United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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ROBERT (very unsteadily)—“But, one more drink, John—(the bottle and glass clink) — just one more”. JOHN—“No; you’ve had more than enough al¬ ready; that’s all. Out we go”. I half led, half dragged him out the door. The damp air hit him like a wet towel and he straightened up perceptibly. The mist had given up and left in its place a thick, almost impenetrable fog. Just like a London pea-soup, I thought, then shuddered at the thought. We walked along silently, and the inky blackness poured in upon us; it gressed against you, permeated every pore of your being, became a part of you, until you feel yourself one with the night and the darkness and . . . ROBERT—“My gun, give me back my gun, John.” JOHN—He lurched against me unsteadily. “You’re still in no condition to have a weapon. Wait until you sober up a little more”. ROBERT (hoarsely)—“My gun, John, I want my gun”! JOHN—He was insistent as only a drunk can be. There was no arguing with him. “All right”. ROBERT—“That’s good, John. I’ll feel a lot better with my gun. You are going to give it back, aren’t you”? JOHN—We stopped by a doorway. “Yes, yes, I’ll give it to you”. ROBERT—“Thanks, John, I really need it, you know”. JOHN—I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out.. . ROBERT—“But that’s not a gun—that’s a knife”! JOHN—“That’s right, Robert; it’s a knife”. I pushed him against the door. ROBERT (screaming)—“No, don’t’” JOHN—His face was a mash of horrified sur¬ prise. I lunged at him. ROBERT—“John”! (a screaming gasp ending in a gurgle). JOHN—“Don’t call me John; call me JACK”! Lower Fort Garry In evening the dying sun Spills light like blood upon the stone Of the old fort which stands Beside the river’s curve; it is alone The sole survivor of a vanished time, All else forgotten; only it is known. A hundred years ago this river was A highway for the empire of the North , Which stretched from towering mountain ranges Across the burning prairie steppes, and down Into the smiling hills of Pembina. This was the kingdom of the Hudson Bay, And on the river’s muddy, turbid flow Commerce and produce of this far-flung land All poured into the storehouse at the fort, Its walls a pattern in the wilderness. Here were huge piles of beaver pelts brought from The northern forests, vast and echoing With sounds of silence, potential emptiness. What feasts were here, of smoking venison And gold-eyes steaming on the silver trays Brought from the land across the stormy sea; And parties here, when silk-clad girls and officers Danced reels and polkas on the polished floors. Out on the trail the men were happy with A lump of pemmican washed down with rum; The only music was the throbbing chant Of Indians wearing paint and eagle plumes, Who made a war dance on the frozen plains, While lonely coyotes howled up at the moon. The happy freedom of this wilderness Was shattered by the single rifle shot Which first began the internecine feud Between the Metis and Englishmen; The bands of steel which spread across the plains Were grasping tentacles to bind it down, And take away its birthright—liberty And so the fort still stands, But now the curious people come To see the dregs of power Of an empire built with furs and rum. Its stone will stand until The river ceases to run. —WILDA REYNOLDS. 16

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crimes. And why unsolved? Because they were the devilish work of—Jack the Ripper”. JOHN—His hands clutched my desk, the knuckles white with tension; beads of per¬ spiration lined his forehead. This had gone beyond the bounds of mere obsession; it had become a neurotic phobia. How, why it was there I did not know, yet—a childhood scare, perhaps, had started it all. But first I had to explode his theory beyond any reasonable doubt. “You say that you believe Jack the Ripper is alive and still active today. All right: when did the London slayings occur”? ROBERT—“Why, in the Fall of 1888”. JOHN—“And it is now Autumn of the year 1950”? ROBERT (brusquely)—“That’s right”. JOHN—“So 62 years have elapsed since then. Now if Jack the Ripper was an able-bodied man in 1888, say, 25 years old, he would be 87 today—an old man, surely incapable, granting that he still lives, of committing those cries”. That was that, there would be no further argument. ROBERT (slowly and solemnly)—“What if he did not get any older”? JOHN—That hit me hard—an ageless man. I forgot who I was dealing with when I said a reasonable argument: psychopaths don’t argue logically. ROBERT (insistently, then wildly)—“What if Jack the Ripper didn’t grow old. What if he stays the same age forever? Call it anything you like, black magic, voodoism—a drop of warm blood drunk when the moon is right, prayers to the dark gods—sacrificial offerings. That’s what the killings were, sacrificial offer¬ ings in return for—eternal youth!” JOHN—Was the man completely out of his mind? This is the twentieth century, things like that don’t happen any more. It was im¬ possible—or was it? A fantastic thought struck me and I shuddered at the implications. Suppose he’s right, suppose Jack the Ripper still lives, suppose eternal youth, suppose—oh, Lord! I grabbed my hat and coat. “Come on with me. We can talk about this over a drink. Personally—I need one”! That started it. We went, literally, pub crawling. After the second round we were Robert and John to each other. Each drink loosened his tongue more, until finally I had the whole background—the shocking threats to the child, the attraction of horror, the gradual fascination, hours of study, sleepless