Think, speak, work for peace

[HE HALF-CENTURY: milestone, 1950.
Glorious year. Glorious augury for the com-
mon people. :

Back at the half-way mark of the last century,
the Communist Manifesto, already two years “‘old’’,
fired the hearts of Europe’s toilers with dreams of a
new world—a world in which equality and freedom
‘from exploitation would transcend all else. Twenty
years later the glorious Commune of Paris raised its
banner—and only lowered it before the brute force
and violence ‘of a class which history had already
doomed to extinction.

Forty-six years later, in our century, the Com-
mune lived again, in the new Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics. But this time the international force and
violence of the bankers and profit mongers could not
prevail against the first socialist state. Its enemies
“were scattered and the deathless words of the Com-
munist Manifesto became a living and unconquerable
-reality.

How the dogs bark at this half-century mark!

And well they may, for already almost one-half of
the world’s peoples have turned to socialism.

In 1949 the new People’s Republic of China
was born. Four hundred million people stood up, as
one man, setting their feet firmly on a new road—the
road to a Socialist China. Their heroism in their
iong struggle to break the imperialist chains is the
guarantee of their future success.

And in the New Democracies of Europe the
builders are raising a grand new edifice—the fulfil-
ment of the dreams inspired by the Communist: Mani-
festo, aided by the brilliant example of the Soviet
Union.

In the colonial countries of Asia 1950 is as
different from 1850 as day from night. In these
lands, too, millions are marching towards the dawn,
and cannot be halted by the phony “independence”

or other “‘liberties” granted by their profit-glutted
imperialist taskmasters as a scheme for further’ exploit-
ation, nor by the export of force and violence dis-
guised as ‘‘Marshall plan aid’. ‘

Humanity stands on the threshold of a socialist
world at this half-century mark. Every action, every
conspiracy against the peace . . . against the people,
proves it. Even in the last citadel of reactionary
imperialism — the United States of America — the
economic crisis of its ‘way of life’ bids fair to
strangle it. Canute-like, it would roll back the tide
by buying its ‘‘allies’” with dollars, and silencing those
Americans who speak for socialism and progress.

_ Foley Square and the conviction of eleven communists

is not a sign of strength, but eloquent evidence of the
corrupt decaying structure of Yankee imperialism.
For Yankee dollars its bought satellites have assured
themselves of being crushed in its falling debris.
‘Among ‘the debris will be a few Judases recruited
from from the ranks of labor. But let no one be
deluded that the heart of labor corresponds to the
actions of these Judases. Communism is no longer
a “‘specter’’, but a marching giant.

Peace and socialism. That is the goal of hu-
manity, reaffirmed at this half-century mark. The
two are inseparable and sacred to all mankind. Peace
means socialism, because the imperialists—those who
live by exploiting others—cannot live without war.

Peace must be our firm resolve for 1950. To
strengthen all the peace forces of the people. To set

back the warmongers and their hired agencies at every

turn. To see through their empty mummery about
“democracy” and “peace”, realizing that for them
these are only words to hide new war conspiracies.

Make your resolution for 1950 a firm resolve
to think, speak and work for peace. Then indeed it
will be a ‘Happy New Year’, opening upon the
threshold of a new socialist world, already charted by
almost half of the world’s people. :

~ Cops or collectors?

RITISH Columbia citizens consumed more than

$55,000,000 worth of alcoholic drinks in
1947-48. That is according to the provincial liquor
commission’s reckoning. Undoubtedly the total
climbed during. 1949 despite the sharpening economic
crisis. What the bootleggers concocted and sold is
anybody’s guess, since it is not listed in official statis-
tics. But if one looks at some of the houses they
occupy in some of our most respectable residential
areas, and some of the cars they drive, it was certainly
not small change. :

British Columbia also stands at the top of all
Canadian provinces in the number of dead and maim-
ed in car accidents. The Christmas holiday last
‘Week established a record that brought tragedy into
many homes. For the year 1949 we also have an
amazingly high percentage’ of what are known as
“hit and run” motorists, with whom our parking-meter
police never seem to be able to catch up. —

We do not know in just what relation the high
consumption of booze stands to the high total of car
accidents. But the results of these menacing totals

must be sOpyiGuE to all who are not completely blinded
by the greed for profits.

Catchy slogans such as
drive, and if you drive don’t drink’? may sound like
a job completed to their originators. But that is
fatuous advice to people who annually spend a min-
imum of twice the amount of their car licence in
booze, unless it is backed up by stiffer penalties for
those who insist on getting their cars and drinks mixed
whether they be residents of Shaughnessy Heights
or Yankee tourists with Yankee dollars to spend. Such
slogans are meaningless to the drunk at the wheel—

and to his broken victim in a hospital ward or on a

morgue slab,

- Our traffic police need a “‘new look”’ for 1950
—-a change from that of glorified tax collectors,
wielding chalking poles or checking parking meters.
This ‘new look”’ should be beamed on the reckless
and alcoholic driver. Our revenues may drop a few

dollars, but a lot of citizens will get a sporting ‘chance

to live through 1950.

“Tf you drink don’t -

TOM McEWEN

As We See lt -

PONSORED by ihe British United Press, a poll of 55 Canadian
J newspapers on the “top news” of 1949 puts the burning of Canada
Steamship Lines’ SS Noronic with the loss of 118 lives as “rating the
biggest headlines.’’, - :
¢ Under similar “sponsorship a Harvard soion, Professor Arthur M.
. Schlesinger, has come up with the year’s “biggest
event’, that of the “rise of the United States as one
of the world’s two dominant powers.”

Another pundit, Robert M. Hutchins of the Uni-
versity of Chicago, picks the late Mahatma Gandhi
to head the list of the world’s “ten greatest people
of our time.” 7 ¢

This is an annual game, played by the lords of
; the press as each year nears its end, a game in
which the Pacific Tribune and other organs of labor
opinion are studiously excluded from giving their
views on the year’s “top news”, “biggest event’, or
“greatest persons’. Perhaps they don’t like labor’s
yardstick for measuring “great” events and person-
ages!

Lets take another look at their selections.

The Noronic disaster—What the powerful agencies of the press
did with the burning of the SS Noronic and the snuffing out of 118
lives, was to sensationalize all the gory details and “play down”, as
only the kept press can, the “news” of those directly responsible.

What was said about the culpability of the union-hating Canada
Steamship Lines or the St. Laurent government’s transport department
(as set forth in the report of a commission which investigated the
cause of the tragedy), got less than a one-to-ten column inch ratio
with the sensationalized coverage of this “top” news” topic.

In our opinion the top “news” of 1949 was the news that the
Soviet Union was using atomic energy for human advancement, and not,
as in. the countries of Anglo-American imperialism, for human destruc-
lion. yi
The “biggest event”—The “rise of the United States... as a dom-
inant world power”. This isn’t an “event”, but a process; a process
designed by the power-drunk oligarchy of Wall Street, armed with an
atom bomb and all the gold in Fort Knox. To purchase by threat, and
under the guise of “saving the world from communism,” the dominant
place in world reaction, so recently held by Hitler and company.

Marshall plan aid, already admitted to be a gigantic flop, bringing
crisis and untold misery-to countless millions. The North Atlantic
pact, a phony “peace” pact designed for war, and so constructed that
countless thousands of Canadians, Britons, Frenchmen and others, will
have, the opportunity of dying to “save” Yankee “democracy” for Wall
Street. :

The “biggest event’? *

While the Soviet Union told the world in 1949 that atomic energy
was being used to move mountains, 10 change the course of rivers, to
water great deserts, to give heat and power energy and comfort to new
millions of human beings, the alomaniacs of Wall Street were telling
us they ‘‘have an atom bomb a thousand times greater than that which
destroyed Nagasaki or Hiroshima.”

The solons of Yankee universities have queer notions of what
constitutes the “biggest event” of 1949, ideas that could hardly be
duplicated in a Gallup poll taken in a mental institution.

i

For his “ten greatest. persons” in the first half of the 20th century,
Hutchins puts Gandhi at the top of the list, as “the man who most
resembles Christ in the last 2,000 years.” “With some exceptions, Hut-.
chins’ list is about as good “as any that could be devised. He could
certainly drop Henry Ford as a. “great” man, in all but an illiterate
Yankee craftiness in exploiting his fellow man. ; {

And in a search for “the man who most resembles Christ” we
would put Eugene Debs or Nicola Sacco, who, before his life was
burned out on a Yankee electric chair (much more up-to-date than a _
cross), wrote to his little son: “Do not seek happiness for yourself.
step down to help the weak ones who cry for help. Help the pelvsecut-
ed because they are your better friends. They are your comrades who
fight and fall, as your father and Barto (Vanzetti) fought and fell, to
conquer joy and freedom for all the poor workers, ;

It’s all a matter of viewpoint, this choosing the “greatest” people
for 1949 or for the last half-century. However we can sure agree with
Hutchins that names like Sun Yat-sen and Lenin are worthy of a place
among those of the immortals. And Einstein, who remains one of
the world’s greatest thinkers, in an age when individual thinking is
held to be subversive of the new atomic-dollar “way of life”. ’

With all due respect to Hutchins and his “symbol of hope and en-
couragement to women all over the world” in his selection of Eleanor
Roosevelt, we believe there are others more worthy. The millions of
women, surrounded by the devastation of the last war, who speak
out boldly and courageously for peace. The women of Greece, who
clutch their baby in one arm and a rifle in the other, guarding their
little bit of earth against the infamy of Anglo-American-Greek fas-
cism. Or those who die before-a firing squad, “to conquer joy and
freedom for all the poor workers.” :

Our ten ‘‘greatest’’ persons would include all those who work for
peace and socialism—who are maligned and slandered because they
work for peace. Joliot-Curie, Lysenko, J. B. S. Haldane, Hewlett
Johnstone, Mao Tse-tung, an unknown Indian worker, representing
tens of thousands rotting in Indian prisons, La Pasionaria, Dimitrov,
A. E. Smith — and Stalin. :

“AlVl Communists,” croaks our Harvard pundit. It’s all a matter
of how you see it — and live it. ;

Pe

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 30, 1949—PAGE 6