BY BEN SHEK

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LD iu | h

Champion celebrates

second anniversary

E youngest member of the

family of progressive Canadian
papers, Champion — “Champ” to
its many admirers—is now two
years old. And all will agree that
it is a bouncing, fighting baby,
probably the best known baby in
the land.

Champion’s second © birthday
marks two years of tireless work
by hundreds of young workers
and students from Glace Bay to
Vancouver Island first, to create,
and then (as now) to maintain a
paper of their own. After a
badly-felt lapse of several years,
the progressive youth movement
again had a voice with which to
talk to young Canadians about
their problems, fears, hopes and
aspirations, and give them a vision
of a great, peaceful socialist Can-

~ ada. '

The fight to create Champion,
to raise the necessary funds last
year to maintain a full-time editor,
and this year’s big financial and
subscription drives, are campaigns
which have demanded and demand
great sacrifices from the numeric-
ally small progressive youth move-
ment. Yet the «results obtained
show that across ‘Canada young

people are developing a real pride -

in their paper—a determination to
write for it and work for it.

It takes conviction to face ar-
rest for selling Champion, as nine
young Montrealers. did last winter.
The right to think freely and read
freely were involved in that ac-

. tion and those rights happen ‘to
be pretty important to young Can-
adians. It requires enthusiasm to
sell the paper on the streets in
sub-zero weather, as young sup-
porters at the Lakehead have been
doing. : ‘ :

Champion has recorded some
big successes since its last birth-

day. The anti-conscription cam-
paign, launched by Champion in
its very first issue, was continued
and intensified, so that no voice
of brass-hat or big-shot calling for
conscription was left unanswered.
And there’ is reason for pride,
because the work of Champion
and the National Federation of
Labor Youth has been influential
in. winning ministers, veterans’
leaders, unionists to the struggle
against all attempts to impose
militarism on our youth. ‘The
fact that conscription, which U.S.
generals and politicians have- been
demanding in Canada, has’ not
been introduced, and that some
of its ‘former proponents, like
Major General George Pearkes,
now come out publicly against it,
\shows that. the fight is gaining
ground. ;

Over the past year, Champion: |

has been on picket-lines across
the country; with the young wood-
workers and fishermen in B.C.,
the carpenters in Regina, the
young textile workers in (Quebec.

During the strike at the Frue-
hauf Trailer Company’s plant out-
side Toronto, strikers clipped out
the Champion story on their strike
and put it on the bulletin board.
And in Louiseville, when Gaby

Dionne, editor of’ Champion’s
French - language sister - paper,
Jeunesse, spoke to some leaders
of the Catholic textile union,’ they

told her: “We want to thank your.

papers and especially the National
Federation of Labor Youth. for
its financial contribution to our
strike.” ;
e

The 15th Olympie Games, held
Jast summer in Helsinki, Finland,
was a great friendly meeting of
the world’s sportsmen and women,
a demonstration for peace.
two special. issues Champion de-
voted to this event aroused con-
siderable interest in sports circles
and among youth generally,

Because of the originality of
Champion’s ‘Olympics stories, its
highlights of the friendly meeting’
between athletes of East and West,
its. proposals for development of
mass sports in Canada, the paper
came into the hands of many
young people for. the first time.
Champion’s call for launching of
a three-year government-financed
$10 million sports program to

build swimming pools, stadiums, -

rinks and tracks can be brought
to thousands of the young Cana-
dians who will support this de-
mand. j

Champion today is exercising
considerable influence in the gen-

' eral youth movenient in Canada

because it campaigns for the
things young people want. It has
consistently fought for and pub-
licized the actions for the great
Soviet-Canadian student exchange
plan which has been raised on the
campuses. Through its pages,
Champion has shown young Can-
adians what dangers to civil rights
and to the freedom to think and
act democraticly are inherent: in
Bill 93. And now we have the
call for action against Bill 93
by the Eastern Regional Confer-

ence of the. Student Christian -

Movement, and special civil rights
issue of The Varsity, University
of Toronto students’ paper.

The discussion which was start-
ed in the pages of The Silhouette,
McMaster University students’
paper, when Champion was first
sold on that campus, and the let-
ters in the current issue of Cham-
pion from people with viewpoints
different from ours, shows that
the paper has begun the great
debate among Canadian’ youth as
to what are its real interests, and
what path young Canadians should
follow... ¢

This will be a year of great de-
cision for young Canadians. The

. coming federal election will con-
front the 500,000 or so new voters

and thousands of other young peo-
ple with the question: Which
groups and parties, which program
is in the best interests of Cana-
dian youth? se
Champion has already begun
its campaign to win young Can-
ada for a program of peace and
national independence in the com-
ing election. The special July 1

issue last year, “Canada 1967—

Our Happy Future,” brought to

i

The

Youth fight discrimination

and d

3 b pone people from the: loni

studying in Britain

will lanuch a united campaign against every form of racial discrim-
: ination and for better and cheaper housing. :

These were among the decisions taken recently at a conference

organized by the Co-ordinating Council of British, Colonial and Domin-

_ ion Students.

- Delegates attended from eight organisations representing students
from all parts of the British Empire. : ;
Many speakers stressed the responsibilities of the students toward

their peoples in the struggle for national independence, and the common.

interests of colonial and British youth in this struggle.

