Some cf the

(left).

750 single unemployed who staged their historic sitdown in
Vancouver Post Office and Art Gallery in 1938 are shown in the Post Office
Among those who spoke at the huge protest rally held on Powell Street

+ A PACIFIC TRIBUNE FLASHBACK

Vancouver’

By HAL GRIFFIN

awakened that morn-
break-

sre were

the crash of
ing glass. Then tl
from the street below
and the thud of running feet.
I scrambled out of bed
rushed to the window of my
room above the bank
building at Hastings and Car-
rall streets.
Running men
out along the
casionally
into a doorway; but

WAS
i ing by

shouts
and

old
were strung

sidewalk. Oc-

one would slip

most

of them kept running, des-
perately, blindly. Behind
them in the direction of Vic-
tory Square, were uniformed
police.

Directly below me one of
the running men _ stumbled
and fell by the curb, blood

streaming down his face. An-
other man _ stopped, pulled
him to his feet and stood un-
certainly, glancing back at
the police. They were still
grouped around Woodward’s
store. There was a screech of
tires as a police car rounded
the corner of Hastings and
sped towards Cordova street.

“Get him up here,” I call-
eed down. “The dcoor’s around
the corner.”

By the time I got down the
the two- men were in
doorway. The man who

‘fallen was leaning
against the wall, white-faced
and shaken, while the other

had

dabbed at a cut above his
ear with a handkerchief.

“What’s happened?” I de-
manded.
Breathing harshly, the sec-

ond man almost spat out the
words. “The Mounties
rotten yellow bastards. Jump-
ed us in the Post Office. They
used teargas.” His eyes were
puffed and bloodshot and his
face streaked with dirt. “You
look after him. I gotta get
around to the hall.”

*

That was how “Bloody Sun-
day” — now 20 years ago on
June 19, 1838—opened for me.

For some 750 single unem-
ployed men holding Vancou-
ver Post Office and Vancou-
ver Art Gallery in a_ protest

~sitdown it had opened half an

hour earlier with  teargas
bombs and. swinging police
clubs — the brutal. answer of
bankrupt Liberal govern-
ments to their demands for
work and wages.

Five years of the Bennett
Conservative government and
three years of its provincial
counterpart, the Tolmie gov-
ernment, had offered the un-
employed youth no brighter
future than the sterile choice
between jail and relief camp.
And for all their promises on
the hustings, three years of
the King Liberal government

Grounds after the brutal police attack was Ald. Helena Gutteridge
Below the speakers’ stand (lower right of picture) is seen A. M.
noted Canadian poet then president of the League for Peace and Dem?

aie }

‘Bloody Sunday

and five years of its provin-
cial counterpart, the Pattullo
government, had produced
nothing more.

Occupation of the old
Vancouver Post Office and
the Art Gallery by the single
unemployed on the May 21
weekend was a protest against
the interminable buck-passing
of civic, provincial and fed-
eral governments, the refusal
of the federal government to
undertake a public works pro-
gram.

All winter long, under the
leadership of their own mili-
tant Relief Project Workers
Union, the single unemployed
had held protest meetings and
parades. They had rattled
tin cans on street corners to
raise funds until there was no
more room at Okalla Prison
Farm for arrested “tin-can-
ners.” They had sent delega-
tions -to Vancouver’ City
Council and the _ provincial
cabinet at Victoria only to be
turned away on the specious
pretext that there was no
money for public works,
though there seemed to be no
lack of money for police,
stoolpigeons and provocateurs.

The’ utter political bank-
ruptcy of the Pattullo gov-
ernment was proclaimed by
provincial Labor Minister
George Pearson when he met
with a Relief Project Work-
ers Union delegation during
the first week in May and

said: “The only thing left for
the men to do is to scatter as
quickly as they can as the
government has no money
to do anything.”

Progressive political parties

and popular organizations
from the Communist party
and the CCF to Vancouver

Youth Council and Vancouver
Mothers’ Council campaigned
vigorously for a public works
program. But, exploiting the
refusal of the CCF right wing
to come to any understanding
with the Communist party on
united action, the govern-
ment was able to maintain a

policy condemned by a ma-
jority of citizens. And the
trade unions, where _ they
were not in the hands of
Liberals and Conservatives
who stifled protest, were

often precluded from making
their full influence felt by
their own struggles to organ-
ize and win ‘recognition.
(Following the police attack
on the sitdowners, Vancouver
Trades and Labor Council
voted to hold an open air pro-
test meeting. But the coun-

‘eil’s executive, dominated by

Liberals and Conservatives,
decided to submit the ques-
tion to a referendum, a move
that was publicly repudiated
by one executive member, C.
M. Stewart, a leading Com-
munist «unionist, as a direct
evasion of the council’s own
decision.)

June 27, 1958 —

, uf

At the outset the sine yt
employed occupied | 1 0
buildings, Vancouver aa
fice, Vancouver Art @
and the Georgia Hotel:
promise of a payment a ii
they quickly reached © iy
ment with an alarme” jf
agement to evacuate pil
hotel. But in the tw? a it
buildings they prepare i
disciplined fashion 10°
sitdown.

As soon as they y ag
committees set P voi
the Relief eae ye
Union’ began to functio® ti?
were assigned vario el!
under group leaders; * opie
maintaining food 0
some to keeping the ie
clean, others to 4° voi
guards against any PP
tion. :

Mayor rater
ried back Y
denounce

George
from vace
the single
ployed for occupying fi
buildings. His first ined
was to demand that ? te
ejected no matter wh
consequences. A #é 4
later he had chanbey
mind. Now he said th@ ef
can. sit there: all sume
far as I am concern’: | ge
But his claim that thé ft
had forfeited all publ
port by the sitdow? ey)
futed by the people a
couver as they rallie¢ yi}
men’s support. Thess ff
their sons, the sons ‘ of!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE ag