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TIT

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The people

HE last time a government tried
to muzzle free speech and
shackle democracy in Canada, it
was defeated and the Criminal
Code amendments it used were
repealed. It’was the indignation
and anger of the people that won

the day 15 years ago. .

Today another government is
adopting similar methods in its .
attempt. to gag the powerful peace
movement in Canada and destroy

- labor's democratic rights — with

amendments to the treason and
sedition laws. The people's pro-
test can compel repeal of this in-'
famous legislation as it did in

1935.

Se BS story of the Canadian La-
bor Defense League in the thirties’
is one of the most brilliant pages
in Canadian labor history—a dra-
matic story of heroism and mili-
tancy by thousands of workers

and farmers.

It was in 1981, the beginning
‘of the economid crisis. Conser-

vate regime of Prime Minster R.

%

B. “Iron Heel” Bennett was in
power — he of slave camp and
starvation fame. Bennett feared |
‘Tim Buck and the Communists
because they led the fight to pre-
- -yent full burden of the crisis be-
“ing placed upon the people. (Then

in the fight against hunger, as

now in the fight to save the peace,

the right wing leaders in labor’s
_ ranks shamefully betrayed, sold
out to the employers and their -

government, - expelled the Com-

- munists, and set the stage for re-

__action’s attacks.)
(It is worthy ‘of note that just

as the recent amendments to the

Criminal Code were passed quick-
ly and at.the behest of Washing-~
ton and Wall Street, so in 1919,
within 40 minutes and at the be-
hest of the U.S. billionaire J.
Pierpont Morgan, the notorious

: Section 98 was enacted in order
‘to crush the great Winnipeg

_ strike.

‘This law made the teachings of
- Marxism-Leninism (or anything

b Pe authorities interpreted as’

such) “illegal; the individual
charged was, contrary to accept-.
‘ed British procedure in law, con-
sidered guilty, unless he could
prove his innocence. Upon the >

_ gonviction. of its officers, an or-

ganization was declared illegal.
The penalty could be as high as

20 years’ imprisonment. _
e

On August 11, 1931, RCMP, On-
tario and Toronto local “Red
Squad” police swooped down on
the offices and homes of Tim
Buck, Tom McEwen, John Boy-

_ ehuk, Tom Hill, Matthew Popo-
-vich, Sam Carr, Malcolm Bruce
and Tonr Cacic.

These places —
were ransacked, denuded of
_ books, documents, pictures, and
they were charged under Section:
‘98 of the Criminal Code. Hund-
reds of other workers’ homes
and , labor offices ‘ware raided
simultaneously. . ae as :
In an atmosphere of intense
hysteria, the Canadian Labor De-
fense League, under the valiant
leadership of the late Rev. A. E.
Smith, took up the. battle for
Canadian democracy.
I had the great prisdlége. OL.
working jointly with A. E. Smith
in the leadership of the CLDL.
When the trial of “The Hight”
opening in Toronto, November 2,
1931, the courthouse and its sur-
roundings were like an armed
camp, the atmosphere tense and
hysterical. The jury was “hand-
picked.” The presiding judge,
Chief Justice Wright, in apoplec-
tie indignation ordered printers”
of a CLDL leaflet on behalf of
“The Right” to be fined for con:

By
BECKIE BUHAY

tempt—
deprived of bail for a number

 of' days. Indeed, as I look ‘back |

to that trial, so many of its fea-
tures seem similar to the Foley
Square trial of “The Eleven’” !U.S.
Communists. :

The police witness and their
stooges brought in voluminous
exhibits from seized “documents”
—they quoted . the Marxist clas-
sics to “prove” that the Commun-
ists advocated the overthrow of
the government ‘by force and vio-
lence.

the “trump” card, Sergeant Leo-
~pold of the RCMP, who had been

expelled from:the Communist par-

ty as a proven spy in 1928.

Tim Buck and six others were
sentenced to five years in King-

ston Penitentiary,
two years.

and one to

legal.

Gloatingly,
ernment boasted that with the
Communist leaders imprisoned

and the Party outlawed, that f
time.
Ins

“communism has for all
been dealt its death blow.”
stead, the Bennett government
signed its own death warrant.

mighty

“leaders and the repeal of Section

98, but the defeat of the Bennett i)

government itself.