Seer

OEE SEBAGO

72 os

a)

1 pe oe

thousands of young people the
vision of an alternative way of
life to that of war, conscription,
unemployment and blind-alley jobs
—a way of life in’ which all the
great wealth of our country can
become the inheritance of our

youth, when unlimited ways will :

open up for the creative, peaceful
development of our talented
young people. The federal elec-

tions will enable us to bring this °

alternative to the hundreds of

. thousands of young voters who

are’ earnestly looking for an an-
swer to their problems other than
war and depression.

Terror as war weapon

ROY REID, Rabbit Lake, Sas-
katchewan:
Yankees have been talking of the
atom bomb and the H-bomb. They
have been trying to sell to the
Western nations the idea that
they have in the bomb a new and
very superior kind of weapon
which has entirely revolutionized
the art and science of war.

It is true the bomb is a new
weapon. However, the idea which
the government of the United
States has been trying to sell to
the West is the old belief that to
terrorize the enemy by deeds of
violence, to massacre people in-
discriminately, is the way to win

~ wars. x .

Terror as a war weapon works
both ways.
World War Germany bombed
Britain that terror roused the peo-
ple to resist, improved their mor-
ale and made them determined to
fight to the last. Later ten times
more and bigger bombs were
dropped on Germany by the alies.

That terror also, with its murder.

technique, only  stiffened* the

morale of the German people, so

that they increased their war ef-
fort right up to the time the Al-
lied infantry came in and cleaned
them up.

Through the centuries it has
become a more or less accepted

_ Tule for the fighting forces in

war, not to molest non-combat-
ants. This ruld has developed not
because people were more human
in ages past than they are now.
The rule became effective because
in practice it was found by those
who adopted the terror technique
that it worked against them.
True, at first sight it would

“seem that the dropping of two

atom bombs on Japanese cities
was a very great military success,
However, the after effects of that
massacre on the relationship be-
tween the U.S. government and

cn poems eds Wb 2

For years now the

When in the Second |

While we note our important
successes on this anniversary of
the Voice of. Young Canada, we
are also aware of many short-
comings. One of the most urg-
ent is the winning of more young
industrial workers as readers and
supporters of Champion. There
‘are thousands of young people in
low - paying jobs, apprentices,
young unemployed, who would
welcome the paper if it came into
their hands.

they get it.

We must see that

In this battle of ours, as also
in our vital drives for 3,000 new

the masses of the people of Asia
is such that there is still develop-
ing a deep-seated mistrust of the
U.S. and the other Western gov-
ernments who have backed Yankee
acts of terror and threats of
greater violence. a

Here's $5 for defense

A.G., Whonock,  B.C.: Con-
gratulations on your editorial and
your letter to Attorney-General
Bonner on the Clemens case.

It warms the heart of a senile
old age pensioner to know. that
there are still some champions
of the weak and oppressed—black
er white—who do not allow the
brutal KKK methods of the plun-

- derbund’s gestapo to silence or

intimidate them. Lowell’s lines
seem appropriate to this case:
“They are slaves who will not
speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not
choose
Hatred, scoffing and abuse, .
Rather than in silence shrink
'From the truth they needs
must think,
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.”
Enclosed please find five bucks
towards the defense in the libel
action. Now two lines from Don
West:
“Oh pity those, the liberal men,
whose words were brave
when times were fair, *
But now their lips are tight and
thin. We cannot hear
them anywhere-” ;
And to think Arnold Webster
was one of.the jurymen!

And here's $10 oe

\

~ . Clemens case.
. talking about it and needless a
- say everybody is of one mind oie

A.F.W., Norse, Saskatchewan: -

When I sent you two dollars for
your defense fund before, I re-
gretted that it could not be more,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 6, 1953 — PAGE

you Pleate| |

but explained that my own health se ;

and renewed subs and $9,400, We
need the full assistance of the
readers of the Pacific Tribune
and the entire progressive move
ment. ‘Our paper could not have
been built, nor maintained, if nol ;
for the constant and broad assist
ance of the young people of the
twenties and thirties who form
the great part of the progressive f
labor movement today. With your

and the energetic work of our
young supporters across the cour” —
try, Champion will continue to Cae
the best fighter on behalf of
young Canadians, leading them
to a rich, bright, socialist future —

naTinent

wasn’t so good.

Well; I have changed my mind

‘a bit. If I get careless with BY

health, well, that’s only me ¢O?
cerned; but if I should be some —
what CARE-LESS about the “5”
sue” to be decided, well, thats
could mean that the welfare ?
others might Be jeopardized, 5°
I am enclosing the ten-spot

promised you, and may it be 9?

; : ‘ One
_one of many you will receive hs

defend what is right. Rea ee
sorry it isn’t $112, instead “
only the measly $12, Good Juc®

to you!

Battle for every one

B.M., Jericho Beach Hospital)
Vancouver, B.C,: I have been 100
lowing with (great interest

Everyone heré e

cerning it — “Crude whitewash ak
The Pacific Tribune is pb i
wonderful thing in fighting * ace
case through and dragging it "4.
the open; it makes me very prow

: ‘ag @ |
to be associated with the PT is. pe

subscriber: and supporter.
cks"

in f bu
I sent-along a couple ° her

for the defense fund the %
day and will send along 2 couple
every month out of my cheque
am not yet up and around
but one of these days I shall oo
around and talk with some of us
fellows and collect a few pucks: »
There is not too much money
around this place but I kn0¥ ‘
lot of the boys will kick in eh
bits or a dollar, because as 1 52°”
the whole business has arous® B
lot of feeling and it is not st
the Pacific Tribune's-battle 1077
but a battle for every one Whe ge
lieves in human decency 22° —~
nity.

much” ee