nights—all leading to this dreadful mania. There was another problem, he couldn’t hold his liquor. He was staggering as we left the third bar, totally inebriated at the fifth. Patient or not, I was getting thoroughly fed up. “Let’s walk!” I grabbed his arm and we made it to the door. A dreary Chicago mist covered us and it seemed to sober him up a bit. We walked I don’t know how far when a single, naked light bulb beckoned from an alley-way. He nudged me towards it. “All right, one more, then both of us are going home”. As we approached the door he pulled a revolver out of his pocket, and began bran¬ dishing it about wildly. ROBERT (somewhat unsteadily)—“I’m ready for him. I’ll get him if he shows up. There’s silver bullets in this gun”. JOHN—The man was certainly in no condition to pack a gun, probably unlicenced. “Here, give me that—don’t be a fool” 2 I pocketed the weapon and we entered the place. The bar¬ tender leaned across a table illuminated by a solitary bulb. He was the only one in sight. BARK—“What’ll it be, gents”? JOHN—“Rye, and leave the bottle; we’ll sit in a booth”. I took a back booth, as far from the light as possible. Two drinks and he started again: the whole sordid, miserable story— mutilated bodies, witch doctors, warm blood. Finally he passed out completely. I had an¬ other drink, lit a cigaret, and thought. An im¬ possible story, certainly, but what if . . . I threw the third smoke away half-finished, grabbed his shoulder, and shook him roughly. “Come on, get up, we’re getting out of here”. ROBERT (who has been mumbling unintel¬ ligibly for some time now, stirs, and lifts his head)—“But . . . what about . . .” JOHN—“Later, Robert, later. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Right now, you need some sleep”. 15

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UNITED MacALESTER CONFERENCE Nationalism in the Middle East GENERAL EXTERNAL PROBLEMS NATIONAL AND EXTERNAL PROBLEMS CPHE long slumbering Middle East is awake to- ■ - day, shaking off the incubus of surviving colonialism, and seething with nationalistic fer¬ ment. Nationalism in the Middle East is not, however, an entirely recent characteristic. It has, nevertheless, reached a new and climatic pitch since the Second World War. The time has now arrived, if it is not already too late, for the nations of the world to face this problem realis¬ tically, over which they have procrastinated and offered piecemeal solutions of expediency since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The general attitude towards the growth of Middle Eastern nationalism has been clearly expressed by a former American Ambassador to Iran: “There would be no great concern about the upsurging of nationalism in the Middle East were it not for its geographic position and its great resources of oil”. (,) In short this means that the interest of the West in the problem of the Middle East is purely a matter of self-interest and expediency; we need oil and we need the area for reasons of strategy, or, conversely, we are interested mainly in keeping Russia from obtaining these advantages. If this is the fundamental tenet of Western policy in the Middle East, and the events of the past decade would indicate that it is, then the time has come for a careful re¬ examination of our policy. Let us look for a moment at what this inde¬ finable word “nationalism” means in terms of external problems of the Middle East. National¬ ism to Middle Easterners means many different things: it means a chance to stand on their own 1. Grady, H. F.— Tensions in the Middle East with Particular Reference to Iran . Page 114. Proceedings of the American Academy of Political Science. Vol. XXIV, No. 4, January 1952. 2. Munroe, E.— Pink Communism in the Middle East . N. Y. Times Magazine, July, 7, 1952. 3. Stevenson, A. E.— No Peace for Israel , page 34. Look, August 11, 1953. feet, to govern themselves and, as a result of this, to develop their own resources; it means a chance to prove that colour of skin, difference of race and religion have nothing to do with their right to walk with self-respect among their fellowmen in the world. Nationalism to them means the end of legalized inferiority. This, of course, is a great over-simplification, for nationalism is so complex that it has been used to describe everything from xenophobia to com¬ munism, from patriotism to chauvinism. In speaking of the nationalist movements in the Middle East one writer has said: “Everyone is someone’s communist”. 2) This, of course, is ap¬ plicable beyond the Middle East. To complicate matters even further, national¬ ism in the Middle East means different things to different classes and, as we all know, the differ¬ ence between pasha and fellahin is both very great and very deplorable. To the upper classes nationalism has become a weapon in the hands of reaction; the foreigner has become the whip¬ ping boy while the social problems of the vari¬ ous countries have been neglected. The upper classes support the growth of nationalism be¬ cause its obscures the true causes of social and economic evils, and it is a successful policy be¬ cause the hatred of imperialism in its many nefarious forms is deeply imbedded in the minds of the indigent populations of the Arab world. One American observer describes the problem in this way: “The Arab nations face the same staggering social, economic and political pro¬ blems as the new Asia: ignorance, disease, feudalism, instability. These are the real pro¬ blems, but ‘imperialism’ and ‘injustice’ are the universal pre-occupations”. 1 2 (3) This is not only the most explosive element in the Middle East, but for the nations of the 17