FINANCIAL DRIVE -——_—

50th anniversary celebration launches $100,000 press drive

For 50, its $100,000.

Despite the challenge of the task, applause greeted the announcement from Pacific Tribune editor Sean Griffin that the Paper has targetted $100,000 to raise dur- Ing the 1985 financial drive, which marks the 50th anniversary of B.C.’s only Working-class weekly.

Fifty years is no small occasion, as Teflected by the circumstances under which the announcement took place — at a special, kick-off banquet Mar. 23 at the Holiday Inn on West Broadway.

For many people at the banquet, vet- €rans of past drives, the unprecedented target represented a new challenge — and they responded, don- ating some $5,600 to mark the 1985 effort.

The broad sup-

, Port that has main- tained the paper since 1935 was reflected In the speakers who offered reminiscen- ces about the pap- er’s early days, and | the musicians who Provided entertain- ment ranging from traditional labor Standards to mod- ern, electronic songs of political content.

Harry Rankin, the veteran alderman the Committee of Pro- MAURICE gressive Electors, re- RUSH called an 85-year-old dying pensioner liv- ing in a downtown slum hotel, who handed Rankin some $6,200 to go to pro- gressive causes, including the Tribune.

In doing so that pensioner was acknowledging that a paper such as the Tribune, “is needed,” said Rankin, as a “fundamental tool...to help change this System that won’t work any longer to a more humane, socialist one.”

Rankin noted that he’d personally known “all editors save one” — George Drayton, first editor of the paper founded in 1935, the B.C. Worker’s News.

Communist Party general secretary Bill Kashtan pointed out that while the daily press is financed through advertising by big business, and hence reflects that view- point, “it is working people who keep the Tribune going.”

From Communist Party provincial leader Maurice Rush, past editor of the Tribune, came a series of reminiscences that provided a colorful historical perspec- tive on the paper’s 50 years.

Rush noted that the traditions of the paper go back “100 years to earlier labor publications.” He related the incident of a travelling publisher-editor who carried a small mimeograph machine on his back to the mines and logging worksites around the province.

When the B.C. Workers’ News was founded, ‘in the midst of struggle,” it was only months before the historical battle of Ballantyne Pier, he noted.

Rush himself recalled joining the News at age 18, and being appointed youth edi- tor after one‘day on the job. Space was ata

premium even then, he noted with homor, recalling that even when writers submitted articles of “two sentences, George Dray- ton would say ‘boil it down.’ ”

Rush said the paper has continued pub- lishing weekly since its founding, except for a brief period during the beginning of World War Two, when a federal govern- ment banning order: forced it under- ground.

Despite the problems encountered dur- ing that “hair-raising experience” — including working out of a shack in Port Moody with weather so cold the ink in the mimeograph machine would congeal — the support for the paper continued, he said.

That’s because “it has fought for the interests of working people, fought against the lies about the Soviet Union, against colonialism and imperialism.

“To get the real history of this province, |

Tribune veteran Bill Gee (along with brother George, not pictured) receives hand-lettered award from artist and drive co-ordinator Donalda Viaud, and from editor Sean Griffin. Bill was one of 27 veterans, whose dollars helped create the Tribune’s predecessor 50 years ago, to be honored at the Mar. 23 banquet kicking off this year’s anniversary press drive. This year’s target is $100,000 in honor of that anniversary, which began with the B.C. Workers’ News back in January, 1935.

you have to go through the files of the Tribune,” he declared.

Frank Kennedy, secretary-treasurer of the Vancouver and District Labor Council noted. that the Tribune, along with the trade union press “‘plays a significant role in battling the crushing amount of weight that comes down on the working class from the establishment press.”

He offered “full success” in the financial drive on behalf of the labor council.

Tribune staff also honored 27 surviving veteran supporters, several of whom, including “500 club” member Jack Treliv- ing, have already made a financial com- mitment to the 1985 drive.

Although not all veterans could attend, all were recipients.of a hand-lettered scroll

acknowledging their support that dates back to 1935. Included were Treliving, former editors Rush, Hal Griffin and Tom McEwen, along with Karl Ofstedal, Eva Polson, Edna Sheard, Ed West, Bob Smith, Miles Hamilton, Bill Gee, George Gee, Merv Shoebottom, Stan Lowe, Rose McEwen, Lena Skehor, Ernie Dalskog, Julia Tarnowski, John Cherkosh, Peter Cordoni, Harold Malyea, Uno Soder- holm, Bill Turner, Joe Baryluk, Hugh Clark, Jim Hall and Ben Sparks.

Providing music for the event were the tenatively-named “Trekkers” — Tom Hawken, Jim Carlin, Barry Laffin, Steve Gidora and-Pat Gidora — anda trio con- sisting of Jane Leroux, Amy Newman and Julie Blue.

Spirit of ’35 alive in ’85 drive

__ “Since the campaign first was launched In April, 1934, our movement has passed through many struggles.”

That quote isn’t from us — at least, not from the current staff of the Tribune. It was written 50 years ago and appeared in the Maugural edition of the B.C. Workers’

ews.

The editors of the Tribune’s forerunner Were remarking on the battles of the day — battles that have become part of the history of working class struggle in this Province. And indeed, in the turbulent pol- -ltical times of the Hungry 30s, it was quite appropriate to mark the numerous fights that happened in the short period between the first financial drive to establish B.C.’s Only continuous labor weekly and the fruit Of that effort — the first paper, which hit the streets Jan. 18, 1935.

uch an acknowledgement is equally @Ppropriate today. We are living through Similar times, with unemployment in B.C. and across Canada the highest since the Great Depression, and with the same need ‘0 mobilize working people. t Just as with the 30s, the Tribune func- — as a tool in the task to organize Oday’s workers against the takeaways and |_SOncessions sought by employers taking

advantage of the skyrocketing numbers of unemployed. Equally important, today as with 50 years ago, is the need to organize the unemployed to join with labor and other progressive forces in the fight for jobs and an end to the exploitation of labor.

What is changed, of course, is the pap- er’s financial need. If we’re to continue to be effective in the mid-80s, we need con- siderably more in straight dollars than we sought 50 years ago.

That’s why we’ve set the target this year at $100,000. And while it’s stating the obvious to say that it’s a big amount, we know our readers and supporters can, as they have every year in the preceding five decades, help reach and surpass that target.

We say this because we have not only the tradition of years, but of recent achievement on which to base our optim- ism. Just last year the Tribune friends sur- passed the “hold the line” target of $85,000, donating to the paper more than $92,000 by the end of the drive.

With that spirit, the spirit of the Battle of Ballantyne Pier, of the. On-to-Ottawa Trek — our victory is assured.

Here are the targets...

GREATER VANCOUVER OKANAGAN Bill, Bennett 800 Kamloops 1,000 Burnaby 6,000 Penticton 600 Coquitlam 2,700 Shuswap : 800 oy 7,500 Vernon 1,500 ew West. 2,500 Nigel Morgan 2200 N. COAST/INTERIOR Niilo Makela ~ 700 Correspondence 2,500 North Van. _ = 3,000 Creston 400 Olin. 700 Fernie 250 Richmond — == -1,600. Rowell River oe Seamen 500 Prince George -. 150 Van. East; 11,000 Prince Rupert — 250 ‘Van. Fishermen =——~*BOQ. «Sunshine Coast = = = = = = =—-_- 800 _ WestSide © 65 4000 Wal ee oe © - ce a — : : _ VANCOUVER ISLAND — a ERASER VALLEY a, Gamopell RNG t26 5 Oe iiwack «ac 6Comox Valley. 1,500 a takes 900 Nanaimo = = 2,900 “goo. Northislend = =.) = 400 a 28900 Por Alberni = =. 61,600 eSury = 9 000 Victerls” White Rock: 20 9 4, TOTAL QUOTAS: —_80,000

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 27, 1985 e 3

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