“Encourage Canadian writers and textbook publishers” CCF LEADER SAYS: Too many U.S. texts used in B.C. schools EXCESSIVE USE of American text books in the schools of Brit- ish Columbia is stifling Canadian creative efforts, in the opinion of Arnold Webster, CCF provincial leader and a former high school principal. “Too many of the texts author- ized for our elementary and sec- ondary schools in B.C. are Ameri- can, with an emphasis and direc- tion appropriate for American students but unsuitable for Can- adian boys and girls,” he said in the legislature last week. “Few will deny that a vast and disproportionate amount of ma- terial coming from a single alien source stifles rather than stimu- lates our creative efforts.” “The remedy is» not hard too find,’ Webster stated. “Encour- age Canadian writers and publish- ers of textbooks without sacrific- -ing scholarship or quality.” In addition, he called for an inter-provincial committee to co- ordinate curriculum-making to give it an all-Canadian outlook, together with a federal body to act as a liason between the vari- ous provincial departments of education. * x x THE LONE Progressive - Con- servative Dr. Larry Giovando ask- ed Attorney-General Robert Bon- ner to take action against Ameri- can crime comic books. He dis- played to the House several speci- mens he said he had found in the Children’s Ward of the Nanaimo Hospital. Holding up a copy of The Un- seen, he observed, “I wager it pro- longed the stay of the ree in that institution.” MARSHALL DISMISSAL HIT Authors fear effect on library services — CONCERN OVER the effect “book-burning” threats and dis- 'missal of John Marshall, recent- ly appointed bookmobile director, from Victoria Public Library will have on library services was ex- pressed last week by Vancouver and Lower Mainland branch of the Canadian Authors ine es tion. A resolution, adopted by the branch at its monthly meeting . and released to the press: by Ed- mund Pugsley, branch president, stated: “We view with grave concern both the suggestions that certain books should be removed from the shelves of Victoria Public Library and the dismissal of John Marshall from the library staff which gave rise to these. sugges- tions. ~ } “These matters touch closely upon our interests as authors. We believe that the public should thave full access to all published works, to accept or reject as the individual sees fit. We are con- cerned with making books more available to the public. But these suggestions for restricting the free circulation of books would defeat the very purpose for which libraries are established. For these reasons we concur in the state- ment made by Dr. Norman Mc- Kenzie, a member of this associa- tion, that such censorship is very dangerous in principle. “Likewise, we feel that the dis- missal of John Marshall without stated reason or any hearing dis- plays contempt for proven ability in the public service, and that this is inimical to efficient library service and must inevitably un- dermine public confidence in lib- rary services maintained out of publie funds. “We feel that a disservice is being done to the citizens of Vic- toria ,the city from which Amor De Cosmos and others conducted their struggle to bring British Columbia into our great Canadian Confederation and, in that sense, the provincial birthplace of our democratic concepts.” BOOKS ‘Come back, Hemingway--take good long look at Washington’ JOSEPH NORTH, for many years editor of New Masses (whose name and traditions are contin- ued in Masses & Mainstream) and one of the best-known progressive American writers, originally wrote this open letter to Ernest Hem- ingway, world-famous American novelist, for the New York Worker. * * x DEAR HEMINGWAY: I do not know if you will get this note, off there across the world in Tanganyika, but I want- ed to get it to you and Mrs. Hem- ingway with my greetings and congratulations. For a_ while there when the announcer inter- rupted the broadcast to say your plane was: down and you were _ Missing it looked very bad. Fifty-five is no time to die and despite that venerable gray beard the pictures show you wear these days you’re no ancient, either by the calendar or by the hormones, as the current article in Look reveals. j ; Fifty-five? We'll all be that one of these days and there is a lot to do the other side of fifty, perhaps ever more than there was. to do on the green side of it. x x x YOU MAY puzzle over the reas- on that I send you these greet- ings after the hot differences we have had all these years. The differences remain; yet there were very strong agreements; Spain, the early part, for instance. What you wrote those days about the Americans in the Lincoln Brigade, * isibesectetconmenedncosicauccansy sarnaned for instance. What you wrote about men like Irving Weissman, Johnny Gates, Steve Nelson. } By one of those coincidences — that are’ not uncommon in time of war or social turmoil, Steve too got a reprieve from a death sentence that same morning you were found alive out there in the wilds among the elephants and the tigers. Two men, two re- é prieves. : + You remember Steve’s case, I’m _ sure. Word of it had gone round the world and even if you had lived in Nairobi all your life you would have heard. Along with Jim Dolsen, Pittsburgh correspon- dent for this newspaper (the New York Worker) and who is a man of 68, and Andy Onda, Nelson got a 20-year sentence on sedition charges. If you get to read the record you would find that the evidence consisted of books they had read, nothing more; ideas in their heads that they dared to express on the hot streets of Pittsburgh. ~:~ Well, the morning you turned up alive it so happened that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania “May 1, 1938? reversed that 20-year sentence which was tantamount to death for Steve, who: has passed his 50th birthday. : So there was much cause for re- joicing that morning last week. I like to see death outwitted, whether it be in the quiet green jungle near Kilimanjaro or in the ERNEST HEMINGWAY roaring mahogany jungle of Penn- sylvania’s state court. I’m not sentimental, but two men who had been dear to many of us in Spain, in the Spain which many of us still love as you once loved the land in that time, two men came through alive the same morning. A coincidence? An ac- cident? I wonder if these accidents and coincidences are not so much the plaything of chance as they are “Remember that morning of May 1, 1938 in Spain?” the common lot of men who con- front death with a stubborn chal- lenge of life. Getting killed in a war cannot be classified as a highway acci- dent even if you are on a road when the meat-chopper comes down., And you. have been to wars all you life since you came out of that high school in Michi- gan.’ Hunting tigers in Kenya is a kind of war, I assume. And Steve Nelson out here in Pittsburgh faces the jungle beast too, when he stands guarding so- cial justice. Accidents can hap- pen when you're “in there’’.and much of the reason I send you these congratulations: on being alive this January morning is due’ to an accident we happened to share. * * * REMEMBER THAT morning of We went down to the. front together, somewhere near the Ebro, and the lines were still very fluid as the military writ- ers called them then, which meant that Franco’s tanks (or rather they were Mussolini’s whippets) were cutting around the Repub- lie’s flanks and chewing up the Loyalist lines. I remember the way you pin- ned your credentials from Neg- rin’s office in one pocket of your khaki shirt: that was to help you to» get through the Republican guards and reach the front. Then ~ you pinned your credentials from the state department in the other. pocket: that was in case you got trapped by Franco’s troops at the front. ; You said your problem was to get rid of Negrin’s ‘warm letter about you if Franco’s men laid hands on you: and~we kidded about that a while. You thought eating it would be best. I remem- ber you fastened your pockets with diaper pins so the creden- tials wouldn’t get lost. 3 What I recall most vividly was what happened on the way back. We were winding down a moun- tain pass in Sefton Delmar’s car, you remember, the big, red-faced fellow from Lord Beaverbrook’s London Express. Herbert Mat- . thews was driving. We pulled up behind a_ big, flower-decked truck full of Re- publican youngsters who were Singing and having a hell of a good time celebrating May Day. The speeding truck came to a sharp turn in the road and top- pled over before our eyes. Re-. member? And the thirty-odd Singing younsters were all over the roadway, bleeding and dying now. I remember you jumped from the car and from somewhere you got a kit of bandages and medi- cines and we were on the ground helping them. You were, as you say about such moments, “good in there.” I remember how careful- ly you were bandaging the kids and I remember your face when _the little girl of seventeen with - the rose in her hair died in our hands. And I remember what happen- ed when we saw a big-wheel cor- respondent I won’t name now step- ping carefully across the dead and the dying taking notes for his story that he would cable that afternoon. He had the look of a man who found a good story after a dull day. You looked up and you called him a son-of-a-bitch. * x Tees WELL, THAT TOO was‘an ac- cident and I cannot forget it. De- fe spite-all the differences we have had, and God knows they are many and profound, I think of that moment and I like to think it was a true bead on you. When it came to a showdown you were in there on the side of Man. Your contempt for those who stood by taking notes, step- ping daintily over the dead, was something to remember and it made me proud to see. ° We had our differences then, too, but we were down on the ground together helping those who needed it. You did not ask my politics; I didn’t give a damn what yours were, not at such a time. You were not on the side of the millionaire publisher whose newsroom was awaiting your story. F aay I thought of all that when I heard the broacast and I was glad you. came through alive. I keep thinking, Hemingway, that one of these days you will come back home and take a good, long look at Pittsburg and Washington where the tigers of fascism are stalking the land. Like the big cats of Kenya they do not exam- ine your credentials not do they inspect. your color. They need only scent the spoor of life to leap. “ : ‘ Yours, i JOE NORTH.’ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 26, 1954 — PAGE 8 j