SAE NA

Hoover-Taft statements show

R a people whose government gets most

of its orders from Washington, Canadians
have more than a passing interest in the var-
ious statements of top U.S. political and mil-
itary figures.

Some two weeks ago Republican ex-
president Herbert “Hunger” Hoover made a
speech which kicked the feet from under the
Marshalized hangers-on of dollar imperialism.

The burden of Hoover's spiel was that
America had extended its “aid” and military
commitments too far and too wide; and
should therefore retreat behind a well-forti-
fied Atlantic and Pacific line in “bold and cour-
agéous” isolation. Of course “Hunger” Hoov-
er didn’t say isolation, but he did define what
kind of isolation he meant. It is axiomatic of
Yankee “statesmen” in these hot-cold-war

times that they never say what they mean — »

or mean what they say!

Hoover spoke for the die-hard right wing’

Republicans, also smarting under the ham-
mer blows of the Korean People’s Army and
the Chinese volunteers, and seeking a “way
out” of a suicidal war venture now boomer-
anging upon its conspirators. Like Senator
Cannon, “Hunger” Hoover would like a full-
scale world war against thé forces of peace,
progress and socialism, but he would like the
cannon fodder to be supplied by the Marshal-
lized satellites of dollar-imperialism. Not see-
ing that possibility in the immediate future,
thanks to millions of jpeace-loving peoples
in all lands, including America, Hoover paints
a nostalgic picture of a ‘fortress America,”
thumbing its military nose at the rest of the
world, and living in splendid isolationist selfs

sufficency,,

Needless to say, the Hoover blast threw
the Atlantic Pacters into a real political dith-
er. Just when Britain’s Attlee was beginning

to think his war conference with. “A-Bomb”:
Harry Truman had reached “full understand-

ing” along.comes Hoover to, knock the “un-
derstanding’ props out.

AS ‘though that weren’t enough to give

the imperialist dollar chasers a large-sized °

headache, along comes the notorious Republi-
can Senator Robert Taft with another ora-
tion, Taft didn’t cut the corners as neatly as

1

Canada must decide own affairs

Hoover, but made an awful dinge in the basic
underlying thesis of U.S. foreign policy, that
Soviet Russia had no designs for, and was
not preparing, or seeking war with America.

That rare glimmering of trath, spoken by
a leading American “statesman” and war-
monger, threw the top layers of diplomatic
and military brass of the “Atlantic communi-
ty of free nations” completely off base. And

"little wonder. The whole pattern-of their war

hysteria, war propaganda, aggressive war in
KKorea and China, added to all their other in-
terventions upon the economies and territor-
ies of other peoples and nations, is founded

-upon the false and oft-repeated assertion that

the Soviet Union is out for “world domina-
tion,” hence thé need “to build up our defens-
es,” which is the imperialist method of cover-
ing its provocative plans for anti-Soviet war
on a world scale.

Taft’s belated “opinion” that the Soviet
Union has no ulterior designs on America
does not stem from a growing desire on the
part of this reactionary Republican chief for
peace, nor a lessening of the provocative ob-
jectives in U.S. foreign policy, No doubt as
with Hoover, the “glorious victories” of ““Mik-
ado” MacArthur in Korea had a lot to do
with the simple truth forcing its way to the
surface in the inner circles of the professional
War conspirators.

Taft's speech doesn’t indicate that the in-
ner circles of Yankee imperialism are becom-
ing “peace-minded,” but it does point up the
fact that the top strategists of American im-
perialism, with their armies on the run and
“chunking out” of Korea, are being compel-
led to seek revision of their plans for world
domination — compelled by millions of people
with arms and petitions in their hands, deter-
mined upon peace.

: “A-Bomb” Harry Truman’s most recent
orations, designed mainly to undo the damage
done to Atlantic Pact “morale” by the Hoov-
er-Taft blasts, are neither new nor true, and
fail to cover up the growing realization
among millions of the world’s peoples, in-
cluding the American people, that when war
conspirators, like thieves “fall out,” the forces
and possibilities for lasting peace are im-
“measurably enhanced.

TOM McEWEN

As We See lt

HERE was a time when the unwritten law of the sea was Accepted
without question, and as obligatory upon all who could give
needed aid to men who “go down to the sea in ships”. From long
custom and usage these unwritten laws became part of what is now
a voluminous international martitime code, accepted by all civilized
peoples.

Those who can remember that. far back will remember a night
in May of 1912, when the “unsinkable” White? Star luxury liner
Titanic, on her maiden voyage from Belfast to New York, struck a
gigantic iceberg and went to the bottom of the ‘
North Atlantic with an appalling loss of life.

