‘The Pacific Tribune carries forward today the

struggles of the early pioneers for a better life’

Fighting press began
with province’s history

By HAL GRIFFIN

Ace a go, ina cluttered
. “Printshop at Barkerville, a
cate editor sat pondering the

torial that would introduce

S newly founded weekly paper
. to his readers,

Like the miners for whom he
ace to speak, he was a new-
pees to British Columbia. As
% Teported, his original inten-

On had been to publish “a jour-
nal exclusively devoted to the
diffusion of mining intelligence:
ae ” Already, caught up in the
ae patent of the miners through-

€ gold creeks of the Cariboo,

© had abandoned that concept,
Ow he wrote:

ote Public abuses that exist,
injustice and inequality of the
= tion of the colony, and the
nti waste of the revenue in
Sie a standing army of of-
om drones in a depopulated
Ty, demand that those who
a &@ power to wield should do
for the public advantage, re-

8ardless of every other consider-
ation, Aa ”

ap man who wrote these words

ot eee Wallace, first editor

wh € “Cariboo Sentinel,” in
Ose first issue of June 6, 1865,
€Y appeared,

ee the limitations of their
edb €s, the high purpose assert-
aon Wallace has been the com-
Tee Characteristic of those
ata S, few in number but pro-
a in influence, which have
oe the great popular move-
iS i of British Columbia since
Ception as a colony.

cae was the guiding principle
€ “British Colonist” when it

§ founded by Amor De Cosmos

9 ictoria in 1858 to become
orn empton of responsible gov-
atio, €nt and entry into Confeder-

- Shone with a new light through
cae of the “B,C, Federa-
Preced in the years immediately
Ronis ing and during the First
ina War, Briefly, it lived again
i Commonwealth,” in those
as years of the thirties when
a CF was a newly sprung
Toots movement, until poli-

tical 6
Ppo
Paper, portunism destroyed the

oe the past 80 years, from
erst ne of the “B,C,. Work-
“Paci €ws” in 1935 to the present
Cific Tribune,” the power of
tee Press wielded by those
inter enated it in the common
t 0 of peace and progress,
©en maintained in face of

intin,;
timidation and outright sup-
Tession,

Issues change

Sines issues have been won and

fi Ts have changed in the cen-

Bea that spans the transition of

on Sh Columbia from frontier
hy to industrial province,

ae issue of annexation to the
ted States or entry into the

Canadian Confederation that oc-
cupied the “British Colonist” and
«Cariboo Sentinel” have assumed
new form in the question of US.
domination, Canadian indepen-
dence and the equality of French
Canada,

The struggles for the right to
organize and trade union recog-
nition that filled the pages of the
“B.C, Federationist® and «B.C,
Workers’ News” have acquired
new form in labor’s fight to de-
fend its gains against the more
subtle repression of restrictive
legislation,

Goals that once seemed vision-
ary have become the reality.

When De Cosmos predicted in
his “Victoria Standard” of May
31, 1871, that “the day will come
when the principles of the ill-
fated rebellion of Paris (Paris
Commune) will be extolled to the
skies,” he was greeted with de-

rision,

The “B,C, Federationist” was
threatened by the censor for

. voicing such sentiments as this

in its issue of January 25, 1918:

«The uprising of the workers
and peasants of Russia has been
the most surprising and hearten-
ing issue of the great War...
That this should happen in a
country notoriously backward in
political development and where
the common people have been held
for centuries in illiteracy and
degradation by the ruling power
is marvelous indeed.

«Out of these conditions, how- ©

ever, came the Russian revolu-
tion and it came with aclearness
of vision and definiteness of pur-
poss that has startled the bour-
geois world out of its secure
smugness and promises to
awaken the sleeping and apathetic
workers of other lands to similar

action.”

When the first issue of the
“B.C, Workers’ News” appeared
on January 18, 1935, socialism
was a living fact in the Soviet

worker's fight for a decent

a Maxim gun and army crew on a

mine strike in 1913.

THIS IS NOT A PICTURE OF MEN OFF
which shook this province in the early

Union, upheld for 17 years against
imperialist intervention and eco-
nomic blockade by the sacrifices
of the Soviet people,

AMOR de COSMOS, champion of re-
sponsible government in B.C., found-
ed the “British Colonist” in Victoria in
1858. His paper and the ‘Cariboo
Sentinel” fought against annexation
by the U.S. and for B.C.'s entry into
Confederation. They were the fore-
runners to today’s struggle for Cana-
dian independence and + U.S.
domination.

Great depression

All across the broad face of
Canada, rich in resources but
poverty ridden in governmental
policies, depression was reach-
ing into the lives of the working
people, robbing them of their
jobs, their homes,

The “B,C, Workers’ News”
commenced publication with a
clear cut policy of working class
struggle against the capitalist
and reformist demagogy that has
flooded the province of British
Columbia, particularly during the
last two years,” the paper an-
nounced in its first issue, “Our
program is to educate, agitate,
organize and lead the workers
and farmers of B,C,, men, women
and youth, against capitalism...”

Headlines told the story of the
misery inflicted by the depres-

sion: “Starving Woman in Vic-
toria Breaks Windows, Ar-
rested;” “Kamloops Boy Killed
Riding Freéight;” “Woods Good
Enough to Bury Unemployed,
says Coquitlam Reeve,”

But there were other headlines
telling of struggle—the struggle
of workers to organize against
low wages and speedup, the black-
list and intimidation; the struggle
of those who refused to submit
passively to policies that denied
them the right to work, stripped
them of dignity on the relieflines
and answered them with police
clubs when they protested,

“Halibut Fleet Out on Strike,
Fishermen Demand Living
Wage;” “West Vancouver Unem-
ployed Strikers Remain Solid;”
“Indians Want Equal Relief;”
“Police Terror Extends in Cor-
bin Mine Area” were a few ofthe
headlines in 1935,

And, in the July 5, 1935 issue,
the story of the On-To-Ottawa
Trek and the indelible blot on
Canada’s national day at Regina
is reported under the headlines:
“Bennett Launches New Wave of
Terror—Slave Camp Marchers,
Citizens Murderously Attacked
by Police During Peaceful Mass
Meeting.”

‘Iron Heel Bennett

That same year the Conserva-
tive government of Prime Minis-
ter R, B, Bennett was ousted from
office by an outraged electorate,
so completely discredited that it
was two decades before another
Conservative government was
returned to power at Ottawa.

But the freight trains cross-
_ ing the Rockies to B.C, were still
filled with homeless unemployed
men while Liberal governments

at Ottawa and Victoria passed.

the buck in answering their de-
mand for work and wages and
equally disclaimed responsibility
for feeding them,

Nor was the answer in Vancou-
ver any different in 1938 from

2

3* 687

TO WAR. It’s an historic picture of the great labor struggles
years as employers and the government sought to block the
life and union organization. This photo from the B.C. archives shows
flat car at Nanaimo when troops were called during the coal

HAL GRIFFIN was one of the
editors of the ‘‘COMMON-
WEALTH” and later assistant
editor of the ‘B.C. WORKERS
NEWS" and editor of the
“PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE” and
“THE ADVOCATE.” He was

also first editor of
PEOPLE.”

that given at Regina three years
earlier when, in a desperate bid
to focus attention on their plight,
the single unemployed occupied
the Post Office and Art Gallery
and staged a sitdown,

“THE

In its five and a half years of
publication, from January, 1935
to June, 1940, the “B,C, Workers’
News,” which became the
“People’s Advocate” on January
14, 1988 and “The Advocate” on
September 1, 1939, published only
one extra, That was on Monday,
June 20, 1938, the day after
RCMP and Vancouver city police
attacked the sitdowners in the
Post Office and Art Gallery,

The headlines in that issue
vividly recall Vancouver’s

:*Bloody Sunday?“ People Demand

Pattullo Quit,” they proclaimed.
“Police Teargas, Club Jobless—
35 Hurt in Police Attack on PO,
Gallery—30,000 at Dock as Boys
Go,”

But, secure in its legislative
majority, the Pattullo govern-
ment contrived to ride out the
storm of public anger, while
across two oceans events ma-
tured that were to change: the
course of world history,

From the outset, the “B,C,
Workers’ News” was the one clear
newspaper voice in this province
warning of the menace of fascism
and calling for collective inter-
national action to defeat it.

Against fascism

While the daily press defended
the rearming of Hitler’s Ger-
many and presented the appease-
ment of fascism as the means of
ensuring peace, the “B,C, Work-
ers’ News” advocated a policy
that stands the test of history,

No better example can be found
than that of the official civic
welcome given to the Nazi cruiser
“Karlsruhe” when it visited Van-
couver in March, 1935, The “ Van-
couver Sun” defended it as a
“friendly gesture” to the German
people, The “B.C, Workers’
News” called for demonstrations
to protest the horrors of the
Nazi concentration camps,

In 1936, when Franco’s insur-

* rection against the legally consti-

- See GRIFFIN, pg. 19
April 30, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7