a WARLIKE spirit, which alone can create and

civilize’ a state, is absolutely - essential .to .

national defense and to national perpetuity. In a
free country like our own every male broughi into
existence should be taught from infancy that the
imilitary service of the republic carries with it honor

and distinction, and his very life should be permeated
with the ideal that even death itself may become a
boon when a man dies that a nation may live and
fulfil its destiny.””
—General: Douglas MacArthur in
Infantry Journal, arch 1927,

TLC ‘hatchet men’ would cut
down tree to ‘save’ limb

HEY come among us quietly, almost stealth-

ily. They put up in the best suites of
the best hotels. They are always well-
grooméd and generally sport ‘the latest in
haberdashery. Most of them pack a good
deal of girth which, encased in a snappy
tailored suit, gives them that executive “new
look.” : '

On all matter pertaining-to the historical
origin and mission of organized labor, most
of them are as dumb as the proverbial ox.
Their trade union “principles,” like any cal-
louses they may once have had, have long
since disappeared. They have little organ-
izational ability, but they can dictate a
monthly repott to the grand lodge, which,
when set up in print, reads pretty well; nor
does it necessarily mention that in their
organization! achievements for the month,
some obscure rank-and-file “leftist” did all
the foot-slogging spade work.

When these union scalp collectors visit
a trade union center on a wrecking mission,
they like to work quietly. No noise or mess,
please. Just a nice clean-cut back-door poli-
tical scalping in the quiet of a caucus of
phonies. When they leave the scene “of their
scalping activities, the union which is their
vicitm lies prostrate before its open enemies,
the employers.

Two years ago, Frank Hall’s side-kick,:
Andy Johnson, did a job on the Vancouver
local of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers.
From a virile union of hundreds of workers,
amen and women wearing the union button
and proudly pointing to the union shop card
in.a score of eating houses it has now dwind-
led to a mere handful of workers, beset with
uncertainty — and intensified exploitation.

(The latest meeting of that union’s Local 28 |
-Edmonton, Carl Berg, and leave the rank-

‘managed to muster an attendance of four-
teen ... with not one Vancouver restaurant
“worker present!)

What a tribute to the effective work of
“the union scalpers! :

In Sam Gomphers’ day “leftism” was
the stock pretext for expelling thousands of
trade unionists, locals, and even state fed-
erations, out of the AFL. Sam and his high-
salaried “roadmen” ‘were doughty wreckers,

y

who synchronized their wrecking with Wall
Street’s armed intervention against the
(then) young Soviet Union. and joined with
reaction in an effort:to compel the working-
class to pay the full costs of the First World
War.

Today “Communism” is the warrant and
pretext for union wrecking, behind which
these well-groomed lackies of the war-mad
U.S. state department hide their treasonable
activities against the cause they pretend to
serve. :

This week, portly Carl Berg of Ed-
monton, vice-president of the Trades and
Labor Congress of Canada, is in Vancouver
to direct a union scalping job. He is emin-
ently fitted for this kind of job.
London convention of, the Trades and Labor
Congress of 1939 he was handed the job of
tossing the CIO unions out of the TLC.
Carl managed the job without creasing a
single wrinkle in any of his numerous chins.

As an old unionist who “knows all the
ropes,” having sported membership in the

IWW. the QBU, the international hodcar-

riers, hotel and restaurant, and the Lord
knows what else, Berg can rise (or sink)
to most any occasion. When he is organ-
izing a union he likes to get all the aid he
can from “Communists” and “fellow trav-
ellers.” In fact, his IWW jargon is some-
times quite disarming. We could mention

more union locals than one where the Com- —

munists did all the work in building, while
the “credit” went to Carl Berg. (To the
Communists it has never been important
who got the “credit” as long as the workers
won greater economic and social benefits
through effective unionization.) ;
We could welcome Carl Berg to British

Columbia if he came as a union organizer. |

There is still plenty of organization to be
done, to build trade‘union unity. As _ the
hatchet-man selected for a union-wrecking
job—regardless of excuses or pretexts for
doing the dirty work required by Yankee
dollar imperialism—we say: Go back to

and-file of Vancouver unions to settle their
own political problems. They can manage
very well in your absence, and have no desire
to listen to a Wall Street version of Hit-
lerite ranting on “Communism.” Their union
constitutions contain an honest evaluation of
what constitutes trade union democracy, and

they have no anxiety to surrender this demo-

cratic safeguard and be placed at the mercy
of the employers: Their concern is with
wages and democracy—not red-baiting words
and demagogy.

In the ~

TOM McEWEN

As We See It

T IS NOW quite some time since the labor press first ran this

classical example of sewer. press servility to top power politics. It
serves to point up—regardless of time or circumstances—the very
elastic “principles” which guide the so-called policies of our “free
presi.” : ;

It is the day-by-day story, a's told in the headlines of a French
pereneret, of Napoleon’s escape from. Elba and his subsequent march
on Paris.

