: EDITOR‘s NOTE: The Vancouver oe Office sitdown and. the rutal, unprovoked attack on the Tone ployed on Sunday, June 19, ~~ “mown as “Bloody Sun- was one of the most im- Portant struggles of the Thirties. Ow Steve Brodie, leader of the t Office sitdown, who was ae iy and lay unconscious in ; Pital for 24 hours as a result of eae attack, has written the ne He story of that event specially ie Pacific Tribune. dee an exciting and human een which sets the record a on what happened in he peer Struggle by the man i ae pes wanted our paper a y It first. We are happy to The first installm 'S page. It Succeeding is

day’ 29

Pos

ent appears on will be serialized. in Sues.

. * By STEVE BRODIE

he Story of Vancouver's

often b Bloody Sunday,’’ has n fen told. [have heard and Which cus versions, few of orited ars true, Politicians see €magogically, and the n a pulbit, and courts moraliz- te aW and order while bury- ie € truth beneath a flood of dena half truths. Even the oe eal of justice took great bes pee cron the truth from hoodwinkine gate. while Was misled by t ting of Fiat to

Was never t 0 be exerci did serve * cised but it

at the time. usien HW, DELS

That heads w

thousands = ere smashed, and

dollars worth of

employed — brutal SSar

that fel the days and weeks 1929 ar between the autumn of bine int the transformation of over 294 ) heroes, a decade later, force Police actions, involving of the ate recorded in the press repress; — all of them aimed at Unem ae any protest against Ome °yment, hunger and Where fhuess: The occasions legally € courts were used, il- number © Suppress such protest thousand In the hundreds of depart S. Even now the justice thousands” _ Concedes that Were on S of illegal deportations Purpose ed out for the same

oe pcemen, from the local con- pro € national force, aa to a belief that only the ee Rist Party and such peo- belisveq under its influence

ny pel anything to be wrong. was ho _ brutality, therefore, governed, to be justified by

Wh » press and_ pulpit, bing It was riding ae ine. 1935 "=, a8 at Regina, July 1,

tnemp| sooting the protesting

OY, , bee. j Say ause it was to 3 Canada from Bolshevism. ho Sa anes the small group 88, an ae conditions, the People into peut. tried to lull the 8 req ° Submission. “‘Nothing System Ht ons with the YoWnturn j ey said. “The usual

“Progpanit the business cycle.” _ “Perity ‘is just “around: the”

corner.”’ ‘‘Be like Will Rogers. At 800 a week, he makes depres- sion jokes, so look on the funny side.’’ One famous prime minister, after promising to end unemployment, when confronted with his obvious failure, assured the Women’s Club in Ottawa, “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.”

As government, at every level, became more and more inept at meeting each crisis, it became necessary to shore up the ex- isting society with brutal polic- ing, vicious court sentences, and where possible, illegal -deporta- tion. This could be justified by creating a myth of imminent revolution, led by Communist leaders of the unemployed.

School teachers, like M. J. Coldwell and Arnold Webster, doctors such as Telford, Mitchell, and Bailey of Van- couver and Victoria, witha few colleagues across the nation, pleaded for years, that a real program of public works be un- dertaken to preserve the dignity of Canadian parents and the health and development of their children. Such men were brand- ed as dupes and ‘‘fellow travellers,’ of the great Com- munist conspiracy, set on upset- ting ‘‘our way of life,”’ by under- mining the initiative of the Cana- dian people, by suggesting that something was wrong with “‘our’’ free enterprise system.

e Year after year, as winter

came around, the unemployed ~

would march and demonstrate against their hopeless condition but as long as their activities could be controlled by vigorous police action, and the leaders could be picked off and given

Tear gas. victims on “Bloody Sunday’ after. police brutally attacked

jobless ‘youth af Post’ Office. * °°

| LEADER OF POST OFFICE SITDOWN RECALLS

The story of ‘Bloody

CgeRs Kroresh Paere a 2

Sunday’

Powell Street grounds rally Sunday, June 19, 1938 to protest police brutatity.

vicious jail sentences, nothing would be done. .

Take as an example this telegram from Hon. Gideon Robertson to his prime minister, reporting as minister of labor in the federal government, on the

situation in Edmonton during the

winter of 1932.

“‘Trouble was averted by restoring a minimum of food to the extent of a bowl of porridge twice a day, and the stationing of a portion of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse from Calgary at the local barracks. After the arrival of this force, the food was discontinued, which seems to be creating a threatening attitude among some 4,000 unemployed whose numbers are not growing less.”’

Like the police, the armed forces stood on guard for Canada against those subver- sives who expected their motherland to provide two bowls

of mush per day.

By 1938 it became accepted that during each winter some provision had to be made to house the homeless and supply two minimum meals at 15 cents each, but nothing would ever be done until the threat of “trouble,” was imminent. The reluctance of the majority to de- mand better treatment amazes me yet but although a few hun- dred put enough fear into the hearts of the authorities to get the winter program started, thousands came to apply. Presumably they had stayed in the background for fear of being branded as ‘‘Communist troublemakers.”

Skid row missionaries have always taken a great deal of credit for their work among the unemployed, giving their alms with a great blowing of trumpets. During that decade of the nineteen thirties, coffee and doughnuts were sometimes available to any who could stand two hours of hymn singing, pray- ing, and preaching.

To qualify for a hot meal or even sometimes a night’s lodg- ing, it was necessary to “‘take a dive.” This meant falling on one’s knees, praying loudly for forgiveness of sins, real or im- aginary and the more lurid, the better.

Some characters were well known for backsliding and being reconverted at least twice a month. The various techniques, accompanied by loud wails of repentance, were the hilarious highlight of many a skit, enacted in box cars, camps, or jails.

These same missionaries always took the view that pover- ty, unemployment and all atten- dant ills were sent by God as a means of perfecting us for His kingdom, and to rebel against these things was not only un- patriotic but sinful. Any sugges- tion that R.B. Bennett, Sir Joseph Flavelle, H.R. McMillan and other millionaires must also lead exemplasry lives to be so blessed would have cost one any chance of remaining for coffee.

In any case, who would desire anything but poverty here when that assured greater rewards in heaven. Beware the socialists who demand unemployment in- surance, relief for the needy, and medical care. Keep your eye ona heavenly reward, which these atheists cannot promise you.

- Some..genius invented: ‘un--

employed church parades and if we attended we were sure of some of the take. That gentle arm twisting helped to keep some of us from hunger.

In Vancouver during the three winters 1935-6 to 1938-9, the crisis was greater than in any other Canadian city. Common sense suggested that poverty, if it must be endured, is more endurable in the mild climate of the west coast than in sub-zero conditions. Hundreds came to the coast, for that best of all possible reasons.

While this undoubtedly placed an unfair burden on the B.C. tax- payer, it never occurred to John Citizen to join in the protest against the enforced idleness of a large part of society and to de- mand a program of real work at real wages to benefit all the na- tion. Reacting in fear created by lying propaganda, the taxpayer went along for years believing his property and indeed his system of government. was in grave danger of violent revolu- tion. He firmly believed that agents of the Kremlin were ex- aggerating the crisis and were about to take over the nation with a few ragged-assed farm- boys, loggers and fishermen.

The unemployed men’s organization laid before the federal and provincial gov- ernments detailed plans for fire trail work in our forests and tree planting programs from coast to coast.

These were dismissed as being

impossibly costly at $1.00 per man per day and board. General McNaughton stated such plans would cost the nation an es- timated $36,000.00 per day, and would bankrupt the country. He later presided over the defence department, spending over one million per day for direct war purposes. The world’s greatest gold strike, apparently was in Ot- tawa September 3, 1939. -Since work was too costly a solution, a simpler method for dealing with the unemployed had to be found. :

A feature of Vancouver’s police court during those years was the lining up of groups of six- ty to one hundred men of the organized unemployed, in batches of twenty. At the rate of about twenty minutes per batch, they were tried, convicted and a to, various terms, in jail.

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