“Yadio broacast

By SEAN GRIFFIN

They came from centres all over

€province, filling the auditorium

Capacity, and even as they took
their Seats to hear the memorial
tributes, it was clear that the man
Whom they had come to honor had
left a vivid mark on the province’s

tory — a history that the
Communist Party, which Nigel
Morgan had led for 32 years, had

he much to make.

For nearly an hour before last
Saturday’s memorial, they had
Waited to add their names to the
long list in the book: old friends
Tom the trade union movement
who had known Nigel from his
years as district secretary and
International board member of the
nternational Woodworkers of

erica; comrades in the Com-
Munist Party, whose numbers

_Spanned. four generations; high

School students to whose classes he

ad been a frequent visitor and
lecturer; and scores of friends and
neighbors who, even if they could
Not share his political views or his
Way of doing things, had been
Impressed by this man whose
warm, friendly manner had made

m familiar to working people

_ Wherever he went.

From those who could not attend,
there were telegrams and letters —
from the Communist Party
Committees throughout the

Country, from the Young Com-

Munist League, from the African
National Congress in Vancouver,
the Finnish Organization of
Canada and the Washington State
branch of the CPUSA whose
leaders Nigel had come to know
Over years of common struggle.

All of those who turned out in his
Memory at Templeton Auditorium
and the many more who could not
attend, remembered Nigel Morgan
aS a man whose life had been

inextricably linked with that of his.

native province where he was
born, on Galiano Island, on Sep-

tember 11, 1913, And it was the. *
Province’s main industry — the
wood industry — which first

brought him
movement.
“Tt was during the stormy years
of the 1930’s that most of us met
Nigel” said Maurice Rush, who
Succeeded Nigel as provincial
Communist leader on_ his
retirement last October. ‘And it
was during those years that Nigel,
together with other comrades in
the wood industry — Hjalmar
Bergren, Ernie Dalskog, Harold
Pritchett and more — led the first
Strike struggles which resulted in
the first collective agreements of
B.C. wood workers.” ;
From his first initiation into the
A in 1937, in Victoria, Nigel soon
Won the confidence and respect of
woodworkers. In 1938, a year later,
€ was elected secretary of
District Number 1 of the IWA, a
Position that was followed later
With election to the post of in-
ternational board member of the
union. Over the same years, his
“Green Gold,”
Sponsored by Dr. L. Douglas,
Came a familiar feature for
trade unionists and others listening
to CJOR.

into the labor

The leadership which won his
esteem from woodworkers also
found a response in the councils of
labor and in 1945, a year after he

ad been named -as IWA
Tepresentative on the Canadian

Ongress of Labor’s Political
Action Committee, he was one of
Six Canadian delegates to attend

€ World trade Union Congress in
= ndon, the historic meeting of
pas labor which led utlimately to
me establishment of the World

€deration of Trade Unions.
A ut it was in the leadership of the
~ommunist Party whose ranks he
Jomned,in 1936, that Nigel left his
Steatest impression. ‘Nigel had
€n member of the Cooperative
(ocnonwealth Federation
F),” Bill Kashtan, general

Secretary of the Communist Party,

Be

ed fo.

on provi

He left a vivid mark
nce's history

ae

: Morgan (right) and Tim Buck sign copies of this photo that was given out during the 1947
reeene Ooo. BOTTOM: Provincial Communist Party leader Maurice Rush delivers his tribute at the
memorial meeting Saturday in the Templeton Auditorium.

noted in paying tribute. ‘But he
recognized that the aims of the
CCF were limited to reforms
within the captialist system.

“He joined the Communist Party
as the party of socialism,”
Kashtan said. ‘‘And when he
joined, he joined for life.”

In the same year — 1945 — that
he was elected provincial
secretary of the labor-Progressive
party, which, in 1943, had inherited
the traditions of the Communist
Party, he contested the seat of
Comox-Alberni as a labor can-
didate backed by trade unions
throughout the Albernia Valley and
the LPP. The 4,600 votes he
commanded — equalling those of
CCF candidate Tom Barnett whose
party had refused to participate in
a unity campaign — were a
measure of the stature he brought
to the position of LPP leader.

