"too as long as ey OOKING up from a let- ter he was reading, Mr. Hangers remarked, “Phuh sun is mighty comfortin,.” “J had no idea you had any family,’ I remarked thoughtlessly, and with no little surprise. “ris thuh sun I was speakin’ about, S-U-N, sun, an’ not enny offspring, male or otherwise,” he retorted, “This letter is from my Jawyer, if “twas that mislead ye- He sez Id better settle out o’ eourt with thuh dame what sprained -her ankle comin’ down to thuh float Vother week, an’ that £ shud lose no time fixin’ thub board that tripped her, too. Well, its fixed; also a new sign.” : > ‘I saw it,’I told him, “‘All. customers come on float at own risk. Private property! INet re- sponsible for damages of any Eind!” Tt didn’t look very invit- ing, to me.” “vWho wants tuh imvite ‘em? My old customers will never no- tice it, an’ that high-steepin’ filoosie was the first new one in two years anyway, an’ she’s ecostin’ me $18.50. IT can do with- out new uns, an’ the old ones it stays sunny like this,” he concluded. He stuck a block of wood under one end of a twelve-inch plank and then draped his loose frame along its springy slope, tapped out his pipe, chewed a hunk from a piece of plug, and Py “Arise Ye Prisoners Of Starvation” EUATTAUU TENT TTT ETE By H. W. AVITAL TITER TL DLT LLL — Mr..Hangers Feels the Warm May Day Sun of a New Freedom, Giving New Life and New Hope to the Common Folks of All Lands closed his eyes. I was already comfortable in the bottom of 2 boat. Then; “The everywhere,” he sun is. shinin’ drawied. “Guess so,” I agreed Jazily. “On the Ukraine, in France, " en the Czechs an’ thuh Jugo- Slavs, even on the Germans who Gan see it, thus sun is shinin’. Gome cloudbursts an’ Noah’s de- luge, itl sure be shinin’ this May Day, laddie!” : “T -suppose they'll go wild in liberated Hurope, all right,” TI answered as I caught his drift. “Not wild . . not wild they will rejoice, an’ that means all the word was ever meant tuh mean! ’Tis no temporary re- lief, time out fer a drunk an’ a holler, they’ll be celebratin,’ no day’s release from chains. “Tis freedom itself, the warmth 0’ thuh sun by day, an’ peace in thuh night, an’ thuh width of thuh land to walk in. New birth ia - vested from the air, - but is what it is—in a homeland that’s new-born too, for most of them.” 2 a “Oh, yeah? With starvation just around the corner and the atomic bombs overhead? You're some sweet little Pollyanna!” “Now isn’t it one hellova pity ye can’t think beyond 19197” s “Well, do you really think the. future is very bright for most of those countries?” HeR Ee was famine last time, an’ doubtless there will be more of it this time, but there’s a world o’ difference be- tween hunger on yer own land because want that was not of yer makin’ creeps up on ye afore thuh harvest, an’ starvin’ on thuh same soil because thubh master didn’t care tuh have ye plant! A free man can tighten his belt an’ live when a slave can only find a ditch to die in.” “And the free man can sow his crops only te have it har- into the air,” I scoffed. : “Ye mean th’atomic bomb? Sonny boy, hev they got a tiger - by thuh tail there! Theyd love tuh use thuh atomic bomb, they are hankerin’ tuh make a flail of it _tuh winnow thuh very he o’ humanity into the dust of the war-raped fields, but they are afraid of it, afraid of their Own creation!” His eyes opened to squint nar- rowly at the gulls wheeling across the oil floats on Coal Harbor. “They will bluff to the limit, that limit “is their own drawn nerves! They cud lay 2 city, a nation, or a continent, into a desert o’ glazed dust, but they dare not—yet! It was only when Samson was blind and helpless in his death-pangs that he pulled thuh temple down about his ears. They’re not yet blind or hopeless—an’ there’s another thing.” KNEW a man once stole a case 0’ dynamite. He didn’t need it, just lifted it because he had thuh chance an’ thought it might come in handy semetime: Well, it nearly druy him crazy!” “He was scared tuh keep it anywhere’s in thuh stable, be- eause of thuh stock. Thuh barn was out, ‘cause thuh kids play- ed there. He thought of burryin’ it, but his wife told him he cud go at least two miles for that, in case the foxes or somethin’ got diggin’ at it.” “One night he put it in thuh corner of a stone fence, an’ cov- ered it with rocks, an’ then couldn’t sleep for thinkin’ about porcupines, so about 2 a.m. he got up 2n” carried it to his punt an’ rowed out and dropped it 20 fathoms deep in thuh lake. Then he slept.” “Well, right now there’s a lot Co) dynamite in thuh United States, 1500 atomic bombs, they Say, an’ they’re makin’ more. Ye know what Orsen Welles found out about mass hysteria among our Yankee friends, when he made Mars come a wee bit too close? These are days of fantastic alarms, what with ~ Flash Gordon comics an’ movies, witk death-rays and atom-rays an’ all the rest of it. “Why shouldn’t our enemies, if they haven't got thuh atom- bomb, figure out an atom-ray vVexplode