STRESS COMMON IDEALS ©

Why United Nations

issues own stamps

At the stamp window of your
post office, you might be re-
garded strangely if you asked for
a 3-cent “reniinder.” But to
philatelists — a big word for
stamp collectors — your request
would make more sense.

Since the first postage: stamp
appeared in Britain in 1840, these
attractive bits of paper have pro-
vided colorful reminders of the
national history of countries the
world over.

In all the colors of the spec-
trum, these datelined messengers
have told us of historical scenes,
have made national monuments
known, and have even brought the
typical flora and fauna of one
region under the eager scrutiny
of a stamv collector thousands of
miles away.

e
In October 1951 a new set of
“reminders,” international in
origin as well as in character,
entered the mails — United Na-
tions stamps. In the intervening
three years, students of interna-
tional affairs, as well as stamp col-
lectors have welcomed the many-
hued squares as useful bearers of
UN ideals and activities.

+t + $03

From time to time the question
arises with visitors to UN head-
cuarters — why does the United
Nations issue postage stamps?

The answer, more strongly re-
inforced with each stamp issue,
are several. In a recent radio
broadeast, Reidar Tvedt, Nor-

wegian chief of the UN Postal .

Administration, gave the first and
foremost reason:

“They (the stamps) stress the }

COMMON ideals which provide
a foundation for the work of mu-
tual cooperation undertaken by
the United Nations . . .. each
stamp is a reminder of what the
world can do in unison, to care
for refugees, assist underdevel-
“oped countries, proclaim and up-
hold the fundamental rights of
humanity.”

In the three years of their ex-
istence, UN stamps have been
affixed to more than 12 million
pieces of mail going out to gov-
ernment offices and _ private
‘Yomes throughout the world —
and discussion of the stamps in-
spires discussion of the United
Nations.

UN postage stamps are also a
source of revenue. Proceeds from
stamp sales to collectors go to
the United Nations. All other
net income goes to the United
States Post Office Department,
which runs the post office at UN
headquarters under the terms of
an agreement signed on March

*

32, 1951. The agreement also
provides for the stamps to be
used only on letters mailed from
VN headquarters.

As of the end of June 1954 the
gross revenue from the sale of
UN stamps exceeded $114 mil-
lion.

Se % $03
. The UN stamp, with its now
familiar border proclaiming Un-
ited Nations in the organization’s
five official languages — English,
Russian, Chinese, Svanish and
French — has at various times
also honored the work of UN in
the social and economic fields,
znd its specialized agencies, such
asthe Food and Agriculture Or-

ganization, and the International .

Labor Organization.

Recently UN stamp clubs ap-
peared on the philatelic horizon
on the U.S. - The clubs began in
April of this year, and by June
they number 2,200 with a total
membership of 12,500.

DRAMA

MISTAKE NOT DISCOVERED FOR CENTURY

Columbus rites possible because
Spanish took wrong bones

"HE Catholic archbishop in Ciu-

dad Trujillo and officials.of the
Dominican Republic, which isn’t a
republic at all but a dictatorship
headed by Rafael Leonidas Tru-
jillo, staged ceremonies before
Christopher Columbus’ tomb* on
October 12— 462 years after the
explorer set foot on San Domin-
go in trying to reach Asia by sail-
ing west from Spain.

The ceremonies were possible
only because about 170 years ago
Cristopher’s bones were mistaken
for those of his son.

Columbus died at Valladolid,
Spain, on May 20, 1506. It was
decided to take the admiral’s re-
mains to the Carthusian Monastry
in Seville for burial.

His son Diego died in Spain
on February 23, 1526, leaving a
will which called for fulfilment
ef his father’s often-expressed
\ish to be buried in Santo Do-
mingo—the name of this city
down through the centuries until
Trujillo decided to grace it with
his own name.

Diego’s widow, who was a
grand-niece of King Ferdinand of
Aragon, set her considerable in-
fluence to work in order to ob-
tain royal consent for the trans-
fer of the remains to Santo De-

.mingo. She arrived in the colony

here in 1544, bringing the caskets
of her husband and her father-
in-law. They were buried in the
cathedral. ;

oe 5og xt

In 1655 Archbishop Pio Guada-
lupe of Santo Domingo wrote
down the location of the Colum-
bus crypts while taking measures
to hide them from the menace of
what later proved to be an abor-
tive British attack led by Ad-
miral Maurice Penn, father of
Pennsylvania’s William Penn.

The prelate’s concealment was
so successful that it was not un-
til 1783 that a single leaden, urn
containing unidentified bones
end assumed .by Spanish colonial
authorities to be those of Chris-

topher Columbus was unearthed.

Twelve years later Spain ceded
the eastern part of Hispaniola to
France and dispatched ‘a squad-
ron to remove all Spanish officials

and subjects who wished to re- /

settle elsewhere in Spanish do-
1ainions. The commander obtain-
ed permission to remove the
bones found in 1783 to Havana

. Cathedral, where they remained

until Spain evacuated Cuba. Then
they were removed to the Cath-
cdral of Seville.

In 1877, Archbishop Roque
Coccinia of Santo Dominga decid-
ed to replace the old brick floor-
ing of the cathedral here with
marble slabs. During this reno-
vation on September 10, 1877,

BOOKS

workmen came upon the authen
tie remains of Christopher Col
umbus. The Spaniards had mis:
takenly removed those of Dies0 -
to Havana.

Christopher’s bones were found
in a leaden chest approximately
17 inches long, eight wide an
nine high. Inside was this in °
scription in Gothic letters: “The
‘ustrious and Esteemed Chris
topher Columbus.”

Today his remains repose in @
magnificent white marble monu
ment carved by the Catalonian
seulptor, Carbonell, surmounte
hy the lions of Aragon and Leon
and the castles of Castille under
whose banners he served — am
founded the West Indian slave
trade.

Northland as seen
by two adventurers.

OST of us can remember how
thrilled we were, in our child-
hood, to read an adventure story
about the North. Two recent
books can help us to recapture
that enchantment and to get an
idea of the tremendous poten-
tialities of our northern territor-
ies, provided we can save them
from the grasping hands of our
U.S.-neighbors. |

The first is The Wind And The
Caribou by Erik Munsterhjelm,
the story of a man who threw up
a pick and shovel job in Califor-
nia during the depression to be-
come a trapper in the Lake Atha-
basca and Stony Rapid country of
northern Saskatchewan.

His account of the life and ex-
periences of a trapper rings true.
His tales about the caribou, an
animal most of us have never

B.C. Peace Council to produce

two Chekov plays October 22

HE fiftieth anniversary of the
death of Anton Chekhov, the
great Russian writer, is being
celebrated throughout the world
on the initiative. of the World
Council of Peace, and as part of
the celebrations, two of Chek-
hov’s plays, The Bear and The
Proposal, will be presented by
B.C. Peace Council, Friday, Oc-
tober 22, at'8 p.m. in the Ukrain-
ian Hall here. y

Among the many tributes to
Chekhov made by world-famous
figures is one by Sean. O’Casey,
the great Irish playwright, who
writes: .

“When the poet and playwright
gave his last sigh on this earth,
I was a young man of twenty-four,
a laborer in Dublin; a soul who
had never heard of the poet, and
fifteen years more were to pass
before the voice of Chekov,
through his plays, was to pass
into my car like the light from a
star, a star of the first magnitude.
Chekhov had come to Ireland,
had found the door of the poor

‘room wide open, and had been

given an Irish welcome and the
best seat by the tenement-room
fireside.

“There is little that can be sane-
ly said about Chekhov, for he is
too great, too many-sided to be
measured. He goes around in his
own light, and we can but see
him and listen to his gentle voice
full of melody and grace and
truth,

“A man of the people, he took
hold of their words and deeds,
their longings and fears, made
them into songs, and sent them
forth to sing themselves; for his
stories are songs, and his plays
songs too, magical music muted.

“Though belonging to us all,
he remains as Russian as his own
Volga; not the tempest-ridden
river that symbolizes the great
Tolstoy; or the icy Volga now
splitting up with a roaring rum-
ble at the coming of spring, sym-
bolizing the great Gorky; not the
swift, full-bosomed Volga sweep-
ing irresistibly along, symboliz-,
ing the great Pushkin; but a deep
and gentle Volga, river of many.
sad shadows, rippling often into
light and a quiet laughter, and
full in its flow of a deep and
tender murmuring.

“Understanding laughter and

_ cow!

deep longing are in all his work;
a quiet laughing at the Russian
life that was only half lived; a
deep longing for the greater Rus-
sla yet to be. Moscow, oh, Mos-
That city seemed then to
be the one place where there was
light and color and adventure.
Today Moscow is much more im-
portant, not only to Russia, but to
the whole world.’

“Yet in one way, indeed, in

many ways, Moscow is less im-
portant to Russia, for now there
are many Moscows in the Soviet
Union, places bright with color,
hearty in having many things to
do, and full of adventure among
the things that belong to our
peace. The longing in Chekhov’s
soul has been in great measure
fulfilled.

“Here, today, an Irish heart
greets, not the Chekhov who they
say is dead, but the Chekhov who
is actively living, and who will
live forever in the hearts of all
who come into sensitive and gen-
erous touch with ‘the man through

‘what he did for humanity, and

through his lovely stories and
through his lovely plays.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 15, 1954 — PAGE 8

seen outside a zoo, are enthrall-
ing. The reader is initiated into
the habits of the beaver, the
marten, the fox, the wolf, am

particularly the muskrat whos?
pelt today sustains the still 1m
portant fur trade.

The author strikes a sour note
when he deals with the Native Im
dians. According to him, they
are congenitally ignorant, 1a27
and, shiftless. He cannot grasP ”
the fact that the northern Indians
must be judged, not by their liv-
ing conditions ‘but in the light of
the social and political forces
that have foisted these living co™
ditions upon them and degrade
them to second-class citizens 12
their own country.

Munsterhjelm complains in the
book that his first partner wa
“too class conscious” but was
otherwise a good fellow. We
can say that the book, while it
makes interesting reading, wou
be a much better one if the
author had been able to see the
Indian people from the class cO?”
scious viewpoint of his partner:

% es at

The second book is Dangerov®
River by R. M. Patterson.
deals with the wild Nahanni cout”
try of the Northwest Territories
One gathers that the author wa
in search of lost gold, but bis
story lacks continuity and see
tc be made up of fragments from
notes and articles. Good wt!
ing doesn’t necessarily make #
good book, as this one proves.

His descriptions of the coum
try around Fort Nelson, ¥0!
Liard and Fort Simpson are most
interesting, especially where be
deals with tracking, that is, pulk
ing a heavy-laden canoe upstream
through shallow rapids by means
of a rope. On paper it appeals
to be easy enough, but it is 4
very difficult feat to master.

In this book, as well as in The -
Wind and the Caribou, the read
c1 is given a good picture of t
man adapts himself to the wor
extremes of nature and thrive’
in the process. Unlike Munster
bjelm, Patterson treats the N@
tive Indians with respect 4
something of an understandi9®
of the raw. deal they have rece? s
ed from the capitalist plundere*
of the North. j

The Wind and the Caribou 1S
$3.50 and Dangerous River 15 the
Both are obtainable here at | i
People’s Cooperative Bookstot®
337 West Pender Street. 5

—JACK PHILLIP: