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Proud tradition
lives on in PT

enjoy the ‘support it needs to sur-

Cont'd from Supp. pg. 1 :
itis vive and grow.

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movement — a fact its enemies
always try to deny. with their cold
war lies.

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What was it like that first year of

ena yeais. ot. Wie Céramumist the B.C. Workers’ News, when the
press in B.C. stands as solid proof jhe ie struggled i or life and
ak dhe Goniniinict bat beta i growth? It had no trained editors

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B.C. is partofB.C.’s native soil and
an integral part of the working
class movement. Without the
support of a substantial section of
B.C.’s working class its weekly
paper could not have survived. It
continues to enjoy the growing
support of B.C. workers because
they recognize that it serves their
class needs. If it did not, it would
have gone the way of the earlier |
papers. Instead, it has lasted
longer than any other radical,
socialist or working class paper in
B.C.’s history and has emerged as
the only weekly working class
paper serving the interests of the
working class in B.C. today.

People often ask me: Why is it so '
many papers have come and gone
in the working class dnd socialist
movement in B.C. and so many
papers have appeared in recent
years claiming to be part of the
radical and revolutionary press,
but have not survived, yet the
Pacific Tribune goes on year after
year? The obvious answer to that
question is that. most of those
papers failed to present a con-
sistent ideological point of view
and failed to win enough support
among any section of the working
class movement to survive. The
Communist press, on the other
hand, has presented a consistent
working class position based on its
Marxist-Leninist ideas. And
because’ of this, it continues to
enjoy a base of support among the
working class which ensures its
continued existence. From the first
issue of the B.C. Workers’ News,
through the many changes in name
up to’ the Pacific Tribune, the
Communist press in B.C. has stuck
to its basic. Marxist-Leninist ideas
and has been loyal to the interésts
of the working. class and the
struggle for its needs. Because of
that it has and will continue to

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tion of Capitalism.

This is the certificate used in 1934-35 to raise funds to launch the B.C. Workers News. President of the first ™ its day-to-day s

ROSES EBERRON HEE OOOO IEE
DESPOSSOSSE SOLOS OSOSOROPOSOSOIOLOSOSOILOIFOHLOFOSOIO$F:

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or journalists. It. had no ex-
perienced make-up men, repor-
ters, columnists, cartoonists,
illustrators. It had no expensive
news services or photo services
which the big capitalist
newspapers enjoyed. But it had one
strength the capitalist newspapers
did not have. It had hundreds of
devoted working people who were
in the front line of the peoples’
struggles. It had and has continued
to have hundreds of links with
people who are at the grass roots of
society. They raise money for the
paper, circulate the paper, and in
many ways feed the paper with
constant sources of information
and news which comes from the
heart of the people’s struggle. And
from among these there are many
(not nearly enough) who have
learned to write as they fight for
the paper.

It has attracted others with
abilities to do cartoons and write in
depth about problems. The Pacific
Tribune is a working class and
people’s paper which is not cut off
from the people, but is part of
them. In the course of the years it
has developed outstanding working
class journalists, columnists,
cartoonists, editors — some of
whom learned the trade of jour-
nalism and put their training to the
service of the working class press;
and working people who became
worker-journalists by necessity
and experience in the class
struggle.

When the B.C. Workers’ News
was launched it had little money ©
and not much more experience. It
had no editor.

An editorial board was set up to
somehow get the paper out each
week. Chairman of the board and
in fact the editor when the paper
was first launched was an
unemployed -bricklayer, George

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FIRST FRONT PAGE OF B.C. WORKERS NEWS ... Jan. 18, 1935.

Communist who had acquired —

some knowledge about reporting in
the working class movement.

He was aided often by William
Purvis, then an organizer in the
underground Communist Party,
who also had acquired some .
writing ability. Bill Bennett, who
had done some writing in the
socialist movement before coming
to the Communist Party when it
was formed in B.C., undertook to

write a column which under the’
heading ‘‘Short Jabs’’ became one

of the outstanding and popular
features of the paper until his
death.

The paper also had scores. of

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sent in news items from relief
camps, places of work, women and
youth activists who reported on
their struggles.

The paper was put together in an
austere office at Room 10, in the
Flack Block at 163 W. Hastings St.
Working on a few shiplap desks
and two rebuilt typewriters which
sounded like rivet guns, they often
labored far into the night.

Early in May, 1935 I decided to
move from Kamloops, where I had
been active in the Communist and
unemployed movement, to Van-
couver. During my activities in
Kamloops I had acted as a worker
correspondent and had written a

Drayton — a devoted hard working working class correspondents who few items for the paper.

CAAA

arian Publishin gA

VANCOUVER, BC.

In the struggle for better working conditions and the defeat of Capitalism, I hereby
subscribe to the Pruletarian Publishing Association the’sum of

ONE DOLLAR

as the first step towards building a workers’ paper for B.C, that will fight for the
betterment of the conditions of the werking class and for it’s final aim—the aboli-

“B.C. Worker” for Every Worker

President: W. BENNETT.

SOP 525

financial campaign to launch the paper was William ‘Ol’ Bill’ Bennett.

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Secretary: J. PETERS

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CROSS OS OS OSC SOROS!

Ce $O>{0> $0) 2 SER SC.

Soon after my arrival I was
given the assignment to conduct
and write a youth column for the
paper and became the “youth
editor.”” It was therefore, my good
fortune to have had the experience
of those founding months in the
office ofthe paper.

Our only journalistic training
during that period were a few
weekend classes conducted by a
newspaperman named Mickey
Severeight on how to write a news
story. That was my first in-
troduction to the ‘‘Five W’s.” A few
months later I was elected
provincial secretary of the Young
Communist League and had to give
up my work on the paper, but it
gave me an introduction to
working class journalism and to
the totally dedicated and hard
working people who got out the
first issues of the B.C. Workers’
News.

# een

To look back on the volumes of
the paper over the 40 years is to
relive the history of the struggle of
the working people during the
many crucial events which saw the
world change so drastically. The
paper has not only been a tribune
to rally and unite the working class
truggles. It has

PACIFIC TRIBUNE SUPPLEMENT—FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1975—Page

Fif
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also recorded history. Its bre)
canvas covered world, natio™
and provincial events, and
pages today are an impor
record for students of history:

The correctness of the Marx
Leninist analysis given in nea!
2,000 issues of the paper during ©
40 years of publication bé
testimony today to the strength!
Communist ideas. A comparl®
between the stand taken by *
Communist press on the mal
events which shook and chang
the world during those years, ¢
that recorded in the vari?
capitalist newspapers, proves {|
“superiority of Marxist-Leni®!
ideas over capitalist ideas.

In a very real sense the wor
class press today is the !
people’s and democratic pres
our time. It does not talk “™)
money” talk. It is not controlle@”
the monopoly _ interests
dominate the country, and wh®
interests the capitalist pr&
represents. The struggle to P'
and extend the working class yo
Communist press today is part
the struggle for a true populist 4
democratic press — not the sb®
“freedom of the press” expres*
by the big capitalist dailies
whom democracy means freed?
to perpetuate the system of ©
ploitation and want in the interé
of greater profits. ;

Today the Pacific Tribu!
carries on the tradition of ©
radical working class press of B:
It stands in the forefront of
fight today to defend the worke
interests. It spearheads the fig
for working class unity,
progressive reform, for secu!
independence, freedom 2
socialism.

That is why the working pe?
of B.C. will rally around the Pac
Tribune again this year — as
have done for so many years —
raise the largest fund the C0
munist press in B.C. has ever
out to raise to keep the pa
growing and flourishing.

2 Ee

“45