Gn HERE certainly is an Iron Curtain, but not where “they” place it. It runs along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Its object is to keep out all information as to what the people of Asia arid Europe are thinking and feeling to- day. "This: knowledge would be dan- gerous, of course, for “their” war _ plans. If the people of the United States knew how the Wall Street adventurers have isolated their country from the rest of human- ity, it would anger them, scare them and unfit them as the robots that Wall Street needs. We live in a fog of lies, slander and misinformation. Events take us by surprise, whereas truth might have prepared us for reali- ty. Life daily proves bigger than the word-wizards and their propa- ganda. When will we begin to see clearly? - For example, the governments of Europe have been reluctant to send troops to Korea to fight on the U.S. side. This refusal has stunned the average misinformed American. He had’ been made to believe that Marshall Aid saved Europe from famine and that everyone in Europe was abjectly thankful for it. _ The facts were always differ- ent, however. Marshall Aid has enriched only the trusts and the government grafters of Europe. The people are poorer than ever. Food is dearer today, wages lower, .Since Marshall Aid began. And unemployment has increased vast- - t$'in Italy and France, as one in- @ustry after another has been de- - mounted by American imperial- ism. ; In addition, nobody, except for the handful -of miserable profit- eers, wants another peace sentiment of Europe today. It penetrates all classes. and ereeds; it is the strongest spirit- ual force on the continent. @ es oa ‘Not sinte the Civil War has America seen great destruction and mass hetacombs on its own soil. The U.S. has been the most fortunate country in the world, thanks to geography. But a coun- try like France has bled and suf- : ‘fered since 1870 under three in- -vasions by the Germans. The ruins of the last war are_ still everywhere in France, the _ bodies of thousands of human vic- tims still unhealed. -. More than a million young Frenchmen perished in the First World War; more than two mil- lion in the Second. This, out of a population of 50 millions, be- : world war. . It’s impossible to exaggerate the | procession of burned-out men of thirty to fifty who’d been working in Germany during the war, or who'd been prisoners of war or in the concentration camps for poli- tical prisoners. You can tell them by their air of exhaustion. The blood seems to have been drained from their meager bodies, and years of hun- ger have made strange wrinkles in their face’. They are pre- maturely old; you can never guess their age. There were some 800 deaths by Allied bombing in the district of Paris where we lived. It is the section where the Renault and Citroen auto factories are located. The factories are still working, but on every street you would find shattered ghosts of apartment houses With the sky shining through their vacant skeletons. Near the river there had been Ue By MIKE GOLD CT tal ET | Don’t talk war to Europeans You can’t enter a French home, be it the rough, muddy hut of a peasant, or the bright modern apartment of some professional or business man in Paris, without finding portraits of dead fathers and sons on the walls, flanked by little shrines. with a crucifix and flowers, maybe, or by medals and war decorations on a wire stand for display. In every railroad train in France, in every car of the Paris — subways, there are seats reserved for the Mutiles, for the war vic- tims. Never have I seen sO many cripples as in France. In country districts they were farmers plow- ing their fields, former soldiers with an arm missing at - the shoulder, or a wooden stump in- stead of a leg. One often saw - The sad story of Empire Marshall - By Gui Caron : PARIS gt po illustrates better the effectiveness of the French dockers’ action against arms shipments than the “Sad Story of the Empire Marshall”, about which a song has been written, to the tune of “Il etait un maudit navire.” The story. goes ee ae this: In the siiek of Dunkerque ‘there arrived a boat with an unfortun- ate name: Empire Marshall. The dockers said: “Let us inquire what kind of merchandise is to be loaded into this boat.” ’ “Ah, yes, material for the dirty war in Indo-China — the boat is well named!” The following morning, not ay _ docker could be found for the Empire Marshall. So the Empire Marshall puffed out of port. On the quay, a train- load of 17 tanks seemed ill at ease under its inscriptions: “Down with war — Peace in Viet Nam.” Especially since the locomotive -had moved off by itself, someone _ having disconnected the cars! . The ill-fated train arrived at Le Havre, but so late! The Empire Marshall stood at the quay. The train likewise, workers bicycling to their factor- , ies in the same condition, arm or leg missing. I remember a woman of Paris who sold vegetables in the street market. She was - husky, red- headed and full of the militant gaiety of the people of Paris. She had an arm missing, too. It was astonishing to watch how deftly she wrapped spinach, lettuces and cauliflower with her one aie or- made change. « _ Once she caught me tes trys = her stump, and yelled, to my em- barassment: “It’s the work of you Americans! You went after the duto factories, but never hit them, only cur houses. Is it the whisky you drink?” Worse than the spectacle of the ~ ware sinet steer lhac sig was wae Anxious to work, ‘the Aner erane-Operators and laborers wasted no time. With brushes, paint and chalk, they added “Not a man, not a gun for the dirty - war!” and several times “Le Vietnam aux Vietnamiens.” “Now You can take it some- where else,” they said. Around by Gibraltar, off to Marseilles steamed the Empire ‘Marshall. ; ‘ On the water, it is enough to