‘The Communists had “pointed :

out then, as they point out today,

‘a prelude to the attack on all
democrats. | During the period of
the depression up to the fall of
the Bennett government in 1935,

some sten thousand workers, Aan :
people

mers and middle-class
were Brvesteh) thousands jailed,
many deported. Sanctity of the
home and ‘person was violated,
HERLINES and even killings took

“The Eight” were. one:

Thus con~*stion was a
foregone conclusion, particularly :
after the framed-up, evidence of

The Communist par-
ty and many other _progressive ;
organizations SES declared il- :

the Banc gov-

At tt i Ta

‘ e
/

PLT EU eo PRIMM sede i

eee? Section 98

They can do
it again-

Pi he Pt Te tt TU Te ke ee ee Tn

place. :

In October, 1932, another dra-
matic chapter was added. Riots
broke out in Kingston Peniten-
tiary and Tim Buck gas shot at
in his cell. Buck was charged.
with leading the riots and in a
hectic trial in which he acted as
his own counsel, and’ where the
judge practically admitted that
the charges against him were un-
true, Buck was nevertheless giv-
en an extra nine months sentence.

The CLDL carried through a.
sensational expose of prison bar-

barities and ‘proved that an at-
tempt to murder Buck had been
made. It demanded a public in-
vestigation. The demand grew in
all circles.

Already a rising protest move-
ment against SBennett’s “Iron
Heel” was developing. Legal de-
fense avas fortified by working
class leaders acting as their own
counsel. Class justice in capi-
talist _courts was exposed . by
“Workers’ Juries” who attended
trials and rendered their own
verdicts. ;
® ‘ ’

Soon the tide of opinion began
to turn. By November 1933, the

CLDL signature campaign. for re-

lease of the Communists and re-
peal of Section 98 had reached
the figure of half a million.

How the CLDL led this cam-—
paign, and the power behind it,
is best shown by what happened

in the House of Commons after
A. E. Smith and a delegation had
presented the minister of justice
with its brief and the petitions.
Throughout the country that
day large mass rallies, mass. dis-
tribution of leaflets and hundreds
of thousands of stickers backed
up the delegation. Telephone and
telegraph wires were burning up
with calls to public officials. Each:
as he took his seat in par-
liament that day, found a flood of
letters, wires and postcards. The
main job of MP’s that morning
aed been an attempt ny: un-

PROT ee a fit ee ee ee ee

- declared:

-ing huge piles of them).

Tim Buck that day.

successful) to escape the lobby-

ing of: the CLDL delegation.

Fearful about their angry con-
stituents, the MP’s rose to ask
questions of the then minister of
justice about the visit of the dele-
gation, of the facts pertaining to
the protests before him. The
minister (the late Hugh Guthrie) ~
was flustered, angry and jittery.
He tried to turn his questioners
away from the issue by accusing
the CLDL of “foreign” affilia-
tions. His life was,being threat-
ened, he said.

Little did he realize what a
tribute he was paying to inter-
national solidarity (a debt that
Canadian labor must repay by
aiding the fight for release of the
U.S. Communist leaders) when he

telegrams I have here (exhibit-
“T have
been told 150,000 Communists in
New York and I forget how many
in Chicago are watching me.”
He called in the head of the
RCMP, who brought with him
carriers bearing a large sack of
documents. _ “Look at these,
thousands upon thousands of pe-

titions. They come. from pevery
corner of the Dominion and ~ the

globe.”

When A. E. Smith was arrested
and charged with sedition for
claiming that the prime minister
and minister of justice were re-
sponsible for the attempt to mur-
der Buck, it was the spark that
set the rising anti-Bennett move-
ment aflame. Hundreds of thou-

sands took up the CLDL protest.

—including the rank and file of
the CCF, in definance of their
leaders. —

The defense forced the court to
bring Buck to testify on A. E.
Smith’s behalf and he was

‘brought to court shackled like a

common criminal.

The eyes of all Canada were on
. The few
words he was able to utter: igi k

“J know this is foreign.
- interference by the thousands of

Loe Lae alae AY LG Tt OCU COO Gt Ee Ie Ee Ee oe ee Pitt igug ayiajait ‘

was shot at,” ya
over the land. The people’s pro- —
tests became a roar that neither
judges nor politicians could still —
and when the jury in the Smith
trial brought in the “not guilty”
verdict, the country knew that
the Communist leaders would
have to be released and that, the ~
days of the Bennett government
were numbered. At the end of

~ 1934, ‘Tim Buck was. freed, after —

having served less than half his
sentence.

