Notice to Citizens, Wednesday 28 January 1931
In the same issue of the Sun, columnist Bob Bouchette responds to Taylor’s notice:
If I were a citizen of Fascist Italy I would accept this statement without a murmur. Being a Canadian, I think it is damnable.
Apart from all consideration of its ethics, the issuance of this warning is, by inference, a misrepresentation of conditions in Vancouver. It is written with bated breath. It suggests an imminence of mob rule unless drastic measures are adopted. There has been nothing to indicate such a danger. These futile Communist demonstrations have been marked with the rapidity with which the demonstrators left the scene as soon as the police went into action. Why should the Mayor create the false impression that Vancouver is on the eve of upheaval? Is this a political gesture, calculated to picture Mayor Taylor as the strong man of the moment, protecting the persons of the citizenry? Are the merchants of the city benefited by advertising of this sort?
I don’t like the implied threat in the second sentence of the notice. The police have already used “firm hands.” To say that they intend to do so in future suggests the employment of more violent tactics. Very clearly it is intimidation. It may be quite legal to prevent the unemployed from assembling, but it is certainly no expression of the spirit of our constitution. It is a Mussolini way of meeting a situation.
Source: Vancouver Sun
Some things never change…
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