=)

March 9: “The Anthropophagus has quitted his den.”

March 10: “The Corsican ogre has landed at
Cape Juan.”

March 11: “The Tiger has arrived at Cap.”

March 12: “The Monster slept at Grenoble.”

March 18: “The Tyrant has passed through
Lyons.”

March 14: The Usurper is directing his steps
towards Dijon.” :

March 18: “Bonaparte is ‘only sixty leagues
from the Capital.”

March 19: “Bonaparte is advancing with rapid
steps, but he will never enter Paris.”

March 20: “Napoleon will, tomorrow, be under
: our ramparts.” ~
March 21: “The Emperor is at Fontainbleau.”

March 22: “His imperial and royal Majesty arrived yesterday at
the Tuilleries amid the joyful acclamations of his devoted ‘subjects.”

{The political charlatan who says, “Gentlemen, these are my -prin-
ciples, if you don’t agree with them, I will change them,” is a pillar
of virtue compared to the agile falsifiers of the commercial press. His
lying is done on a small individual “economy” scale, but theirs has
become a powerful monopoly, with a copyright on falsehood to
safeguard profits—their own, and those of. the interests for whom they
lie.” In their presentation of the decisive issues of war or peace,
they follow the technique “covering” Napoleon’s march from Elba to
Paris.

All of which brings us down to the standing $64 question: What
are all progressive-minded men and women doing about it? Well,
as Ol Bill would have cryptically observed were he with us in the
present PT circulation drive for 2,000 new readers, ‘too little for
our own good.”

Elsewhere in this issue the results to date will be seen, and the
time left to reach the objective. Not very encouraging, it is? Bad
enough, in fact, to make Ron Williams of the Financial Post break
out in another rash of happy speculation, telling his Chamber-of-
Commerce paymasters that the PT is ‘ton the way out” in B.C., and
that the “comrades” no longer respond to the urgings of their “hier_
archy” to dig down for their press. Invariably a neatly dished up
mess of tripe, but the Financial Post pays a high wordage rate for ‘
this kind of tripe because it relieves the ulcerous worries of big
business men who actually believe the “red” hysteria guff disheq out
daily by their own monopoly press.

We don’t mind Ronald’s periodic blurbs on our early demise. From
our own experiences of the past, as from the experiences of other sec-
tions of the progressive labor press, we know that our hundreds of
devoted press builders in this province will do a good job in extending
the PT as a. powerful weapon in the great “battle of ideas,” in pro-
moting the PT as a powerful weapon against the falsehoods and war
hysteria of the commercial press.

But, as Ol’ Bill used to emphasize time and again ... and backed
his emphasis with splendid personal example, the time and place to
extend PT circulation is now, right in our own bailiwick, at our place
of work, with our cwn neighbor as our closest ally in this epochal
struggle between truth and falsehood, for peace and against war!

All the experiences gained in securing ‘signatures to the great
Stockholm peace petition, despite the lies, slanders and misrepresenta-
tions which have been hurled against it by the sewer press, prove
one simple truism—if we go out after signatures we get them.

All the experiences gained by LPP clubs, individual members and
PT supporters in past (and present) circulation campaigns, add up
to one simple lesson—if we go out after readers, old or new ones,
we can get them. ;

It is that fact which, more than anything else disturbs the
tranquility of the hired scribblers for the sewer press, Let’s disturb
them a little more.

So the $64 question can be reduced to its simplest form—giving
a worker an opportunity to read a paper he wants to read; asking
him to read a paper that “talks his language”; and helping him to
understand better the hysteria of a sewer press that screams at hint
daily, with its hymns of hate, hunger, and atomic war.

To trade unionists in particular, the Pacific Tribune is indispens-
able in clearing away the fog of confusion and worse, which, at the
behest of the warmongers, and with the supine willingness of the
top trade union bureaucracy, has unloosed upon organized labor.

This is not the first time, of course, that organizeq labor in!
Canada and the UJS. has suffered treason at the hands of a small
clique of unprincipled “labor” leaders. Less than 30 years ago the
AFL and TLC expelled union members, lifted charters, and even sus-«
pended whole state federations, in order that big business could load
the entire cost of the First World War upon the backs of the working
class—which had already paid in countless thousands of dead. But
progressive labor prevailed and began the long climb back to labor
unity and added strength. And one of the great factors which made
this “come back” possible, was fighting labor papers like the Pacific
Tribune, fearlessly pointing the road ahead, espousing policies which
win wage gains and understanding” for the workers, and above all,
confronting reaction with the raw truths of its own conspiracies.

In the fighting days ahead the Pacific Tribune will play an equally
important role in the struggle for labor unity, higher living standards,

progress and peace. So let’s hit that 2,000 objective! ;

| i mney i

Cinise
(COU NEN

Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C.
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. .
Telephone MA. 5288 a
MOM MCWWEriy wilitaiiscis her in Le . Editor
Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35,
Printed by Union Printers Ltd. 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C.
_ Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 20, 1950 — PAGE 8

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