FET LE AE RS SE AE SE ES SR ee ee ee

Let me tell
you this story...

By TRAN DANG KHOA
(11-year-old Vietnamese)

URS

ThaeGad now erin ers

And grinning happily.
We caught a lot of fish

Their eyes

Back from school,

“Last night,

An ugly eyesore.

Heavens!

The red-eyed eels,
Eeaugh!

This morning we went fishing

In the ponds on the edge of the village,

Beside lush green fields,

Where the rice plaited hair floated in the breeze,
And the bamboos stood with their arms

On each others’ shoulders,

Like little boys reading together.

The wind was riding over the fields,

Uncle Sun rode over the hilltop,

Looking cheerfully at us

And were in high spirits.
The crabs raised their pincers
In a salute to the ocean of rice.
The eels, sick for home, cried so much,
grew bloodshot.
And that catfish had been jumping so much—
‘Probably made a bad fall somewhere,
And got its head oddly flattened!
All of a sudden along the sandy path
Came a bevy of little girls,

Wearing protective plaited-straw helmets,
First aid kits slung over their shoulders,
Hoe in hand and red scarves
Blossoming on their chests
And quivering in the wind.

“What are you looking for?” we asked,
“A lost fountain pen? Or an inkpot?”

* they said,

“A Yank was shot down over our fields.
The milita took him away.
But he left his footprints on the sand:

‘The imprint of cruelty

And so we dug up the sand
And dumped it into the canal
At dawn, when the mist was still lingering.
We worked until the schoolbell rang,
But much of the spoor still remained,
And our friend kept dumping into the pond,
Ugly traces of the wicked man.”

We looked at each other dumbfounded!

The flat-headed crab fish,
The crabs with raised pincers,

Had all fed on those footprints.

Without exchanging a word, :

We threw them all into the water,

And returned home with our baskets empty
While the sparrows twittered approvingly.

*

r

Most city dwellers tenants,
must exert public pressure

By Ald. HARRY RANKIN

VANCOUVER — The rent
strike currently being conduct-
ed here by 1,500 Wall & Rede-
kop tenants is only one symp-
tom of a deep-going conflict de-
veloping in our society between
tenants and landlords. Involved
are some fundamental ques-
tions, including the acute hous-
ing shortage, unrestricted pro-
fiteering in rents, and granting
to tenants the legal right to
have some say in how much
they pay and what they get for
their money.

Our housing shortage is arti-
ficial and is being deliberately
maintained. There is absolutely

nothing to prevent the building -

of low rental housing on a large
scale — except the pressure of
real estate-landlord interests on
city, provincial and federal gov-
ernments. We have the money,
we have the skilled men, we
have the materials, but we
haven’t a government with
enough guts to stand up to the
real estate interests and start
building housing for people at
rents they can afford. This
situation won’t change until the
pressure of the people is great-
er than that of the real estate-
landlord interests.

What the Wall & Redekop
tenants are asking really isn’t
much. They haven’t asked for
rent controls as falsely alleged

by landlords and the daily
press. They have only asked
for the right to negotiate the
big increase Wall & Redekop is
trying to force down their
throats. But this arrogant land-
lord refuses to even talk to the
tenant organization. It wants
the tenants to come hat in hand,
one at a time, to be told to pay
up or get out.

The problem could and
should be handled by the Rent-
al Accommodation Grievance
Board established by City Coun-
cil some time ago. The trouble
is, though, that the Council is
under the domination of real
estate-landlord interests and is
scared to death to give the
Rental Grievance Board the
authority to look into rent in-
creases to see whether or not
they are justified. That is why
all Council members opposed
my motion to refer the Wall
& Redekop dispute to the
Board. :

What landlord-real estate in-
terests and our present council
refuse to recognize is that well
over half of Vancouver citizens
are now tenants. Their rights
can’t be denied forever.

Tenants are organizing and
are coming to Council in ever
greater numbers. Their needs
and requests will be granted if
they step up the pressure. They

deserve wholehearted support.

=
=

May Days in Montred|!

By ALAIN PATRIE

On May 1, 1946, the Soviet

Union towered victoriously over
the beaten pulp of Hitler fasc-
ism. Although champion over
one of the darkest forces of evil,
the world’s first socialist state
was terribly battered. The years
of war had tolled a plague of
devastation and_ destruction,
scorched earth and gutted cities,
flooded mines and burst dams,
far-flung chaos and about 30
million dead.
. In Moscow an emotional po-
pulace listened to Joseph Stalin
enunciate future Soviet policy.
No matter how history judges
the negative ‘aspects of the indi-
vidual, the positive stand out,
and his words ring with justifi-
able truth:

“There are no reasons to
doubt that the Soviet Union will
in future also remain true to its
policy of peace and security, its
policy of equality of rights and
friendship of people.”

