‘SHOULD DEFY U.S.’

EDITORIAL .

The Lewis tradition

orkingmen who dig deep below the earth’s surface to ex-
tract its riches of metal and coal, have a constant com-
panion always at their side — Death,

The knowledge that they may not see the sunlight again
is not written into a miner’s wage contract, but in a hazardous
occupation passed on from father to son it is an unwritten
contingency, more often than not intensified by the mine oper-
ator’s insatiable lust for profits,

The tragedy of the Natal, B.C, mine explosion, which took
the lives of 15 miners and left 10 more seriously injured,
merely added one more to a long trail of mine disasters in
the history of coal mining in B.C. — a tragedy with many
equals — and on too many occasions, far surpassed in B.C.,
Alberta and Nova Scotia mine disasters.

The veteran leader of the United Mine Workers of America,
John L, Lewis, (now retired), too often faced with some massive
mine disaster and its scores of hundreds of coal miner vic-
tims in North America, held to a direct and damning formula
for the cause of most — if not all mine disasters: company
neglect, the abandonment or neglect of mine safety precautions,
faulty mine constructions, speed-ups, inadequate mining legis-
lation, etc.; all conducive to a mine operator’s profits —
at the cost of miners’ lives,

Nor did John L, Lewis wait until some government mine
operator “investigation” to determine the “cause” of a mine
disaster and its toll of miners’ lives got going before he put
his finger on the real cause, It came almost before the dust
of the explosion had subsided — the greed for company profits!
Moreover, in the long history of coal and metal mining dis-
asters, the Lewis “formula” has been proven, with extremely
rare exceptions, basically correct. Not an “act of God,” but
company profits,

Perhaps John L, Lewis was what might be termed in these
modern times as “old fashioned;” that nowadays government-
sponsored “investigations” can serve better as a substitute
for an alert and militant union leadership, fired with con-
cern for the lives, safety, and well-being of its members in
their daily hazardous task of trying to earn a livelihood for
their wives and children,

Ironical as it may seem in our “affluent” society, is the
known fact that the families of Natal’s dead miners were
already in dire economic straits even before their loved
ones were buried. While “disaster funds” are highly praise-
worthy and laudable, even when added to a WCB pittance to
miners’ dependents, it is a poor substitute to face the future
with in those miners’ homes which have lost a husband.

father or son,

The continued silence of the United Mine Workers Union
leadership in District 18 onthe Natal mine disaster would seem
to indicate that the Lewis-UMW tradition is also

dead.

D oes the “conscience of the
world” (if it really has any con-
science left) really feel “out-
raged” at U,S, barbarism and
savagery in Vietnam? :

Perhaps we have become ac-
customed to the use of such terms
a bit too loosely, The modern use
of semantics covers a lotofevils
and permits us to indulge in that
fine smug, complacent, virtuous
feeling that “all is well in this
best of all possible worlds.” And
anyway, what have we got to do
with organized U,S, murder in
Vietnam?

Hence it follows that those who
continually ask — asa subterfuge
for doing nothing about it them-
selves “why are you people always
condemning and blaming the U,S,
for what is happening in Viet-

nam,” They have a point but re-

fuse, or cannot see beyond it.

The point is that our finely-
veneered “quiet diplomacy” con-
sistently practiced by Messrs
Pearson, Martin and company,
spokesmen for our “virtuous”
Establishment, can and does kill

‘islature

Vietnamese women and children
just as surely as napalm or
personnel bombs do, Quiet diplo-
macy hides — or attempts to
hide our direct participation as
accomplices in U,S, genocide in
Vietnam.

It also serves to conceal the
blood-stained profit dollar deriv-
ed from our close partnership in
U.S, Murder Inc, Thus do we
keep our conscience and hands
clean, with every mangled and
murdered Vietnamese adding
profit, if not lustre to our affluent
society.

Take our own world right here
in British Columbia, We have a
Socred government which just
recently voted down a ‘Peace in
Vietnam’ NDP. motion inthe Leg-
because, forsooth,
Messrs Bennett and company
opined it was “against the U.S,”

What got the headlines was
not the ardent desire for peace in
Vietnam, but the Establishment’s
determination to keep ail sluices
open for the continued in-flow
of Yankee dollars and the out-

Liberal MP urges medicd)
aid for North Vietnam —

A French-Canadian Liberal
MP from Montreal last week
said the time had come for Can-
ada to give official civilian aid
to North Vietnam. He is Ger-
ard, Pelletier, former editor-in-
chief of the Montreal ‘daily La
Presse, and MP for the"tiding of
Hochelaga,.

He told a Liberal Party lun-
cheon that if this aid rankles
the U.S,, Canada should damn the
consequences because “it is the
price to pay for our collective
conscience.”

