c

Aun British Columbians who
cherish their province and want to.
see its resources develped in the
panes interests will watch the

alks on the Columbia River which
open Friday in Ottawa.

According to Premier W.A.C.
Bennett, top B.C. government of-
ficials, including Lands and For-.
ests Minister Ray Williston and
Attorney General Bonner, are
meeting with Federal and US. of-
ficials.

Although no public announce-
ment has been given out, it is ex-

ted that these talks are crucial
‘or the Columbia Treaty. It has
been hinted that a deal with the
U.S. on downstream power bene-
fits may bein the making which
Ottawa and Victoria _ will use to
push the unpopular draft treaty
through Parliament soon after the
New Year. -

It is significant that Externa
Affairs Minister Paul Martin re-
cently went to Washington to hold
top level talks on the treaty. Also,
Premier Bennett disclosed on his
return from the Dominion-Provin-
cial conference Monday that he
held two meetings with Martin on
the Columbia deal.

If for no other reason, the Cana-
dian and B.C. public ought to be
profoundly disturbed by the top
level secrecy surrounding the nego-
tiations with the U.S. on the Co-
lumbia Treaty.

We can be certain about one
thing and that is present talks
with the U.S. are part of the big-
ger picture of integration of Cana-
dian power with the U.S. in a

Not much time left

power pool which will make avail-
able to the U.S. the vast hydro and
water resources of Canada’s rivers.

There isn’t much time left for
patriotic Canadians to speak out
against the sellout of the Columbia
River and to demand policies
which will see the water resources
of our country used for the benefit
of Canada.

Comment

Fanning the flames

Fo RCE of habit is difficult to
break. This is especially true of the
coldwar ideology of hate. Fifteen
years or more of coldwar emnity

against peoples of differing ideas.
‘and social systems, has produced:

a type of editorial writer, news
commentator, call them what we
may, in whose blood-stream the:
poison of coldwar has penetrated
deep.

Here is a run-of-the mill sample
from an editorial in The Sun of
November 27: “‘President Ken-
nedy’s assassin appears to have
been a member of the lunatic left.
Typically he was loyal only to
Russia — provided he didn’t have
to live there.”

For The Sun the identity of
“Kennedy s assassin” is already es-
tablished without cavil or recourse

‘to the courts. And the Sun’s ex-

clusive interpretation of his “loyal-
ty” is made to serve as a handy’
weapon to smear others.

The above quotation revealsa
mentality which, in essence, is not
too different from the warped men-
tality which gunned down Presi-
dent John F. Kennedy; a mentality
which finds a ready echo where
ignorant hate instead of reasoned
understanding prevails.

Only a few days ago on a national
TV program, national Socred
leader Robert Thompson, alleg-
edly “deploring”’ the brutal assas-
sination of John Kennedy, utilized
the occasion to unburden himself
of an anti-Communist tirade of
hate against “international Com-
munism.” .

Such a hate-filled harrangue
from the source is understandable.
Mr. Thompson is a self-avowed ad-
mirer and friend of the arch-John
Bircher, Senator Barry Goldwater
of Texas. Mr. Thompson has often
let it be known that he would be
very happy to have America’s top-

=

hater Goldwater visit Canada on
an extended visit to “sound off”
on his ultra-rightist hate panegy-
rics. Herr Thompson would also

like to see all trade in wheat or
other commodities with “iron cur-
tain’? countries stopped forth-
with,

Still closer to home there are
other manifestations of this hate
and intolerance which breed the
violence which the Sun pretends
to deplore, but which its editorial
Sepp
and promotes.

Our own Premier Bennett for
instance, has assumed the role of
“talking tough” to French-Canada
in its historic demand for full
equality within Confederation. In
this Premier Bennett steps for-
ward as an advocate of “
Stick.”

Never mind trying to under-
stand the legitimate aspirations
of the French-Canadian nation
within the two-nation entity which
is Canada. Never mind the desire
of French Canadians to participate
equally in the riches, in the oppor-
tunities, in the heritage and in the
destiny of their own province and
country. Never mind their protests
against selling their birthright to
U.S. monopoly for a fast buck. Just
“talk tough” and wave a big So-
cred stick. A sure way to wreck
Confederation—and an inevitable
path to inter-national violence.

So to French-Canada Mr. Ben-
nett would ‘talk tough.” Mr.
Thompson in his best Barry Gold-
water John Bircher style, “talks
tough” to “international Commun-
ism.” And The Sun, garbed in the
Philistine cloth of a High Pontiff
of Monopoly, discovers “‘a climate
of violence in Canada’”’ but fails
to see itself in this ‘‘climate’’; that
of an overly-energetic stoker, de-
termined to keep the hate-laden
fires of the coldwar hot.

Pacific Tribune

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Phone MUtual 5-5288
Subscription Rates:
Canadian and Commonwealth coun-
tries (except Australia): $4.00 one year.
Australia, United States and all other
countries: $5.00 one year. Authorized
as second class mail by the Post Office
Department, Ottawa and for payment
of postage in cash.

tS See oe
3 3 ec

Tom
McEwen |

. oe

The PT is happy that its editor, Tom
McEwen, has now sufficiently recovered
from his recent operation to resume writing
his column this week.

the wake of the national and in-
ternational emotions unleashed by the
horror of the assassination of Presi-
dent John F. Kennedy- and subsequent
events, some pressing questions for
which there are as yet no answers,
persist, :

Shall the ‘‘Appeal to Reason’’ now
being voiced to offset the insidious
poison of hate and violence, which
fifteen years or more of coldwar has
injected into the American blood-
stream, begin to have effect?

violence, momentarily silenced by the
enormity of its latest crime, merely
**lie low’’ until the indignation born of
horror dies down?

Certainly the events of that fate-
ful weekend should serve to point upthe
startling realization that the line ofde-
marcation between so called ‘‘Western
civilization’’ and barbaric violence, is
Still tragically narrow despite all our
vaunted ‘‘intellect.’’

In many areas of the UnitedStates, in

Or shall this ideology of hate and

the great industrial centres of the
North and in the Deep South, the great
issues of national unity and race equal-
ity have too often been answered by
naked and brutal force, by the lynch
mob, by assassination of outstanding
Negro-American leaders, bythe bomb-
ing and murder of Negro children
while they worshipped their God, by the
gangster rule of gun and club. Even
among and between Americans them-
selves ‘‘peaceful coexistence’’ often.
seems impossible of attainment.

And in the ‘*Lone Star’’ state of
Texas, the teen ager and the mature
adult are scarcely considered ‘‘well.
dressed’ unless they tote a sizeable
calibre six-shooter on the hip, Dallas
itself, according to many authori-
tative American writers, has become
a second ‘‘Chicago’’, an El Dorado for
hoodlums, gangsters, gunmen, saloons,
brothels and other underworld §at-
tractions, An exceedingly fertile soil
for the propagation of ultra-rightist
John Bircher ideology of hate, vio-
lence and war upon all opposing view-
points.

And if the ‘‘image’’ of Texas is
still the six-gun, what of the ‘‘im-
age’’ which over the years Hollywood
has diligently promoted; an ‘‘image’”’
in which only the ‘‘quickest on the
draw’’ survive in its glorification of
violence?

In such an atmosphere it isn’t to be
wondered at that the ‘‘forces of law and
order”’ are themselves affected; ready
to assume the powers of ‘‘prosecutor,
judge and jury’’ in their ‘‘convic-
tion’? of John Kennedy’s alleged as-
sassin, hence avoiding the trouble-'

‘some necessity of the ‘due pro-—

cess of law’’ through the medium of

‘a law court. Like that other police

chief of Birmingham, who preferred
to ‘*see those dogs work’’ in pre-
ference to the enforcement of federal
law and order.

Thanks to the invention of TV, mil-
lions of viewers had, for the first
time (and we trust it will be the
last) a close-up view of a cold-blooded
assassination taking place before their
eyes, And in case they missed any de-.
tail, a re-run in ‘‘slow-motion.’’ All
nicely filmed in a police station with
the police looking on — and not even
looking surprised!

Today many Americans, from Pre-
sident Johnson down, have been call-
ing for an ‘‘agonizing reappraisal’’;
a reappraisal which finds expression
in impassioned appeals for an end to
hate and violence.

That is a hopeful and encouraging
sign. But it is not enough. Ameri-
can foreign policy with its price-
tag of ‘‘peace through strength’’ (the
Big Stick) remains intact. A policy
which,. above and beyond all else, is
the prime incubator of hate, violence
and war, destructive of American mor-
ality and menacing world peace. a

There is an old saw about ‘‘sow-
ing the wind and reaping the whirl-
wind,’’ The winds of coldwar hate have
swept America, and in the whirlwind
diverse emotions pregnant with this
hate, leave a harvest of moral de-
struction in its wake.

The dead Vietnamese peasant in his
hundreds, struck down by U.S. arms
while defending his poor home, and John
Fitzgerald Kennedy, are the common
victims of this deadly incubator of
coldwar hatred, violence, and destruc-
tion.

lings actually accentuates .

e Big -

December 6, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page

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