* * *

On May 1, 1947 in Montreal,
a group of workers and their
representatives planned to celeb-
rate the day of labor with
speeches and activities directed
towards securing a lasting peace
in the world. The Communist
Party rented a hall for the oc-
casion and invited Montreal
councilman Mike Buhay to ad-
dress the group.

When the hour arrived, hun-
dreds upon hundreds of people
were turned away at the door.
Montreal’s “anti - subversive
squad” circled the building and
refused all entry.

In the melee that followed,
two persons were arrested for
distributing peace leaflets. Jean
Jennings and Mrs. Ann Gettlick.
They were destined to be among
the pathfinders for the hosts of
“peaceniks” that were to come.

In Lachute, the Ayers strike
involving the United Textile
Workers of America was being
broken and Madeleine Parent
was arrested that day.

* “* *

On May:1, 1948 Montreal was
witness to the persecution of
Fred Rose. The frigid darkness
of terror, intimidation and reac-
tion crept over the Canadian
landscape.

* * *

On May 1, 1949 Quebec was
rocked with the dictatorial ukase
of the fascist-minded Maurice
Duplessis. The striking town of
Asbestos was sealed off from the
world by provincial police who
wrought their own private venge-
geance against working men
who sought to improve their
condition. And on that very
same day Humphrey Mitchell
addressed the working people of
the country and told them that
“Communism is the greatest
menace to organized labor”!

* * *
_ On May 1, 1950 Montreal was
inundated with leaflets urging
solidarity against “the selfish
brutal men who are conspiring
to turn worker against worker.”

The leaflet called on Montreal-
ers to join in staying the hands
of the “atom maniacs”. The
leaflets were in three languages,
French, English and Yiddish. It
highlighted 4 points:

e Call on the UN to outlaw
the atom bomb;

e Declare the first government
to drop the bomb a war criminal
before mankind;

@ Sign a pact of
tween the Big Five;

_® Trade with socialist count-
rl€s so as to provide jobs.

The leaflet was endorsed by

peace be-

Day parade

ETERNAL VIGILANCE-[3 THE PRIGE.OF.

the Communists of Canada.

That same day Leo Hardy was
arrested by Montreal anti-sub-
versive squad who implemented
a little -known by-law 1025,
article 8, which states that no
one can display an emblem in
public without police permis-
sion. Mr. Hardy was trying to
stage a peace relay race from
Montreal to Toronto. His emb-
lem was a torch!

Hardy, member of the Youth
Assembly for Peace, planned to
protest his arrest to the Hon.
Lester B. Pearson, Canada’s
Minister of External Affairs and
subsequent winner of a Nobel
Peace Prize.

x * *

On May 1, 1955 Montreal had
endured five years of hectic
struggle which had engulfed
McCarthy, seen the judicial
murder of Julius and Ethel Ro-
senberg, witnessed increasing
struggle for unionism among the
workers and portents of grow-
ing prosperity among the social-
ist countries.

Innocuous headlines in the
daily papers on that day took
note that Bao Dai, emperor of
Vietnam, was cavorting in Paris
when he was overthrown by
Ngo Dinh Diem.

* * *«

On May 1, 1960 the eyes and
ears of Montrealers turned south
to watch the boisterous May
in a Caribbean
country called Cuba. Workers in
Quebec heard with amazement
that an estimated 3,000,000
Cubans flocked into Havana to
hear Fidel Castro voice their
destiny and assert that hence-
forward the working people of
Cuba would manage their own
affairs.

In the province itself, the
“quiet revolution” was put in
motion. S

* * *k

On May 1, 1965 Montrealers
were awakened to a shuddering
blast which marked the blowing
up of the U.S. consulate. Univer-

poe

iv
sity students and es
alleged to be inv?

On the very ’§
President Lyndo gg
vaded Santo Domine ig
minican Republi¢ .g

. marines. John
saying: “Our 1! sil
are at stake.” At oy

in
he increased forces ra

existed betwee?
tical activists anc
labor. The CN pay
role in the May “4
* 1,191 {
On May }:
echoed to the marc
close to 5,000 a
rating in a S$. fr
May ay solidarity ste
green and sum ney f
Mount Royal _ihoft!
through the malM “i
of the metropolis, 18
ners and singin& gent f
Unionists, stv as!
activists an@ “14¢ d0
poured through Ji
streets of the © repro
Quebec was ce a
! if
Pney shouted thet i
the California eset
chorused siml@’ ors. © |
the Lapalme stilt inl
ried banners den ott
and an end to 4 tne
ty. They declare for be
one in the fight ane
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Three major
in the van, the
and the CE
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the Canadian
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in Brussels,
The circle
' 1946 was a