after the Literary

a

JOE WALLACE.

Noted poet, columnist

Joe Wallace mourned

By HAL GRIFFIN

_ The progressive movement
has lost one of its few literary
figures by the death: of Joe
Wallace, poet and columnist, who
was stricken by a heart attack on
December 1 and died shortly after
he was taken to Vancouver
General Hospital, from which he
recently had been released.

His death came only a month
Gazette in
Moscow published a tribute to him
on his 85th birthday — October 29
—and selected translations of his
poems. Word of the honor was
conveyed to him in hospital, where
he was undergoing blood tests, and

_ he observed, “‘This has been the

finest birthday of my life.”

Joe Wallace’s life encompassed
two careers, the second of which
Srew out of the first until
ultimately the two could no longer
be reconciled.

He was born of Irish-Canadian |

Parentage in Toronto in 1890,
educated at St. Francis Xavier
University in Antigonish, N.S., and
as a young man his activities in
Young Liberal circles brought him
to the attention of Sir Wilfred
Laurier. He built up a succesful
advertising agency in Halifax and
his business and political future
seemed assured.

But he was also reading socialist
literature and when the In-
dependent Labor Party of Nova
Scotia was formed in 1919, he
resigned from the Liberal Party to
become its secretary. Two years

later his ILP branch voted to

become part of the newly founded
Communist Party and soon he was
Contributing to The Worker.

As his political . activities
widened, so the business of his
advertising agency narrowed until,
in 1933, as he wrote later, ‘‘I joined
the ranks of the unemployed.”

He went to Toronto, worked

_ among the unemployed and in the

Canadian Labor Defence League
and in 1936 began contributing a
Column to the Clarion Weekly,
which subsequently became the
Daily Clarion.
In 1940 he was one of many
mmunists interned under the
ar Measures Act and on his
release three years later he took a
Machinist’s course and went to
Work in war industry.
His first selection of poems,
Night is Ended, published in 1943,
Was followed by a second, Hi
Sister, Hi Brother, in 1953, and in
1964 Progress Publishers in
Moscow brought out his collected
Poems under the title A Radiant
Sphere, the English edition of
Which alone sold 15,000 copies in
Socialist countries.
_ Although his work was largely
'8nored by the literary establish-

ment in his own country, whose
poets he accused of ‘“‘writing to
poets, to critics, to professional
intellectuals,’ it appealed to the
working people for whom he wrote
and it was translated widely in
socialist countries.

“He has a very special talent,”
one Soviet critic said of him and
whether he was voicing his love for
people or delivering a_ rapier
political thrust, he compressed
profound thought in brilliantly
turned words, as in:

‘Salute the great philanthropist
Who rose up like a rocket
With his face in every paper
And his hand in every pocket.”’

Or this widely quoted quatrain:

“Ours is a sovereign nation
Bows to no foreign will

But when they cough in Washington
They spit on Parliament Hill.”

A dedicated Communist for 55
years, committed in age to the
perspective of socialism that won
him in youth, Joe Wallace was a
poet of the people and his place in
their future is secure.

He is survived by his son,
Joseph, in Toronto; his daughter,
Mrs. -Dorothy McAuley, in
Rochester, N.Y.; a_ brother,

Howard, in Toronto, and a sister,
Mrs. Greta Granville, in Halifax.

Funeral * service will be held
Friday, Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. at St.
Mary’s Catholic Church, 5300
Joyce Road, Vancouver.

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by Harry Rankin

SS

VAN-CENTRE SHORTAGES CITED

Housing program urged

se

Nick Podovinnikoff, Communist
cendidate iff Vancouver Centre
sad this week that only fuller
go ernment involvement in the

residential housing field would .

sole the acute housing shortage
which the Vancouver Centre
con: tituency is facing.

P< dovinnikoff and Mike Gidora
are the Communist candidates in
that riding.

“P-ivate industry has shown
that they are incapable of meeting
the demand for housing.
Some'vhere between 95 and 98 per
cent 0? all the housing in B.C. has
been provided by the private
sector, but they have said that they
are on strike, presumably in an
effort to force even higher prices
and consequently, higher profits.
The result of this irresponsible
attitude by these developers is that
we in B.C. are facing a projected
shortage of 46,000 housing units
annually for the next five years.”

Podovinnikoff said that only the
provincial government had the
power to do anything to alleviate
the shortage.

“Starting immediately the
government should begin
residential construction on Crown
land which would then be turned
over to families on a 60-year lease
basis. If there is no Crown land
available they should expropriate
land for housing.

‘Additionally the government
must take immediate action to
bring about a reduction in the
userous interest rates that people
are paying on mortgage money,”
he said. ‘‘The Communist Party is

calling for a reduction in interest
“rates to somewhere between five
and six per cent.”

Podovinnikoff, a prominent
member of the Carpenters Union,
cited research which his union has
conducted into the housing
problem which revealed that a
homeowner will pay more than
$108,000 in interest alone on the
purchase of a $55,000 house over
the life of a 35-year mortgage. He
said that these figures were based
on the current interest rate of 11-
3/4 per cent with a $15,000 down
payment.

Podovinnikoff said that the
monthly payments involved in this
purchase would be $389.58. ‘‘Using
the figures provided by the Central
Mortgage and Housing Cor-
poration, no more than 28 per cent
of a family’s monthly take home
income should be spent on housing.
If that were to be the case here,
that family would need a monthly
take home income of $1600.

“What working family has that
income?”

Podovinnikoff emphasized that it
wasn’t enough to simply build
houses, — they had to be affordable
houses. Of the 46,000 units needed
each year, at least three quarters
of them must be low rental units,
he stated.

“About 40 per cent of the
population of this province are
living below, or just barely above,
the poverty level, particularly in
Vancouver Centre, and these
people need good quality, low
rental housing.”’

He said that the Communist

NDP government aids

Chile trade unions

The NDP provincial government
has released more than $2,000 to
the World Labor Organization and
the outlawed Chilean trade union
centre CUT as it’s contribution to
the mission of food ship Anjou
which will carry food, clothing and
medical supplies to the liberation
movement in Chile.

John Radosevic, secretary of
Canadians for Democracy in Chile,
explained this week that the
donation originated at a public
meeting in September of this year
that featured U.S. trade union
leader Abe Feinglass and Chilean
trade union leader Gilberto
Oyanadel.

3

At the solidarity rally Oyanadel
outlined the plans of the World
Labor Organization to send the
food ship to Chile and it was agreed
that the funds raised at the
meeting would be sent to aid in the
effort. Richmond MLA Harold
Steves, who represented the
government at the rally, pledged
that the provincial government
would match the net proceeds
raised at the meeting.

A total of $2,244.64 after expenses
was matched this week out of the
provincial government’s
Agricultural Aid Fund _ ad-
ministered by the Department of
Agriculture.

NICK PODOVINNIKOFF
Party was pledged to fight for the
implementation of a sound ap-
proach to housing which would
provide houses first, and not
profits.

Darnell raps
Bill 146

More than 400 people at an all
candidates meeting sponsored by
the White Rock Ratepayers
organization heard Communist
candidate in Delta, Mike Darnell,
term Premier Dave Barrett’s
statement that he “respects the
sanctity of the picket line’ as an

_ “insult to all workers, organized or

not.”

Darnell, 25, is a trustee for the
United Fishermen and Allied
‘Workers Union which has been
served injunctions in two strikes
during the NDP’s term of office.
Bill 146, Darnell said, ‘“‘was not
only a’ flagrant violation of the
collective bargaining process, but
more seriously it was a crushing
blow to .a basic right which
prevents dictatorship — the right
of labor to withdraw its service.

Darnell said that changes must
be brought about in government
priorities if people are to create a
more human environment. “‘This is
particularly true, in the housing
sector,’ he said “where it is
essential that we view housing as a
social and human right and not as a
speculative venture.”

He said that Social Credit policy
could “‘set back social progress in
B.C. by twenty years.”’ “‘“Monopoly
is still the main enemy of the
people,”’ he said, ‘“‘the primary
reason that the Communist Party
is contesting this election is to
prevent a return to pro-monopoly
government.”

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 5, 1975—Page 3