he conscience of the Americas MEXICO CITY. ABLO NERUDA, Com- munist senator of Chile, world-famous poet and intellect- ual giant of the continent, is a big man physically, too. His impressive frame towering high above the rostrum that al- most hid other speakers from ‘view, he delivered a speech to the Necent American Continental Congress for Peace here that ex- ‘pressed in almost poetic style the Creed of the creative worker see- ing the dawn of a new era. He told of his recent trip tq Hungary and of discussions with - publishers there about printing a book of his poems. “But then I saw the Youth Fes- - tival in Budapest,” he said, “this Magnificent assembly of demo- ¢ratic youth from all over the world. Aftert that I re-read some of my work and decided not to Telease it because it is now un- Suited. The sorrows of an old World only saddens the lives of young people. “We poets have been carrying within us the two conflicting for- Ces. Now it is time that we give @xpression to only one — the one that expresses the future.” ' When I visited Neruda a few days later at his modest ‘apart- Ment, he was not well. Months of underground living in his Country, hounded by police, fol- lowed by a strenuous trip to Many European countries, and finally the hectic activities con- hected with the peace congress, forced him to take a short rest. But in spite of pain and tired- hess, he was full of warmth and Cordiality. And he was extremely €nthusiastic about the congress. “It was really extraordinary,” he said. “Now the warmakers know they cannot count upon La- tin America fon their plans. “They may have the support of Some smal] armies controlled by their satraps, but the congress Was an imposing expression of ‘the people’s will not to fight. It Was a reflection of reality. “Tf the imperialists want to in- volve Latin America in a war, _ they will have to set off civil wars _ @verywhere. They would have to kil, most of the people. “Just look at the Brazilian del- egation. These fifteen people slept ‘in forests and crossed rivers to _ Set here, There are hundreds of thousands who would do the same thing to stop war.” - He was referring to the refusal ‘of the Brazilian government to ‘Rermit its citizens to attend the Congress, and their determined and successful efforts to be pres-’ _jent nevertheless. aes think it is now time,” Ner- uda said, “for the warmakers .to hold a congress. Their plans have Obviously been defeated in Latin America, and now they will have to change them either by post- Poning war or reaching peace. “T really do not see how they Can dare speak of war when the Most important leaders of Latin America, those who have guided its thoughts for 50 years, were Present at the cengress.” - But he also warned that the Congress was only a beginning, “and the fight for peace has Py, no ‘Means ended. @ We started talking about ‘the ‘Problems of Latin America and he told me the story about a friend of his, a well-known Chile- an architect named Sergio Lanain Garcia Moreno, who was a good _ friend of Nelson Rockefeller, one Of the bearers of the late lament- _ ed Good Neighbor policy. — Neruda said that Garcia Mor- Cea a conservative, wrote a let- own | ter shortly before the Second World War ended, urging that war be extended, after its official conclusion, for another day on be- half of peace. This architect, vit- ally concerned about the living conditions of the people of Latin America, had studied the US. war budget and found that the cost of one day’s combat would build one million homes in South America. He went so far as to include blue prints and other technical material in his letter. Needless to say, he never received an answer. “And my demand now is,” said Neruda in concluding the story, “that since Washington’s war plans have failed, why not spend sums allocated for armaments to build one million homes in La- tin America instead?” Or I asked Neruda for his opinion about the confidence felt by other Chilean delegates to the congress that the government of Gonzales Videla, now president of Chile, will not long survive. “This is absolutely true,” ‘Neru- da said, “and it is not merely the opinion of our delegates, but of the Chilean people.” ' Referring to Videla alternately as traitor, as the “Pierre Laval of Chile”, and as the “butler” of Wall Street’s copper interests, he cited the record of the Videla ad- ministration. | “Look how this traitor whom we helped elect has kept his promises. He has handed over the oil of the Magellanes and the pub- _ le electric utilities, as well as the formerly nationalized steel in- (This article first appeared in the Tribune, Sydney, during the recent great Australian cpal miners’ strike.) N using troops in an attehipt to smash a strike, the Labor goverment is going back to the dark days of (Australia’s past, when the use of troops on several occasions led to bitterness, strife, and the killing of Australian workers. ‘ It was out of this dark past that the Australian Labor party was born—in order to end «for all time the use of troops against the trade union movement. The ALP politicians promised that never again would the army be used on behalf of big business against the working people. This was foreign to the best Australi- an tradition and would remain so. they said. — And so, when Australians heard of troops using tear gas and guns against striking workers in Eu- rope or the U.S., they said: “It can’t happen here.” But it has happened here, in the past, and is happening again. Eureka, of course, is our classic example’ of the use of armed troops against the workers. “pr, Herbert Evatt knows that perhaps; better than most of us. He has written much about Eu- rekai- “But ror the ceeeseer of the armed forces,” Dr. Evatt wrote of Eureka, blown over. But on Tuesday, No- vember 28, portion of the troops began to arrive, and there was a brush at the roadside with a few of the diggers. -“Byven now, the situation might y have been composed had the au- thorities been men of goodwill. But with incredible stupidity, or incredible wickedness, those in A “the affair might have dustry, to the imperialists. “He has eliminated even the embryonic agrarian reforms started early in his regime, and has consolidated again all the privileges of the rich landowners. “The cost of living has risen by 250 percent during his regime, and the Chilean peso is constantly losing more and more of its pur- chasing value. “The working class party which elected him has been outlawed, and 40,000 citizens had their names removed from electoral lists because of opposition to his policies. “Spanish refugees who formerly were welcomed are now being persecuted. Five hundred teach- ers and professors have been fir- ed from their jobs because of ideological disagreement with his policies, “These .are only some of the things Videla has done on orders from Washington,” Neruda said. But then he told of the many speeches and statements made in opposition to the Chilean regime by Catholic and Socialist as well as Communist deputies, and by industrialists and heads of many cultural and other organizations. But most of all he expressed pride in the resistance offered by the Communists. Their party, he said, in spite of terror, is “the greatest united party” in Chile. He told me his immunity as a senator had been lifted because he assertedly had “insulted” Vi- dela. - “That's a silly charge,” Neruda said. “They arrest thousands of aa every day on similar -accu- Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, whose epic work, ‘Let the Rail Splitter Awake’ was published last year by the Pacific Tribune, talks for peace world - famous By GEORGE LOHR sations and then let them go be- cause they haven't jails enough to hold them.” With a big grin on his face he told a story about a man who was writing a slogan on a wall. The writer’ had just gotten as far as “Down with traitor—’ when the police nabbed him. “But I wasn’t finished,” he pro- tested. “How do you know I was going to write Videla?” ~ “Come along to jail,” the officer replied. “Who else is a traitor to our country?” Contemptuously, Neruda said: “Gomez of Venezuela has been called a wild bull, Machado of Cuba has been baptized “The Tiger. But Gonzales Videla will pass into history as ‘The Rat’.” e I asked him just one more ques- tion: “Some of the delegates from the United States were disturbed by your remark at the peace con- gress that there is a great silence, in the face of Washington’s war drive, from the intellectuals of their country. They wondered whether you know about the fight being waged by Howard Fast and others.” “I know about Fast, for whom I have great respect, and the peo- - ple associated with him,” Neruda answered. “But it is a mystery to us in Latin ‘America, where all great intellectuals have joined the fight for peace, why people like Ernest Hemingway are silent, We. want to know whether these people are our enemies or whether they are not.” “But I can tell you this,” he added, “the presence of such a large delegation from the U.S. at the peace congress was very im- portant for us. It meant a tremen- dous slap for the warmakers.” ut of the dark past charge decided to hold a great ‘digger hunt’... This brutal dis- play . Pikwiriated the diggers.” Dr. ans (in an article written for the ALP 50th anniversary publication, Fifty Years of La- bor, in 1940) goes on to tell of the use of “spies and agents provo- cateurs,” and then says “the mili- tary and police had been ordered to disperse the diggers a all costs.” Readers will notice the many similarities with the position to- . day. Dr. Evatt might be a little sensitive on the point. As a cham- pion of the miners (in 1854) he might not like being compared with the hated Governor Hotham. with the men of “incredible stu- pidity or incredible wickedness.” But the facts speak for them- selves. Hotham refusing to release the imprisoned miners, organizing the police raids, deciding to smash the solidity of the miners “at all costs.” The result of the “at all costs” policy? Let the official commis- sion of inquiry speak: “A need- less as well as ruthless sacrifice of human life indiscriminative of innocent or guilty?” e ae Ts ee It was in the nineties that the next big clash came. Labor poli- tician, W. G. Spence, in his book, Australia’s Awakening, tells how in the big strike of 1890 the capi- talists “were very anxious in Syd- ney to find an excuse for having the military called out.” On Friday, September 19, squat- 3 ters and their friends put on a parade of teams of “black” wool. When they reached Circular Quay. writes Spence, “there were 60 mounted police, 200 foot police and 200 special constables on the -spot, selected for the hoped-for riot.” "The Riot Act was read, and the police charged the crowd. The military was called to Sydney, troops and police sent to the coal- fields and Broken Hill, an Angli- can bishop ‘helped scabs unload black coal. The employers gloat- ed and intensified their attacks” on the unions. In Melbourme, there was even less justification for the use of force against the workers, as few- er were affected by the strike. But the capitalists and squatters had made their plans. They called a provocative meet- ing and made allegations against the trade unionists. The work- ers naturally called a meeting to answer thé allegations. : The government commissioned police magistrate Shuter to read the Riot Act, placarded the city with proclamations and copies of the Unlawful Assemblies Act and wired orders to different centers to call out the Mounted Rifles. Horse Artillery, Cavalry, Perma- nent Artillery and Victorian Ran- On the Saturday evening, Col. Tom Price addressed the Mounted Rifles: : “Fire low and lay them out— lay the disturbers of law and or- der out, so that the duty will not ‘again have to be performed. Let it be a lesson to them... .” Next morning the men were paraded in Victoria barracks for divine service. The afternoon came. One provocative act might have started a massacre. “Fire low and lay them out . But the workers, 60,000 strong, gathered solid and strong around the platform, and neither troops nor police daunted them as they cheered their speakers and unan- imously carried their resolutions of support for the strikers and protest at the actions of the em- ployers. « Such is the aia past. In the depression years the police batons were again used against the work- ers—both by Tory and Labor gov- ernments. Police bullets, too. But it is only today that Aus- tralians can see fully how the La- bor party has betrayed the pur- pose for which it was founded. The workers had toiled and made sacrifices for years so that Labor governments could come to pow- er—governments that would not use police and troops against stri- king workers. — - The workers wanted an Austra- lian way of life where there would no longer be batons and bullets for the working man as - struggled for justice. They promised us an Australian way of life. They gave us instead the Yankee imperialist way of life, imported direct from Wall Street. That is how the Labor party betrays itself, That is how the Labor party tries to lead us back to the dark past. : “But every attempt at tyranny in our past, even when it seemed momentarily to have succeeded, ended in failure, and on the con- trary led to gains for democracy, for the forces of labor. Eureka led to a new birth of ‘pattles gave key unions, a new militancy and a