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By JOHN WEIR

feet readers are taking a hand in writing this column by comment- ae Peeomething ‘they've read in it, suggesting something they Ta like quipped about, or presenting their own quirk. wee Wallace may by rights be considered co-author of this column, a Charlie Lane is a repeater, while we are figuring out ways and a ans of roping Mel Colby into putting in at least an occasional cee —and waiting for young talent to put us “oldertimers € shade, ; g —o0o— en ondering over “the curious phenomenon of our government ae ously considering the legalization of pot,” a reader opines that as the Japanese militarists pacified whole villages in China opium, our bourgeoisie are entertaining the possibility of main- ing a whole nation of youth on the euphoria of pot.” —o00— ee tatiic Lane’s sketch “The Twilight” in our Feb. 18 column, in Ich Widow Jane says that when shopping she asks for a bone

for her dog and then makes soup of it, drew the following rejoinder

from a Toronto reader: ey I bought three small pieces of neck bone (36 cents) at the to give flavor to a stew (1 lb. of hamburger). The regular whi Soup bones, several small slices of marrow bone—65 cents, Ich I did not buy. The other type of soup bone—one large knuckle

: ke With a smidgin of gristle and about one ounce of meat stuck

'{—98 cents. Free soup bones?. Where?”

j —o00—

tor Buace has his own inimitable way of presenting the formula Ving the pollution problem:

POLLUTION SOLUTION

POLLUTION: The corpse of private ownership In the course of dissolution.

SOLUTION: Bury the infamy With rage and resolution. H —o0o0— sige another “Twilight” sketch by 83-year old Hamiltonian Te Lane, starring Widow Jane: seh €conomist, Jane, dropped in. She had two stale loaves, and a «tt Cracked eggs, and glee in her eyes. She have you been up to?” “Wh Ook off her coat and showed me a fresh dress. oN €re did you get that?” ; ; t the Salvation Army,” she said. Then she posed, model-like, ore O’er the floor, gracefully raising her arms with the agility 4 ballet dancer, ye © talked of her exploits for a while. Then she broke in: “How You like my recipe: beans and bacon ends?” .

ie about killed me, filled me full of gas.” ne N that case,” she said, “I’d better put you on boiled rice and

Vy sae oe a little iron will do you good.” we en Ore she left she denounced the sales tax as “the act of vicious » OUut to get the last drop of we old folks’ blood.” FE : —o00— ; Feb 3 his diary, Charlie Lane sends us the following item penned *%, 1970 (when the rent was overdue, we suspect): A SOCIAL PROBLEM It matters not one’s good intent— If you have no money, you. have no rent. —o0o— lope Webster (we suspect it’s an alias) writes from Van-

did

Pene aver bigest by Bill Campbell in the Feb. 13 issue of the Pacific Tri- Was se Says that when caught in the arms of a man I said I Penelo amed and my husband, Noah Webster, corrected me: ‘No,

“Th Pe, I am ashamed, you are surprised.’

Noah - truth of the incident is the other way about: When I caught

Te 3 Said I was surprised and he corrected me: ‘No, dear, you

wy, /Onished; I am surprised.’

aft . Where? ins 150 years ago, I refer him to page 6 of the same issue ara It says: ‘We had fought together during the Second World

back’ nd he told me of his fellow villagers who died and who came

- If they could so could ;

Penelope Webster

; —o0o0—

IMPERIALISM TO BLAME FOR WORLD WAR TWO an Petialists of all countries was seized continued pressing for an agreement with Britain and France so as to oppose by joint efforts the expansion of fascism.

“The betrayal of Poland was the final stage of the criminal policy of those , who supported the Munich agreement,” the ar-

e the ¢° blame for the fact that

e Star’ Raised an article in Red Paper © Soviet Army news-

The aj Wag +, of world imperialism

hang, th State. On the other ticle says.

Advance © Soviet Union and the “It was the last attempt of Peop} Section of the working London, Paris and Washington trie Of the capitalist coun- to channel Germany’s aggres-

sion against the Soviet Union. This also proved the utter fail- ure of the imperialist course of trying to solve world problems “without the Soviet Union. ~~

m War ,o€ efforts to prevent the .

P2echoslo was ready to give "d even

vakia every assistance after Czechoslovakia ~

want to repudiate the outrageous reflection on my ~

ae : : - Federal Bill is astonished that 1 should be able to write this protest .

Plight of

What does it mean to be pov- erty-stricken in Canada today? These are the questions posed by the Senate Committee inves- tigating poverty in Canada. It is estimated that about 5,000,000 Canadians live at or below the poverty-level, designated at $3,000 a year income.

_ “Poverty is pervasive and all encompassing. It debilitates human dignity. It can destroy an individual’s will to live as a human being.” So began the sub- mission of the Mount Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg. “No group suffers more than the poor. Me- dical authorities state that the poor have more heart disease, more rheumatoid arthritis, more unrehabilitated injury, more mental illness, more tuberculo- sis, more illness whether chro- nic or acute, and higher death rates in all ages than do Cana- dians at large. Yet, the more that is known about the treat-

_ment of any disorder, the great-

er the likelihood that this know- ledge is not benefiting the poor.”

The brief goes on to discuss the work the Mount Carmel Cli. nic undertakes. Appended to the brief is an interesting and poig- nant document, entitled “Some Personal Views on Poverty,” stories told by mothers on wel- fare themselves.

SINGLE MOTHER Here’s the story of a mother,

- legally separated, with one child:

“The main problem for a sole support mother who is able to work is finding and keeping a job. Employers are prejudiced the moment they realize you are a sole*“support mother: They take it for granted that you will have baby sitting problems and lose a lot of time as a result.

When you have found a suit- able job, you then have the prob- lem of competing and ‘keeping’ up with the single girls. Apart from the obvious problems of keeping up an appearance and competing with colleagues soci- ally, there is the problem of con- tributing to gifts and charities. This can be a great strain on your budget, but if you say ‘I can’t afford it’? you are made to fee] mean and mercenary.

“At present I earn $90 week- ly, which averages $73 clear after ‘deductions. These deduc- tions are a very sore point. They include Medicare (I have to pay the family plan), Canadian Pen- sion, Unemployment Insurance and the bane of my existence, Income Tax. I feel bitter about these deductions, particularly the Income Tax. I’m sure what I pay makes no difference to the Government, but it makes a whole lot of difference to me.

“More than one-third of my income goes on rent and more than one-third on baby-sitting.

BREAKDOWN OF COSTS Average monthly income (incl. family allowance) ..... $292.00

Rent ence ee 100.00 Babysitting (min:) .... 80.00 GIOCCNICS 24.5. eee 50.00 Bus fares 2c ee 12-00 L0an oe eee 22.00 Hydro ..... 3.00 Insurance .. 6.40

273.40 Cigarettes ... oe 10,00 MagaZine ... occ 60

$289.40 Left over ; 2.60

“This $2.60 we squander reck- lessly — usually on extra baby- sitting. . . .

“Needless to say, I try to buy

Victims of poverty

anadian mothers

groceries as cheaply as possible. I know the cheapest places to buy the necessities and if a price is increased in one store, I don’t buy the item there until I am convinced it isn’t any cheaper elsewhere. If I am feeling rich or it is early in the month, I buy the cheapest roast I can find. The only fruit I buy regularly is bananas, as my baby has one every morning for breakfast. I do use a lot of eggs and cheese and try to serve as much protein as possible.

“Clothing is a major problem with me. Every weekend I make a point of taking my little girl out somewhere. We have never been outside Winnipeg and next

-year I have promised myself I

will take her to the beach. She loves water in any form and I know she would enjoy it.

“The worst thing about being a sole support mother is emotio- nal insecurity. No matter how clever or self-sufficient you are, you always wonder whether you are doing the right thing and

what would be best for your ©

child. “Of course, we are lonely.”

YOUNG MOTHER

Another story is told by a de- serted mother of three children:

“I got married awfully young. I was only 15 and right now I am only 19 going on 20. My hus- band has left three times, each time I was pregnant,’ when a woman needs her husband most.

“Right now while writing I am also trying to figure out a way to get a can of S.M.A. milk for my baby, who is just 17 days old. Welfare would not help me out with him because I didn’t have a birth certificate for him. I couldn’t get his birth certific- ate because I just didn’t have the $2.00 for one. So they won’t be able to give me any money for about two or three more days.

“Will I give him pablum be- cause it fills him up? Having more milk is really important, but what else is there to do.

“Do you know what it is like to have the ice-cream man go by every day and not be able’ to give your child a dime and have him watching the other kids?

“Do you know what meat is on our menu? Well, it’s ham- burger. The only other meats I buy are weiners, sausages, liver and maybe one chicken a month

which lasts for about three meals. I haven’t been able to buy a. roast for about four months.

“I can’t even ask my friends over very often because even that costs money to buy coffee, sugar and canned milk.

“Have you ever had your child come up to you and ask if she can go to a birthday party and have to say ‘no’ because you just don’t have that extra 50 cents for a gift?

“Weifare asks our neighbors the hours we keep, the friends we have over, if they stayed overnight and if we have liquor in the house. We lost our pride when we applied for welfare and we have to beg for anything else.

“In the winter your visits stop because you don’t have ade- quate clothing to go out: Our living accommodations are far from the best, and our landlord won’t do anything about it be-

cause he knows we can’t afford

to move. There are mice in the place, the plumbing leaks, the wiring is inadequate and the place needs plastering, painting and new tiles. Even if you de- cide to move, the only place you'll find on welfare is one just as bad as the one you have. If we do find a good place the welfare won't allow us_ that much rent.

“I just hope something can be done about it.”

LARGE FAMILY

From the words of a mother with eleven children:

“What is it really like to be poor? I am 40 years old and the mother of 13 children, -11 of whom are alive. I have been struggling for and with my fa- mily for 24 years. Never enough money for food, clothes and all the other main things for every- day -living. :

“I constantly hear my childre say to me that the teacher asked them what they had to eat for breakfast today. And they told her a lie — they said we had juice, toast, cereal and milk. But all they had was porridge with skim milk and water to drink, sometimes a fruit drink but not juice or whole milk.

““Mom, why can’t we have nice skirts and blouses and rib- bons and shoes like the other little girls in our room? They always laugh at us and say we wear other people’s_ clothes’. Imagine a five and ten year old crying about such things, in this day and age.”

WIDOW’S PLIGHT

Another widowed mother with two children says this:

“What is it like to be poor? Here is the truth about it. First, when my cheque arrives I go shopping for food. I buy the things we must have—spaghetti, macaroni, etc. All these goods are starchy but filling. My chil- dren are growing and they need fruit and milk but they can’t have these in the normal way, it’s rationed.

“I feel there is no hope, that as long as I’m on welfare I will never have any of these little but meaningful needs met.”

@

And on it goes. You can multiply that story across this rich nation of ours by the tens of thousands. On the reserves and in the Métis communities it’s much worse. Poverty is both a condemnation of the capitalist system, which creates it, and a challenge to the trade union and farm movements to change it.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-~MARCH 6,1970——Page 5