NEW PARTY MOOTED Will Jean Lesage be 'winnner or OPEN FORUM se it has failed to fil Philpott still.confused ost. sip it out vif undertaker’ of Quebec Liberals? .ss.:e".26; “Swit — the June 1 week- ° end in “Le Petit Colisee,” Quebec City, 873 delegates met in convention to elect a new Liberal leader for Que- bec, a change dictated by the repeated defeats the Liberal party in Quebec has suffered since the end of the war and the deep-going dissensions within the ranks of the party. Behind the scenes is the continuing struggle between what is known in the party as the “old gang” or, as one delegate put it, “those whose feet are in the party but whose heart and soul are with Duplessis,”’ and those who believe that the party must “regenerate or disap- pear.” For the moment it seems that the “old gang” has kept the upper hand. Jean Lesage, former minister for Northern Affairs in the St. Laurent cabinet was elected by an overwhelming majority: 630 votes to 115 for his closest op- ponent, Paul Guerin - Lajoie and 97 votes for Rene Hamel. Dr. Aime Sauteux, brother of the former lieutenant-gov- ernor, received one vote. Prior to the convention, both Guerin-Lajoie and Hamel had charged that the con- vention was anti-democratic because 272 special delegates who had not been elected would be given the right to vote. At the convention, after making a vibrant appeal for a real change in the Liberal party, Guerin-Lajoie charged that “the old clique had put all its influence at the serv- ice of one of the candi- dates .. .’ With the ma- chine in operation, it was a foregone conclusion that Le- sage would win. ti : rs may still talk ab it as : : : 1 og be $e $e Node oe tee eS sv eta oe : angus esse ism. Two thirds of his. story. Idaho, trial. of 190 wl ‘ everywhere to potato chip party of reform and of “op- -by_-far’ thasbiay warteet if Aside from his Vlaams Despite the fact that Le- sellers, the convention gives position” to Duplessis . . . But ee t i i st 26 aes 4” . ator ane DY sage is an experienced poli- the image of a trade fair, For the man with the ready smile, _.° °°) 7 e W} CSy Seseitr 2h n tician, a man who always has a ready smile _and knows when and how to kiss babies, his election has deeply dis- appointed the “reformist” wing of the party. Among the reform-minded elements a minority is al- ready looking for another political formation, but the majority prefers to wait. In the meantime they will work within the party in order to advance their new ideas. A great deal depends on the new leader and his atitude towards those who want to make the Liberal party a party of “reform.” George E. Lapalme, former JEAN LESAGE The old guard’s choice Liberal leader, warned the convention that. the Liberal party cannot withstand any more setbacks. He surprised many dele- when he described how he had been under constant at- tacks by his own party mem- bers for trying to implement the program adopted at the 1950 convention which had selected him. Was he refer- ring to the St. Laurent-Du- plessis axis which has existed for a decade? He didn’t: say. Another delegate, Jean-Louis Gagnon, pressing for “re- forms” within the party and voicing disgust at what was happening at the convention, declared: “The Liberal party killed Lapalme. We are now in process of killing the next leader . . . Where is the*con- vention going? Where is the party going? Does the party many delegates, the conven- tion is taking place in the corridors. Some are using tactics which the Duplessis regime would. not disa- vow ...” And he wound up with the accusation “There are times when we would think that Duplessis is lead- ing the party.” Several delegates affirmed that unless a real campaign f “cleansing the ranks” took place a third party would be founded. Immediately after his elec- tion, Lesage took a good part of his speech to appeal to “all men of goodwill who are not members of the Liberal party.” He told them that within the Liberal party they could work in liberty for the realization of their objective. He warned them against the temptation to organize new political formations ~ because then they would serve ‘the interest of the Union Nation- ale and contribute to main- taining in power by dividing the forces of liberation.” The convention adopted the main points of. the program of the party -without discus- sion. It is essentially the same as the one adopted in 1950, taken out of the moth balls and dusted up a bit. The main resolutions were on education, federal