io ie ty < bite

heli atts.

mongers. and their policies of ‘“‘cold war”.

- this May Day labor.-miust’ fight’ for peace, with

: covey’ a mass “purge” among
~ ment and military officials. To give their wishful

“| must have

oe Music, music, music...”

—“Workingmen of all countries,

unite’- for peace

OR many years past organized labor in Van

couver and other key British Columbia centers
have proudly held aloft the banner of May Day,
stirring symbolof national and international labor
unity and _ solidarity. ,

Born 60 years ago out of the struggles of
American workers for the 8-hour day, May Day
has become recognized ‘as a world institution of
militant labor; a day on which to review setbacks
and victories, to take stock of the times . . . and
renew determination to break the chains that bind
labor to an incessant cycle of exploitation, unem-
ployment, hunger, fascist reaction and war.

May Day, 1950, has a special significance,

a special objective:—to stay the blood-stained hands |
of a small but powerful minority of war-bent

atomaniacs who, under the leadership of arrogant
Yankee dollar imperialism, would plunge the world
into a devastating atomic and germ war against
the peoples and the lands of tnumphant socialism;
to curb the treasonable activities of the ‘‘labor’’
and social democratic agents of ,these madmen,
who by raiding, splitting and betraying the fight-

_ wg ranks of labor, makes it possible for the ghouls

of Wall Street and their big business and govern-
ment satellites in Canada to pick labor’s pockets
clean, and drive the common people closer to the
abyss of atomic destruction. That all this is done
under the: contemptible pretext of “‘saving’’ the world
from’ “‘communism” only serves to accentuate the
enormity of the crime.

May Day, 1950, must signalize a halt to such

- suicidal policies which can only bring ruin to Canada,
and the constant menace of economit penury,
hunger, fear, and the threat of war, to all Cana-

dians:. Labor's mighty voice from its manifold
ranks. must be raised in unison against the war-

Tt is not enough to say we want peace. On
all the. glorious. May Day traditions “of struggle

Wishful

. <3 {i Jeooens Bodr as regularly as the seasons:

Every so often the. lords of the sewer press dis-
ong high Soviet govern-

thinking some semblance of reality the big pre-
fabricated “news” factories turn out a penodic list
of personages who have been “‘purged”’, “‘liquidated”,

_ “mysteriously disappeared’’ or “‘executed”’.

When, several months later — in some cases

. oaly weeks — these “liquidated”? Soviet civil or

y officials turn up in some other important

: . theater of duty, the capitalist press “‘news’’ scavengers
are strangely silent. But only for a little time. One

set of “purge” yams is barely cancelled out by the

-geality of life than a new batch is dished up for

© there is an “epidemic of deaths” in the Soviet
~ Union which, according to the AP hired scribbler, ©
ly arouses speculation in the West over the

: possibility of a new purge in the USSR.” »

novice.

behind that fight.

Labor’s fight for policies that will break. the
Yankee dollar stranglehold - secured with the con-
nivancé of the St. Laurent government, on Cana-
da’s economy and the wellbeing of iher people is,
at bottom, a fight for peace. So also with long
overdue housing, hospitals, schools, all ‘those things
that were to flow from our victory over Hitlerism—
they too are basically a fight for peace. A fight
that can’ be won with labor unity and solidarity
against the daily aitacks of the warmongers, their
big business associates, their governments, and_their
paid agents within the ranks of labor.

Above ‘all, the fight for higher wages and the
right of workers to full employment is a fight for
peace. While prices and profits rise to astronomical
heights, wage levels are kept down and wage cuts
become the order of the day, to the \end that the
greatest portion of the national income should be
earmarked for atomic war, rather than for human
welfare, prosperity and peace,

A million new homes {7 workers and veterans,
plus a steady — and decent — pay envelope, is a
much better investment for peace than a trainload
of Yankee marked dollars for a Wall Street-
inspired war on Socialism. ;

Peace is the issue of May Day, 1950. Peace
demands an end to the cold war; an end to the
domination of Canadian government policies; an
end to Yankee interference and. disruption in the
ranks of Canadian labor. Fighting for peace, the
working class have a world to win. In the incan-
descent hell of atomic war, the working class, as
with all except Wall Street’s merchants of death

‘and those who profit from war, have everything to

Ose.
Raise high the banner of labor unity and soli-
darity. March on this May Day, 1950, as labor
has marched for 60 years, ever forward, carrying
the deathless slogan: WORKINGMEN OF ALL

‘COUNTRIES, UNITE . . . FOR PEACE.

thinking

“Naturally”? Only “ naturally” for those

cold-war scriveners who are hired to write what an.

anti-Soviet war-minded ruling caste likes to read.
Wishful thoughts, divorced from reality, ~

Soviet citizens come into the world... and
die, much the same as other people. According
to comparative statistics, Soviet citizens enjoy a

higher average of longevity than we in the West.
Free from atomic war hysteria and the high octane -

gas of Yankee bombast, jumping from fifteenth

story windows is a peculiarly Western adaptation
of getting ‘‘away from it all”, which the Russians.
decline to follow. :

~ So naturally, we think the shonopoly- — Fe

about socialism to hide the inherent evils of our

“Way of life’. The “‘purges’’ fabricated by the
poison factoriés of big business and dished out as

““news”’, are merely the wishful thinking and hoping

of the lunatic fringe of “‘free enterprise”. —
- And, compared to the -AP, Ananias was a

.

