Now hear
this eee

Problems of a peace petit-
‘ioner — A man who was out

on the streets of Vancouver
last Saturday asking people
to sign an appeal addressed
to MPs for the stopping of
all atomic tests reported this
story to us.

A watery-eyed and some-
what testy individual stopped
to ask him what he was col-
lecting signatures for. He
handed the man his list and
explained what he was doing
and why. The testy individual
read the appeal and snorted.
“Young man,” he said, fum-
bling for his handkerchief,
“tf you would get out a
petition to stop the common
cold, you’d be doing humanity
a great service.”

x * x

It used to be said, quite

inaccurately, that two could

live as cheaply as one. The
trouble with this reasoning
was that the average worker
was never paid enough to
keep two decently — and
certainly not three or four
or more. And in this decade
-of inflated living costs, when
many wives are compelled
to go out to work, even two
people are frequently unable
to keep abreast of their needs.

All of which makes it sur-
prising that Vancouver City
Hall Employees Association
should have sent a letter to
Vancouver City Hall asking
the city not to hire married
women.

Doesn’t the Trades and
Labor Congress oppose dis-
crimination against married
women? And what about
organized labor’s responsibil-
ity for upholding the equal
right of all women, single and
married, to a job if they want
one ?

* * *

The refrigerators in the
U.S. State Department are
working overtime to offset
the thaw in the cold war, and

maybe that explains this item.

Vodka is becoming a most
popular drink in the United
States. But some Americans,
so they say, have been so —
conditioned by 10 years of
cold war propaganda that
they hesitate to buy it because
they regard it as a Russian
drink. So now one company
is wording its advertising this
way: “Insist on the plutoc-
ratic capitalist type of
vodka.”

’ But isn’t the martini an
American drink ?
x * x

A report from Victoria
says that a modern diving rod
called the “electronic witch”
was demonstrated before of-
ficials of the provincial pur- ,
chasing commission on the
lawn of the legislative build-
ings. Government officials
said the device would aid
many departments.

It’s just as well the “elec-
tronic witch” is intended to
detect metal, not water.
Otherwise the Liquor Control
Board would be rushing to
buy it.

OPEN FORUM

Protests Robeson ban

ROY REID, Saskatoon: The St.
Laurent government has banned
Paul Robeson’s singing tour in
Canada, a concert trip which
was to have begun this month.

A struggle is being carried on
by American Negroes against the
“jimecrow” laws of the southern
states. Is there any connection
between the Ottawa ban on
Robeson’s singing and the Negro
Struggle against ‘“jimcrow”’?
Does our government still fol-
low the policy of integrating
our Canadian foreign policy with
the U.S. foreign policy? If there
is no connection, why should we
ban a concert tour by a famous
American artist?

On this continent we are still
suffering from the after-effects
of chattel slavery. One , group
is the victim of an inferiority
complex: The'other suffers from
a superiority complex.

Bad. as it no doubt is, the in-
feriority compléx does not car-
ry within it the same demoraliz-
Ing, corrupting effect that a
superiority complex has on the
mentality of people. The child-

ren of the slave owners were .

left with. a worse and longer
lasting blight than the slaves
themselves got out of it. Where
human rights are concerned the
whites of the south are still
cursed with abnormal habits of
thought. ;

Someone once wrote:

“Ye are slaves, base slaves in-

* deed,

Slaves unworthy to be freed,

If ye do not feel the chain

When it works another pain.”

What about the right of free
speech? What about the rights
of those Canadians who want to
hear Paul Robeson sing?

If the federal government
wanted the Canadian people to
stop, listen and pay attention
to what left-wingers, reds and
communists tell them, the au-
thorities could scarcely have
done anything more calculated
to bring about just such a re-
sult, than to bar the proposed
tour of Paul Robeson.

Is not this decision on the
part of the department of citi-
zenship and immigration, evi-
dence of an infantile disorder in
their thinking apparatus ?

The Canadian people should
make an organized protest to the
government against the banning
of Robeson. We should compel
our servants at Ottawa to re-
verse their decision.

Was it Liberal meet?g

G.H.H., Vancouver, B.C.: I
attended an Old Age Pensioners
meeting last week and the first
thing on the agenda was a pic-
ture of Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Good grief! And pensioners —
many of them — are living in
one badly furnished room,
friendless and not wanted, wait-
ing for the end. ‘ :

Some cards were left for pros-:

pective customers to fill out
and send in. I think it is the
most ghastly idea to place be-
forg us elderly folk. Things are
coming to a nice pass when we
are solicited to pick our graves.
What cheap advertising!

I am a retired nurse, 88 years
young, going strong after an ac-
cident three years ago this De-
cember. I was run over twice
by a bus while en route to a
Labor Ghoir practice — but I’m
still singing and happy.

On cult of individual

ELAINE JOHNSON, Vancou-
ver, B.C.: In this “re-evaluation”
of Stalin and his policies, let it
not be forgotten that whether
it- was because or in spite of
Stalin, a socialist society has
been created, and in 30-odd
years has accomplished myriads
of wonderful achievements.

It may be a “shock” to the
Soviet people, but such honest
criticism of their dead leader’s
policies is necessary, particu-
larly for all others who play an
important part in establishing a
society that has the wellbeing of
the whole human family at
heart.

And in no capitalist country.

is such “re-evaluation” probable
or possible.

