Ae ARTS, REVIEWS PARK It was a sunny warm afternoon in a park Ten dozen Latin families celebrated each other Well-organized food lines raised appetites and funds While teenagers sang endlessly with guitars and flutes Keeping the spirit alive like embers in quiet fire. Away in a distance _ Was a uniformed gun Leading a young couple and their food to his car Ten dozen Latin voices and laughter , stopped Only the teenagers strummed solemnly with guitars and flutes Even the children softly froze. Ten dozen memories clouded those faces: Of uniformed guns, painted cars, home; Visions of burned skin carved flesh, electrocuted eyes; Of screams in the day, silence in the night, of their disappeared. Even the teénagers looked for a moment old. “Liquor,” I said to an old man who nodded, smiled, and watched. “It’s only a ticket,” I said to his wife who could not smile. Ten dozen true dissidents with well-funded scars Wrote pages of silence in twitching glaring eyes. It was almost like a seance. Oh Canada I stand in prayer today, to keep forever safe from the silence of a gun and from the sorrow of that anguish being in some other people’s park, — Ruth Lowther ‘4 May, 1984 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 13, 1984 Personal prejudice colors Bill White’s oral history — A HARD MAN TO BEAT. By Howard White. Pulp Press, Van- couver, 1983. Paper $8.95. Avail- . able at Co-op Books. A Hard Man to Beat is an autobio- graphical account by Bill White (no relation to the Howard White, the editor of the book), centering around. his activities during his 11-year term (1945-55) as president of the Marine Workers and Boilermakers Industrial Union, Local No: 1, the union of shipyard workers in the Great Van- couver area. As such, the book includes his recollections of many of the battles fought by the union in that period, including the successful struggle over “dirty money” (extra pay for hazard- ous work); various compensation cases, including the union’s presenta- tion to a royal commission; the Kuzych case (an employer-suppotted attempt to legally smash the union and the closed shop which involved a long and costly court battle); and ._ McCarthyism and the Cold War attack on militant unions and Com- munists in the decade following World War II. White was a forceful union leader, given to earthy language and strong personal opinions, all of which con- tribute to make his account colorful and interesting. But at the same time the book expresses a colored and one- sided view of events viewed from an intensely personal and subjective angle. This results in not a few inac- curacies of fact in the book, not to mention distorted pictures of events and of leaders in his own union. White was a member of the Com- munist Party for a time, although he quit at the height of the McCarthy attacks on Communists and union militants. He also quit his job as pres- ident while still in elected office. Much of his account is an effort to justify both of these actions in which he puts the blame on both the Communist Party and his own union, charging that they had abandoned union principles. His book contains some well justi- fied attacks on the right wing trade union leaders of his day, but also some unjustified, personal, and slan- derous attacks on militant leaders of his own union. These attacks on Communists and left wing trade union leaders help to explain why his book received so much publicity in the corporate-controlled media. People not familiar with the history of the Marine Workers Union could get the impression from the book that the union’s militant history began when Bill White became president and ended when he left. Such, of course, is not the case. As shipbuilding grew during World War II, so did the union, reaching a membership of well over 20,000. Communists and left-wing militants played a key role in its organization. They had to fight not only the employers and the government, but also the right wing leaders of the Can- adian Congress of Labor who moved in and tried to take over the union from the control of its members. After the war, shipbuilding declined, and the union’s membership declined with it, dropping at times to as low as 2,000. But at no time in its history did the union abandon trade union prin- ciples. It continues today to play a constructive and respected role in the trade union movement, and continues too, to campaign for a Canadian mer- chant marine, built in Canada, regis- tered in Canada and crewed by Canadians. White in his book also fails to acknowledge the key role of Malcolm MacLeod in organizing the union, in leading it through the difficult war and post war years and keeping it on track. MacLeod’s leadership qualities, his ability to work with all people and keep diverse elements together, his honesty and frankness earned him the respect of all with whom he came in contact. Some, at least, of the glaring mis- Tepresentations in the book require refutation and correction to set the record straight. In 1944, the 10 shipyard unions on - the coast representing 20,000 workers got together in conference to form the Shipyard General Workers Federa- tion. In his book White misrepresents. this action, charging that the Federa- tion was just a Communist “Party front,” and also making the unfoun- ded charge that money from the treasury of the Federation ‘just dis- appeared” ahd “still does.” White’s personal attacks on leaders of his own union like Gary Culhane, Sam Jenkins and Bill Stewart, includ- ing his inference that Bill Stewart may have been a police agent and was a man who “actually had contempt for guys who all they could do was work” are simply personal slander. Bill Stewart, like any other union leader, had his weaknesses and shortcom- ings, but his contribution to his own union and to the whole B.C. labor movement are matters of record. In 1975, a group of Marine Union retirees got together and after two years of research, produced a history of the union entitled A History of Shipbuilding in B.C. White is dis- pleased with what he considers an inadequate recognition of his role in that book, and the fact that the printed sections of his recollections did not include his opinions of the Communist Party. That union history was not intended and did not play up individuals nor did it deal with parti- san politics. The transcribed tapes of old timers like Bill ‘White and many others were edited, and much omit- ted, but the essence of their statements was not changed. White also charged, again incor- rectly, that the book was edited by “an editor of the Party newspaper, Pacific Tribune.” I should know, I was the editor of the book and I have never been an editor of, or on the staff of the Pacific Tribune, although I should add that I consider it an out- standing labor paper worthy of the support of all trade unionists. White reserves his most virulent attacks for the Communist party, which endears him to the red-baiters in and out of the trade union move- ment. According to White, the Com- ! WHITE in the early years as union president munist Party is an “old men’s club” — composed of “opportunists, sctew” balls, parlor pinks and phonies. He a even repeats the ‘““Moscow gold slander that “Moscow may have chipped in a little to support the | (party’s) paper.” And to justify his own political about-turn, he suggests that the party was good and militant when he joined but then went haywilé and that was why he quit. White is not the first person to write off the Com-— munist Party in MacCarthyite fashion. It’s been done with monotonous regu- larity ever since Marx and Engels wrote their famous Communist Man festo in 1848. But the Communist Party continues to grow, in spite of its detractors with its members in B.C. active in the trade union movement and the Solidarity movement. A Hard Man to Beat could have been a useful contribution to trade union history. Unfortunately it is too marred by the author’s own personal and political prejudices, and ovel- — estimation of his own role. In his recollections White takes 4 swipe at just about everybody — friends and foes, right wing and left wing trade union leaders, NeW Democrats and Communists.’ The only “‘good guy” left at the end is White himself. He reminds me of the parents who watched their son in his first cadet parade and proudly remarked: “Look, all out of step except our little Johnny!” — Ben Swankey communist viewpoint $1.50 each Subscription: $6 for one year or $10 for two years. Available from: People’s Co-op Bookstore 1391 Commercial, Vancouver, VSL 3X5. Tel: 253-6442 “An indispensable forum of socialist analysis and debate.” Quarterly theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Canada.