Buck greets Pieck

On January 3, Wilhelm Pieck, president of the German

Democratic Republic, celebrated his 80th birthday.

Among

the hundreds of congratulatory messages he received was one

- from Tim Buck, LPP national leader, praising ‘his “magnificent
record of 60 years in the working class movement” and assur-
ing him that remilitarization of West Germany was opposed by
the majority of the Canadian labor and farm movement. Here
Pieck is seen being greeted by Berliners at a rally.

Attack branded
as McCarthyism

REGINA

_ Public sentiment has swung against the Saskatchewan
Liberal party following the McCarthyite attack by a leading
Liberal MLA on two senior government officials who had
participated in arranging a meeting for Mrs. Helen Sobell in

Regina,

The sequence of events was
this: On’ December 6, Mrs. Sobell
addressed a public meeting in
Regina appealing for public sup-

port for the movement to secure

a retrial for her husband, Morton
Sobell, who is serving a 30-year
sentence in Alcatraz on a charge
of participating in a “conspiracy
to commit espionage.” ;

Mrs. Sobell’s meeting was
chaired by Saskatchewan Deputy
Minister of Labor H. S.”Elkin.
Also ptrticipating in the meeting
and in the sponsoring committee
was Dr. M. S. Acker, head of the
research and, statistics division
of the provincial department of
public health.

On December 15 Alex Cameron,
Liberal MLA for Maple Creek,
issued a statement demanding the
dismissal of these two senior
officials. He said:

“It is hardly becoming for any
Canadian citizen openly to
criticize the justice of the U.S.
courts, but when we find senior
civil servants employed at policy
level by the CCF government
chairing a meeting and using the
well-known tactics of red front
organizations, it is time positive
action be taken.”

Dr. Acker replied to Cameron
Saying: ; :

“Obviously Mr. Cameron’s state-
ment is a crude attempt to
smear idividuals who are con-
cerned with injustice anywhere
in the world. This is the typical
McCarthy technique, and the
people of this city and province
have shown that they will have
no truek with it.”

Elkin held that “it was my duty
as a citizen interested in main-
taining fundamental human rights
to do something more than sit in
an easy chair and ponder. the
problem.”

able to prevent it...Mr. ( Cam-
eron has made it plain that the
Liberal party believes in guilt
by association, which is. the very
basis of McCarthyism... Those
who agree with Mrs. Sobell also
have a right to take such steps
as are legal and proper to see
that the case is given a rehear-
ing.”

The public protest was also
joined by 24 citizens prominent
in labor and CCF circles in
Saskatchewan, including Hon.
Tom Johnston, speaker of the
legislative assembly, Clarence
Lyons, “representative of the
United Packinghouse Workers;
Joseph Sawchyn, president of
the Regina Labor Council (CCL);
Paul Helstrom of Gray, member
of the CCF provincial executive;
and George Taylor, prominent
Saskatoon barrister. _

Letters of protest against Cam-
eron’s witchhunting were carried
by the Regina Leader-Post from
Frank Morgan, leading Regina
clergyman; Frank Hanson, editor
of the Commonwealth; and
George Bothwell, CCF national
treasurer.

Dennis, Gates free of
‘restrictive custody’

By ALAN MAX

NEW YORK

Eugene Dennis, general secretary of the U.S. Communist party, and John Gates,
editor-in-chief of the New York Daily Worker, took’their places once again in the political
life of the U.S. last week after four years of Smth Act imprisonment and 10 months of

“restrictive custody.”
In addition, Dennis had

of the House Un-American Com-

mittee.

“Restrictive custody” ended for
the two leaders at midnight De-
cember 26.

Custody also ended at the same
time for two ofher Communist
leaders, Jack Stachel. of New
York and Carl Winter of Detroit.
Stachel continues to be harassed
under the Walter-McCarran Im-
migration Act.

Benjamin J. Davis, former New
York city councilman and for-
mer publisher of the Daily Work-
er, was scheduled to undergo 60
days more of “custodial” restric-
tion. This was a result of the
“contempt” sentence passed up-
on him for refusing to inform on
fellow-Communists when he was
defense witness in the Pittsburgh
Smith Act trial.

It was-learned that legal steps
were being planned in order to
free Davis immediately from the
“custodial” restrictions.

The Daily Worker announced
that Gates would be back at his
post as editor this week.

Dennis indicated that a forth-
coming meeting of the U.S. Com-
munist,party’s national committee
would | determine exactly when
he would officially. resume his
duties as general secretary fol-
lowing the enforced leave of ab-
sence. —

Gates recalled that when he
and Dennis were released to re-
strictive custody from Atlanta
Penitentiary on March 1 last year
he had said then that they were
only half free.

“Today we are three-quarters
free,” he went on. “There are
still a few things pending. There
is the membership indictment
under the Smith Act, there is
the McCarran Internal Security
Act and a few other things. But
I feel confident that it won’t be
long before there is complete free-
dom for us and that means more
freedom for all the American
people.”

previously served almost a full year in prison for “contempt”

Eleanor Roosevelt heads signers

Smith Act

Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt headed
‘a list of 42 Americans who urg-
ed President Eisenhower to grant
a Christmas amnesty to 16 men
and women imprisoned under the
Smith Act. |

The 42 also urged Hisenhower
to hold in abeyance further pro-
ceedings under the Smith Act.

Text of their message read:

“We respectfully urge you to
grant an amnesty commuting the
sentences of the 16 men and wo-
men now in prison under the
Smith Act (Alien Registration
Act of 1940) to time already serv-
ed, and to use your influence to
secure the postponement of trials
in the 180 cases presently await-
ing trial court or appeals court
decisions under the act.

“Those who present this peti-
tion are in fundamental disagree-
ment with the philosophy of the
Communist party and with es-
sential elements in its program
and are motivated in the present
action by their attachment to the
democratic way of life and the
desire to maintain and strength-
en it.

“We call attention to Supreme

Court Justice Black’s description’
of the character of the Smith Act,

and the trial of Communist party
leaders under it in his dissenting
opinion when appeals from the
convictions under it were before
the Supreme Court.

“Recently the Supreme Court
itself by agreeing to review the
California Smith Act prosecu-
tions has recognized the appro-

priateness of a ‘second look’ at
the act.

Amnesty sought for

1 fims
“Among the 16 for whom we
are requesting a Christmas am-
nesty are elderly and ill persons.
The indictments and convictions
in these cases were carried
through in a period of the ‘cold
war’ and in an atmosphere often
marked by hysteria. Fortunately,
in recent months conditions have
changed for the better and there
is a noticeable trend to reaffirm
the basic democratic tradititions
of our country.

“Tt is our conviction that your
acquiescence in our request would
serve to give further impetus to
this healthy trend, would : give
proof of our confidence in demo-
cratic institutions, would encour-
age and inspire our friends
throughout the world and win
new friends. Thus, we believe,
it would also contribute toward
peace in the world about which
you are so deeply concerned and
would be in line with the policy
you set forth through Secretary
of State Dulles on November 18,
1955: ‘

“‘T know that no setback, no
obstacle to progress will ever de-
ter this-government and our peo-
ple from the great effort to est-
ablish a just and durable peace’.”

Among the signers were
Norman Thomas, six times So-
cialist candidate for president;
Henry Steele Commager, his-
torian; Lewis Mumford, author;
Alfred Hassler, editor of Fel-
lowship; Dean John C. Bennett
of Union Theological Seminary
and Rev. John M. Krumm,

chaplain of Columbia Univer-
sity.

Cut arms for welfare
CCCL leader demands

‘MONTREAL.

“The workers will not accept in 1956, any more than they did in 1955, the equa-

tion: disarmament equals unemployment,’
000-member Canadian and Catholic Confederation o

annual New Year's message.
Hailing the relaxation of world
tensions “the thing that all the

Foster ordered to return
Social Security pension

NEW YORK

William Z. Foster, chairman of
the U.S.,Communist party, has
been informed by letter that the
Social Security Administration
demands he return $1,006.50 at

once,

Harry Sacher, attorney, will ap-
peal the decision to a referee with-

{in the U.S. Department of Health

The next day, Premier ak c.|and Welfare, under which Social

Douglas entered the controversy
declarjng:

“There will be no. McCarthyism
in Saskatchewan as long as I am

Security functions.

_ Sacher said the letter: claimed
Foster had been erroneously
credited with earnings on which

\

he was entitled to draw the old-
age ‘pension.

Since all those earnings came
from the Communist party or
Communist Political Association,
the letter went on, and since the
department regarded his employ-
ment as that by a foreign govern-
ment, the amount paid must be
returned at once.

This is the fourth case in which
the Social Security Administra-
tion has had an unprecedented
opinion handed down by the
general councel of the depart-
ment of health and welfare.

’ Gerard Picard, general-president of the 100,
f Labor declared last week in his

peoples of the earth had been
hoping for in vain since the end
of the second world war,” Picard
added:

“Once more there is talk of
disarmament, and once again the
‘pessimists and profiteers give
us to understand that disarming
would throw us off balance eco-
nomically, because of the huge
budgets which national defense
pours into Canadian industry
every year,

“Faced with these prophesies
of evil, the workers repeat that
industrial production. for mili-
tary purposes is by no, means
essential to our economic
balance, provided it is agreed
to consider this balance in terms
of human need.

“Any prospect of peace opens

the way not only to the rising
of our standard of living, through
production of consumer goods,

but also to more intensive inter-
national cooperation, enabling
the wealthy countries to come
to the aid of the needy ones.”

The Quebec labor leader’s mes-
sage dealt mainly with the in-
ternational scene, underscoring
that for the first time since 1939
“we have had reason to believe
that political leaders were look-
ing to the future once more in
terms of building for peace,
rather than preparing for war.”

He cautioned, however, that
‘if we donot want 1956 to see
a return of the cold war, we
must fix in the hearts of our
statesmen the deep-seated con-
viction that the vast majority
of the Canadian people prefer
peace to any armed conflict,
no matter how fragile it may
be, provided only it is real
peace.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 6, 1956 — PAGE 10