News from Canada (1960)

From the November 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recently formed Vancouver and Victoria Branches of the Socialist Party of Canada are making progress and have been very active in the Provincial Election. Although they have not yet reached the state when they can put forward candidates, they have held meetings, advertised the Party and their literature admirably and gained a considerable amount of publicity.

We have received cuttings from Victoria newspapers from a member there which tell of their activities. One cutting from the Victoria Daily Times (20/8/60) states: "Wherever there is a CCF meeting you will find a representative of the Socialist Party of Canada.” It goes on to say: "They stand outside offering leaflets telling the public not to ‘confuse’ the CCF with Socialism.” The CCF is comparable to the Labour Party here. Another issue of the same paper (Aug. 25th) had this comment: 

Leaflets urging voters to spoil their ballots on election day were being distributed outside HMC Dockyard today.

Dockyard worker John Rouan said the leaflets were signed by the Socialist Party of Canada.

They stated that, as the Party could not afford to run a candidate, voters should register their opposition to Capitalism by writing across their ballots the words:

‘ Socialism—Production for Use.’

The Victoria members have been trying to obtain an open-air speaking spot in a park there. So far their application to the local council has met with refusal. London members will find something familiar in the following quote from the Victoria Daily Times (31/8/60):

A Socialist Party of Canada request for permission to have its representatives make speeches in Beacon Hill Park on Sunday afternoons during summer months was rejected. Committee members said it was against city council policy to permit a “Hyde Park” speakers corner developing here.

The Daily Colonist (1 /9/60) had a large type (leading across the top of one page: “The Socialist Won’t Get Their Little Hyde Park.’

There are two further quotations on the same subject which members may find interesting:

Why should it be against City Council policy to permit a “ Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner” to develop at Beacon Hill passeth understanding.

A “Speakers Corner” is something that could add to the attraction of what is already a magnet of local and tourist interest. Members of the small Socialist Party of Canada who requested the institution here demonstrated at a recent election meeting how effective they can be in livening up an occasion. (Victoria Daily Times, 3/9/60.)

Isn’t the City parks committee being just a little bit stuffy in its refusal to allow a corner of Beacon Hill Park to be used for soap-box oratory on fine Sundays? Is it because the request came from the Socialist Party of Canada? If so, it is hard to see what great harm they could do. (The Daily Colonist, 3/9/60.)

The Victoria members are certainly digging their toes in. It is heartening to hear of the good work they are doing, far away on the other side of the American continent.

Obituary: Comrade Sid Earp (1971)

Obituary from issue number 1 (1971) of The Western Socialist

It is with regret that we announce the passing of Comrade Sid Earp of Vancouver, B.C., Canada, on November 23, 1970. He was taken ill in his hotel room and was dead on arrival at the hospital.

This writer can recall the time — I think it was in 1915 — that Sid joined the old, and at that time robust and vital, Vancouver Local No. 1, S.P.C. He soon made his presence felt in many ways. At the Saturday evening socials of the Local his mellow and well-placed baritone often regaled us with “Brown October Ale” and other popular vocal favorites. This earned for him the name of “The All-Red Baritone.”

In his later years, as many may recall, he traveled much, visiting comrades in England, Scotland, Ireland. New Zealand. Australia, as well as those in the United States and Canada. I remember well his filling me in with his glowing impressions of these visits and am grateful therefor.

Though not one of great means (he was a waterfront worker and received a pension on retirement — he was an expert on supervising the loading of cargo on merchant ships) he was generous to the socialist movement on many occasions. When on a visit to Boston* many years ago, he donated $1000 to the WSP.

As time goes on, we witness one more old stalwart passing. This should spur the rest who remain to greater efforts to obtain knowledge able recruits so that the shoes of those passing away should not remain unfilled.

“Bill” Pritchard.

* We in Boston have fond memories of Sid Earp.

Obituary: Fred Neale (1973)

Obituary from issue number 5 (1973) of The Western Socialist

It Is with sadness that we record the passing of another old stalwart.

Fred Neale, for some twenty years a member of the World Socialist Party in Los Angeles and Seattle and previously a member of the Socialist Party of Canada in Winnipeg and Vancouver, has been forced out of the struggle after a lengthy and painful illness.

