Tom ~ McEwen UTTER EUG MO MELO M UME MOM MCT TEI TT Ot Te TL ie Tt 1 HIS is. the story of a Canadian living in the United States; a very respectable Canadian who just recently received his _ first thought-control test of “loyalty,” at- tached to his garage bill! An ordinary business man with a Canadian university training, he is neither a Communist nor a so-called fellow-traveller of any politi- cal setup. He reads classical and worth- while current literature, and likes to think things out for himself. It would seem however that these sterling qualities of Canadianism make a man “suspect” in the fabled “land of the free.” In the USA as in Canada, the auto- Mobile accident ratio is high. It was from one of these car mishaps that he got his initial lesson on how a police state Operates while wearing a “democratic” halo. In his letter to a friend in Canada, Passed on to this column, he says: “After some six weeks in the repair shop I: finally received a phone call to pick it (the car) up. Upon signing the release to the insurance company I notic- ed the following: ‘The owner of this Vehicle whose signature appears below Swears he is not an agent of-a foreign ” power, and does not advocate the over- throw of the U.S. government by force... .’ “Well, I could hardly believe my eyes 80 I read it again. Much to the astonish- ment of the repair shop manager I said: ‘Tm afraid I cannot sign this. I am not a citizen of the U.S. and furthermore What have my beliefs or lack of them got to do with repairing my car?” The gar- age man looked a bit puzzled and lost _ for words. Finally he said, ‘Go ahead and Sign it. It don’t mean nothin’ I replied that being a foreigner and what with Senator McCarthy on the loose, I really Could not perjure myself. After all, look what happened to Alger Hiss. I really chad him in a tight spot and he badly Wanted to collect his money from the insurance people. Then I offered to strike _ Sut the offending clause, but he smelled trouble at once. ‘Good God, don’t do that, they'll notice it. Just go ahead and sign the damn, thing and you'll never hear an- (Other word, that’s for sure’ \ “So I went ahead, committed a felony, p My car, and everyone went away : aPPy. What a farce! But the sinister ‘ct is, what type of mentality could in- Sert a clause of this mature in an insur- ance policy and get away with it?” _ The incident itself is the answer to the _ Qestion. The mentality of the fascist Police state—-a_fear-driven blight that — oo from the Pentagon down to a : t ide garage to poison, intimidate and. ‘ ‘Toy. Taft-Hartleyism at every level ae and economic life, fitting the onaic into a cast iron mould of con- lords y and blind obedience to the war- “s of Wall Street. : and ambush... whitewash of the The only difference between this and Hitler fascism is that while Hitler made no pretensions in his ruthless crushing , of every democratic institution and ideal, the Yankee police state witch-hunters car- ry on their destruction of democracy un- der the pretext of “saving” it! 8 With due apologies to Shakespeare, any Canadian housewife might well ask Fish- eries (Minister James Sinclair, “Haye all thy triumphs, glories, conquests (as an assistant tax collector), sunk to this small measure?” As befits a Liberal cabinet minister with fish in his portfolio, “Our Jimmy” just has to say something about fish— and particularly since the St. Laurent government, of which he is a part, has so’ successfully scuttled the traditional markets for B.C. fish, as it has done for other export products, by subordinating Canada’s economic interests to ‘the dic- ~ tates of Yankee imperialism. The Trail Times of November 26 feat- ures Sinclair’s views on fish and fisher- ‘men, as given over a CBC free-time poli- tical broadcast last week. The Trail paper gave the Sinclair fish story a catchy headline: Women Are Answers To Fish- ermen’s Prayers. : “Primarily” said Sinclair, ‘‘fishermen catch’ fish in the same way a woman catches a husband—by lures and snares in case of failure, both fishermen and women are always willing to improve or change their equipment and try again... all he needs is a new fly or a new spoon. For the woman, a new hat and dress and a new hair-do are possible. For more expensive but still however, such a the commercial fisherman, change can be very expensive.” With that as a starter our versatile minister of fisheries got to the root of the fish business. And what’s the matter with it? Markets, of course. But don’t get the notion that “Our Jimmy” thinks the suicidal trade policies of his govern- anent are responsible for this sorry state of affairs. Not at all. The real cause of the fishermen’s plight must be found elsewhere. The women of course, they are the cause. Instead of spending their time and money scheming up new wiles to hook a man, ‘they should be at home cooking fish—lots of fish. ‘One of the finest foods in the world,” pontificates Sinclair. : “Our Jimmy” didn’t offer any sugges- tions to Canadian housewives on how or with what they could buy up the un- marketed surplus of British Columbia’s fishermen, but he did tell the housewives if they “didn’t know how to cook it, his department had a “dandy booklet telling hows): «: As was to be expected rhapsody brought a ready columnist Elmore Philpott. in the lat- ter’s opinion “Our Jimmy” had scored a masterpiece in helping to “solve” me plight of B.C. fishermen. In our opinion, the Sinclair fishmonger yarn (charged to the taxpayer) is nothing more than @ the Sinclair fish trade policies for which he bears equal responsibility, garnished ‘with gratuitous: a stale codfish in a hot sun. Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. ey - Phone: MArine 5288 . Tom McEwen, Editor — Hal Griffin, Associate Editor — pos, Subscription Rates: af Canada and British Commonwealth countries (except Australia) One Year $3.00 . . Six Months $1.60 Australia, United States and all other countries One Year $4.00 . Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 55 _ Authorized as second class mail, y « . Six Months $2.50 0 Powell Street, Vancouver 4, BC. Post Office Department, Ottawa “+ “bite” from Sun ; ‘ government market and_ insults to Canadian housewives. At best, — COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE GL. a Gh | gL Finn nen er — | 20\anU | ‘Now table your pa gentlemen’ Bill O threatens rights of every democratic Canadian Neves where the basic rights of trade unionism are being challenged, a mon sense view and an examination of what has gone before are worth a ‘lot ‘ ogee 3 ” ¥ ¥ of “legal” advice. This was never better illustrated than in the present struggle of progressive trade unionists and others agai Code : gainst the proposed imi for Canada, Bill H-8 in the last session of parliament and Bill Fgirehgeaes To head off the rising tide of i i ressi protest against this i the eee oe bureaucrats of both the TLC-AFL and CCL-CIO ee ee egal and professional departments into play, hoping thereby to t See = growing opposition among their respective memberships. hee a With few variations, these “legal” opini i i gal” Opinions are very simi i of a word here and there; the slight’ modification of a eae ee AS tg the danger to trade unions is removed. Why quibble about a word too ee we u “As long as our courts and juries are at all reasonable,” says the CCL’s director of research, Eugene Forsey, “‘there’s no -danger.” here and, according to CCF “brain-truster” sani par Oe eee ? ae as ‘it can be made if we are to protect ourselves against Communist incitements to mutiny, etc.” Carl Berg of Edmonton, anyvth “brain-truster” peciali ; ee fee. in ree He Saeecate eure gee ee pene Trades an r Council that. Bill O was “j ini wouldn’ hurt anyone except perhaps the Giednaet coe aie mie “4 ia TLC and CCL have deliberately pooh-poohed the repressive rate of B fod directed their spleen against the League for Democratic Rights, which oe eee? to warn and arouse wide sections of labor and the ple the . helped in this draft Criminal Code. oe 2? Ot Sere ie The law Gee at Cat and the British = , cee examples of extra-legal and repressive Sraaneatd which ener esa ap eat working class movements, and particularly the trade unions, With against — Bek ge eee yaaa ha ac as ce. 0} 9 and the infamous Section ; Crimi os Se ae ee ee ae pbs eee | | s to prison. er Forsey may hi : knew—that one of these strike leaders was My dopa eo: possibly never Tt is quite true that during the regime of “Iron Heel” Bennett, Section 98 was directed against the Communists, but like Bill O, it was designed and aa ‘ ‘smash unions in 1919 and again during the Hungry Thirties. Those who argue otherwise are falsifying history. The wording of the “special emergency” statutes sed 1 gies a big strike struggles and big unions in Britain, and ee Bay ee Strike of 1925, might have looked very harmless to the Bevins, Thomases and Mac donalds of that day. But these statutes provided the “legal” power to break ais: destroy unions, and imprison communist and non-communist workers. Similar dog-collar legislaton, enacted at various times by Tory reaction in Australia during the past 25 years, and “approved” by some trade union fakers as harmless er ae they call bona-fide unions, had a like effect. Its main aim was to crush militant, — progressive trade unionism. Bill © stands as a direct threat and a menace to Canadian labo sections of democratic thought and stice. ‘Cau it is ee ere Z Communists, but its repressive provisions show it doesn’t stop there. Bill O is a_ combination of the U.S. Taft-Hartley and Smith-McCarran : : one new Canadian Criminal Code—written in under implicit: (and Shirts tn eeecebcne from Washington. Therefore and notwithstading the dulcet tones of the “legal” | lights, who give the Moshers, Bengoughs and: Forseys the opinion they want, — Bill O stands as a threat to every democratic Canadian, and to every Canadian trade union, big or small. _ A great deal in Bill O is un-Canadian, undemocratic and ibid ‘It should be opposed by every decen Canadian, regardless of his or her political beliefs or affiliations. — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 12, 1952 — PAGE 5