On the Socialist Movement and Travels across Canada 1908

Dear Comrade:

More than a month has elapsed since I was banished from the Pacific slope by the Dominion Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Canada and bade go forth and deliver the “glad tidings of great joy” to the “weary and heavy laden,” who wander aimlessly in the capitalist jungle afar to the eastward of that seat of learning in matters economic and political known as the Western Clarion office, Vancouver, B. C. The month has been filled with many happy surprises; it has been replete with most satisfactory experiences, for it has disclosed to me the fact that those workers of the eastern and middle provinces who, from our lofty British Columbia pinnacle, we have fancied to be wandering aimlessly in the jungle of capitalist confusion, have not been working at that particular trade with anything like the diligence we imagined. Go where you will among them and you will discover the same pronounced resentment against the present regime; the same rapidly developing spirit of revolt against class rule and class exploitation that is so strongly in evidence along the Pacific Coast. They are being rapidly taught the revolutionary doctrine that can alone arm them for successful battle against their despotic economic masters, the capitalist class. They are being taught by the same force, economic pressure, and in the only school in which man ever learns anything, the school of experience. The curriculum is much the same in the east as in the west. It is modified in case of the east by the fact that the economic sub-soil is more largely agricultural and, therefore, conservative, thus affording a prolific crop of patriotism, religious bigotry and other similar noxious growths. These needs are particularly noticeable here in Ontario. In making the distinction between the east and west, I am using the rocky mountains as the dividing line.

As far as I have been able to judge from observation, the manufacturing concerns throughout this part of Canada are small, in comparison with those of the United States. In consequence the social contrasts are not so pronounced. The class lines are not so sharply drawn, so glaringly apparent. The noxious growths above mentioned tend to still further obscure them. But in spite of it all the slaves are waking up. They are opening their eyes to the facts that confront them and their ears to the sound of the coming storm. One thing I have particularly noticed is that they respond only to the revolutionary note. To platitudes and other soft stuff they are indifferent. Touch the revolutionary chord and they respond with a vigor that is unmistakable.

At Calgary we had a splendid meeting. About 1000 people were present. It was a working class audience and one typical of the financial status of that class in the glorious Christian times. The collection was less than one-half the hall rent alone, to say nothing about other unavoidable expenses.

At Winnipeg, as already stated by one of your correspondents, many could not find seats in the hall. The interest manifested in both places was good. The comrades of Calgary and Winnipeg have evidently already planted much seed and planted it well.

The banner meeting of the trip so far was at Port Arthur. About 2,000 were present. The ground here has already been ploughed up by Comrade L. T. English, who has been located at Port Arthur for some time

There is also a strong Finnish Local at Port Arthur which has been doing valiant work for the cause. The Finnish choir took part in the meeting by singing the Marseillaise and the International. It was magnificent and greatly appreciated by the big audience. The President of the Fort William Trades Council and officers of the Port Arthur Trades Council briefly addressed the meeting and their words have the true ring. I look forward to good meetings at both places on my return west.

The first Sunday I was in Toronto the meeting was held in Labor Hall in the afternoon. Neath a glass roof under a broiling June sun 600 people sat for over two hours and drank in every word that fell from the lips of the various speakers, with evidently no thoughts of the discomforts arising from the sweltering heat. Only those who were wrapped up in a great cause could or would have stood it. But, as we all know, revolutionists are made only of good stuff. Having been tried in the crucible of capitalist exploitation and not found wanting in manly fibre and courage, something more terrible than a June sun is required to rout them.

Montreal, Cobalt, Allandale, Hamilton, Berlin, Galt, Guelph and other places have been visited and meetings held, most of them have been out-of-door meetings, but the interest manifested has been most satisfactory. In each of the places visited there is a valiant band of comrades tireless in their efforts to push the work along. Many good speakers are being developed and the material thus made available to carry the propaganda and organisation into places as yet untouched. Though there is a large field to be covered and an enormous work to be done ere [sic] the exploited and tortured slaves of capital shall rid themselves of their chains. The men to carry forward the work to a successful conclusion are coming forth from the ranks of the slaves in ever increasing numbers. With a zeal that shrinks at no obstacles and knows no defeat, this ever increasing host is pushing forward to the ultimate and speedy triumph of the exploited slaves of capital against their unscrupulous and rapacious masters. Many of these masters even now see the handwriting upon the wall.

A meeting here to-night.

E. T. K.

Lindsay, Ont.

I last wrote from Lindsay, Ont. It is a far cry from that place to this Alberta metropolis. A good part of the distance is across about as worthless a region as can be found on the map. Along the north shore of Lake Superior it is rock and muskeg, a combination shunned by about every animal in the category, except that brilliant specimen, the wage-slave, who would cheerfully go to hell itself if its brimstone deposits could be used as a means of squeezing a little profit out of his foul carcass for his capitalist masters. Out of the arid, wind-swept alkali plains of southern Saskatchewan also cometh the wage-slave’s twin, the horny-handed agriculturist and the stagger that he is making at accumulating wealth from its worthless soil is pitiful in the extreme. Where he has succeeded in rooting up a little patch and planting it to wheat the crop looks that sickly and pitiful that one can readily imagine what the agriculturist himself will look like after the crop has been harvested and turned over to the owners, the allied brigands known as the capitalist class.

If the crop of this glorious northwest is to be estimated by what can be seen along the C.P.R. from Winnipeg to here it will prove to be a slim one. Much of it along the road appears to be scarce worth harvesting. All the blow and bombast about the potentiality of this glorious Canadian northwest can safely be discounted about 75 per cent, and then some, and still remain an exaggeration.

The Socialist movement in Ontario is coming rapidly to the front. A rigorous band of agitators and speakers is already in evidence and its numbers are being constantly increased. The industrial depression is severely felt throughout the province owing to the large number of industrial establishments affected by it. The pressure thus brought to bear upon the workers tends to put them in a mood receptive to the revolutionary doctrine of their class. The growth of the movement is thus hastened by the pressure of hard times.

The movement in Manitoba seems to be as yet practically confined to Winnipeg, but here it is well advanced and revolutionary to the core. In fact the workers everywhere seem to have gotten past the stage of belief in palliative and reform measures. They will only respond when the revolutionary chord is struck.

The meetings in Winnipeg were well attended and a splendid interest manifested. In Comrade John Houston the workingmen of Winnipeg have a candidate for the Ottawa house that they cannot afford to see defeated. He is a sterling character of that type that at once commands confidence and respect, and besides this he is unmistakably proletarian. The vote he will poll will make the capitalist bunch sit up and take notice.

Comrade Houston tells of an interview he had with a cook who had been employed at one of the G. T. P. [Grand Trunk Pacific] construction camps. When he took the job he found the storehouse filled with an excellent stock of provisions. Upon making inquiry of the contractor as to how he wanted the men fed, he was told to “feed them well, because men cannot work unless they have plenty of good food.” This being such a remarkable way for a contractor to view things, the cook took occasion to mention that though he had cooked in camp for a good many years he had never received such orders before. “That is all right,” replied the contractor. “You will see what is in the storehouse. Go ahead and feed the men. Feed them well, for that is all they are going to get.” He evidently had wages down to the irreducible minimum.

I also note that the G. T. P. construction has solved the liquor problem. A Winnipeg paper recently made note of the fact that workers on this construction work were strictly sober. In fact they had become teetotalers for the reason that owing to the industrial depression, wages had fallen so low that after board, etc., was paid, there was nothing left with which to purchase booze and that even to pay their board, etc., they had to work a little overtime. The booze joints along the line had to go out of business. Now that this happy solution of the drink evil has been discovered, our prohibition friends may take a well-earned rest from their arduous labors in striving to have the liquor business knocked out by law. The G. T. P. “hath shown us the better way.”

It is to be hoped this lead will be followed up by such further reduction of wages as will result in wearing the workingman from such other expensive and injurious habits as he may still possess. For instance, his tobacco could be cut off with physical profit to himself and pecuniary profit to his employer. And then there are other things, but what’s the one? A splendid field of speculation opens before us but it must be left to another time. The anguish caused by a realization of the awful wrong that has been perpetrated upon the employers all of these years because the wage-slave has drawn sufficient wages to enable him to indulge in booze and other sinful things is almost overwhelming. I would be tempted to drown that anguish in the “flowing bowl” only that I haven’t the price. This again shows that the lack of cash is a great moral uplift. It should be encouraged in every way.

Good meeting here last night. I go to Bankhead and Canmore to-morrow, to Edmonton on Saturday next and thence south and into B.C.

The Alberta Provincial Executive Committee held its first meeting last night. It will soon get down to systematic and effective work.

E. T. K.

Calgary, Alta., Aug 3, 1908.