Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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f the United States, this change is taking place at the present time, and since we Canadians are so close to the Americans in thought and action, and our forms of government are so similar, it is well worth looking into this change. The new concepts of Americanism are being outlined by Congress, the president, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Legion, a large group of daily newspapers, and many other nationally known organizations and person- alities. According to this new code, loyalty is conformity. To be loyal is to repudiate all change and accept America as it is, with no room for improvement. The first to feel the effects of this were the civil servants. The government has a perfect right to purge truly disloyal employees, but as Carroll Kirkpatrick of the San Francisco Chronicle has reported, the FBI, which often has the right to judge whether or not a man is disloyal, and consequently whether or not he is qualified to hold a government job, may decide that a man is disloyal if he has been associated with too many liberal groups , if he has been in the company of persons whose loyalty was under suspicion, if he has spoken dis- respectfully of an isolationist senator, if he has testified in court on behalf of a Communist, if he has worked for a paper as radical as New York's PM or if he has been associated with labour unions. American citizens have actually been branded as disloyal because of one of these charges. President Truman himself ordered these so-called loyalty checks, and after the FBI has reported that a person is disloyal on any of these charges, or a more serious one, the accused often has no right to an open hearing or trial, and no right to cross- examine his accusers. He may not even be able to find out on what charges he is considered disloyal. In fact there is little he can do but resign. Once a person has been labelled disloyal, he has an extremely difficult time in finding a new position outside of government service. It is not only civil servants that have come into contact with this new code of Americanism. Congressional in- vestigating committees have condemned many organizations as un-American and Communist fronts. Undoubtedly some of these are Communist dominated groups, but many of them, which have been fighting racial intolerance, the sup- pression of civil liberties and other worthy services, have been accused with little or no evidence. It is interesting to note that when Senator Rankin, who is chairmanof the Un-American Activities Committee, was asked why his com- mittee did not investigate the Ku Klux Klan, an organization noted for spread- ing racial and religious hatred, he answered that in his opinion the Klan was not un-American, it was American. Unfortunately this is not the American's private concern, for the proximity of the two countries, and the tremendous influence of the United States in Canada makes it all too likely that this concept of loyalty will become part of the Canadian scene. During the famous Canadian spy scare, several Canadians citizens were accused in the report of the royal commission of being involved in Two

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EDITCRIALS Tolerance ANY YEARS AGO, in Palestine, a great philosopher was murdered for ex- pressing his beliefs. Not so long ago, in our own generation, thousands of people were murdered not only for the expression of their beliefs but also only because they were suspected of entertaining them. Since man could speak, freedom of expession and belief has varied directly with bloodshed. Christ wasnailed to a cross in Jerusalem, and Nero laughed at Christians in their death-throes in the arena, Dachau and Belsen accounted for thousands of European free-thinkers, and Bilbo and Talmadge pronounced negro lynchings as most regrettable , and today if a man is not a conservative he is a communist. Look back at the record of bigotry, violence and stupidity, liberally interspersed with wars designed to make the world a Utopia. Then stop, and look ahead. So what? you ask, and f'What's that got to do with me?l' Here's what. Last week, after a talk in chapel by a man whose views were radically different from most- of ours, some of us displayed narrow and intolerant thinking. The Red Bogey once again came to view. A man who expressed his own beliefs was branded a communist by some of us, because, perhaps, we were too stupid to open our eyes. How many of us listened to all that was said? And how many nudged each other and whispered commie after the first few minutes. and then shut our ears? One of Pickering's basic ideals is tolerance. It seems out of place to entertain such ideas as those displayed last week. This is the first year of Pickeringk new deal. Let's not mar it with another episode of intolerance. Believe what you want to believe and say what you want to say, but don't censure those whose beliefs are different from yours .... Reprilltetl l'l'0Il1 the QlllIA'l'l' l'l'fIl'lx'l'l' Loyalty ANADIAN LOYALTY in the past has been a force for the betterment of Canada. A citizen was considered loyal if he tried to make this a better country to live in. This is still basically so, but there is a danger that this concept will change for the worse. The danger is that loyalty will be based on the concept that it is loyal to desire to maintain Canada exactly as it is, and it will be considered disloyal to advocate any change in our political, social, or economic set-up. In

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the Soviet spy ring. Of those brought to trial, almost half were acquitted. It seems that the only evidence that the department of justice could bring against them in a court of law was that they had been familiar with those who were disloyal. For some time now many daily newspapers and several national magazines have editorially and in their news columns attempted to tie together the idea of political democracy and the Canadian way of life , with the econ- omic system of private enterprise. This type of thinking can be quite danger- ous, for if private enterprise should fail as it did in 1929, and as many econ- omists think that it will again, it would seem to the public that since political democracy and private enterprise are one and the same thing, and since private enterprise has failed, therefore political democracy has failed, too. This is play- ing right into the Communists' hands, for if another depression should come, they will be the first to cry that it is time to discard the antiquated system of political democracy. If our form of government is to survive, it must be open to criticism and be corrected when necessary. Democracy is a system of change and must not be- come static. To be loyal to a democratic state is to try to make that state the most effective in providing the greatest happiness for the greatest number, even if that involves radical change. i -J.T.R. Our Advertisers ENEROUS COOPERATION and goodwill backed by deeds have characterized. this 'year as never before, the response to our soliciting of advertising for The Voyageur. To friends of the school and Old Boys who have thus assisted in the publication of this magazine, we offer our sincere thanks. To our readers we suggest that the advertising material in this volume is most deserving of their careful attention. Three