pe the first phase of the Korean war south of
the 38th parallel, U.S. imperialism (draped in
UN colors) could invest itself with a semblance of
“moral”? authority for armed intervention and_ the
wholesale massacre of civilian population which ‘is
the principal accomplishment of “‘strategic’” bombing.
By branding North Korea ‘as the ‘aggressor’’ “a pup-
pet of Soviet imperialism”, ‘Yankee imperialism and
its aides have been able to pose asthe “‘saviors’” of
Asia and Europe from - “communism.” Hitle?, it
will be remembered used precisely the same arguments
and technique in the yeats leading to the second,

World War. - ae

By sheer weight of devastating and indiscrimin-
ate bombing, General MacArthur’s “UN” forces:
have scored a temporary ‘victory’, South Korea is
now presumed to be “‘liberated”’ from the menace of
“communism.” ; f

The second phase of the Korean conflict opens
with a question, pregnant with terrible consequences
—to invade or not to invade North Korea! While
the question is being ponderd by the dominant Mar-
shall bloc in the UN, the answer is. already being
written. in Korean. blood. The U.S.-trained and
equipped armies of U.S. puppet Syngman Rhee are
again herded together and sent across the 38th paral-
lel—northwards. At this moment’ these mercenary
troops of Yankee imperialism are further north of
the 38th parallel than at any time prior to the be-
ginning of official hostilities.

North of that “‘line’’ the “moral’’ pretenses
of Yankee imperialism is ruthlessly ripped away, ex-

End intervention in Korea

’

posing the hideous ‘face of aggressive imperialism,
hellbent on the reconquest of Asia and the defeat of
the colonial peoples’ liberation movements. And all
under the sorry Hitlerite pretext of “saving” Asia
from communism.

Premier ‘Nehru of India proposed terms upon
which the Korean civil war could have been ended
weeks ago. These were politely sneered down by the
UN representatives of American, British and Can-

adian imperialism, with all the other dollar hangers-

on joining in the warmonger’s chorus. Again and
again the Soviet Union has presented honorable and
democratic terms upon which peace could be restored

‘in Korea, but all to no avail. Those who conspire for

war do not take kindly to proposals for peace, re-
gardless of how sane, reasonable or sincere such pro-.
posals may be.

Armed invasion of North Korea by the satellite
minions of U.S. imperialism presents the gravest
threat to the preservation of peace in Asia and

throughout the world. It is because of the gravity of

this new threat to world peace that the common people’
everywhere must act to stay the bloody hands of the
warmongers. First, individually, by adding theirs to
the millions of names on the world peace petition, and
second, collectively, by instructing their parliamentary
representatives to speak—and act—boldly for peace.

Demand that all foreign troops be recalled from
Korea immediately, and that the UN take such

‘measures now as will insure a unified, independent,

free and democratic Korea, That way lies peace.
Invasion of North Korea is a provocation for war.

; '
’

Who says BCER is ‘poor buy’

ete weeks ago Vancouver’s Non-Partisan city
council asserted that taking over the B.C.
Electric as a public utility at this time would be “a
poor buy”, In other words, our B.C. Electrocuted
city fathers are not minded to embarrass the BCER
further by voicing the demands of Vancouver's elec-
torate that this transit monopoly be taken over by the
city and run as a public enterprise for the service and
profit of the citizens. A “‘poor buy”’ they say!

It all depends from which side of the tracks one
looks at it. Before September 1, 1921, almost 30
years ago, there were “non-partisan’’ politicians up
to the ears in the Toronto Railway Company, who
also howled against public ownership of what was
then a perambulating junkpile run exclusively for the
profit of the company. A “poor buy’’ they repeated
with tiresome monotony. But on the date cited, Tor-

onto’s citizens succeeded in imposing their demand for

public ownership and the Toronto Transportation
Commission (TTC) was born.
- What happened wasn’t a miracle. It was simply
that under public ownership, the millions of dollars
annually pocketed by the Toronto Railway Company
for scandalous transit services, went into the civic
treasury instead of into the pockets of the transit
monopoly. :

During those 30 years, the TTC has been dev-
eloped into one of, the finest and most modern metro-
-politan transit systems in North America. The transit
politicians who moaned about “‘poor buys”’, railroad-
ed through successive transit franchises, “‘explained’’
bum transit schedules, and enlarged upon the “‘evil”
and “‘inefficiencies” of public ownership, have been
silenced by the results of those 30 years of. the TTC.
But in Vancouver they are still noisily articulate.