grants to universities, provincial atuto- nomy natural resources. There was not a word about peace, banning the bomb or suspension of nuclear tests. A weakness of those op- posed to Lesage and the “old gang,” as shown at the con- vention, is that they envisage reforms being made” without a special effort being made to win the support of the work- ing class without which no real reform is possible in Que- bec. , The convention also showed that the very undemocratic character of Liberal party makes it» impossible to dis- lodge the representatives of big finance capital from the leadership. It’s. truly. a party ~ of big business. Some well intentioned peo- ple within the Liberal party the man of the Duplessis-St. Laurent axis, the man who rode to the leadership on St. Laurent’s back cannot be the alternative to Duplessis. The young Liberals who have al- ready drawn this conclusion from their last convention are right. Whatever form fhe al- ternative takes, it will have to include the labor move- ment. The day after the conven- tion Le Devoir had an edi- torial entitled “Triomphateur ou croquemort?” (Winner or undertaker). My own feeling is that Lesage ‘will be the “undertaker.” CAMILLE DIONNE recently came across an old issue of the Toronto Star, dated May 22, 1933. It con- tained a report of a speech by Elmore’ Philpott, then a CCF bigwig, but,now a Lib- eral and codumnist for the Vancouver Sun. The “revolutionary” Phil- pott of 1933 had this to say: “Capitalism is doomed. be- = Hay ward link Sestine past, futule) HARD FIGHTING, hard- drinking man. A giant Cyclops (he had lost an eye in childhood), risen from ‘the bowels of the earth,” as he put it, with a booming voice and the gift of simple, direct, persuasive speech. William D. (Big Bill Hay- wood was a heroic figure on the American labor scene in the early part of this century. Republication of his autiobi- graphy, Bill Hayward’s Book (which originally appeared in 1929) should strike a respon- sive chord in two very di- verse contemporary currents. “On the political Left there is a search-for roots and antece- dents, and surely Haywood’s book is a rich vein for such exploration, In the mass media, especial- ly on TV, there is the. phen- omenon of the “adult” West- ern.” Don’t snicker. This, too, is in part nostalgia for a more heroic past. ; Haywood is a granite bridge between the American frontier and American social- not the sort you see on TV, but an authentic West: in which the Western Federa- tion of Miners (forerunner of the Mine, Mill and Smelteer Workers Union) slugged it out with the mine owners and the corrupt forces of law and order in the mining camps of Colorado, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada, fighting injunctions, martial law, mass arrests, legal frameups and the naked terror of bullet and bayonet. Haywood was essetialy a man of action and his book- - jet (obtainable here at the People’s Co-op Bookstore, 307 West Pender Street, price $3.75) isan exciting narrative, June 27, 1958 — same speech Elmor other tune: one of ownership of property, but will i capitalism of the righ ploit: labor.’ pott was just as con ? his thinking in 1933 1 is in 1958. packed with all sorts “ cidents, It is not ah to a ideas nor an attemP lyze ‘program and pe magnificent battles tio the Western Fedel@ wes! Miners of which he getif® ( leader, but there is he eh effort to uncover nat © to the corrosion 9° oh t ganization. -The same oe ) ‘the Industrial Worke® i I World, which heh helPé ve F and in which he wa i x prominent figure in day from 1905 to # q t t a ng through ‘the book ae, i logue Hay wood’s 1 ei ; the programmatic oe ‘ of the IWW, W many and glarin&: \ the man’s staturés id if it was that drew ii ah ey sion audiences of i oat ; 60,000 in two success h ings in Chicago to rion \ upon his acquital ° oe 4 charges in the fa and experience ely : izer, Haywood epitor atl | great traits of il working class—™ battle and a spin endence, whic Fats in the Americt 0 y cratic tradition, ant ati by the Americal © peli. es a socialism, the se , sion of working © : tic” tl ousness, and the eric ih expression of aa if mocracy. The sit strength and it oat ans é the failings, pers” whic tical, .some OF vanity .and the P parent in his oo Mg But_in another patt of e ? “The CCF will dept 1 to wi It seems that Elmor cies ee ult He tells.in detail. ab ii} . { xt og of It would be east gl hie oxy But that would "ot A mo A He was 4a lig “ i 1 le a pot pat nf q PACIFIC TRIBUNE