HE MEN sitting in the gas-
lit coffee shop at the corner
of Elliott Street and Dumbarton

Road in Glasgow regarded the ee

aewcomer with interest as Adan
Lieper, the young engineer, in-
troduced him. ‘Comrades, this is
Bill Bennett,” he said: “He lives
in the same close as I do and he's
been reading the Labor Leader
for some time ‘Now he’s joining
our branch.”

The secretary took out a dues
book and wrote down the name
and address. “What's your occu-
pation?” he asked.. “I work in
a barber’s shop,” replied young
Bill Bennett. The secretary com-
pleted the book, passed it across
the table and the meeting of the
Anderson branch of the Scottish
Labor party proceeded with its
regular monthly business — @ dis-
cussion of the coming Glasgow
civic election, a new pamphlet on
‘housing published by the Inde-
pendent Labor party, of which the

Scottish Labor party was a part, .

and the sales of Keir Hardie’s
Labor Leader.

That meeting in September,
1897, was Bill Bennett’s introduc-
tion to the working class move-
ment, a movement becoming con-
scious of its strength and purpose
put still confused by all the ro-
mantic and opportunist theories
that afflicted its adolescence, pos-
sessing in the works of Karl Marx

and Frederick Engels the scienti- -

fic socialist theory to shape its
maturity but lacking as yet the
organization capable of applying
that theory to its struggles. The
events of the fifty years that have
passed since ‘then are also the
measure of Bill Bennett’s own rich
experience and the fulfilment in
the labor movement.

Fifty years is the full part of

a lifetime, and no period in the

history of civilization has encom-

passed such change and develop-.

ment as this past half century.
Some measure it narrowly by the
accomplishments of technology,
without regard for the majority
of the people to whom the full
benefits of that technology are
denied by the very system that
produced it. Others measure it by
"the advance of social science, the
achievements of socialism in free-
ing ‘man’ from exploitation and
assuring him that his technology
shall serve his welfare and his
needs. This was Bill Bennett's
measure and one he could use
with satisfaction, for what was
still only the dream of a few
when he entered the labor move-

ment, is today thé reality for the —

millions.

o : :
Fifty years ago, in 1897, a 27-

year-old. revolutionary named

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was sen-_
tenced by the Tsarist régime to -

three’ years’ exile in Siberia for
his organization and leadership

aay the League of Struggle for.
Working —
Class, “the embryo of the first

Emancipation — of “the

revolutionary party to base. itself
on the working <class,” as it is
described in the biography of

Lenin prépared by the Marx-En-

gels-Lenin Institute. ~

; During that period of exile Len-

in wrote three of his most impor-
tant works, The Development of

Capitalism in Russia (published

A

in 1899 under the pseudonym of
Viadimar Ilyin), The Tasks of the
Russian Social Democrats, and
The Draft of a Program for Our
Party, a development of an earlier
series of articles in one of which
he had written:

“we do not by any meams re-
gard the theory of Marx as
something fixed and inviolable.
On the contrary, we are con-
vinced that it laid only the cor-
nerstone of the science which

socialists must carry further in
all directions if they want to
keep pace with life.”

These words did not come to
Bill Bennett’s attention until
years after they were written, for
only, Value, Price and Profit ‘and

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
were at all widely read of the
few Marxist writings available in
Britain or Canada in his early
days, but the idea they embody
was also his approach to socialism.

He kept pace with life. He
grew with the socialist movement
through the years. An implacable
fighter for a principle, merciless
in his excoriation of those who
betrayed the movement or dis-
torted its theory for- opportunist
ends, he did not hesitate to discard
a concept when study and experi-
ence proved it to be no longer
true.

That was his guiding piinciptet
in travelling the long road of the
past fifty years and more to be-
come the grand old man of the
Canadian labor movement:

e

In 1897, when Bill’ joined “the
Scottish labor party, the capita-
list system was well advanced in
its transition from a free compe-
tion to a monopoly form. This
was the period of which Lenin
later wrote in his Imperialism,
the Highest Stage of Capitalism:

he The apex of pré-monopoly
capitalist development, of capita-
lism in which free competition
was predominant, was reached
in. the sixties and seventies of
the last century . .. It is precise-
ly after that period that the

begins, and that the struggle
for the territorial division of the
world becomes extraordinarily
keen. It is beyond doubt,
therefore, that capitalism’s
transition to the stage of mono-
poly capitalism, to finance capi-
tal is bound up with the intensi-
fication of the struggle for the
partition of the world,’

In 1898, United! States imperia-
lism began its rapid climb to a

‘

A builder
of British
Columbia

By HAL GRIFFIN

world-dominant position, which
now threatens even the indepen-
dence of Canada, with the Spanish
American War, by which it an-
nexed or obtained contro] of the
Philippines, Puerto Rico, and
Guam and other Pacific islands.

And \in 1899, Britains’ imperial-
istic ambitions in. Africa provoked
the Boer War, reaching out to
involve the Scottish Labor party
and mould the ideas of the young
barber who had become one of
its most active members.

“We opposed the war on a paci-
fist basis. We asked why money
should be squandered on fighting
a war in Africa when it could be
better spent in cleaning up Glas-
gow “slums,” Bill used to recall.
“Our opposition was enough to stir
up the Glasgow Tories, though.
The students at Glasgow Univer-
sity organized a raid on the Labor
Leader and smashed up its prin-
shop. After that Keir’ Hardie
moved the paper to Manchester.’

In street corner meetings, in
little groups gathered around a
table in some coffee shop, where-
ever they could get an audience
and sell their papers and penny
pamphlets, Bill and other mem-
bers of the party carried on their
propaganda work, linking their
opposition to the Boer War to the
campaign for civic reforms. Their
voices were too few to be heard
above the jingoistic clamor or to

have any effect on the course of

national policy, but the working
people of Glasgow, with their mi-
litant traditions,- were more in-
clined to listen. Twice they elec-
ted’ a labor candidate supported
by the Scottish Labor party to
their city council.

‘7 remember John MacLean, but

Willie Gallacher (Communist MP |

for West Fyfe) and Jimmy Max-
ton (leader of the Independent
Labor party) ‘were after my time.
Willie Stewart, the coal miners’
leader, was the most prominent
man in the Scottish Labor party
in those days,” Bill said in later
years, recalling with the touch of
humor that spiced all his recol-
lections, “He made the best chair-

“man’s speech I ever heard. He
d ‘boom’ in colonial annexations — 4 ©

was introducing Keir Hardie at
a meeting one time. He said,
“The duties of a chairman are
three — to get up, to speak up,»
and shut up. I will now introduce
Comrade Keir Hardie.’ Then he

“sat down. And,” added Bill with

a chuckle, “many’s the time I’ve
wished other chairmen had as
much sense.’

British Columbia in 1907, when

Bill Bennett arrived in Vancou-

ver, was the stronghold of the

Socialist Party of Canada. Two
of its leading members, Jim Haw-
thornwaite in Nanaimo and Par-
ker Williams in Neweastle, held
seats in the provincial legislature,
‘and a third seat was held by Bill
Davidson, B.C. board member for
the Western Federation of Miners

‘who won Sldcan in the 1903 pro-

vincial election with the support
of the Socialist party.

Unfamiliar with the issues of
the campaign that was in pro-
gress when he arrived, Bill took
little part in the provincial elec-
tion of 1907, in which Hawthorn-
thwaite and Williams retained
their seats and John McInnis, now
CCF MLA for Fort George, took
Grand Forks from the Conserva-
tives.

“The Socialist party ran 21 can- .

didates in that election and there
were also three Labor candidates,”
Bill used to relate. “The showing
we made seemed pretty impres-
sive at the time, but looking back
at it now, it didn’t justify the opti-
mistic review written for the In-
ternational Socialist Review by
Weston Wrigley in 1904. He head-
ed his article ‘Another Red Spot
on the Socialist Map,’ and this is
what he said:

“Jt will be seen, therefore, that
with only about 40,000 voting citi-
zens of British Columbia, and with
32 of: the 42 members elected by

less than 500 votes, the Socialist

party has only one or two elections
campaigns to go through before
it secures control of the powers of
government.’

By 1912 Bill’s work in the Socia-
list party had earned him a nomi-
nation, his first, in the provincial
election of that year. He and
Bill Pritchard, later one of the
founders of the-CCF and editor of

the ill-starred Commonwealth, .

contested the old Vancouver con-
stituency which in those days sent
five members to Victoria.

“I forget how many votes we
polled,” Bill said on one occasion
when he was discussing his first
election campaign (he also con-
tested Vancouver East as a Com-
munist candidate in the 1930 fed-
eral election)
Conservatives swept the province.
In 1911 the Vancouver ~ Island
Branches split away from the
Socialist party and formed the
Social Democratic party. They
elected Parker Williams in New-
castle and John Place in Nanai-

: mo, and those were the only two

seats the Conservatives couldn’t
take,”

“but I know the .

Although the Socialist party
had received a setback on the elec-
toral field, the British Columbia
Federation of Labor, formed in
1911, was making advances on the

trade union field fhat would soon

enable its members to claim B.C.
as the most highly organized pro-
vince in the country. In 1913 it
had 11,827 members in 70 affilia-
ted unions and a resolution en-
dorsing “the doctrines of socia-
lism” had been adopted by a refe-
rendum vote of 1,718 to 413.

Those years immediately before
the outbreak of the First World
War presented socialists with
their greatest challenge and test,
witnessed a series of strikes, be-
ginning with a dispute involving
5,000 building trades workers at
Vancouver in 1911 and culminat-
ing in the historic strike of 3,700.
coal miners on Vancouver Island
in: 1912. °°. > ie

Bill took little active part in the
strike movement, but his contribu- _

tions to the Western Clarion, then.

edited by Donald George Mac- ..
Kenzie, drew on what had become ~

a considerable experience in both
the socialist and trade
movements to clarify the issues.

Then, as throughout his life, he
was pitiless in exposing the men _.
in government and industry who...

disguised their anti-labor. designs

with an affected concern for a 2

public interest.

While he was still in Scotland,
Bill joined the Barbers’ Union

in Glasgow, and in Canada he be-

came a member of the Journey- —
men Barbers’ Union. Then, after _
the war broke out, he went. to _
work in a sawmill on Burrard:

Inlet. Another worker at the mill
was Bill Pritchard and soon the
two of them were busy organizing
the short-lived International 72
berworkers’ Union.

Bill’s facility with his pen, com- _

bined with a capacity for study

that had already taken him
through all the available Marxist

works, “including Capital, which

every one talked about but no one —

seemed to have read,” fitted him
for the constant demands the
party made upon him for contri-

butions to its papers. His ability :
was tested to the utmost when

in 1917, the Russian Revolution
burst upon the socialist move-
ment, demolishing old concepts
and establishing new, and strip-

ping from Marxist writings the

accumulation of years of oppor-
tunist distortion and misconcep-

‘tion. Bill was one of the members _

of the Socialist party who recog-

(Concluded on Page 10)
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 6, 1950—PAGE 5

union’