Guide to :
good reading

LTHOUGH its. material is
based on figures for the year
1943, Who Owns Canada, a book-:
let by Watt Hugh McCollum,
published by Woodsworth Pub-
Nshers, and available at the
People’s Cooperative Bookstore
in Vancouver, contains some
very useful information as to
Canada’s financial setup, of par-
ticular interest in these days
of increasing inflation, profit-
eering and threatening depres-
sion.

Listing Canada’s Yifty Big
Shots, McCollum shows their
gross assets, their total director-
ates and many pertinent facts
about them. Two of the fifty
only are Vancouverites, Col. W.
E. Hamber, who is described as
a financier, with directorates in
ten different companies giving
him gross assets amounting to
approximately two and half bil-
lion dollars, and the B.C. Elec-
tric’s W. H. Murrin, who is
reported to have 24 directorates
and be worth about one and
three-quarter billion dollars.

In food industries, McCollum
shows that seventy ‘percent of
total capita employed in the
meat packing and slaughtering
industry in Canada is account-
ed for by two corporations, Can-
ada, Packers Ltd. and Burns and
Company. ,

“Canada Packers Ltd. with
gross assets of $46,719,485, has
shown a net average profit on
invested capital of 12.17 percent,
and some of its subsidiary com-
panies have shown net profits
as high as 23.67 percent on in-
vested capital during the time
when farmers had to sell their
hogs and cattle to this company
below the cost of production,”
McCollum states. “Canada Pack-
ers has set aside depreciation
reserves each year at such a
high rate that’ the entire cost
of the plant and other physical
assets have been paid for. The
producers and consumers have
more than paid for the plant;
the company owns and operates
it at a nice profit.” All this,
and ‘then we were asked to pay
$1.10 a pound for bacon or
ham,

There are a few interesting
items ‘about our local depart-
ment store, Woodwards Ltd,
which probably are not generally
-known to Vancouver people. It
is the fifth largest department
store company in Canada, and
is also a family owned corpora-
tion whose president, Hon, W.
C. Woodward, is also a direc-
tor of the Royal Bank of Can-
‘ada and Union Steamships Ltd.

‘ There are chapters in Who
Owns Canada on most of our
industries, chemicals, metals,
food, clothing and shelter, and
the figures are astounding. Al-
together it is a most useful
booklet to have on hand when
trying to find out why we have
pay so much for so little

to so few.

* * *

Vancouver members of the
Book Union will in future be
able to pick up their monthly
choice from the People’s Coop-
erative Bookstore without hav-
ing to fill in a form and wait
for it to comt from Toronto.
Arrangements are nearly com-

plete whereby all selections for
the Book Union will be sent to
the Bookstore and forwarded
from there to members in this
province. oe
First selection for this month,
to be available shortly, will be
Darshan Singh Sangha’s book,
Rise of the New Asia—KAY
‘ERICKSON.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1948

O

Poison in
your

by
DYSON
CARTER

NE of the most sensational scandals of modern food science has just hit the medi-
cal world like an atom bomb. It concerns food that everybody eats, white bread
and other bakery products containing white flour. For 25 years the white flour

used in America, Canada and Britain has been treated with gas called nitrogen tri-
chloride. This gas is known to the milling industry by the trade name “agene.” As

the name hints, agene is used
to “age” flour artificially, while
bleaching it.

"Why age flour? So the huge
bakeries of the food monopolists
can mass-produce bread more
cheaply. Flour treated with
agene is very “stable” and al-
ways gives the same kind of
bread. +

But the giant millers and bak-
ers have used agene -in white
flour for other reasons. Not to
improve the food value. But to

give a bigger loaf of bread for

the same amount of flour. And
to give softer bread, with a’
silky White appearance. In other
words, this gas was put into

flour for purposes of advertis-

ing to give bread that could be
“put over with the public’ for
its size and looks, with no re-
gard of its nutritional value.

In all “these 25 years,
tists have raised no objections

to the use of agene, even though
many food experts strongly con-
demned white flour for its very
low vitamin value in comparison
with whole wheat and other

flours.
e i

HE bomb of scandal was

touched off last year by the
famous English researcher. Sir
Edward Mellanby. Dr. Mellan-
by and his wife are world re-
nowned for the work they have
done to improve the health of
the people by proper feeding. In
1946 Dr. Mellanby announced a
shocking discovery. He said he
had proved that the gas lagene
was a deadly poison. :

His tests were made on dogs.
He simply fed them food made
from flour that was treated
with agene. The brains and ner-

scien-

-developed serious

yous systems of the dogs were
profoundly affected. The dogs
“mental”  ill-
ness. They became victims of
canine hysteria and then were
seized by convulsions similar to

epileptic fits.

Naturally, this report created
much alarm. At once a whole
array of American scientists and
official research centers took up
the matter. Their studies. have
just been released by the Am-
erican Medical Association, with
permission of the U.S. Army
Surgeon General.

American scientists, verify
everything Dr. Mellanby found
and more. Agene causes violent

mental and nervous. distur-
bance in dogs. It affects the
muscles, too, bringing general

weakness: Similar terrible effects
were noted in monkeys and cats.

Symptoms not only resemble
epileptic fits but  brain-wave
tests show the animals to have
suffered serious brain damage.
These effects can be quickly no-
ticed if the animals are fed
flour products treated with
large amounts of agene. Lesser
amounts of the gas produce the
symptoms slowly. But dogs fed
standard  white-flour bread,
such as the vast majority of
people eat every day, develop
fits in two to six weeks.

Of course the scientists im-
mediately made tests on human
beings. They found that we are
not so+sensitive to agene. Ob-
viously not, or else we would
long ago have been turned into
a nation of gibbering idiots!

But the scientists and doctors
are badly alarmed. The press
and radio has hushed up the
whole scandal for the time be-

‘ing, or have given out a twist-

ed version of the: reports. What
is the truth?

HE studies have been made
‘by 11. outstanding scientists,
including top Army and univer-
sity biologists and noted psychi-
atrists. These men unanimously
point out that certain diseases,
in human beings, have been rap-
idly increasing over the past 25
years. They appeal for an im-
mediate study program to find
out if 25 years of eating more
and more poisoned bread, cake
and pies has been responsible
for the rise of certain baffling
diseases.

The scientists point especially
to ulcers (duodenal), forms of
sclerosis, that are killing hun-
dreds of thousands, and the

grave form of insanity called .

schizophrenia. At the same time
they discuss the serious rise of
“allergy” diseases, now afflicting
tens of millions, and call for
hurried tests on agene-poisoned
flour as a possible cause of al-
lergic reactions.

What are we to conclude from
these amazing disclosures? —

First, there is no cause for
panic. White flour products are
clearly not quick-acting poisons
for human beings. But quite
part from the menace of agene,
which is still being used by the
entire milling and baking indus-
try, it is sensible to switch to
eating whole wheat bread, brown

breads and rye breads. The nu-
tritional value of such breads
is much higher than that of
white flour products.

Second, this scandal is a gilar-
ing exposure of the monopolized
milling industry in our “free
enterprise” countries. The stu-
pendous profits of mass produc-
ed flour and bread have been
piled up absolutely without re-
gard without regard for human
nutritional needs, .and solely by
increasing the sale of cheaper,
less nutritional foods.

A home of
‘hot jazz

Be average passerby might

not know it, but that unas-
suming record shop in the 5700
block of Oakland's Grove Street
is an institution.

Although the Yerba Buena
Music Shop stocks elassical al-
bums, and commercial, popular
and folk music records, its spe-
cialty is Hot Jazz, and it’s
known to jazz fans all over
the world.

Pretty, brunette Vivian Boar-
man, who, with her husband
Ray, opened the shop 18 months
ago, has become recognized as:
an authority on jazz.

How did Mrs. Boarman be-
come interested in jazz?

“That's not hard to explain,”
she smiled. “I just got a chance
to hear some of it: Louis Arm-
strong’s ‘Tight -Like This.’ I al-
ways had liked musie that was
an honest expression of human
emotion, that was well thought-
out and technically well per-
formed. I found that good jazz
has all those qualities, It re-
quires keen listening, and an

_@ar for musical development and

form, but then so does cham-
ber music. And jazz can ‘
as much to you emotionally as
Brahms or Beethoven — perhaps
more, because it's the product
of our own times.”

Pure jazz, she added, might be
defined as the musie style de-
veloped about 30 years ago in
the free and easy eity of New
Orleans: Brass bands were a
traditional part of every cele-
bration, picnic and dance, and
parades were common.

“Negroes, having access for
the first time to white man's
instruments, used them to sing
on, you might say, and trans-
ferred to these instruments their
earlier work songs, spirituals and
blues. 3

Are Negroes, then, the only
good performers of jazz?

Mrs. Boarman frowned. “I
don’t believe there is the slght-
est basis for such a statement.
Persons other than Negroes can
and have mastered jazz tech-
nique. Bix Beiderbecke, for one,
was tremendously expressive and
technically proficient, as is
Muggsy Spanier — both white
cornetists. So is Turk Murphy,
the fine young trombonist with
Lu Watters band. And there is
a white pianist, Bert Bales, play-

ing in San Francisco, who is _

undoubtedly one of the best jazz
Pianists I’ve ever heard. And
there are dozens of others,” _

ee Pane
Is any real jazz being played
today? ‘
She replied promptly. “Of
course. Kid Ory is at Blanko’s
in San Francisco’ right _ now,
with one of the best jazz bands
there ever was. And for a dif-
ferent style, there’s Lu Waters’
fine band in El. Cerrito, Recent-
ly we had the Frisco Jazz Band
in Oakland, es ne
“And there’s a group of y
white musicians in New" Tore
led by Sidney Bechet’s pupil,

Bob Wilbur. Plenty of musicians _

would still like to play jazz the
way they feel it. For the most
part they can’t because the com-
mercial market for jazz is still
limited, even more so than the
market for folk music, a0
“But the situation is imp¥Foving.
Louis Armstrong was in town in
December with a mixed all-star
band, playing jazz. Eddie Con-
don’s ‘Dixieland’ groups have
been standard entertainment
fare around New York’s 52nd
Street for years.:And the small
recording companies are bringing
out lots of currently recorded
jazz; it’s still being played. Jazz
has never really died; it’s been
going on all the time. 3

TRIBUNE—PAGE 1.

PACIFIC

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