“Our country is facing a critical period and you worry
about an insignificant thing like eating!’”*

OPEN FORUM

The way to peace

72 _READER,, Vancouver, B.C.;
‘There is much talk these days
replacing nuclear weapons
th conventional ones.
The poor warmakers are
getting themselves. in a dil-
a. It used to be that they
peat sit in their plush of-
ices, pat their paunches and
tune in on accounts of virile
oe men being slaughtered
their sake, while they
Faia homage to the war dead,
much as an undertaker com-
forts mourners.
To these men war has al-
Ways been glorious. It has
spelled profits for them that
they could keep long after the
unemployed veterans were
back on the breadlines, and
the gold stars they had pin-
ned on the breasts of griev-
ing mothers had tarnished.
Then nuclear. war was in-
troduced, and the capitalists
thought it would settle things
in their favor for all time,
until they discovered that it
Was a two-way street, and
they themselves might - be
_eremated in their own soft
_ chairs. So they’d like to go
back to conventional weapons.

There is a way to peace—
the way of friendship . with
the socialist sector of the

world. But the capitalists
fear peaceful, economic com-

, petition with the socialist sys-

em. Down in their hearts
ey fear that the capitalist
way of life would be worsted.
“Yet some flickering bit of
sanity still left in them must
warn them that the friend-
ship road is the only road of
life left open. But they are
like a runaway horse with the
t in its mouth, heading for

_ the edge of a cliff. We, the
eople, “are the occupants of
the carriage, and-if the horse

Fred Farnsworth

So, we must grab the reins
and pull until the horse stops
from sheer pain of the reined
bit.

Capitalism’s claws
JOHN LEE, Pitt Meadows,
B.C.: The cancerous growth of
poverty, unemployment and
destitution in the midst of
plenty, inflicted on the work-
ing class, was not inflicted by
the prophets of old, but is in-
flicted by the profits of capi-
talism, wherever capitalism

_ drops its greedy claws.

A grand concert

A. SIVEN, Vancouver, B.C.:
A grand musical concert will
be held at the Clinton Hall,
2605 East Pender, Saturday,
June 20 at 8 p.m.

The program features art-

ists such as. Andrea Kalang

and Lillian Ketola on piano,
Marie Laukanen on the violin.
There will be numbers by

choir and folk dance groups.-

Fred Farnsworth

FRIEND, Vancouver, -B.C.:
of Louis
Creek died May 10 at the age
ef 68. His passing leaves a
gap in labor’s ranks.

He lived in Campbell River
before moving to Louis Creek
in 1958. He had a heart con-
dition since that year. ~

Fred Farnswoth was a
staunch supporter of the la-
bor press since 1936.

He is survived by his wife,

Tracy, and brother Levi of

North Kamloops.

A correction

WORKER, Vancouver, B.C.:
A correction on the report on
pulp negotiations. in last
week’s paper: the Papermak-
ers Union is not negotiating
jointly with the Pulp and
Sulphite Union at this time,

2 Oscar and his comrades unite
to overthrow pelican's fishalism

THERE was once a pelican
named Oscar who was as hap-

py as a pelican ‘in a kettle of.

jish, The reason for this was
that’s where he actually was

»—in a kettle of fish on an ice

float.
Oscar only had one prob-

Jem. That was that his beak

eould hold more than his
belly could.

But, of course, all pelicans
have a similar problem. So
much so, in fact, that a poem

was even once written about

the matter.

And because all pelicans
had this similar. problem it
wasn’t as serious aS some
would have us believe. This
is’ because pelicans, like peo-
ple, think that so-long as
someone else suffers too, then
you're just keeping up with
the Joneses who, we all know,
are the very best people to
keep up with.

Yes, Oscar and his friends
were happy.

“This is indeed a fine ket-

‘tle of fish,” Oscar often used

to tell the other pelicans.
ae % be

Oscar and his friends were
indeed a contented crew. No
one envied his neighbor’s
kettle, beak, belly or fish be-
cause they were all more or
less on the same float.

Then one day it happened!
A particularly greedy pelican
named J. P. Morethan es-
tablished fishalism. J. P. fool-
ed all the other pelicans into
believing that he knew “The
Better Way.” And quicker
than a sponsor can slip in an
extra commercial you can be
sure J. P. took over all the
fish and all the kettles.

Oscar and his friends were
left flat on their ice-flows
with only their beaks and
bellies.

Thinking back none of the
pelicans could actually ex-
plain just: how J.P. took over.
But take over he did and
under fishalism Oscar and his
friends caught the fish and
J. P. confishcated them and
put them in his kettles.

For each ten fish the peli-
cans caught, J. P. took nine
and let them keep one, which
was barely enough to keep
beak and belly together. -

t % $e

Any pelican. could easily
see that a system -like this
was anything but fair; but
J. P. devised numbers | of

‘schemes to make the pelicans

believe that theirs was really
the best of all possible sys-
tems on the best of all pos-
sible ice-flows.

To help dovthis J. P. im-
ported a gander from Goose
Bay. This gander, J. P. ex-

plained, was a rather proper

one who had flown every-
where in the world and knew

that fishalism was “the great-
est.”

ENED this roper gan-
der says,” said J. P., “can
be taken as o-fish-al.”

The gander was about the
meanest looking critter the
pelicans had ever laid eyes
on; but it could blow its own
honk at a great rate and thus
kept the pelicans confused
because no one, including the
proper gander, really knew
what all the honking was
about. The gander, it should
ke said, was quite adroit at
ducking questions about the
fishalism regime.

TE t xt

The proper gander was able
to get many pelicans to be-
live that J. P. was of a spe-
cial kind. “J.P.”, he said, “had
a heart of gold and laid blue
eggs.” As J.P. was a boy peli-
can, everyone knew that the

one about the eggs was ob-.

viously the big lay technique;
but the story about his heart
was accepted as true as it was
agreed that it was yellow,
hard and cold. Bed
But, of course, all other
‘pelicans except J.P. were just
common ones: The proper
gander never let them for-
get that they were common.

‘If they raised their beaks in

protest against J. P. -the
proper gander issued a, honk
about them being “revolting
and common.” The most’ eut-
spoken against J. P. thus
soon came to be knows as
commonests. “These. revolting
commonests,,” said the proper
gander, “want to destroy our
way of fishalism.”

“What we have to do,” the
proper gander said one day to
J. P., “is to get all the -peli-
ans to believe that they are
as well off as you are. We
have to get them to believe
that they have more of a
stake in the system.”

J. P. was busy at the time
filling another vault with fil-
lets. “Why should we let
them have more stakes?” he
demanded.

So the proper gander ex-
plained the: set-up. “We could
call it ‘pelican’s fishalism’ and
tell them that under our sys-
tem every pelican is really a
fishalist.”

rere? xt x

J. P. was the type who
never had enough.

And that’s how “pelican’s _
fishalism” got started.

Oscar and his friends, how;
ever, thought that this sys-
tem must be “for the people.”
It certainly isn’t\for the birds,
was the way they Hees it
out. i

- So they all got together
eae decided to kick J. P.
Morethan into the ocean and
go back to their old problem
of having more fish in their
beak than a pelican’s belly
can hold.

be bed be

J. P. felt quite put out
about the whole thing. As he
flopped and floundered about
somewhere in the Antarctic
Ocean, he uttered unutterable
utterances about Oscar and
his friends.

“You are destroying the
best of all possible systems on
the best of all possible ice-
flows,” he yelled.

The proper gander, who
had also got the order of the
frozen webbed toe, honked
honkily about the whole thing
being “quite unofish-al.”

“Peligan’s fishalism,” they
both shouted, “is the Better
Way.”

“Well, they kept yelling
and honking until a big icy
wave came along and that
was the end of J. P. and his
proper gander.

a ce xt

{Oscar and his friends hardly
noticed. They were too busy
coping with a problem of pel-
icans — that of holding more
fish in their beak than their
belly could. But they decided
it was. best to suffer this prob-
lem in silence.

© Reprinted from a UE News
article by Bob Ward.

Workers of the world, unite!

By AL RANKIN

“In these days of disillusion,
. When we question what is right,

We can hear the rising murmur,
“Workers of the world unite!”
All across our mighty country,
Bosses girding for the fight.
Seeking now to crush our unions—
Surely, now we must unite.
From the shores of grim Newfoundland,
To where the future seems more bright,
We can feel the bosses’ onslaught,
To meet this threat we must unite.
Everywhere the battle rages
Labor must get in the fight,
Bring to life the mighty slogan—
“Workers of the world unite!”

" June 19, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5