Fred became a member of the Winnipeg Local shortly after the first world war and never lost interest in the work of spreading Socialism. During the interval between the decline of the old S. P. of C. in the 1920s and its reorganization at the beginning of the 1930s he was a one-man distributor of Socialist literature and for part of this time his name and address appeared regularly in the Socialist Standard as a source of copies and subscriptions to that journal.

Fred was active in the Party's reorganization and its adoption of the Socialist Party of Great Britain's Declaration of Principles and became its first Local and Dominion Executive Committee Secretary, offices he held for several years. Through this period he was also a regular soap boxer.

During the second world war he lived for a time in Vancouver and was active there in the Party’s work. Later he moved to the United States and became a member of the Los Angeles Local of the W.S.P.. sending regular donations to The Western Socialist and helping in its circulation

To his family in Winnipeg and Seattle, our deepest sympathy. His kind are rare.

Jim Milne

Party News: Lestor (1953)

Obituary from the March-April 1953 issue of The Western Socialist

Word came a few days ago that our old comrade, Charlie Lestor, died in London in mid December. He was 80 years old.

Since my first contact with socialist teaching, back in Vancouver in 1906, the Party in Canada has produced many extraordinary characters. Lestor was one of these and in some respects it is doubtful if his remarkable capacity for outdoor propaganda was ever excelled or even equalled. In Western Canada, in the earlier years of the century, he did trojan work in the formation of Socialist Party locals, and the theoretical knowledge that spread from these centers influenced workers throughout the continent.

The years Lestor spent in Vancouver are still remembered. There is a spot close to the heart of the city where the Party during these years held meetings regularly. Lestor was so frequently the speaker at these meetings that the place became known as Lestor's Corner. He not infrequently kept meetings going eight hours at a time, returning again and again to the soap-box as the other speakers tired.

He was perhaps the first propagandist to carry the message of socialism to Alaska. He also carried with him a degree of recklessness and boisterousness that would be frowned upon today, allowing himself to become embroiled in the militant affairs of the Alaska Labor Union even to the extent of raising the red flag over the town hall of a town that had been taken over by striking miners. From Alaska to the prairies Lestor was known to miners, lumber workers, fishermen, dockers, farmers and town workers. Wherever there was a soap-box, there went Lestor.

In the late 1920’s he came to Winnipeg to edit the One Big Union Bulletin, the weekly journal of the One Big Union, and demonstrated at once that his talents were not limited to the lecture platform and soapbox. Under his guidance the OBU Bulletin became a labor union journal with a distinctly socialist slant, so much so that he was often asked (and not always in gentle terms) if he realised that the Bulletin was not an organ of the S. P. of C. Ever the work-horse, Lestor wrote editorials that often filled a page, news sheet size, gathered most of the news items that were sprinkled through the journal and wrote a weekly column (usually extending to several columns) that bore the heading. Lestor’s Corner. He also found time to engage in the preliminary work that led to the reorganization of the Party in the early 1930s.

Lestor gave up his position on the OBU Bulletin in 1933 or ’34 and went to England shortly after, becoming a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain in London. He remained active in the SPGB until he no longer had strength to be active.

A. P.

Blogger's Note:

Obituary for Charles Lestor from the January 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Letter: The S.L.P. and the Conduct of Meetings. (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from a reader in Vancouver : —

“Vancouver, B.C.,

“Canada.

“ September 21st, 1934.

"Comrades,

“In the September issue of the Socialist Standard, in reference to conduct of public meetings, you publish a statement of the Secretary of the British Section of the Socialist Labour Party, quoting that they allow questions and open discussion at all propaganda meetings.

“In this respect the British Section are ahead of the American Section, as last month (Thursday, August 16th), at the Victory Hall, Vancouver, I attended a meeting of the S.L.P., addressed by Eric Hass. Questions were allowed, but discussion was not allowed, and when the Chairman’s decision was protested from the floor he adjourned the meeting.

“I might add, the speaker was in difficulty over a question of the Communists dealing with the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat,’ but the meeting was orderly, and the attitude of the Chairman could only be construed as evidence of the weakness of the position of the S.L.P.