He was welcomed home, by
17,000 Torontonians who jammed
the Maple Leaf Gardens, and ten “3
thousand more who demonstrated —
‘their homage and joy * outside.

Bennett, the man who said he — @

had “stamped out communism”
forever, went down to defeat, the —
Liberal party being elected in —
1935 on a reform program with
-repeal of Section 98 as its chief
point.

e

This story of a dramatic strug” _

gle for democracy which was Won

- by Canadian democrats has se?
valuable lessons for us today.

ig true that the forms of repress
sive legislation being tried today
are somewhat different. With slY_
cunning the government “is try
ing out other methods. °

It is the duty of all Canadian
patriots to prove by their pro-
test actions to the men who con-
trol our country’s affairs that
this government, which came
power in 1935 on the slogan of th
Repeal of Section 98, cannot y
outrageous treason and sedition
laws outlaw the people’s | strugs!é
for peace and a better life. And we
will prove it to them, before th
have a chance to put their U: it
made laws into effect! We
prove it by people’s united action
supporting in every way the came
paign of the League of Dem?
atic Rights for repeal of thes?”

és endments in the October Be
liamentary session and an ena
ment of a Bill of Rights.

meee

Women of Spain. defy Franco”

peste Franco’s terror, Spanish
women are active in the cam-
paign for, the collection of signa-
tures for a five-power peace pact.

By the middle of June the num-

ber of signatures collected inside yi

_ Spain itself and among” Spanish
For within a short period, a

movement led by the
CLDL swept Canada — a move--
ment that not only brought akout |
the release of the Communist _

exiles abroad reached 1,200,000,
and this was only a beginning.

_ These facts were brought out
in a speech delivered to the recent
executive meeting of the Women’s
International Democratic Feder-’
ation in Sofia, by the famous

“Spanish woman ‘leader, Dolores
‘Tbharruri, known as qa Passion- —
varias: :

that the attack on them was but

‘We Spanish women, ” Dolores
Tbarruri said, “have brought to

this meeting the echo of the
ry struggle of our land against Fran-

co’s fascist tyranny and the strug-
gle of the Spanish - people for
peace.) 4% .

“Many of us know from our |
own experience the struggle of

women, and peoples who, live in
see iron Brip of a _ fascist regime.

“For this reason. you: ‘are bet-

ter able to understand the hero- _

ism required for our women to

* go out on the streets and declare
their resolute protest. :
“In our country expressions of

indignation and protest are ruth-
lessly suppressed. Tens of thou-
sands of democrats are killed in
the priso id and concentration

_ camps after” unprecedented tor-
_ tures, and HOME AOE of women |

are executed.

“In this Beaoaphere of terror
and Inquisitorial persec ution
women. textile workers of Cata>

lonia, women of the Basque

country, women of Pamplona,

and the womén of. Madrid went |
_out on to the streets with, their
husbands, comrades, fathers and

brothers to protest against - the
policy of poverty. and war pur-

. sued by General Franco.
“By impressive demonstrations.

in Barcelona and Bilbao, in San
Sebastian, Pamplona and Madrid

thousands of women express their

~ women have been arrested.

determination to fight those vi
want to turn Spain into a strate
gic base of the warmongers:

aa Catalonia hundre Cae

have been brutally beaten | ‘up. Tae!
subjected to every possible 9
of violence to compel them te
“tray the leaders of pay Pt :
Regret Ch Net

‘4
Ay

“Once aaein® a ene? “declared
An 1936, the women of Spain €
out on the streets, and once
Spanish women, defending ati
‘cause, fell under the pull
the reactionary forces. :

le, 2

aS

“Franco is no longer.
_ will not be able to keep ERS,
“ple on their knees. Dh:

“The Spanish working —
"Spanish. democrats feel- ator
them the great and powe’
camp of peace and, firmly ' i
dent in the future, are. follo} Nes:
the path of struggle, the poh 5
victory.”

}>

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 27, 1951 — P

ceghenetaa all —