For 40 years Toronto has talked about a sub-

way, Big appropriations for such a project were re-
jected in civic elections before 19/1. The “non-par-
tisan”” politicians posed as the thrifty custodians of
the taxpayers’ dollar. But by 1946 Toronto voted
aproximately $45 million for the Yonge Street sub-
way, now under construction. How could they do it?
Simple. The TTC, providing top transportation and
showing a growing profit annually, offered to do the
job at its own expense if necessary. | ess

That “poor buy” gave Toronto a_ profitable
enterprisewith the profits “‘plowed back” into up-
to-date civic transportation and utility, For Vancouver
the “poor buy” excuse gives blanket coverage to the
growing dictatorial control of a bare-faced monopoly,
rooks the public in successive fare hoists, provides a
franchise control of Vancouver’s streets and allows
transit services to be geared to the profit considera-
tions of the BCER.

The last fare hoist (defended by a Non-Parti-
san city council and authorized by a B.C. Electric
RUC) was the equivalent of Vancouver's citizenry
presenting the BCER with a new trolley-bus almost
daily. A glance at the expenditures of Vancouver's
$50-million 10-year plan of civic improvement, will
show that the BCER is the greatest beneficiary. The
taxpayers buy the company a bus'a day and then ‘pay
for street renovation to run the busses on. Having paid
for something he doesn’t own, the taxpayer takes what
he gets in civic transit, and according to the BCER-
Non-Partisan logic, is expected to like it.

A “poor buy’’ indeed, but one that can readily
be corrected in the coming civic elections, by tossing
out the B.C. Electric’s ‘‘Non-Partisan” guardians
and electing in their stead aldermen who will
place the interests of the citizens of Wancouver be-
fore those of a grasping profit-hungry monopoly. —

. out upon new worlds” will be the central theme of this two-day

. power of their writing is declared taboo by a Congressional throught

Senile, unclean drivel and falsehoods, poisonous as the venom from

. be bettered.

TOM McEWEN ~

As We See It

i pees Vancouver Book Fair committee is sponsoring its third annual
Book Fair from October 20 to 22. Books, those “windows looking —

pleasure trip with the world’s greatest authors.

Just as the’ menace of war stands as a threat to all our liberties,
so also it threatens the right and the opportunity of the common
people to read good books. Nothing is sacred to the imperialist
witch-hunters who fear more than anything the voice of reason. :

Hitler burned books because he feared the people who wrote them
—and the people who read them. Even the great German poet Goethe
was not spared from the flames. ze

In this same Hitlerite era of book burning i?
Germany, the RCMP in Canada raided the homes
of Canadian workers and confiscated their books—
books telling of Gene Debs, Bill Foster, Tim Buck,
“Mother” Bloor, the shooting of Ginger Goodwin and
Bill Davis, the Winnipeg General Strike—books
telling of the struggles of Canadian workers and
farmers since the days of Mackenzie and Papineau.

To the police watchdogs of monopoly, g00
books in a worker’s home are a definite indication
of “communism,” and especially those books “not
approved” by the thought-control witch doctors of
monopoly capital.

Books! Stacks of-them piled up in court before
the judge—and the judge didn’t know and cared less about the conten
of these books before him. It was sufficient that the books were piled
on'a table before him as ‘“exhibits” |to provide the bigoted heat 0
a Hitlerite bonfire, to light the way to prison for the author or the
reader.
@' ;

In this year of 1950, Yankée dollar imperialism sends the finest of —
America’s authors and dramatic writers to prison, and proscribes their
books by the control it exerts over publishers, reviewers and book-
sellers almost as surely as though the books: were banned outright.
Like the fascists they ape, they fear the people who write—and read :
good books. The famed “Hollywood 10,” whose creative genius has ~
given a new content to the song and story of a virile, clean, an
progressive America, rot in prison, while the beauty, drama an

control .tribunal,

But don’t get the idea that we are trying to say there are 1?
more books. Quite the contrary. In the U.S. today books—the books
of cold war propaganda, of sex debasement and perversion—are mas?
produced with Canada “adding her modest quota of Marshallized
wordage. : 3 }

Pulps and pocket books, sex, detective and crime fiction, are
produced by the million. This is the opiate with which monopoly
capitalism seeks to drug the intellect of its victims, to render reality —
unreal, poison the understanding of the youth and produce forgetful-
ness of the vices and poverty of a jungle “way of life.”

_ This is the so-called literature of the “American Century” pro”
duced like a breakfast cereal to fit and feed every facet of twisted
thinking. .And the writers? Men and women, who, like common
prostitutes, accept payment to write what they are told to write.

the fangs of a rattlesnake, barren of ideals but hailed as “literature”
by pimps who pose as book reviewers for the daily press.

Hitler filled his Third Reich with such books—and made bonfires

of all others—books and authors. Today we have other Hitlers,
censorious, thought-control bigots, who specify what Canadians shall

read, and what shall be blacked out. Unlike Hitler’s “hassenkampfen” |

(hate campaign) against the literary works of genius, our censors
operate quietly, covertly, like rats knawing at the pillars of reason.
Our national doors are opened wide to “literary” filth because we
‘need’ Yankee dollars, but closed tight against the encouragemeD
of Canadian men and womien to write of life as it is so that it cat

_ Men like the “Hollywood 10” who refuse to have their ideas
crushed in the Hitlerite haybailer of an un-American Un-America?-
Activities Committee write words that rekindle the ideals of a better
society than man has ever known. They and their kind are of the
goodly company of men and women, immortalized by the poet William
Wordsworth (1770-1850).' «© ©
é “Dreams, books, are each a world, and books we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good.
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, ;
Our pastime, and our happiness will grow.” \
The others, turned visionless robots by the sight and: smell of
capitalist flattery and wealth, just write! ‘ ;
The Book Fair this year promises its many patrons an enjoyable
program of cultural and literary ‘themes. Three papers will be pre
sented on the greatest books of the moment: Ilya Ehrenberg’s yhe
Storm, James Aldridge’s The Diplomat, and Albert Kahn’s “High
Treason, A paper will also be presented entitled The Classics and the |
People’s Movement, outlining the valuable role of the works of great
English classical writers and poets in the development of moderp
socialist ideology and culture. : Me

A highlight of the closing day concert will be the presentation OL jae

a dramatic play But Ye Aré The People, written by Hal Griffin, autho!
of Alaska and the Canadian Northwest, and associate editor of the
Pacific Tribune. But Ye Are The People is a gripping drama etched
from the Jiving experiences of those daily struggles of the people to
know the truth which are obscured in the screaming scare-headlines
of the monopoly press. Griffin has written a play that measures up
to can surpass Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty! i ace
Books’ Those “windows looking out upon new worlds”
“A good book is the best of friends,
the same today and. for ever.” ;
; (Martin Farquhar Tupper, 1810-1899)
This year’s Book Fair provides a great opportunity to meet and —
make many good friends. Don’t miss it. Mark down the date, Octobe!
20 to 22, Ps

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RIBUINIS:

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ba Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street fi ia
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Ny Telephone MA. 5288
Tom McEwen ~.:......- techni, Ce cmanitas eee rigs Editor
* Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35,
Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver,
Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa

(PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 6, 1950 — PAGE 8

B.C es