_ makers or

' footnotes to

N SUNDAY, January 5,

I went to see my old

friend and comrade, Wil-

liam Z. Foster whom I have

known since 1909, or nearly
50 years.

We first met during the
free speech fight waged by
the Industrial Workers of
the World in Spokane,
Washington, where we were
both in jail. Over the inter-
vening years, I recalled,
while driving .up the East
River Drive to his Bronx

paigns he led which first
organized the packing
house industries and the
great steel plants, which led
to the gigantic 1919 strike;
his many trips to study the
labor and socialist move-

residence, the famous cam- -

ments abroad; and _ his
countléss trips across the
United States to speak and
organize during the hectic
days of the Trade Union
Educational League, which
made a major contribution
to laying the foundation for
the CIO, followed by his 37
years of activity in leader-
ship of the U.S. Commu-
nist party.

A pioneer, a fighter, an
organizer, now laid low as
he approaches his 77th
birthday on February 26—
by a major stroke in Octo-
ber 16 of last year, which
paralyzed him on one side.

“Well, my old _ friend,
what are you doing here?”
I said, as I entered his
pleasant sunlit room and

WILLIAM: Z. FOSTER

approached his bed to greet
him.

His eyes twinkled and he
said, “Isn’t this a hell of a
way to be?”

He speaks distinctly now
though at first he told me
he had great difficulty. He
is amazingly forthright and
impersonal about his own
condition, viewing his prob-
lems with a scientific de-
tatchment. ‘He realizes it
was a miracle he did not
die and faces his present

weak -and comparatively
helpless state with . great
poise.

TY. eee

Little by little, inch by
inch, step by step, a few

minutes at a time, he is

Semi-paralyzed at 77 Foster battles for recovery |

learning slowly to stand on
his feet, to walk again, te

use his fingers and his arm. |

He showed me with pride
how he can raise his arm 4
little and move his hand
and how he can move his
leg again, a little. It is eX
hausting but he keeps at it —
_I know I spoke for thou-
sands of plain workers 45
well as his comrades
throught the country when
I said, “Bill, we’re all pull-
ing for you to get well.”
With the same indomit-
able courage and optimism
that characterizes him in
every way, he said serenely
with a big’smile, “I’l] make
it all right, Elizabeth!”

N
ELIZABETH G. FLYN

MRS. E. M. T. of Langley
writes us enclosing and com-
menting upon two letters
written by an R. H. Lloyd
to the newly established Al-
dergrove Herald. It would be
pointless to publish her let-
ter without also publishing
R. H. Lloyd’s letters and space
limitations preclude this. How-
ever, as Mrs. E. M. T. points
out, R. H. Lloyd makes some
telling points in his’ letters.

In the first, he says: “Wheth-
er we have war or peace de-
pends on who in the near fu-
ture is going to control ‘Sci-
ence, whether it’s the peace-
the war-makers.”

In the second, commenting
on freedom of the press, he

writes: “The literary style
of journalism needs rehabili-
tation. Editorial domination

seems to be the order of the
day. A free press doesn’t add
correspondents’
letters — ‘the opinions ex-
pressed are those of the writ-
ers. Most papers are para-
doxically anti-labor and out
of tune with the shape of things
to come and posterity.”

One of our prolific corres-
pondents, L.A, of Vancouver,
writes to point out that Tom
McEwen erred in his quota-
tion of Coue’s jingle in a re-
cent column. He says it should
have been, “Every day in
every way I am getting bet-
ter and better.” And he won-
ders if the song, “Let’s have
another cup of coffee and let’s
have another piece of pie,”
which also came out of the

Hungry Thirties, was not
worse even than Coue.
Dr. Pei Wen-chung, dis-

coverer of Peking Man, has
been elected an honorary fel-
low of Britain’s Royal Anthro-
pological Institute.

O OUR children a trip to
the moon is as possible as
trans-Atlantic crossing. This
new world heralded by Sput-
nik’s “beep-beep” is theirs.
It’s a fine, expansive, unlim-

ited world. But as I looked at

my nephew I wondered just
what kind of world we will
hand on to these space-eager
youngsters.

“There is a gigantic grey
mushroom-shaped shadow that
puffs ominously .over the
world and two words, “radio-
active fallout,’ menace the
future of our children and our
children’s children. Even the
scientists cannot agree to what
extent fallout from. nuclear
explosions will affect the fu-
ture. But they do agree that
the results wil be harmful.
Like most citizens I am ap-
prehensive and confused.

“But as a doctor I do know

two things and I feel I should
speak out as we enter 1958. I
know, first of all, that the
greatest defeat a woman can
realize is to produce a child
that is maimed in body or
mind. A stillbirth, an infertile
couple are tragedies, but an
abnormal baby is a defeat

-that staggers a woman’s cour-

age and betief.” (Then fol-
lows the story of a woman who
bore an imperfectly formed
baby after nineteen years of
childless marriage; and of Dr.
Marion’s duty to break the
news.)

Today, at the beginning of
a new year and a new era,
there is a great danger that
this terrible story may be mul-
tiplied thousands of times for
our children and our child-

ren’s children. We know today

that any radioactive force re-
acts on human genes and

3004-49 Women must act as
AEE guardians of life

changes them . . .The possi-
bility of more abnormal babies
being born in the future is in-
creased then by radio-active
fallout from nuclear bombs
and missile warheads.

The second thing I know as
a doctor is that we never X-
ray a pregnant woman unless
it is absolutely necessary ...
in the full knowledge of the
potential danger to the unborn
child.

It seems to me pathetic and
stupid that we should take
such great care that individ-
ual, unborn children are not
harmed by radiation from X-
rays, and at the same time,
the world powers go on ex-
ploding bomb after bomb with
who knows what untold disas-
ter for future generations.

“T think it’s time the wom-
en of the world — the whole
world, east and west—should
rise up and say: “It’s time
to stop. Let there be no more
use of weapons which will let
loose radioactive power in this
world. My child, all the chil-
dren of the world, should
have a chance to start life
as sound in body and mind
as is possible.”

As women we are the bear-
ers and guardians of life. The
world of the future doesn’t be-
long to us. It belongs to my
nephew and your daughter
and all the rest of the children
who take for granted its lim-
itless possibilities. We have
no right to contaminate it or
damage it — or let anyone
else damage it. :

It is our responsibility to
protect it for the future.

DR. MARION HILLIARD
vice-president of the
International Federation
of Medical Women, in
Chatelaine.

OPEN FORUM

Ultimate in advertising

W. WILKINSON, Langley,
B.C.: We now have the ulti-
mate in capitalist advertising!

Last Sunday, January 26,
at 10 p.m. on CBC-TV an ex-
periment in advertising by the
use of mass hypnotism was
tried out on a program called
Close Up.

As might be expected, it’s
an American idea — the cap-
tive audience apparently is
still not sufficiently captive
—and it has been tried out
successfully in promoting the
sales of Coca-Cola. By using
mass hypnotism to suggest
thirst, sales are reported to
have increased 18 percent in
a four-week period.

I gather that attempts are
to be made here, as in the U.S.
to legalize this form of ad-
vertising. The super corpora-
tions, having sickened their
audiences with their TV ad-
vertising, are now looking for
more insidious ways of boost-
ing their super profits.

If this becomes legal, how
long will it be before Social
Credit siarts using it to con-
vince us that contingent lia-
bilities are not public debt?

The only consolation is that
it will take more than m2
hypnotism to keep the Beh =
neit government in office D&
fore long. ©

The greater fear
BERYL WHEELDON, Sau”
mish, B.C.: Are we expecte™
tg accept with mere protest
the statement that U.S. plane
flying over our heads may
carrying nuclear weapons?
All organizations should de-
mand that the government také
immediate action to put a sto?
to such unfriendly acts,
which a plane crash migh
cause a major disaster to OW
people and prove the trigee!
to a war of world annihilation
If the planes in questio?®
were those of a socialist cou”,

try the outcry would be te! |

rific. It would be considere
an “incident”. of
gravity to justify that “prink
of war” attitude of which Joh?
Foster Dulles is so fond. :

Yet there are many Canad
ans with far greater fear °
the imperialist aims of th®
United States, and with £4!

more obvious cause, as is now |

proven.

LEVEN years ago UBC’s
E anthropology museum
consisted of a collection of
South Pacific materials
housed in a library filing
room. Today the museum’s
displays could fill more than
one entire floor of the lib-
rary building. :

For the
summer all the Northwest
Coast

Centennial this

material available,

And still it’

from secret society masks ~

s too small

to totem poles, will be on
display.

Space is still a big prob-
lem facing the museum,
however. Only one-fifth of
its material can be shown.
More room is also necessary ~
for teaching, which is now
carried on in a corner of the
display room, although the
museum is the _ training
ground for anthropologists

in

sufficient {

.

J

and students planning car-
eers in museum work.

‘

January 31, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAG