~ In their own bia rad

OL’ BILL

SHORT JABS

‘* [THE law is a hass,” said Bumbie. That was just because Bumble

had not made a very close study of the law in class society. If he had known the function of law, he would have framed his criticism differently. There are times and incidents however, that excuse the Bumbles when the devious and contortionist movements of those who administer the law and use it to create confusion give it the semblance of assininity.

Most of us remember the “horror” with which the world was Supposed to have greeted Mackenzie King’s announcement to the House of Commons that a spy ring aimed at the destruction of our Canadian way of life had been uncovered. We remember how Canada’s legal genius, both of the French tradition and the Anglo-Saxon common law varieties, were gathered together into a Royal Commission to investigate this horror that had sprung up in our midst. And on the unsupported bleatings of an abject cowardly renegade charged by his own govern- ment with embezzlement, these great legal minds concocted a report which led to the arrest of @ score of people whose innocence becomes more and more apparent.

_ Although that Royal Commission report was used to smear and discredit the activities of our : most valiant ally in the war against Nazism whose armies were admitted by the present outstanding warmonger, Winston Churchill, with having “torn the guts out of Hitler's Wehrmacht,” we now find that there never was any spy ring. For three years and three months after King’s announcement our present minister of justice, without any pounding of desks or vociferous applause, read into the records of the House of Commons a bare statement of 125 words that the case against Freda Linton, portrayed by the gutter press as the key witness in the whole alleged “spy drama,” has been ' dropped because there is no evidence of any spy ring involving Russian or any other foreign government officials.

When the original story was first peddled in the Commons by the “Great Liberal,” William Lyon Mackenzie King, the capitalist press everywhere in the Western world splashed it all over the front page.

The methods of the Royal Commission included arrests without warrant and imprisonment without trial, breaches in the best fascist manner of all those Anglo-Saxon liberties and freedoms which we have been taught to regard as our birthright.

The screen and radio were used to further the hoax—‘“all with & purpose not because the Law is a hass.” That purpose is apparent today in the programs of the Wall Street warlords.

At the time King made his statement, the war-weary peoples

of the world admired the efficiency and dispatch with which the Soviet armies “tore the guts out of Hitler’s Wehrmacht.” That admiration had to be dissipated so that the fascist elements still

_ in the saddle in the capitalist world would not be handicapped by

it. To dissipate that admiration and the hope it inspired the “spy Scare” was manufactured. It was a lie of the kind that Hitler advocated, played in the grand manner.

€ @

_The Royal Commission has not reviewed or repealed its findings. No spokesman for the government that concocted the lie has ten- dered any apology to the government that was slandered nor/ has there been any mention of restitution to the men and women who suffered as individuals.

The part ‘played by the RCMP in this disgraceful blot on the history of Canada would warrant a public examination of this force’s activities, particularly as they relate to labor and the seamen’s strike on the East Coast.

“Fhe law is a hass,” said Bumble, but he should have added, “it is a hass of a special breed.” :

: Senator Paul H. Douglas (Dem. IL) Jed several of his colleagues on a tour of the slums in their own backyard. Talking to a resi-

_ dent of these slums just six blocks from the Capitol in Washing- ton are (left to right) Senators Theodore T. Green (Dem. R.1.),

Douglas and Wayne Morse (Rep. Ore,), ,

\ \

Eyewitness tells of assault on Travis

Mine-Mill holds Murray ©

‘responsible’ for terrorism

Graham Dolan, director of education in the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Work-

ers Union, this week wrote an eyewitness account of the bruta Maurice Travis in an: Alabama radio station on April 20. I led by Nick Zonarich, personal representative of CIO President Doctors say that Travis may never ihe sight of his left eve may also be impaired. Here is

and beat up Travis.

The Steelworkers were conducti the night before the election in which were to select a collective bargaining representative.

By GRAHAM DOLAN

being scheduled to follow that of the Steelworkers.

Steelworkers used the race issue in the campaign They called us a union of “N———r lovers,” They pro- mised white workers an “an all white union.”

. Earlier in the week, more than 100 Ku Klux Klansmen, dressed in their traditional hoods and robes, sped by our district office waving torches and sounding their automobile horns, It was the tip-off. We were prepared for violence and trouble, but cer- tainly not prepared for attempt- ed murder and mayhem.

Executive Board Member Chas. Wilson, Vice-president Reid Rob- inson, Secretary-treasurer Maurice Travis and I went to the studio. Upon our arrival, we saw three carloads of Steel supporters in front of the station. There were

about 15 Steel supporters, led by Zonarich, in the station. They car- ried on a running tirade of pro- fane insults, most of which related to the race question.

Our broadcast began and Robin- son was not on the air more than 30 seconds when we heard a com- motion in the office where we had left Wilson and Travis.

I signalled to Reid to stay at the microphone and I rushed out to the outer room just in time to see Elliott of the Steelworkers and some other men swing a chair over Travis’ head and knock him to the floor As he lay there,

they kicked him in the face and jumped on him. Dazed, Travis picked himself off the floor and I turned to see how Wilson was faring, telling Travis to proceed to the washroom to get cleaned up. He was bleeding profusely from many wounds.

Wilson was seated on a bench in the office, surrounded by other goons, They were daring him to get up and protect Travis and to start a fight. Obviously outnum- bered, WilSon stayed where he was and refused to move. Zonarich turned to me and said, “This is what the Steelworkers are going’ to do to you Mine-Mill bastards all over the country.”

I started out of the office door to help Travis. Harold Christoffer- son (publicity director for the CIO Southern organizing drive), Elliot and one other man, L. H. McBray- er, jostled me against the wall, I pushed Travis into the men’s room, shut the door, and ran back into the studio where Robinson was still broadcasting. I shouted to him to tell what had happened, and told him briefly what to say. Robinson did so and I rushed back to help Travis again.

Travis was unable to see so I led him into. the studio and Wilson came in with us. Several of the Steel goons had disappeared by that time, but Zonarich and Chris- tofferson were trying to egg on the others who remained. The sight of Travis, however, had somewhat dampened their belligerence. Then the Bessemer police came.

Unable to see clearly at the time, Travis could not readily identify his assailants, who had done the actual beating, but I pointed to one of two men who can be easily iden- tified. The police would make no arrests. Travis heard Zonarich’s voice and asked Zonarich if he ex- pected to win the election this way. Zonarich laughed and told us we had lost the election for sure now.

Answering the alarm broadcast by Robinson, our supporters began apearing at the radio. station. Among them was International Representative Alton Lawrence, who came with his camera «and took pictures of Travis. We took Travis to Doctor’s Hospital in Bes-

ng a raid against our local unions in Bessemer, Alabama. employees of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company Both unions were to give labor broadcasts, ours

! assault on Mine-Mill Secretary-Treasuret n Dolan’s presence a gang of hoodlums, Philip Murray invaded the radio station see out of his injured right eve again and thal Dolan’s story of the assault.

It was

semer, where he was given emer- gency treatment. He fainted from pain and loss of blood. We then attended to such details as swear- ing out warrants, notifying the newspapers, calling Mrs. Travis, ete.

Thursday, April 21 was elec- tion day, Every automobile carry- ing white workers was stopped and its occupants told by rov- ing gangs of Steel hoodlums that if they did not vote for Steel

up. ‘White workers were threat- ened in their homes by _ Steel campaigners who insisted that the workers accompany. them to the polls and vote for steel. An atmosphere of terror prevailed. There can be no doubt that

Mine-Mill lost the election through ;

the terror of the Steelworkers and their company-union, white-supre- macy goons in the last 48 hours of the campaign.

vt

Four CCF MP's absent

when pact vote called

By MARK FRANK

4

—_OTTAWA

Strongly organized peace forces in ridings formerly represented by L. W: Skey (PC Toronto-Trinity), Maurice Hartt (Lib. Montreal-

Cartier), David A. Croll

(Lib. Toronto-Spadina), and Renaud

Chapdelaine (PC Nicolet-Yamaska) are believed to have influenced

these members in absenting them- selves from the vote giving final approyal to the North Atlantic pact during the dying hours of parlia- ment.

» Noteworthy is the fact that some 60 MP’s stayed away compared to an approximate 91 who absented themselves when’ the first draft of the pact was presented. Of these 15 were French-Canadian members, four were members of the CCF.

It is felt here that the four CCF members were last ditch fighters against the pact in caucus, and that M. J. Coldwell, CCF national leader, succeeded to some extent, ‘in concealing the deep-going split within the CCF when the formal vote came to the floor of the house.

The CCF members who absented themselves when the vote was ta- ken were all from Saskatthewan. They were: \T. J. Bentley (Swift Current), D. J. McCuaig (Maple Creek), E. G. McCullough (Assini- boia) and F. W. Townley-Smith (North Battleford).

Although the pact passed with- out a dissenting vote, 185-0, Bloa Populaire members Maxime Ray- mond and Rene Hamel were sig- nificantly absent. These two mem- bers voted against the draft. Ob- servers placed no little significance on the absence of Quebec Tory stal- warts 'R. Chapdelaine of Nicolet. Yamaska; Frederic Dorion of Charlevoi-Saguenay and George H. Heon of Argenteuil.

Despite earlier statements that the Atlantic pact would not be an issue in the coming elections, and St. Laurent’s insistence that his western trip showed “wide unanimity” on the pact, the evi. dence of the final recorded vote on the treaty, prior to dissolution of the 20th parliament, amply proves that the pact will be an election issue to be fought out on the hustings.

This evidence is twofold: The obvious anxiety expressed by Cold- well for a final vote on the pact, in order to wash out the disquiet created by the earlier defection of some 11 CCF MP’s and the widely- reported majority opposition in the B.C. section of the party. Second the obvious timidity of leading Quebec Liberals and Tories on the vote.

Then there is the Position o: LPP, whose candidates and one mittees, by challenging the war parties, will force the issue,

Coldwell in his fina} words on the pact expressed ‘the belief it

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 6, 1949 — PAGE * ;

would “involve a consider- able amount of rearma- ment” and urged the finance min- ister to cut all profit - making out.of munitions, as a face-savel: He later admitted this by pointing out that he thought “many of the people of this country .. . feel some misgivings regarding the At- lantic pact,” and that they feared the program of rearmament t? come would “be used by powerful interests in this country to enhance

their own interest and profits i’

a time of need.”

Frank ouster questioned

—OTTAWA:

Austin Cross, columnist for a 10- cal paper and member of the pat-

liamentary press gallery who ©& —

cently returned from a Europea? assignment, said he found people in many capitals “quite interested’ in the recent arbitrary expulsio?

they would be killed or beaten —

of Mark Frank, Canadian Tribu?e—

correspondent, from press gallery associate membership. In an informal chat with Cross: the newsman told Frank that the incident had been widely report-

ed and caused a good deal f — interest everywhere he went. H@ —

was asked in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Yugosl@v- ia, to explain the matter,

why the action had ‘been take™

Frank’s appeal for a hearing of

his case is still pending. The ©: ecutive of the gallery says it h4 the matter under “consideratio?-

Frank was summarily charged

with an alleged “off-the-reco report of a speech by External

“guilty” by a small meeting ah press gallery members; and ge tenced” without being notified . to the nature of the charges

being asked to appear.

Last year, R. K, Carnegie of ”

Canadian Press, reported Mae zie Kingts off-the-record retire,

nas

fairs Minister L. B, Pearson, found :

ment statement—an obvious cas we

of a breach of press gallery PY

cedure—but no action was taken

: