Democracy in action By LESLIE MORRIS 5 Democracy has to be defended again and again, over and . Like the Tree of Liberty, it is watered by the blood of yrs. a od y the Communist Party in the late 1920’s when Brig.-Gen. bortant. * * * First, the poets and their fight for free speech in Allan dens, near the statue of Robert Burns and the very spot where the first trade unions in Upper Ca- nada were organized over a century ago. Almost single-handed. a lone peace- fighter, Douglas Campbell, after several arrests won the right to speak in the parks on Sunday (even more important than sports and movies on Sunday). City Council hedged as usual and de- signated for meetings two parks which are out of the way. and decreed that a permit a must be secured from the local bureaucracy re the right to free speech could be exercised. Allan Gardens, in the centre of Old Toronto, was not on t. But Sunday preachers can speak there without a it, * * x Came the poets, to read their verses at the very appropri- ase of Robbie Burns’ monument. Came the cops, to issue mMonses Sunday after Sunday. Now even the police are 8rrassed; but council doesn’t budge. The poets put it plainly: if religious dogma can be spoken Out a permit, why not poetry? ey raiseq a nice theological point (worthy of the Diet Worms, which debated for endless days the number of Who could dance on the point of a needle) when one of N read out the Song of Solomon. Is that religion, or is it 2 How will the Mayor of All the People get around ‘One? * * * The Poets continue their battle for freedom — in the tradi- 9f Shelley,Bunyan, Shevchenko and Burns. The local Council backs them up. So do most citizens. he Poets will win their fight if they keep it up and if a more public backing. City council can be compelled at. : * x * ig he other battle is indeed a tragic one. A man calling Roberts (his real name is Markle), a worker with a * family ang an expectant wife, became seized with a ! illness which caused him to set fires. No lives were € then performed a fine social duty by going voluntarily © Police to ask for treatment. Magistrate sentenced him to 28 years in the peniten- } Bewildered, without legal aid, to Kingston penitentiary Dine There he would have been forgotten but for public- tea democratic conscience, which brought citizens and a together in public meetings and started the circula- ea betition. Roberts would have rotted silently in prison : Of being treated in a hospital, had not the citizens Yvened, * * * net Only has the Roberts case uncovered a cruel act of Punishment, but it has once more put the spotlight on “ €dieval practice of committing mentally-ill people to 7 itstead of hospital, and treating them as “criminally 5 (Surely a glaring contradiction in terms), and only “ning the problems of psychiatric treatment. R © department of justice has been compelled to review peotts case. Another victory for democracy is in the This is indeed democracy in action. Democracy cannot i : am to the courts and the officials; it is of, by and for the Zi y L_AZAAZ payara aa "Aw,