Out of these struggles . . .

ORKINGMEN of all countries, unite! This '¥ was the new history making slogan coined by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848, one hundred years ago. ‘These five simple words — Workingmen of all countries, unite—were the last line of the Communist Manifesto: Clarion, chal- lenging words, summarizing the new world outlook discovered-by Marx and Engels, pointing the way to the ‘overcoming, of reaction and human exploitation, to the winning of a new world by the workers.

ta T8272 the Communist Manifesto was printed in a New RS Journal, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly. ine years later, 107° delegates from American ie Canadian labor unions gathered in Pittsburgh, Pensylvania to found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada.

The Federation rejected the eee that the in- The .

terests of labor and capital were: identical.

s

preamble to the Federation’s platform put into North American language the message of the Communist —

Manifesto — working class unity, national and international. That preamble read:

“Whereas a struggle is going on in the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between ¢apital and labor, which must grow in intensity from year to year and work disastrous results to the toiling millions of all nations if not combined for mutual protection and benefit. The history of the wage- workers of all countries is but the history of constant struggle and misery engendered by ignorance and disunity ; whereas the history of the non-producers of all ages proves that a minority, yore organized,

may work wonders for good or evil... ‘ s :

In 1886 the Federation changed its name to American, Federation of Labor. Representing but 50,000 organized workers 62 years ago the Federa- tion set May 1, 1886, as the day of general stiike for the eight-hour day. Over 500,000 North Am-

In February the cost-of-living index hit a uew high of 163.7.

erican workers responded to that call for action, a mighty proof that labor supported the slogan, ‘In union there is strength.’

Those early struggles not only show how deep go the roots of Marxism in North American life; they also provide great lessons for the present gene- ration. he labor pioneers of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, by their valiant strength to arouse and organize the workers to fight against the evil deeds and ideas of the exploiting capitalists, along the directions pomted out by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto, laid the

foundations for today’s mighty Tabor victories and’: || strength.

It was out a these historic dcbichour day bat- tles in the United States and Canada that the world labor movement conceived the idea of an international day cf denionstration, upon which the “workers of all countries should review their struggles, put forth their demands and renew their vows of national and international labor unity against the common enemy — st eegee

It was in Paris on Yay 14, 1889, ‘the hun- dredth anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, that Socialists assembled from all,over the world in con- vention addressed a call to the workers of all coun- tries to demonstrate on May Day, 1890. .May

Day, born in the struggles of labor in North

America became the day and symbol of interna- tional labor’s battle against capitalist slavery for democracy, peace and socialism.

Frederick Engels, on May 1,

“As I write, these lines, the proletariat of Europe and America is holding a review of its forces; it is mobilized for the first time as one army, under one flag, and fighting one immediate aim; an eight hour working day, established by. legal enactment. The spectacle we are now witnessing will make the capitalists and landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all lands are, in very truth, united.

his own eyes!”

Another ! interim’ steal ?

WV Tis toe far i cy daly ‘s an obliging Public Utilities Commission, the BCElectric is now turning its profit-greedy eyes towards new fields of monopoly endeavor. This time itis Stanley Park. The BCElectric has propositioned Vancouver - Park Board, apparently successfully to give it a concession to operate * “sight-seeing” bus tours around the park. For a complete circuit a 20 cent fare is proposed, with the traditional BCElectric dime for a bus jolt out to Prospect Point.

Tf the BCElectric is to be permitted to oper- ate its busses in Stanley Park, two factors should be ak eee. First, it will only be a matter of time

before: this. monopoly takes over ie anna owner- ship and operation of the park; and second, with an ever obliging PUC ready to do its bidding, it

will only be a matter of time before te prored 20-cent fare undergoes an “interim” m

into ‘a permanent 35-40-50-cent tribute to the F BC-

Electric from. the Stanley Park sightseers.” Advise park commissioners to keep the BCEkee:

tric out of Stanley Park. Insist that this cn. E spot be preserved as a public utility fr Vancouver's

citizens and visitors, not as a public nuisance ground for a profit-glutted transit monopoly to rook the public further. Keep the BCElectric out of Stanley Park! Add this to your May’ Day ee:

1890, wrote: *

If dnly Marx were with me to see it with

TOM McEWEN

As We See It

N the glorious May Day review of labor’s long unceasing struggles

to lift toiling humanity from the economic quagmire of capitalist wage slavery to socialist emancipation, the labor press has played no small part.

Shining like a beacon light, expressing the hopes and aspirations of working men and women, neutralizing the poison and deliberate confusion of the monopoly press, the fighting units of labor's press have blazed new trails towards better tomorrows. In every succeed- ing wave of labor's forward march, it has produced its own hard- hitting papers to light the path.

In Canada, May Day marks the 30th annivers-

May will be dedicated to this anniversary - - not by fine speeches alone, but by bringing such papers as the Canadian Tribune, the Pacific Tri- bune and the French-Canadian Combat to new thousands of workers in their homes, factories, farms, mines and camps. To bring them a press

which speaks and fights for them, and only for them. Thirty years! Not very old as the life of a

generation is measured. To one privileged to par- ticipate and help in its growth during these thirty formative years it is a thrilling experience. The Red Flag, Worker, Clarion, Furrow, People’s Advocate, Canadian Tribune, Pacific Tribune and many others, the one giving way to the other as the events and condition of the times dictated but, consistent as a mighty river, gathering volume and power from its"many trib- taries, as it rolls in its onward course to meet the dawn of a new socialist society of working class dignity, peace and brotherhood.

How many nickels and dimes from how many millions of workers have gone into the building of this 30 year-old fighting labor press? How many tens of thousands of dollars the captains of finance and industry have contributed to strangle it? The answer to these ques- tions will not be found in’ dead statistics, but in the growth of a mighty living labor, movement, increasingly concious of its historical class interests, in the growth of an indestructible Marxist-Leninist party, which no amount of cold-war propaganda or violence can erase. Thirty years of the Communist press, made possible by the unflinching work and sacrifices of countless thousands of working men and women, has helped forge ideas into a powerful material force. That force is Canada’s millionfold organized labor movement, standing today at the half-century milestone, challenging the moral and political bankruptcy ‘of the old order, and preparing itself to step onto the stage of the new. And from the first May Day of 1890 the prophesy of the Chicago. martyrs, standing on the gallows, speaks again from labor’s fighting’ press: “The voices you cs) strangle to- day will return to haunt you 4 millionfold.”

Labor’s press is never licked. Many editors and ‘feature writers, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “strut ‘and fret their hour upon the stage,” and then pass on. But their places are filled by others. Editors who get their training with a lumberjack’s axe in their calloused hands, others, seeing their dreams of,a new ‘society in the ‘red glare of the forge, or deep in the mine, tracing a biting editorial with their pick at the coalface. Editorials that live on after the writer is long dead, as did Jim McLachlan’s farewell salute to Sam Gom- phers, when he wrote his regrets that’he couldn’t be present at Sam’s funeral, “but heartily approved of the event.” That editorial will live when the memory of the labor faker Gompers is no more than the postage stamp bearing his image issued by the Truman adminis- tration, which sees him an appropriate symbol of its Marshallized labor front. ;

And those other unknown workers for the labor press, thoae who sit down of a night and laboriously put their working class philoso- phies, their poems, their ideas for strengthening the fight, down on

“paper, whose efforts are often lest or discarded in the day-to-day

scramble of the editorial office, all honor to them. \Their ideas be- come the pray and brick of a great new edifice - - the labor press. @' t *

TAR Sot the Capaonee press “news” has many detinitions! To slander opponents, to spread falsehoods, to lie about labor, to smear social- ism, to provoke violence and set man against man, nation against nation. To ‘turn day into nights make peace “subversive” and fan the “eold war” into atomic destruction of the Soviet Union and all

' progressive mankind.

In the labor press “news” is vastly different: To explain the class origin and nature of capitalist society, to enlighten working men and women on their class position im society, to help weld them together in order to secure a greater portion of the vast wealth pro-

duced by their labors, to inspire and build an impregnable unity of |

labor’ at each phase of the struggle, thus bringing nearer the ultim- ate and inevitable goal of all labor - - Socialism and peace,

_ As the Australian Tribune says: “When The Boss Press Tells The Truth - - That’s News”. It really ‘is! The prime job of the labor press is to interpretet the truth of events - - to put in words what the ‘proletarian heart instinctively knows, words that are simple, in- cisive, diréct, often brutal, because capitalist society, behind its Pasa sanctimonious exterior, is atavistically brutal.

- The job of the labor press is to help transform workers into scien-

tists, masters at the greatest science of all, the science of Marxism-

Leninism, the science of victorious Socialism.

On this May Day the Communist press in Canada hag reached. ‘manhood - - 30-years of vigorous growth towards maturity, capable

of overcoming all obstacles the future may hold—because it alone

speaks the language of the future.

When the boss press tells the truth, that’s “news”, but that “news” will only happen when it is no longer a boss press, but the press of the common people, giving voice to their ideals an aspirations of human welfare, jJasting peace and universal brotherhood.

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ce Published Weekly at 650 Howe. Street By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY > LTD. Telephone MA. 5288 Toni McEwen Sint hiaece Bene 66 Wey RR Oe BE ae Editor ‘ Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35.

aa bv Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C. \

authoriend as second class mail, Post Office Dept, Ottawa

\ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 28, “niikiietaeecsl 8 rae

ary. of the Communist press, and the month of’

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