i cnet aes

a orneee

t is just about the last place one would expect to meet Joe Hill, but, as the saying goes, it is always ‘‘the unexpected that happens’’. Anyway Joe Hill is there as Sweden’s entry to the Cannes Film Festival, and is making a tremendous hit. = And just for your convenience you can take the family down to the Cap d’Antibes restaurant on the French Riviera, a mere fifteen miles or so distance. The dinner will probably cost you not less than one hundred smackers or more if you can afford it. If not, you have no business being in Cannes. It seems, however, that a lot of the affluent who loll around Cannes and the Rivieras most of the time get enthusiastic

Rock in the Woman’s Wear Daily of May 20/71, they were highly enthusiastic over Joe Hill. Gail added the following comment: ‘‘It is interesting that, when so many directors are making films about the failure of the American dream today, one of the best is set in the first half of the century, written and directed by aSwede. . . a fine film portrait of a real man’’.

Gail may not know it, but the capitalist system produces Establishments which just can’t tolerate ‘‘real men’’, whether in the field of the arts, the class struggle in science, education or elsewhere. All such are either shot, as Joe Hill was, executed, imprisoned, lynched or exiled, and U.S. film directors (and others) must conform to that class philosophy— or they don’t direct, act, sing, or work as they may choose.

-But Joe Hill still lives— and in Cannes of all places!

The following conscious-prodding story has been told many times, in its many variants. It is told once again in the U.S. Farm News, and definitely not for ‘‘Farmers only’’.

“Bill, you are a mule, the son of a jackass, and I’m a man, a proud man. Yet here we work, hitched up together year in and year out. I often wonder if you work for me or I work for you. Really I think it’s a partnership between a mule and a fool, for I sure work as hard as you, if not harder. Plowing or cultivating, we cover the same distance, but you do it on four legs and I on two. I therefore do twice as much work per leg as you do.

“Soon we'll be preparing for a corn crop. When the crop’s harvested, I give one-third to the landlord for being so kind as to let me use this small speck of the universe. One-third goes to you; and the balance is mine. You eat all of your portion with the exception of the cobs, while I divide mine among seven children, six hens, two ducks, and a banker. If we both need shoes, you get ’em. Bill you’re getting the best of me, and I ask you is it fair for a mule, a son of a jackass, to swindle a— a lord of creation— out of his sustenance?

“Why, you only help to plow and cultivate the ground, and I alone must cut, shock, and husk the corn, while you look over the pasture fence and hee-haw at me. :

“All fall and most of the winter, from Granny to the baby, picks cotton to help raise money to pay taxes and buy a new harness and pay the interest on the mortgage on you. And what do you care about the mortgage? Not a damn. You ornery cuss, I even have to do the worrying about the mortgage of your tough ungrateful hide.

“About the only time I am better is on election day, for I can vote and you can’t. And after election I realize that I was fully as great a jackass as your papa. I sure wonder if politics was made for men or jackasses, or to make jackasses out of men. Tell me, Willym, considering these things, how you can keep a straight face and look so dumb and solemn?”’

As the late Dr. Lyle Telford used to say apropo the signs heralding a coming election, “‘the sound of the shovels is heard in the land’ — of people getting in a little road work to meet their tax bills — and put them in the right frame of mind for again becoming jackasses on election day.

Today of course the techniques for heralding elections have changed, as all else is changing. Now it is promises of increased municipal grants, old folks homes, etc., etc. But the 64-dollar question, which Willyum remained silent upon, still awaits an answer: shall we, the people remain jackasses— or aspire to become at long last, the ‘“‘lords of creation’’? It is

worth thinking about from now on in!

about real dramatic art when they see it. According to the Gail -

Time lost by accidents exceeds strike days lost

During the past decade, for

reported. This resulted in 1.6

every man-day lost because of labor disputes, more than six man-days were lost due to indus- trial injuries.

These facts were brought out at the recent Search 71 Safety conference in which labor and management took part.

Last year more than 179 workers were killed on the job in B.C. Last year, more than 97,000

industrial injuries were |

million man-days lost.

