Emphasis on headlines Editor, Pacific Tribune: After having sold the ‘Trib’ on the street each Saturday for the Past four weeks, I have heard many comments as to the virtue pad shortcomings of the paper. We require, as street sales- men, an outst&nding headline. ome April 4 edition certainly ed appeal. We found it very difficult to sell it based On that headline. I’ll admit the tise in the cost of living is a ey. pertinent and ‘immediate ae and every one should know 4 Ore about it, but that head- ne simply did not reach them. ite other outstanding feature, Awe A. Wallace’s speech, was sas €d away inside the maga- & A section. It was impossible an Splay it on the street with- ee mutilating the paper. It was the inside! What sold the Paper? in rreet sales. chatter, “labor ks behind the headlines.” Byuate's speech, and Wm. L. aS rer, A comment I heard was, agree it is jan exceptional Paper, the ave oe ee without the e-—_.__. How about a humorous column in the paper? The ‘Tll take vanr ila’ kind? I could not help but fee] that the issue here in the shipyards would really make a big sale in this city. No one knows the truth, and the capitalist press here has so distorted the news that confusion reigns supreme. We have some very good sales- men in this city, who find that the best hours for sale are be- tween 9 and 12 a.m. The eight or nine of us who compose the street sales squad can really chalk up a profit in three hours on 300 to 400 papers. It is not often afternoon sales are really necessary. We find that the af- ternoon crowd is much more dif- ficult to approach. ‘ If we are to build street sales and stabilize them, then we should have a headline that will help to accomplish this very ne- cessary and profitable work every week. We find that if we pick out a spot on the street and stay with it, sales are not only stabilized but increase. The street acquaintanceship in many cases should ripen into some- uk Derartnent ; RPE MLLTA Short Jabs iy 0 a thing that would increase the influence of the LPP and increase unity among the workers. It is surprising, too, the num- ber who donate 5c to 25¢ for the “good of the cause’ — and of course there are those who call you lovely names—it is quite amusing and certainly teaches restraint. The feature of street sales which strikes you most forcibly is the total disinterested atti- tude of working women. One rarely encounters so much in- difference all at one time. It might be a good suggestion that the managers of the paper take time out for a week or two and try to sell the paper as they set it up. Try out your headlines and listen to the folks that pass you on the street discuss the con- tents of the paper with them. The collected data would sur- prise any editor. Tioping to see an exciting edi- tion for the next trip to the street. MARY MEZGER. Victoria, B.C. Middle East Empire By JAMES S. ALLEN HEN it is claimed that Greece an this is the diplomatic claim to the Middle An effort to seize power over _ Munists who are attempting it. © establish its hegemony over -YTegions rich in natural re- Sources and of utmost strategic value as the hub of trade routes and military bases radiating out towards Europe, Asia and Af- Tica, 5 That is the truth which every- _ body in the higher echelons is Now trying to hide from the erican people. EHIND the atmosphere of b Crisis, deliberately provoked yY the Truman speech of March 12, other measures are being taken that are only dimly re- flected in the public discussions. There is no question but that bepotiations ae now proceeding ‘ween the United States and Britain on the former Italian col- Onies in Africa, It will be re- ~ Called that this matter was post- Poned for a year when the So- Viet Union proposed a UN trus- teeship for these colonies. : Of ate, persistent reports ave appeared in the press of American pressure to obtain Permanent bases at Cyrenaica 8nd Tripoli, now held by the © British, The aim is to get an Anglo-American deal on the Af- Tican colonies and bases, before the question arises in the UN. d Turkey lie within the American security zone way of saying that American imperialism has staked its East and the Mediterranean. ESE bases would command the middle Mediterranean from the South. At the same time, negotiations are proceed- ing for a redistribution of pow- er between Britain and the Uni- ted States in the Eastern Med- iterranean. To a large extent this hinges on the Angilo-Ameri- can dickering over Palestine. Over a month ago Britain an- nounced it would place this question before the United Na- tions. Since then, not a step has been taken in this direction. One can rightly suspect that the Brit- ish offer to raise Palestine at the UN was merely a pretense, a way of bringing pressure upon the United States in their ne- gotiations over the entire Mid- dle Eastern set-up. It is now freely admitted that for the past few weeks a high British mission has been negotia- ting the matter in Washington. _As with the African colonies, an effort is being made to reach a deal, and present the United Nations, not with the task. of finding a solution, but with an accomplished fact. Although Egypt announced soon after the failure of Anglo- Egyptian negotiations that she would place her problem before CR ‘Un- Victoria —VICTORIA THE Victoria Chamber of Com- Merce has set up a ‘special. Committee’ to investigate ‘sub- versive activities within the City’. There is no doubt that, Patterneqg after the U.S. Ran- kin (rank for short) committee on ‘un-American’ activities, the un-Victorian’ committee of the C. of C. will discover innumer- able communist plots to ‘over- throw constituted authority’ in the capital. Quite a number of labor men, now active in the or- 8anization of a May Day parade FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 1947 n’ committee in Victoria will undoubtedly be considered ‘suspect’ of having a pipeline direct to the Kremlin, while those who argue. that wages must be increased to meet rising living costs, will be view- ed with a jaundiced eye as be- ing ‘un-Victorian’. A special function of the Cc. of G. ‘special committee’ will be the search for suitable material from which new Gouzenkos and Sullivans can be moulded. This is vitally essential to the pro- duction of new ‘communist vlots’. Under cover of a red scare, the a vast area is taking place, but it is not the Com- United States is seeking UN, this has not yet been done. There is good reason to believe that the United States is also negotiating this question with Britain, in relation to Palestine and the new bases sought in Af- rica. @ OTH Greece and Turkey play a prime role, if the old pil- lars of empire are to serve again this time to prop up American imperialist control of the Middle Fast. Aside from its relation to the Balkan democracies, Greece and its islands are of strategic value with respect to the Darda- nelles and the entire Eastern Mediterranean. American designs on Cyprus, now a British naval base, were cleverly phrased in the State De- partment memo on Greece, re- cently released. Here it was said that the return of Cyprus to Greece would be left to British- Greece settlement. Actually, the meaning is that the United States wants Cyprus returned so that it may become a Greco- American base. i) a military outpost, Turkey Ss A points in a number of direc- tions. It controls the Dardanelles the only entrance to the Black Sea, and offers an approach to vital raw-material areas of the Soviet Union. It points towards Bulgaria and the mouth of t Danube, which flows through all Central Europe. It is a military bastion bordering Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Thus, Tur- key is a centrally locateq place @armes, which may also be used effectively to guard the immense stake of Standard Oil in the Middle East. This aspect of the Truman Doctrine is kept secret from the American people. They are not being told that Creco-Turkish aid is only one of many moves to rear an American Empire in the Middle Fast. he concocted the U.S. Tanaka Memorandum. BOUT thirty years ago, when the Japanese ruling clique, having learned the power of modern weapons of war, decided to con- quer the world, the war minister, Tanaka, called a council of his staff and together they drew up a plan of the method, step by step, by which that The Tanaka memorandum conquest was to be accomplished. This plan of world conquest they submitted to the Mikado and it has become known as the Tanaka Memorandum. A Korean spy stole a copy of it and sold it to one of the Manchurian war lords. So it became a public document and can be bought by any one for 15 cents. The Japanese claimed it was a forgery but the history of the last twenty years proved every thing in it to be true. Today® it is apparent and is outside the realm of debate, that U.S. imperialism has been bitten by the same bug that bit the Ja- panese warmongers thirty years ago. It is only natural then, that a Pin of ponaner should be devised—and so it has. : n a recent copy of Life magazine is published a digest book, “The Struggle for the World,” by James Burnham. the eee who drew my attention to this imperialistic blast referred to it as “a Tanaka Memorandum for the U.S.” He was right. That is just what it is. The most interesting thing about this ‘memorandum’ to us, is the fact that it is written by a man who, until a few years ago was, and may be still for all I know, the leading Trotskyite in the United States. He earns his title to that place since he was editor of their theoretical journal, ‘The New International’, On Feb. 1938, he wrote an editorial in that paper in which he made the following estimate of the political situation of that day: “|. we are new witnessing the break-up of the inhertied pattern of American politics. American capitalism is coming of age at the same time that capitalism internationally is in its death throes. This paradox promises a rate of change and a scale of struggle never before seen in history. The resulting ferment, the drastic uprooting of fixed ideas ang accepted institutions, for the first time offer the revolutionary party in this country a real path of entry to the masses. O, in true Trotskyite style, to prevent a real revolutionary party from acting on behalf of the workers, in such a_ situation, 4 The plan as out- ned in Life is a hybrid, a bastard prq- True to Trotskyism duct by Trotsky out of Hitler, with é Hitler dominant. Of hybrids and mules it has been said that they are without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity. That will hold true in this case for this Trotskyist-Hitler- _ Burnham memorandum will be no more fruitful of results than the Tanaka plan which preceeded it. The plan proposes to compel all countries not now under ‘Rus- sian domination’ to become part of the ‘American Empire’ through coercion (quite probably including war and certainly the threat of war). This includes everything from the smallest coral atoll in the South Seas to the mighty. British Empire. Canada is already in- cluded in fact, according to the plan. pets The Americans are to cease being dilettantes. They must become versed in ‘geopolitics, world economics and military history” This is taken straight from Hitler without changing a word and is for the purpose of establishing ‘a dynamic world organization of our own’ to meet the challenge of Russia. The approach to these nations who believe in their own brand of democracy is to be sugar-coateq in the beginning, through relief, loans, concessions, easy financial terms and so forth. If that does not work, they will find themselves subjected to “paralyzing econ- omic sanctions or the direct explosion of bombs.” Since the U.S. is to retain a monopoly on the atom bomb, that is undoubtedly the kind of bomb that is meant. f Those nations foolish enough to be friendly with the Soviet Union are to be starved or bombed into hollering ‘uncle’. to the “American Empire’ in fulfilling its world-historic mission’, “The survival of democracy in this country (the U.S.) requires the suppression of communism now.” Although it reads “this coun- try”, the context shows that the document actually means “this world’. All ‘reds’ in the U.S. are to be cleaneq out and that means the U.S. ‘Empire’. And there is to be no collaboration with the Soviet Union until ultimately the atom bombs are dropped on it and that ultimately means ‘now’. Put in slogan form it amounts to “sweeping economic and poli- tical concessions to friends—force when and where needed—anni- hilation of the ‘Reds’, that. is anyone who refuses to accept the ‘American. Empire’. Sounds something like ex-secretary of state Byrnes, : ; Only a Trotskyite could have devised such a plan. A blurb in Life tells us that Burnham is now a professor of philosophy at New York University and has severed his connection with every shade of communism. This is not true since he never was a communist of any shade—he was, and is, only a Trotskyite. — NEWS item in the local press during the week announces that the first citizenship papers have been granted to an East In- dian, Nagindar Singh Gill. ’ : eet That is what-we might call a his- Our ‘new’ citizens toric moment. After the long years of agitation and struggle these British subjects have come through, it is good to see their efforts at last crowned with success. See However, even if Singh Gill should be at the polling place be- fore any other member of his people, even though he is the first East Indian to be granted the right to vote, he will not be the first 'East Indian to yote in B.C. t Back in 1912 we had a provincial election here. I remember it well as I was one of the Socialist candidates. There was at that time in Vancouver, a member of the Socialist party who came from Bombay, an ex-Moslem named Hussein Rahim. He was a good socialist and had no intention of being prevented from voting just because he was barred by the law. When the registrations were being accepted, he applied and as ‘a British subject over 21 years of age had his name placed on the roll, The Liberal heeler apparently did not suspect that there was anything wrong because Rahim did not wear a turban. He voted on election day for the full slate of socialists. In the evening he was arrested and held in jail until morning. However his name had been put on the list by one of the big wigs of the Liberal party and to save that guy’s hide they dropped the case against Rahim. But he voted — and voted socialist, PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5