used against Riel to depreciate his
great contribution to the building of
Canada.

Yet this is the man to whom, more
than any other, British Columbia owes
its status as a province of Canada and
not as a state of the United States, the
man who reminded the legislature that
“if I had my way, instead of the United
States owning Alaska it would hav
been British today.”

Vision of Future

Through the Conferedation League,
founded at Victoria on May 21, 1868,
and with the support of the Cariboo
miners, he was the most consistent
advocate of union with Canada; the
most. redoubtable opponent of those
who intrigued to annex British Colum-
bia to the United States, sealing Can-
ada off from the Pacific.

In a colony that at the time of Con-
federation had only 9,000 whites in a
total population of 45,000 and an em-
bryonic working class, he expressed his
times well but with a vision that fa
outranged them. :

His last speech as a member of the
House of Commons in 1882, for which
he was derided by his political oppon-
ents as “the nation maker,” was a
ringing affirmation of his faith in Can-
ada’s future.

“I see no reason why the people of
Canada should not look forward to
Canada becoming a sovereign and in-
dependent state,” he declared.

It was with the same prescience that
he had written in his Victoria Standard
of May 31, 1871, when the Paris Com-
mune was being drowned in the blood
of its defenders:

“The names of Rouge, Red Republi-
can, Communist, scare men, and not
only in France but abroad. But the day
will come when the principles of the
ill fated. rebellion of Paris will be ex-
tolled to’ the skies ...”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1971 —PAGE 7

Sa,