What of our own policies?
What impression do they make
upon the Asians who must now
be more considered, now that
they are no longer “backward”?
What do they think of “Christi-
anity” when we gloat and cheer
when the USSR criticizes its
rulers, past and present, for
failures and mistakes — but
threaten them when they make
comments on past policies of our
rulers, policies which caused
world disasters?

The re-evaluation of social-
ism’s past leaders should be no
surprise to anyone for, even
if it takes many years, all evils
and mistakes will be revealed
and re-evaluated to the benefit

of all concerned, and there will
never be any Capones, Lucianos
or Mulligans able to operate
without being punished.

The fact that re-evaluation
and purging are’ part of the
USSR’s policies, is just another
example why socialism is the
society that represents all walks
of life, another proof that no

one’s mistakes or crimes go un-
punshed or uncriticised in a
socialist society. There is no pre-
tending to be the perfect society
(Christianity), only a striving
to create the perfect society.

And as God has promised just
such a society “on earth as in
Heaven” I only hope that He
doesn’t permit the meanness and
ignorance, that now inspires
them, to snuff out the lives of
such people as Philpott, Weir,
Sheean and Roberts and other
hypocritical “scribes and phar-
isees” before it is His will for
the poor people of every land to
take over their country and run
it for the benefit of everyone. I
hope He permits them to live
long enough to receive the just
punshment when their people’s
government “re-evaluates” their
past opposition to the people’s
wishes and needs.

e There is a letter at our of-
fice addressed: to Elaine
Johnson. Kindly send your
address and we will forward
it to you.

PATTERN-MAKING FOR PEACE

THAT WEDDING!

Not only Monaco will
breathe sigh of relief

N these final days of our
Grace (Miss Kelly is to be Her
Serene Highness as of Wednes-
day this week) there is only one
topic to try and forget: the mar-
riage. THAT marriage.

But as almost every organ of,

influencing public opinion seems
intent on keeping the subject
before our eyes we make no
apologies for weighing in with
our own profile of the Groom
of the Moment—Prince Rainier
qs :

Of medium height, with a
smooth face running to chub-
biness, Rainier may not be
everybody’s idea of Prince
Charming. But he still has
plenty to commend himself to
the average hard-working mil-
ionairess.

When Rainier took over as
Monaco’s ruler in 1949 the
gambling boys of the pocket
state predicted happy days a-
head. His grandfather had cared
little for the fortunes of the cas-
ino—save to collect his steady
$300,000 a year income from it.

But the young prince, on the
other hand, had what passed for
a modern outlook in the million-
aires’ summer-in-winter play-
ground. More precisely that
means he enjoys the good things
in life... and runs a fleet of fast
ears, a yacht and a private zoo
just to prove it.

Well, he did liven things up a
bit. Almost from the moment
Rainier took sole charge of the
290 rooms in the royal house-
hold Monaco was beset with fin-
ancial difficulties.

The Casino tottered on the
brink of disaster until Greek
shipping millionaire Aristotle
Onassis took over. One of the
banks in which Rainier had a
vital interest went bust. Cabinet

FoR Years HE HAD ME BELIEVING THAT HIS UNION
WOULDN T LET HIM DO HOUSEWoREK.

ministers were dismissed. Fric-
tion was reported between Rain-
ier-and Onassis.

x x *

The wedding of course, comes
as an immense relief not only to
the 33-year-old prince, but also
to a large section of the popula-
tion,

A bachelor prince wouid have
left no heir, and under the pre-
sent constitution that means:
Monaco would no longer func-
tion as an indepertient state.

If that had come about the
existing no tax, no death duties,
and no conscription laws would
have ended and the state come
under French rule.

So Ranier was more or less
duty bound to take a wife—al-
though the financial syndicates;
which are the real power in the
four square miles of the princi-
pality, did not want just any old
marriage.

Because of these demands
Ranier broke off his romance
with the French actress Gisele
Pascal in 1952 after a friendship
which had lasted five years.

The semi-official explanation
for the end of the romance was
that Miss Pascal had no royal
blood, an explanation which
overlooked the fact that the
prince’s grandfather had mar-
ried an actress without any com-
plaints being made.

So great became the wedding
clamor that last October the
prince was forced to take the
undignified course of broadcast-
ing to the population on the sub-
ject.

“The question of my mar-
riage,” he declared, “which
rightly preoccupies you, inter-
ests me, believe me, just as much
and more.” :

At that time Miss Kelly was
already being mentioned as #
prospective wife. In March Ra-
nier had conducted her round
his private zoo. Miss Kelly wa
suitably impressed. Father Tuck-
er, the cheerful grey eminence ©
the Monaco court, gave his O.B:

The hoteliers rubbed the?
well-groomed hands with glee:
This was a romance with an Un
questionable cash-register ring:
And the publicity which has fol-
lowed the announcement of the
wedding is surely proof of the}¥
point.

So this Wednesday, when the —
Hollywood actress, daughter ©
an Irish-American millionaité
becomes the wife of the 15t#
cousin of Queen Elizabeth, thé
hoteliers might well murmur:
“There by the grace of Kelly
goes our bank balance.”

Miss Kelly’s father had some”
what ambiguously remarked!
“She went over there to make ®
picture called Catch a Thief and
look what she came back witb-
There doesn’t seern much we c4?
add to that.

APRIL 20, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4