Search 71 was scheduled to be an in-depth study on what could be done to improve the indus- trial accident situation. While some progress was made, some wood workers who attended were disappointed that more specific recommendations were not forthcoming.

Over 430 delegates attended the conference, with the largest attendance from the forest: in dustry.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1971—PAGE 2

203 y ALD Mg iJ Ser. aps BOUN

ki sALpe Geese EXEMPT

The forgotten man

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT

welfare ‘shameless act’

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

I can’t imagine a meaner or more callous act than cutting single unemployed off welfare at this time. Yet this is what Surrey and Port Coquitlam municipal councils have done. Some 320 people are affected.

It would be different if there were jobs. Unemployment, however, is at its highest peak in 10 years. Over 70,000 people are officially listed as unemployed in B.C. alone. If to this were added the many categories not included in government figures,

the actual number would be ™ ‘

closer to 100,000.

The statement of mayor Jack Campbell that he is cutting young people off welfare for their own good reminds, me of the officials who ran English poor-houses in the times of Charles Dickens. The attitude of

those well fed officials was JAW equally hypocri’:cal and con- & |}

temptible.

Mayor Van Der Zahn of Surrey & and his council used the phoney }

excuse of berry-picking jobs to cut 300 people off welfare. This is

a direct effort to force welfare ¥

recipients to accept the low, coolie wages and conditions pre- vailing in that industry and to accept a standard of existence even lower than on welfare. He's acting like the prison wardens in southern U.S. states who provide cheap prison labor to the big farming corporations.

What will happen to the 320 people kicked off welfare? They won't find work, that’s obvious. But they must have a place to eat and sleep even if the mayors of Surrey and Port Coquitlam

_ don’t believe that human beings

are entitled to this. They have little alternative except to apply for welfare in Vancouver or some other municipality.

Worst of all is the fact that these cats were carried out with- out any opposition by rehabili- tation minister Phil Gaglardi and the federal government. Ottawa pays 50 percent of welfare costs, and the provin- cial government 35 percent. They could put a stop to these shameful acts by Surrey and Port Coquitlam. councils in five minutes if they wanted to.

E or The self righteous and false supposed to be assessed if indignation of Surrey and Port purposes at the mati Coquitlam councils over their properties, JUS thes? welfare recipients living off the owners are. But 11 all ott tax-payers does not extend, municipalities, as in 10 as however, to another group in in B.C., the practice of both municipalities who are real them at only a fraction F free-loaders. I’m referring to real value. As a re the owners of big properties and out of paying their fal

4 a sh businesses in both munici- taxes, and this mean

palities. owners have to pay ‘ quil Business interests are Surrey and Port eit councils are not touct! peel

.. free-loaders who hala

‘’ municipal welfare all t P

You can’t blamé employed for being YU 1< was these civic office doing. Unemployment der’! by the policies of the i provincial govern™ ould municipal councils pi joining together 19 & am demand on senior 89¥ for new, work- policies, while at t demanding that as have unemploy™ poverty in this rich governments sh entire cost of welfare: : That would be 4 A Eat SE Ararcmes Sensible and humane

é See yi “I got to admit my inflation has timizing those alrea jade!

c been cured.” bottom of the econ aan

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

——

NPA council caught it

The NPA-controlled city council has been caught attempt to frighten taxpayers into voting against the takeover by the city.

Last week city officials claimed it would cos the homeowner $6.25 per year for twenty years to pay back st t0 py Mayor Campbell and the NPA crowd claims it would C° site.

t the ®

“yt onsBeE Earlier this year in a brochure put out by the city = to pay year plan, it says the cost to the average homeowne - $29.7 million over twenty years would be only $7. , pa |

to fe How can it cost $7 to pay back $29.7 million and $6.25 f

$9 million borrowed on the same terms? pA coum The answer to the mystery is really simple: The yes fig” wanted to sell the five year plan so it produced one ones pr They want to defeat the Four Seasons plebiscite S° ~~ another set of figures to frighten homeowners. The technique is known as the big lie.