Yet if he came to the leadership
with a wealth of experience in the
labor movement, he also came in
troubled times. ‘“‘Nigel was elected
to the leadership at a difficult time
in the history of the party,”
Kashtan recalled in his address.
“Tt: was the time when the former
leader, Fergus McKean, was at-
tacking the LPP as guilty of op-

portunism.”’ :
They were difficult times, too,
for the entire progressive

movement as the cold war forces
had already been entrenched
behind the peace facade of Truman
and Churchill. The LPP And the
Communist Party, which it
became in 1957, were among the
first targets of attack.

Even in the most difficult years,
Nigel’s energy, his enthusiasm
and, above all, his optimism, were
the qualities needed to rally an

often harried membership. In his
many organizing campaigns, up
and down the coast and throughout
the interior of the province, he
earned a wide reuptation as an
able and colorful spkesman, and
was even dubbed’ ‘‘Two-Car
Morgan”’ by the RCMP which, in
its relentless surveilance of
Communist leaders, was com-
pelled to post two squad cars to
follow him since he was on the road
so early in the morning and logging
hundreds of miles, attending
meetings and visiting people.

‘He brought the same drive and*
optimism to the LPP and Com-
munist Party campaigns, both on
and off the election platform, to
stop the alienation of the provin-
ce’s resources. Key among them
was the campaign to restore public
control of the province’s forests, a
battle which the CP had waged

‘virtually since its inception but

which reached a peak during the
time of the Sloan Royal Com-
mission on Forestry.

The 40-page brief which Nigel
prepared, was submitted some 23
years ago, in 1955, but its essential
points — the call for public
ownership of the forest resource:
and the development of wood
manufacturing in the province —
remains as valid today as it was
then. The same is true of Nigel’s
pamphlet, “British Columbia
Needs a Forest Policy”’ which was
based on the Sloan Commission
brief.

As with the other resource
policies of monopoly governments,
Nigel saw in the W.A.C. Bennett’s
acceptance of the Columbia River

Treaty a disastrous sellout of

Canadian sovereignty and the
alienation of a precious water

resource. To the campaign which
the Communist Party led, basing
itself on the alternate plan
proposed by General A. L. Mc-

‘Naughton, Nigel gave his con-

siderable organizing and speaking
skills and, at one point, led a car
cavalcade in 1964, covering more
than 1,300 miles to bring the issue
to people all over the province.

Throughout his years as
provincial leader, in the many

provincial election campaigns
which he led, Nigel always con-
veyed a deep pride in the traditions
of his native province and a con-
viction that in its future lay a
thriving industrial centre. As Bill
Kashtan put it, in his tribute, ‘““He
was one of the colorful figures of
the province. He loved British
Columbia, not with a fake
patriotism but with a deep
knowledge of its history, its
traditions — and its future.

“But he was never narrowly
provincial. He was a true patriot
and a profound internationalist.”’

That internationalism found its
reflection in a admiration for the
achievements of the Soviet Union
and the Communist Party of the
USSR to whose 24th Congress he
was a fraternal delegate. And, as
with the people of his own
province, his outgoing manner
made lasting friends of his many
Soviet acquaintances.

However, the days that too often

extended to 18 hours took their toll,
even of his seemingly limitless
energy. The struggles within the
Communist Party, against at-
tempts to change its course during
the difficult cold war years, and
the many jobs to which he applied
himself, exacted ‘their price.
Although’ he brought a charac-
teristic entusiasm to the broad
campaign against the higher auto
insurance premiums imposed by
the Social Credit government in
1976, it was with greater difficulty
that he carried out speaking and
organizing work.
.. Finally, in October, 1977, he
stepped down to take on the
position of provincial chairman of
the Communist Party which, fit-
tingly, he had been elected to in
1944, the year before he became
provincial leader.

Even at that he kept up the
relentless pace of his life — until
the massive stroke in February
which utlimately felled him. But as
alderman Harry Rankin, a long
time neighbor of Nigel’s put it, ““He
wouldn’t..have. done. it..any. other
way.

“Perhaps he should have quit,
retired before he did,’’ Rankin told
the audience in his memorial
tribute, “‘but he wanted to die with
his boots on — literally. And he did.

“In his lifetime, the ideals
which he stood for were realized in
many parts of the world. The
emergence of new socialist
countries, the liberated countries,
the changing map of Africa all
attest to that.

“The best that all of us can do in
his honor is to go on, to continue the
struggle, to create a world to which
he gave his life — a world free of
exploitation where people are
happy, healthy, and work for one
another.”

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 30, 1978—Page 11