Reflecting the growing pres-
sure in Canada over the failure

‘Resolutions not
enough’ —union

The Vancouver outside civic
workers Newsbulletin last week
editorially called on members of
the union to join the April 15
protest against the war in Viet-

“nam,

“Faced with the terrible escal-
ation of the war in Vietnam, we
have to ask if it is enoughtopass
resolutions.” The editorial says

that the government can only be.

compelled to take action if large
numbers of union members “go
beyond passing resolutions,”

of the Federal government to
render any medical or humani-
tarian aid to North Vietnam,
External Affairs Secretary Paul
Martin said medical aid had never
been given to North Vietnam
because they had never asked for
ne

This argument holds very little
water. Canada has often in the
past rendered aid to various parts
of the world in response toa cal-
amity without waiting for an invi-
tation.

In the case of North Viet-
nam and National Liberation
Front areas in South Vietnam,
the government is aware that the
International Committee of the
Red Cross was stressed that
the need for medical aid is most
urgent in these two areas, Mar-
tin must also be aware that the
Canadian Red Cross has recog-
nized the urgency of the situa-
tion and recently sent $10,000
worth of. medical aid.

Canada’s official position to
withhold medical aid (unless put
on the spot by the government of
North Vietnam) arises from a
desire not to arouse U,S, criti-
cism, It is another example of
how the policy of “quiet di-
plomacy” is really “pro-U.S. di-
plomacy.”

flow of B,C,’s resources — and
to hell with conscience.

Here too in the world of B,C,
we have a score or more of big
_daily newspapers, dependent in
the main on Tory, Liberal and
Socred patronage, plus the sup-
port of big business advertising
to keep them solvent financially.
Hence by and large their first
consideration of conscience is not
the horrors of the criminal U.S,
war upon the people of Vietnam,
but how to keep their political
patronage and subsidies intact.
No. doubt many of the editorial
staffs on those big dailies would
like to see an end to the U.S,
carnage... but. .., as one told
this scribe, “you can’t let your
conscience get in the way of
business consideration.”

Then we have some 104 weekly
papers in B,C,, many of them
with a fairly extensive reader-
ship. Of that total one may pick
up nine issues out of ten every
week around the calendar and
never find one word, pro or con,
good, bad or indifferent on what
is going on in Vietnam,

That fact alone would indicate,
if nothing else, that our con-
“science is not unduly outraged,
disturbed or affected by the U,S,
horrors in Vietnam, In the col-
umns of this not insignificant
weekly news media the reader
can find a voluminous cqncern

expressed over the killing of
baby seals in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, but nothing on the
wanton massacre of Vietnamese

villagers, women and children,

Of course these producers of
our “free press” do have a con-
science, They can become very

profuse and indignant onthe Ber- -

lin Wall, on the “sinister aims
of Communism”, LSD, or the
“morals” of. our young people,
but on the killing of Asians, Latin
Americans, Africans, etc., their
conscience is highly versatile and
flexible, To hide the realities of
U.S, aggression in Vietnam, they
build their own walls of prejudice
and their own credibility gaps,
to obscure and distort obvious
truths!

Up until now the conscience
of the world has not felt outraged,
any more that it wasn’t outraged

As if to further underlin®
hypocritical stand taken by
Federal government on @
aid to the hard-pressed am
fering victims of the U.5. 46
sion, a Vatican spokesman’
nounced recently that BM
Catholic aid includes M@&
and hospital equipment. P#
these, he said, were paid for
Pope Paul VI and part py
olic charitable societies.

In Vancouver, meanwhilé
Canadian Aid for Vietnam
ians, headed by Dr. AM.
continues to press the a
raise $50,000 for medical
the end of the year. They
already passed the halfway fl
with about $28,000 turned ™
last accounts,

Contributions can be sent
Canadian Aid for Vietnam tS
ians, P.O, Box 2543, Vanco
HE

OBITUARY,

George Grafton

One of the early organize
the International WoodwOF
America passed away Tem
April 4 in Victoria Jubileé
pital following a serious ea
inal operation, He was 69
old and had been in failing A
for over a year, He is S¥
by a daughter Willow ing
couver, two sisters and
thers residing on vance
land, besides a sister
land and number of neP
nieces,

His brother Bill, and #
Bergren, spoke briefly of old
at the cremation servicé
McColl’s funeral home
toria, Having lived As
decade on social 45°
Hjalmar Bergren observ ef
he had been unable to 5
own economic problem»:
had devoted the most im
years of his life to solV
economic problems of Be4*
workers,

uve!

news

24-years ago when nitle?
stroyed the Warsaw chett® f
Hitler could not destroy i i
spirit and conscience of nih
tims—which lives on in
who survived.

It is that spirit and be
science which alone ca?
the bloody hands of the EE
Hitlers and their quiet HP
accomplices, in Canada®
where, That conscience™
begin to feel — and ach
raged; to stop a wal) 10 9
produces a Warsaw cnet
world scale,

canad® 4

n
That means we i tr?

begin to express our 0
a bigger way than evel an
To make the issue of pe
Vietnam one of nation@ ‘0 I
vincial and regional © iy
Nothing less will stop th

: ~ Pacific Tribu

Editor—TOM McEWEN

Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E.

Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288:

West Coast edition, Canadian Tribore

Associate Editor—MAURICE rust 5 5

Hastind

x

: Z : : + mon
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April 14, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE