DIGEST

MRS. H. F. FEILBERG of
Vancouver writes to tell us that
the Ladies Auxiliary of the
Children’s Jubilee Camp As-
. sociation is sponsoring a Val-
entine Cabaret on Saturday,
February 14, at the Clinton
Hall, 2605 East Pender. For
tickets phone HA 5610-L or GL
0564-R.
L. A., Vancouver, sent us a
clipping from Time in which
at Cyrus Eaton is quoted as say-
% ing John Foster Dulles is
ty preaching “insane fanaticism.”
nd Eaton continued: “The only
people in the U.S. who believe
‘that Communism is a menace
nes are the boys on the payroll of
a] «the FBI.”
Cin ¢
:- M. L., Cranbrook, writes to
0g tell us of the vicious radio
| broadcasts against the IWA,
when a strike threatened in
that area.

H. MANN, Vancouver, sends

us a cartoon showing a couple

_ of Belgian Colonel Blimps sing-
ing: “Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, I

DAN MCLEAN, Vancouver,
sends us a poem about logging
in “the good old days,” which
we hope to find space to print
at some, future date.

- JOBLESS, Victoria; ‘com-
ments that “Dief should now
be known as Deaf, as he con-
sistently refuses to listen to
the voices of the unemployed,
who are once again beginning
to starve in the midst fo
plenty.” He goes on to com-
pare the present Tory govern-
ment with the reign of R. B.
Bennett, who established relief
camps where the single youth
were, herded together, out of
_ sight of the public, and paid
“wages” of 20 cents a day.

British
Columbia:

The People's
Early Story

by Harold Griffin

PEOPLE’S CO-OP
BOOKSTORE
307 West Pender St.
TRIBUNE
PUBLISHING
COMPANY LTD.

Rm. 6 - 426 Main St.
Vancouver, B.C.
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don’t want to leave the Congo.”’.

Ivan Ivanovich Sputnik, the USSR’s first Ambassador
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in thle Cosmos,
presents his credentials.

BOOKS

Barke's tribute to
‘Bonnie Jean Armour

a PEOPLE would know
the answers to a television
quiz inviting them to give the
maiden’ names of wives of
famous poets.

There, would be Elizabeth
Barrett for Browning and, of

course, Jean Armour for

Burns.

In time for the Burns bi-
centenary came the late James
Barke’s posthumous novel
Bonnie Jean (available in about

six weeks at the People’s Co
op Bookstore, 307 West Pender,
price $3.50) depicting the life
of Burns’ widow in Dumfries.

The rally of Burns’ good
friends to raise support for
Jean and her children; their
fatal choice of the “unco’ guid”
Dr. Currie as the poet’s first
biographer and as editor of a
new edition of his works, and
the efforts they made to sec-
ure a good education for his
sons, are vividly described with
all the clash of personalities
involved. A

Jean was no intellectual and
could not take part in the
controversies
around her husband after his
death, but she was a power-
ful personality in her own
right, defending the poet’s
name, talking with good sense
to visitors and resenting. pat-

which raged.

ronage from whatever quarter
it came. :

She opposed the building of
the rather grandiose mausol-
eum at Dumfries as a waste,
and Barke has her quoting the
poet’s lines: gee

“Go to your sculptured tombs,
ye great

In a’ the tinselled trash 0’
state.”

The economic _ pressure
brought by the publishers on
Burns’ brother Gilbert, who
was editing a new edition of
his works, not Sharply to con

‘tradict the previous slanderous

biographies of his brother is
well known and Barke was
right to underline it.

It must be remembered, of
course, that this is a novel and
not a biography. There are,
therefore, imaginative recon-
structions of events, in which
Barke filled in gaps in the
historical record.

t teen St :

Peter Esselmon’s well known
selection of Burns’ poems and
letters entitled Brithers A’ has
been re-issued for the poet’s
bi-centenary.

It serves as a useful intro-
duction to some of the poet’s
work, though not, in our opin-

ion the best possible selection.

J. R, CAMPBELL

Blacklist crumbling

in Hollywood today

HE PAST two weeks and
what’s to follow in the next
few may live in Hollywood
history as the beginning of the
end of the political blacklist.

This was dramatically high-
lighted by a surprise television
appearance of screenwriter
Dalton Trumbo, one of the
original “Hollywood Ten,”
imprisoned and blacklisted for
defying the House un-Ameri-
can Committee back in 1947.

Exploding one of the film in-
dustry’s worst kept secrets,
Trumbo identified himself as
“Robert Rich,” the man nobody
could “find two years ago to
accept an Oscar for the best
screen play, The Brave One.

Trumbo told TV commenta-
tor Bill Stout he’d written the
play first in 1952 and made
several redrafts before selling
it on the “gray” market to King
Bros., who produced the
Academy Award winning film.

Trumbo quipped: “The prob--

lem I and other writers have is
not to prove authorship, but
to find a way of admitting it.”

The Robert Rich expose
followed by a few days a sig-
nificant announcement by the
Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences.

The Academy’s board of gov-
ernors, at a heated meeting far
into the night, had voted to
rescind its three-year-old, by-
law prohibiting anyone with “a
Communist taint” -— anyone
who “hid behind” the First or
Fifth Amendments — from
being eligible for an Oscar.

Thus died one of Hollywood’s
strong witchhunting props, an
edict decreed by. the powerful
Academy in February, 1956,
with great ceremony.

The commercial press treated
it casually. Hedda Hopper
commented: sourly: “Now the

boys in the red coats can come
up and get their Oscars.”

‘Reviewers were mentioning
prominently for top Academy
honors Stanley Kramer’s pro-
duction, The Defiant Ones. The
film with its strong inter-racial
overtones was, according to the
screen credits, written by
Robert E. Douglas and Harold
Jacob Smith. :

Before another world-wide
quest got under way for a
missing writer, Nedrick Young

_ DALTON TRUMBO

showed up on the Lou Irwin
television show and announced
that he was “Robert E. Doug-
las.”

-Young identified himself as
the Ned Young who several
years back had evoked the
Fifth Amendment before the
un-American Committee, re-
fusing to answer questions
about alleged Communist as-
sociations.

Last year’s big Academy
winner was Bridge on the River
Kwai and the story was widely
circulated that two blacklisted
writers had a hand in th
script. inghe

One veteran director said
this week that in his opinion
the blacklist “will be allowed
to just fade away.” .

TEST
(Beaver Lake, Stanley Park) eas
“Brown! Brown! the world’s all brown!”

The duck complained with brooding frown.

“The leaves, the lilies, reeds, and all
Have faded through and tumbled down!” °

Poor thing, that quacks at rotting screen ‘
When right behind is clearly seen—
With just a little lift of head—
Another world quite evergreen.
—THE WESTERNER

January 30, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

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