navigate. On land¥ it is another ' matter. Along the way, a train meets. stations, signals, tracks which lead in many directions and everywhere, people who mest Ne eras and who act. Forward, backward, around and about, freight cars, in one direc- ® tion, freight cars in another di- rection, the tanks made a scenic tour of France. _ At. long last, Marseilles. But what an enormous crowd on the dock! verge! About turn! With the help of police and CRS, quick, into a tiny port, Canet, where the workers . perhaps have not yet heard of the Empire Marshall. : How sad! The gentlemen with guns and sticks had to load the tanks themselves! Coats off, weapons laid aside, sleeves rolled up, what a comical sight to see comes the death of.a 2a i ea barely 30 et boheeey, ey policemen working! a famous athletic court, where the Basques of Paris played their national game of pelota. It was shattered; there were two square blocks of bricks and rubble and barbed wire, the familiar lunar landscape of Hurope, with chil- dren playing everywhere, as though in a kids’ paradise. I spent a few days in Arles. It is a little city in the south, with the - typical sunbaked white houses and plane trees. This is where Van Gogh lived and painted for years. The littlé cafes and village post- men were still here, but the whole center of the city, and the bridge ~across the Rhone, had been blown to bitst I looked for Van Gogh’s house, and found it, also, a heap of dusty ruins. ; Half of France still ieee to Now it must be said that dock- ers and crane-operators are able to use their heads, and when they work, they arrange a cargo according to the shape of the hull and the stability of the boat. On the ocean, by chance, there came aé strong westerly gale. BANG on the starboard, CRASH on the larboard. The tanks danced in the ‘hold. What a pitiful sight! A picture of calamity and discomfiture, the Empire Marshall found itself back in port, this time in St. Na- zaire, where the dockers turned a deaf,ear and the carpenters refused to come on board! And that’s the sad story of the Empire Marshall. e ; : Behind Aa story of the Empire Marshall (and of dozens of other boats) is another story: that of the dockers. and their families. In Marseilles, We were received by “Papa” Gagnaire, the beloved, | 66-year-old leader of the dockers. After a morning at his office, he _ took one of us to have lunch at his home, The rest of us went with other dockers, to their homes, We ‘talked with their wives and chil- dren, Consider, for a moment, the pic- ture as it looks to the docker and his family. Often, when the arms _ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 8, 1950 — PAGE 4 - have refused to work!- _ to unload armaments, ceases ba planning for a new war under -work-card, or at least of having it — nity. Anyone who refuses to is immediately struck off the lists: < be cleaned of its war rubble, and rebuilt for human habitation. In Marseilles I found that the section known as the Vieux Port was only a field of war rubble, the usual mounds cf brick, stone, barbed wire and broken pillars. This “old port” had been the ori- ginal city that was founded by the Phoenicians. It had been lived in for three thousand years. But Hitler’s war finished it. Do you think the people of Marseilles were standing around cheering for the Wall Street crim- inals who were whooping it up for another world war? No, the people of Marseilles have led in the great European fight for peace, with their demonstrations and all-city srikes against manu- facturing or loading war mater- ials. At Hyeres, the beautiful spot ‘ where Robert Louis Stevenson had spent some happy years, the beach was cumbered with a series of big iron balls. They were un- exploded mines. I wandered around the fort with its gloomy\underground chambers and pillboxes. The walls were cov- ered with the last scribblings of the fleeing Nazis. Some were més- sages to French girls, others threats that the Nazis would re- turn. A slave worker had written something in Russian, and one French inscription said, in a bold hand, “No More Nazis—No More War!” That had been the hope of the people of France. It is being as- saulted by ghouls of imperialist profiteering. Does anyone believe France, and the Europe that : shares its wounds and memories, S will lightly embark on a third ~ world war? : Bread and peace are Europe’s ; need today—time to heal its sor- 4) row, its wounded bodies, its shat- | tered fields and cities. Whoever helps them to peaceful construc- tion becomes their friend. The simplest strategy the United States could use to win the people of Hurope, as friend and allies, would be to make peace in the world, to show by every act and © speech that it really does want — peace—-not that it is desperately the guise of “defending peace” aS _ the people of Europe are now con- — vineed. ship comes into port, the docket - has not worked for many weeks. The children are without shoes and the grocery bill has not bee? paid, In precisely these circum- stances thousands of dockers But that is not all. In refusing to work, the docker runs the a — most certain risk’ of losing his Suspended for several weeks °F months. The dockers’ strike in Marseilles in March of this yeat was precipitated by the revocation — of the work cards of 600 dockers: — A docker who has been unem ployed and is drawing the une ployment indemnity, if he refuse® receive his unemployment indem ,— When we talked it over, latet We agreed that if we in Canada will only put into the fight fF peace half the*steadfastness 4? devotion which the people of May seilles have shown, we would s soon attain and surpass our 0?” jective in the cOllection of sign tures to the Stockholm Appeal: — @| Gui Caron, young French” Canadian labor leader, recent ly toured France as 3 of a Canadian youth delega- tion to Europe. ;