FINANCIAL DRIVE -——_—

50th anniversary celebration
launches $100,000 press drive

For 50, its $100,000.

Despite the challenge of the task,
applause greeted the announcement from
Pacific Tribune editor Sean Griffin that the
Paper has targetted $100,000 to raise dur-
Ing the 1985 financial drive, which marks
the 50th anniversary of B.C.’s only
Working-class weekly.

Fifty years is no small occasion, as
Teflected by the circumstances under
which the announcement took place — at
a special, kick-off banquet Mar. 23 at the
Holiday Inn on West Broadway.

For many people
at the banquet, vet-
€rans of past drives,
the unprecedented
target represented a
new challenge — and
they responded, don-
ating some $5,600 to
mark the 1985 effort.

The broad sup-

, Port that has main-
tained the paper since
1935 was reflected
In the speakers who
offered reminiscen-
ces about the pap-
er’s early days, and |
the musicians who
Provided entertain-
ment ranging from
traditional labor
Standards to mod-
ern, electronic songs
of political content.

Harry Rankin, the
veteran alderman the
Committee of Pro- MAURICE
gressive Electors, re- RUSH
called an 85-year-old dying pensioner liv-
ing in a downtown slum hotel, who
handed Rankin some $6,200 to go to pro-
gressive causes, including the Tribune.

In doing so that pensioner was
acknowledging that a paper such as the
Tribune, “is needed,” said Rankin, as a
“fundamental tool...to help change this
System that won’t work any longer to a
more humane, socialist one.”

Rankin noted that he’d personally
known “all editors save one” — George
Drayton, first editor of the paper founded
in 1935, the B.C. Worker’s News.

Communist Party general secretary Bill
Kashtan pointed out that while the daily
press is financed through advertising by
big business, and hence reflects that view-
point, “it is working people who keep the
Tribune going.”

From Communist Party provincial
leader Maurice Rush, past editor of the
Tribune, came a series of reminiscences
that provided a colorful historical perspec-
tive on the paper’s 50 years.

Rush noted that the traditions of the
paper go back “100 years to earlier labor
publications.” He related the incident of a
travelling publisher-editor who carried a
small mimeograph machine on his back to
the mines and logging worksites around
the province.

When the B.C. Workers’ News was
founded, ‘in the midst of struggle,” it was
only months before the historical battle of
Ballantyne Pier, he noted.

Rush himself recalled joining the News
at age 18, and being appointed youth edi-
tor after one‘day on the job. Space was ata

premium even then, he noted with homor,
recalling that even when writers submitted
articles of “two sentences, George Dray-
ton would say ‘boil it down.’ ”

Rush said the paper has continued pub-
lishing weekly since its founding, except
for a brief period during the beginning of
World War Two, when a federal govern-
ment banning order: forced it under-
ground.

Despite the problems encountered dur-
ing that “hair-raising experience” —
including working out of a shack in Port
Moody with weather so cold the ink in the
mimeograph machine would congeal —
the support for the paper continued, he
said.

That’s because “it has fought for the
interests of working people, fought against
the lies about the Soviet Union, against
colonialism and imperialism.

“To get the real history of this province, |

Tribune veteran Bill Gee (along with brother George, not pictured) receives
hand-lettered award from artist and drive co-ordinator Donalda Viaud, and
from editor Sean Griffin. Bill was one of 27 veterans, whose dollars helped
create the Tribune’s predecessor 50 years ago, to be honored at the Mar. 23
banquet kicking off this year’s anniversary press drive. This year’s target is
$100,000 in honor of that anniversary, which began with the B.C. Workers’
News back in January, 1935.

you have to go through the files of the
Tribune,” he declared.

Frank Kennedy, secretary-treasurer of
the Vancouver and District Labor Council
noted. that the Tribune, along with the
trade union press “‘plays a significant role
in battling the crushing amount of weight
that comes down on the working class
from the establishment press.”

He offered “full success” in the financial
drive on behalf of the labor council.

Tribune staff also honored 27 surviving
veteran supporters, several of whom,
including “500 club” member Jack Treliv-
ing, have already made a financial com-
mitment to the 1985 drive.

Although not all veterans could attend,
all were recipients.of a hand-lettered scroll

acknowledging their support that dates
back to 1935. Included were Treliving,
former editors Rush, Hal Griffin and Tom
McEwen, along with Karl Ofstedal, Eva
Polson, Edna Sheard, Ed West, Bob
Smith, Miles Hamilton, Bill Gee, George
Gee, Merv Shoebottom, Stan Lowe, Rose
McEwen, Lena Skehor, Ernie Dalskog,
Julia Tarnowski, John Cherkosh, Peter
Cordoni, Harold Malyea, Uno Soder-
holm, Bill Turner, Joe Baryluk, Hugh
Clark, Jim Hall and Ben Sparks.

Providing music for the event were the
tenatively-named “Trekkers” — Tom
Hawken, Jim Carlin, Barry Laffin, Steve
Gidora and-Pat Gidora — anda trio con-
sisting of Jane Leroux, Amy Newman and
Julie Blue.

Spirit of ’35 alive in ’85 drive

__ “Since the campaign first was launched
In April, 1934, our movement has passed
through many struggles.”

That quote isn’t from us — at least, not
from the current staff of the Tribune. It was
written 50 years ago and appeared in the
Maugural edition of the B.C. Workers’

ews.

The editors of the Tribune’s forerunner
Were remarking on the battles of the
day — battles that have become part of
the history of working class struggle in this
Province. And indeed, in the turbulent pol-
-ltical times of the Hungry 30s, it was quite
appropriate to mark the numerous fights
that happened in the short period between
the first financial drive to establish B.C.’s
Only continuous labor weekly and the fruit
Of that effort — the first paper, which hit
the streets Jan. 18, 1935.

uch an acknowledgement is equally
@Ppropriate today. We are living through
Similar times, with unemployment in B.C.
and across Canada the highest since the
Great Depression, and with the same need
‘0 mobilize working people.
t Just as with the 30s, the Tribune func-
— as a tool in the task to organize
Oday’s workers against the takeaways and
|_SOncessions sought by employers taking

advantage of the skyrocketing numbers of
unemployed. Equally important, today as
with 50 years ago, is the need to organize
the unemployed to join with labor and
other progressive forces in the fight for
jobs and an end to the exploitation of
labor.

What is changed, of course, is the pap-
er’s financial need. If we’re to continue to
be effective in the mid-80s, we need con-
siderably more in straight dollars than we
sought 50 years ago.

That’s why we’ve set the target this year
at $100,000. And while it’s stating the
obvious to say that it’s a big amount, we
know our readers and supporters can, as
they have every year in the preceding five
decades, help reach and surpass that
target.

We say this because we have not only
the tradition of years, but of recent
achievement on which to base our optim-
ism. Just last year the Tribune friends sur-
passed the “hold the line” target of
$85,000, donating to the paper more than
$92,000 by the end of the drive.

With that spirit, the spirit of the Battle
of Ballantyne Pier, of the. On-to-Ottawa
Trek — our victory is assured.

Here are the targets...

GREATER VANCOUVER OKANAGAN
Bill, Bennett 800 Kamloops 1,000
Burnaby 6,000 Penticton 600
Coquitlam 2,700 Shuswap : 800
oy 7,500 Vernon 1,500
ew West. 2,500
Nigel Morgan 2200 N. COAST/INTERIOR
Niilo Makela ~ 700 Correspondence 2,500
North Van. _ = 3,000 Creston 400
Olin. 700 Fernie 250
Richmond — == -1,600. Rowell River oe
Seamen 500 Prince George -. 150
Van. East; 11,000 Prince Rupert — 250
‘Van. Fishermen =——~*BOQ. «Sunshine Coast = = = = = = =—-_- 800
_ WestSide © 65 4000 Wal ee
oe © - ce a — : : _ VANCOUVER ISLAND — a
ERASER VALLEY a, Gamopell RNG t26 5 Oe
iiwack «ac 6Comox Valley. 1,500
a takes 900 Nanaimo = = 2,900
“goo. Northislend = =.) = 400
a 28900 Por Alberni = =. 61,600
eSury = 9 000 Victerls”
White Rock: 20 9 4, TOTAL QUOTAS: —_80,000

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 27, 1985 e 3

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