sean

| Review
Tom
McEwen

HEcCaveS ago when this western
country was still very new, count-
less thousands of immigants came to
her shores seeking land, opportunity,
and that measure of freedom denied
them under the oppressive monarchies
of. old: Europe. They came here to
found. a. home, with little in their
pockets, but a great hope in their
hearts... :

Among those immigrants were tens.

of. thousands of Ukrainian nationals,

fleeing. the oppression of feudal Jand-

lords and tsarist cossacks, with scant
worldly goods but’ with hearts over-
flowing with the cultural riches of long
years of Struggle, expressed in the

poets. , eae ‘ * Ie .
In Canada the Ukrainian immigrants

deathless dramas and songs of their —

did much of the hard pioneering work. me

They laid the steel from coast to coast;

they dug the minés and cut through

the dense forests; they transformed: .

vast silent areas of virgin prairie into

thriving farm communities. And in
and around it all the ‘took the songs, : °

the drama and the dances cof their

native homeland, and wove it into the ~

rich culture of their adopted country.

~ On July 6-7-8 there will take place
in ‘Winnipeg, a great national festival
of Ukrainian folk song, dances, drama
and music, marking the centennial of
their beloved poet and writer, Ivan
Franko, and the 65th anniversary of
Ukrainian settlement in Canada .
“This momentous event 1s not, as
some. may think, an affair of interest
and concern to Canadian-Ukrainians
alone. On the contrary, it will be a
milestone in the flowing of Canadian

culture and art, equal to the highest |

yet achieved — a contribution to Can-
adian culture unexelled by any other

group who make up the people of our

nation, ©
mt eg Be :
The Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko
lived many times in Canada; in the
music and song of the people’s artist
Matthew Popovich, whose violin spoke
of a new world on concert stage and
in prison cell. In the magnetic charm
and teachings of the worker-journalist,

teacher and educator, “Dadya” Shatul-
sky; and in the wise counsel and leader-

ship of ohn Navisovsky, who cherished

a vision of a great and peaceful Can-
ada, founded upon the concept of
human brotherhood. .

Only a few weeks ago I shook hands
with another grand old veteran, old
in years, but as young as the day he
stepped ashore on Canadian soil half
a century ago — William (Bill) Kolsy-
nik, the first Communist alderman evet
to be elected in North America. He
too personified the great poets of his

“native land on those fronts where
Social justice is the issue. So ate

The Ivan Franko centennial (it will
be observed in Vancouver by a pro-
vincial festival at Georgia Auditorium
on June 15) will be Canada’s pride,
and our gratitude is to those countless

- thousands of Canadian-Ukrainians who
sang while they sweated and toled,

thereby adding to the richness of our

cultural heritage. ; : :

efe | e

Pacific Tribune

_ Published weekly at.

Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Magaig bs ee ‘
Editor — TO

Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Business Manager — RITA WHYTE
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the Post Office Department, Ottawa

More, not less
democracy

AN OUR ‘“‘way of life’ it is a

basic law of government at all
levels to meet growing crisis with
greater centralization of power; ‘to

curtail. the democratic principle
and extend minority rule.

This week Vancouver . City
Council turned down the idea of
a city manager but endorsed a

proposal of a similar reactionary

stripe — the creation of a four-

‘man salaried board for the admin-
_ istration of our, city..

And this decision did not come

‘about after; democratic discussion

involving people's _ organizations,
but as the result of a brief submit-

’ ted by. the Board of Trade, a brief

advanced by a Non-Partisan alder-

“man, and, two briefs presented by

the general purposes committee of |

~ the council itself.

Civic ‘Reform Association, —

ratepayer groups and trade unions

which would have welcomed an —
opportunity to present their argue

ments were given no chance to do
Council is also favoring the idea
of a 12-man council, four to be
elected annually — thus ensuring
that the NPA maintains its strangl-

ing grip on civic leadership. .

A solution to the problem of
Vancouver's administrative needs
can be found by simply looking at

other large Canadian cities and ex-

amining their systems of govern
ment.
Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg

"all have ward systems — a tried and

proven method of extending civic

* EDITORIAL

| US. AUTO
INDUSTRY

oe meme

“Don’t you see this is progress — we’ve produced a record
j : : number of cars” ©: ‘

democracy.

_. And in place of a “‘city manager”
- or a “‘foureman salaried board”’
“ thost major cities today have a

Board of Control, elected on a
city-wide basis, which functions as

. the executive of the city council,

When aldermen are elected by’ 3

a city-wide vote, as is done in Van-
couver, it makes it just that much
easier -for reactionary candidates

with the financial backing of a.

powerful “city-wide organization
such as the Non-Partisan Associa’
tion to retain office — and also
makes it almost impossible for
sincere, progressive candidates with
no financial machine behind them
to win at the polls. j

A ward system would change
all that. It would enable areas like
the neglected East End to elect
their own representatives. It would
broaden the base of civic demoe-
racy.
‘Council has spoken, but the
people will have the final say.

Vancouver citizens must speak up >
in opposition to city council's re-,

-actionary “‘salaried board’’ plan

and demand an extension of de

“mocracy in city administration by

introduction of a ward system.
Let's have a
‘new museum

§0 SELDOM do any of ‘Vancou-
Ver’s aldermen make a proposal

worthy of whole-hearted public.

support that the rare exception
deserves note.

Ald. George Miller's suggestion
that the city-use its provincial cen-
tennial grant to build a new museum
should: be taken up by all civic

‘minded organizations.

Let’s take the Vancouver City
Museum out of the garret — and
its treasures out of the basement—

-and give ourselves an institution of |

which we can be proud.

The ‘‘People of the Potlach’’ ex-

hibition at Vancouver Art Gallery
showed what can be done —when
there are adequate facilities to do
it.

Hal

-_ gN OLD COUPLE ¢ame into the
A office. the other day, the man
slowly feeling his way in an un-
familiar place with his white cane,

‘the sharp corners of desks and
filing cabinets.

“You know,” the woman said
when they were seated, “we've been
meaning to come here for a long
time —” :

“We're old subscribers,” the man
explained. “We've ane reading

ur paper ever since there was a
Paes ight back to the old B.C.
Workers’ News.”

aper comes we sit down and I read
ihe columns to him first. Afterwards
I read the rest of the paper to him.
That’s how we keep in touch with
the world. We do what we can, but

Griffin.

the woman guiding him with the
deftness of long experience past —

“Yes,” she said. “As soon as the .

my husband is blind and we both
have to wear hearing aids...”

“That’s what we want to talk to
you about,” he said. “We think you
should do something about this hear-
ing aid racket — that’s all it is,.a
racket.”

“He took a well-worn hearing aid
from his pocket.

“This cost me $120,” he said, hand-
it tome. “My wife has one too. Now,
do you know how much it cost us
each month to operate these?” I
confessed I had no idea.

He showed me the bills for re-
pairs. They ranged from two to

- ten dollars. “And the charges were
the same no matter where we took
them,” he added. :

Then he showed me the hearing
aid he was wearing. : .

“We figured that the old ones
were costing us an average of seven

' dollars ‘a month for batteries and
repairs,” he said. “The new ones)
cost only 30 cents a month for bat-

~ teries — they don’t have the same
power — but it will be the same
story when they need repairs.”

“The reason we came to ‘you is

, hot so much because of ourselves,”
the woman said with sudden anima-
tion. “We're a little better fixed
than most old people. But what
about those old people who have
only their pensions to live on? How

4

do they manage when they need
some things as hearing aids ?”

“My guess is they don’t,” her
husband declared. “Security means
different things to different people.
You can take it from me that to
most old people security means a
comfortable place to live, sufficient
to eat and enough to allow fora few
simple pleasures aad interests. —

“We've all earned that from our
country, but not all of us are getting
it, not by a long shot. And we won't

_ unless the people who will be old

twenty or forty years from now help
us to get it — they’ll be needing it
themselves. :
They rose to go. “Maybe you can’t
do very much about this hearing aid
racket right now,’ he said. “But
there’s a lot you can do about keep-
ing the heat on the government for
lower arms costs — and higher old

age pensions.” ;

When they had gone I thought of
Walt Whitman’s lines from Youth,
Day, Old Age and Night:

“Youth, large, lusty, loving —

Youth, full of grace, — force,
fascination,

Do you know that Old Age may
come after you,

With equal grace, force, fascin-
ation ?”

Those lines are truest when you
read them in people.

June 1, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5