They will also remember that it was an Ameri-
-can ship, the California, one of a fleet owned by a
powerful U.S. shipping corporation, which was
closest to the Titanic, but whose officers disre-
garded the SOS signals of the stricken vessel.
Other ships of other flags, far from the disaster
area, drove their engines to the breaking point
to render aid to the doomed Titanic, ‘

One has only to turn back to the newspaper
files of that day to grasp something of the public
horror and indignation which swept the world at
this barbaric violation of the ancient code of the
sea by the master of an American ship; ~

Now we turn to another saga of the sea during the early days
of 1951 when the Yuletide spirit was still among us,

The Greek ship Pinelopi with a 9,000-ton cargo of sugar loaded
in Cuba for Shanghai, China, called at the port of San Francisco
for fuel oil. Instead of throwing its pipeline aboard and doing business
in the good old-fashioned free-enterprise way, the powerful Yankee
oil octopus draped its best “iron curtain” around the Pinelopi, a curtain
which proclaimed the edict, NO OIL! Sugar could hardly be

classified as “war material”, but the NO OL ukase was emphatic
and final. j

Unaware of how: “democratically” our free enterprisers can scuttle’

the codes of decent human behaviour, the Pinelopi headed for Honululu,
hoping to be able to purchase fuel there to continue her voyage. Two
days out of Honolulu the Pinelopi was advised by radio that there
was NO OIL in that port. The USS. oil octopus had reached across
the Pacific to shut off all sources of supply. With engines shut off
the Pinelopi wallowed in the Pacific swell while her masters and

owners radiod and dickered with Yankee and British oil magnates
in Honolulu. NO OIL! The dollar-spangled iron-curtain was operating
to perfection. ‘People’s China was to have no sugar, and the Pinelopi
could go to hell or Davy Jones’ locker for all they cared.

With her fuel tanks at low ebb the Pinelopi meandered back to
Vancouver. WHlere of course she could buy oil—something every decent
Canadian may still feel fairly good ‘about, but she had to unload 1,200-
tons of sugar at the B.C. Sugar Refineries to take on the amount of
oil needed to reach her final destination. No doubt the BCSR made
a profitable deal in the transaction, since the “code” of capitalism
is always to exploit another’s difficulties, but that is another story.

However, don’t run away with the idea that full fuel tanks lifted
the dead-weight of the oil octopus’ iron curtain. Far from it. These
oily free-enterprisers had another card to play—pressure on the crew
to desert the ship, another violation of maritime law. The crew
consisted of about 20 Greek seamen with the balance made up of
Puerto Ricans, Cubans and some Polish DP’s.

“Don’t sail that ship to China,” warned the stool pigeon agents
of dollar. imperialism, “the Chinese Reds will shoot you, throw you
in jail, slit your throat. Don’t you know the Chinese are killing all
our American and Canadian boys? Better-leave that ship in port.”

But the Greek seamen, like millions of workers the world over,
are learning to detect the foul propaganda themes and techniques of
the imperialist warmongers. Having experienced at first hand the
tricky and oppressive workings of Anglo-American “democracy” in
their homeland, they are able to savvy its oderiferous aroma when
served up to them in the port of Vancouver or elsewhere.

While the witch-doctors of “our free way of life’ managed to
frighten and intimidate a few of the DP, Cuban and Puerto Rican
Seamen to get off the Pinelopi, 20 Greek seamen stood by their ship
and sailed her out of Vancouver harbor a few days ago—destination,
People’s China.

There are certain laws against permitting a ship to proceed to
Sea understaffed, but what are laws, codes, custom or traditions to
the iron curtain manufacturers? The deliberate leaving of a ship,
under-fueled, to the mercy of the sea, is in itself a crime comparable
to that of the California disregarding the SOS of a stricken ship
loaded with human beings.

‘

The incident of the Pinelopi serves to point up a number of
characteristics inherent in our “free enterprise way of life”; first its
utter disregard for the safety of life or property, in the pursuit of

its own narrow selfish interests, and second, its readiness to toss over- |

board all those ethical codes which express the line of demarcation
between savagery and civilization. :

The Pinelopi incident’ has a lot of lessons for Canadians, chief
among which is to get our government, our country and our people

out of this Yankee-dominated iron curtain business, and back onto '

the course of peace and normal relations with all our neighbors—
among them China.

Cl NG moon To ee
EUV RIEU UN aE

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 12, 1951 ‘— Page 8

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