TOM McEWEN-

As We'See lt

CCORDING to a United Kingdom Information bulletin, the “Royal
Carpet” now on-tour in North America, will be in Vancouver,
April 29-30. R i 4

Made by HRH Queen’ Mary, this huge carpet, containing a million —
or so needle-point stitches in 448 colors, it took the 82-year-old Queen
8 years to Make it—is without a doubt a magnificent piece of work,

_The bulletin tells us that the Royal Carpet is Queen Mary’s “per-
sonal contribution to Britain’s efforts to bridge the dollar gap, and
is to be offered for sale in North America.” When the Queén Mother
started this work it was originally intended as a gift heirloom to Brit-

ish posterity. Now it would appear to be a case of

“Posterity be dammed...” we need the dollars.

Intending purchasers of the Royal Carpet are

. invited to send their bids to the Governor of the

Bank of England, orto Colonel the Hon, Angus
McDonnell, custodian-of the touring carpet. ©

Had a Communist proposed this sordid exploi-

tation of the work of an aged Queen, what a howl

to high heaven would have gone up from. the pro-

-fessional scribblers. The daily blatherbund would

have been screaming its collective head off about

“sedition,” “treason” and so forth.

To “bridge the dollar gap”—and what a gap!

: ‘i Into it has already gone the sovereignty; independ-
ence, prosperity of millions of British and other peoples who have,
by no desire of their own, come under the lowering shadow of Yankee
dollar domination. Now it exploits thextalents of an aged Queen, and
expropriates a piece of beautiful artistry dedicated to Britain’s store-
house of treasure to be sold to the highest bidder.

Not noted for their esthetic tastes, the Yankee carpet collectors.
will pay a fancy price for the Royal Carpet, not because it was made
by a British Queen, but because symbolically it will rank as a new
trophy in the conquest of empire by the mighty dollar. :

_ The Royal Carpet “sale,” for Yankee dollars (it is unlikely any
Canadian institution would be permitted, under Marshall Plan dollar
restrictions, to enter a bid), serves to emphasize the truth of the hoary
adage that “John Bull would sell his soul for six percent,” and to point
up the brilliant class analysis Karl Marx made of the bourgeoisie in
his immortal Communist Manifesto of 1848.

“The bourgeoisie .. . has pitilessly torn asunder the motely feudal
ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors, and has left no other
bond between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash
payment, The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation
hitherto honored and looked upon with reverend awe. It has con-
verted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science,
into its paid wage laborers.”

Now it exploits the artistic talents of a Queen to earn-a few lousy

-dollars—rather than arouse the people of Britain and the Common-

wealth against the war-mongering usury of Wall Street.

e ‘

Big Chief “‘Hyapeneulth” is preparing for a junket down under—
to Australia. It is said that when the Shesaht tribal chiefs conferred
a “chieftainship” on Mayor Charlie (BCElectric) Thompson—at the
latter’s request, so that he in turn could confer a similar honor upon
the Lord Mayor O’Dea of Sydney with full Rotarian palaver—they
must have had the BCElectric in mind. The name picked for Mayor
Thompson was “Chief Hyapeneulth.” According to our literary author-
ity on Shesaht dialect, it means “lending a helping hand to others.” ~
Vancouver commuters have said the same thing—with millions of
dimes in an “interim” BCElectric fare hoist which inevitably blos-
somed into a permanent part of the inflated fare structure.

Just what Mayor Thompson will do in Australia other than con-
fer a Shesaht chieftainship upon the Lord Mayor O’Dea, Vancouver
taxpayers, who will undoubtedly have to foot the bill, would like to~
know. We remember a similar question being asked on numerous oc-
casions during the halycon days of the Hungry Thirties, when Gerry
McGeer used to take time out from reading the Riot Act to hungry
workers to do a bit of globe-trotting at the taxpayers expense. .
and with little or nothing to show for the expenditure. &

But to come back to this bourgeois custom of borrowing, seeking
(or annexing) Indian tribal. honors. Is it not peculiar that our own
bourgeoisie, who have demonstrated the: most callous disregard and
the most brutal exploitation of this race of original Canadians, should
seek these honors now with almost the same tiresome insistence they
go after honorary university degrees? ,

. The reason is not hard to find, nor is it too remote from the ques-
tion of royal carpets. The brilliance of the footlights on the great
stage of world peace, progress and socialism is terrifying to,the bour-

~geoisie. They would like to shout, “It isn’t there, it doesn’t exist”;

“We've had crises before and
too,” and so on. _ ;

So, as Marx says in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
“Precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously con-

got over them, we'll get over this one —

_jure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them

names, battle slogans and costumes, in order to present the new scene _
of world history in this time-honored disguise and this borrowed lan-
guage.” i xe .
_ Hence “Big Chief Hyapeneulthbeeceeelectric”!

The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) has gone into

politics—cold war politics: A circular letter issued by YWCA president |
Mrs, Ralph O. Campney, wife of the. Liberal MP for Vancouver Cen- eS

ter, outlining why Vancouver citizens should support the current

“YWCA drive for $750,000, sets forth the following as the prime reason:

“Here is one positive answer to communism, juvenile delinquency
: cee?

, and the future of our good city.”
The cry of “communism” is the cheap and easy way to dubious

fame for nitwits; the cheap and easy way to extort dollars, Marshallized
or other; the cheap and easy way to break unions, but a costly cover- _
up for the destruction of security, progress and peace... and the

Christianity the YWCA is presumed to espouse,

Better earmark that dollar for the Pacific Tribune instead. We
need only $15,000 to drive home the plain truth im 1950. al

——

ne

, mag, ru er t
Vilis TUN Be

if |
| | Un
Munir UU iomsrinl tout tisiiestlbvinsctouictllllfaseeeseedtisicttucisiolllldh lllbvatusanutsealll

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street

THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.

: ; Telephone MA. 5288 — cane

Tomo Mctwen's. hep e igs Beans ees ae Editor
Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. -

ue ns

Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe treet.) Wuiisocves, ot
Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept, Ottaw®

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 21, 1950—PAGE 8