ours?’ ye can imagine some timid soul in Oshkosh thinkin? People are soon goin’ tuh get tuh worryin’; even the scientists what made ’em can’t guarantee the stability of thuh sutf, an’ even if they could, how’d they convince people they mew what they were talkin’ about? There’s apt tuh be a lotta insomnia south o’ thuh border one of these days!” “Well, nobody’s throwing any bombs at them, at any rate!” PEAKIN’ fer myself, id sooner be tillin’ my own soil in HMurope with the risk of thuh odd bomb from thuh clouds some future day, than sleepin’ in Seattle night after knowin’ there’s mebbe half-a- dozen of ’em stored at Bremer-— ton! An’ there’s no way of usin’ them without thuh guy ye heave "em at demonstratin’ whether or not he’s got ’em too, an’ has—come hell or high water, ye’re atomic dust! Nope, I don’t think thoughts of the atomic will dampen the May Day cele- brations in Murope!” He arose very lithely for his years and loose joints, sizzled a wad within an inch of a gull’s toes as it took flight from a corner of the float, and yawned heartily. < ‘T.addie-buck, when ye go back to yer next stint at that lousy commercial rag of yours, take 2 look over yer files fer the last six months. What ll ye see?” “Polish peasants with land, thuh Junkers outa Prussia an’ Brandenburg, Finland’s Manner- if he™ night ~ "7 heim skulkin’ in a sewer, France electin’ Communists an’ Social ists tuh everything from presi dent tuh dog-catcher, Bevan an’ Churchill apoplectic explainin’ thuh unexplainable while thub housless an’ foodless Limies fry in resentment; Poland, France, an’ Russia movin’ in tuh close thuh net on thuh azis in Spain.” ‘Yuh see Britain an’ Uncle Sam with faces like fire over thuh lickin’? their oil-bosses took in, Persia, yuh see thuh Pope— an’ he’s a wise guy!—buildin’ 2 bridge of cardinals over to 2 last-ditch stand in Quebec or th’Argentine, an’ ye see India shakin’ loose; loose an’ free!” are seein’ this day thuh fall of principalities and powers an’ thuh triumph of man, an’ man has long ago forgotten how much older than the em= pires and princes he bled for is the May Day on which he cele- brates rebirth. For it was always a -peoples’ day, long before the unions made it a labor day!” “Get ye away an’ look at those files for half an hour, my fne- feathered friend, an’ if yer cyn- icism doesn’t shrivel ye’re 2 fool! This year the people will rejoice in a thousand tongues, an’ they'll be singin’ with me: “Arise, ye prisoners of starva- tion! Arise, ye wretched of the earth; For Justice thunders condemna- tion, A better world’s in birth! No more tradition’s chain shall bind us Arise, ye slaves; thrall! The earth shall foundations, We have been naught, we: shall be all!” He sang it surprisingly well- Afterwards,’ looking over the files as he had suggested, it seemed to me that the Inter- national had a significance I hadn’t quite remarked before. no more in rise on new Youth Lobby Places Demands Before Govt. By ALAN ANDERSON OTTAWA, Ont.—Over 85 young veterans, workers and students from Vancouver to Montreal this week lobbied the federal government here, asking for full employment with a 65-cent an hour minimum wage, a federal housing project, full recreational, health and physical fitness provisions, im- proved education, and a National Youth Administration to deal with the problem of Canadian youth. Led by Bill Stewart of Toron- to, National Federation of Ta- bor Wouth: executive secretary, the delegation interviewed mem- bers of parliament individually, asking their support for the fed- eration’s proposals. The lobby was Climaxed by the brief’s pres- entation to a meeting of several eabinet ministers and over 25 M.P.’s, who expressed their sup- port for thé principles contained in the brief. British Columbia was repre- sented by two young veterans, Alan Anderson, chairman of the B.C. Federation of Labor Youth, who also represented the Canad- jan Seamen’s Union, and Mike Canic, representing Vancouver's Club for ‘Teen, South Slavic Youth Group, and other ilan- guage groups. “On the whole, the lobby was very successful,” said a joint statement issued by Mr. Ander- son and Mr. Canic. “Although Gecil Merritt, V.C., refused to discuss the brief with us be- cause he claimed we were com- munists, our reception by other B.C. members was very cordial. In the main, our proposals were endorsed. “we feel that the NELY’s Youth Lobby marked a turning point in the relations of youth to the goyernment. No longer will any of youth’s needs be used as a political footbalL “From this lobby we will go on to firmly establish our feder- ation in the life of Canada. Our future activities will mainly be devoted to organizational work, although it is possible that in the near future we will lobby the provincial government.” MAY DAY Greetings from DIVISION 101 Street Railwaymen’s Union Our Perspective A PROSPEROUS CANADA, VICTORY, PEACE, SECUR- [TY FOR ALL TORERS FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1946