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Reviewed by E. D. WARD-HARRIS The Great Depression, The Dirty Thirties, The Wasted Years — call the 1929-39 decade what you will— was world-wide in scope and misery. Millions in many lands have vivid memories of those harrowing years. The Winter Years tells the story of that ghastly period as it affected the people who lived on the Canadian Prairies. ’ KR ‘would be difficult to find a better interpreter than James Gray. He spent two years on relief in Winnipeg and the remainder of the period as a reporter on the Winnipeg Free Press. Within the wide context of the regional scene, he narrows the tale to his own orbit, making oft a story within a story. He writes with humor and compassion and with the true reporter's flair for extracting the meat from any given situation. His style reads like someone yearning. Nothing essential is missed. We read of the politicians, the weather, the refuge of the public libraries, racial intolerance, of Sam Herbst the briliant and respected union organizer, of the Dust Bowl farmers, The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act of 1935, and the beginning of the oil boom. We read of Bible Bid Aberhart and the birth of Social Credit, of boon-doggles (when men on relief THE WINTER YEARS, “by James H. Gray; Macmillan; 226 Pages; $4.95. were made to pick dandelions in city parks) and of characters like Paul Ausborn, the dedicated anti-Nazi German; Bobby” Morse, the crusad ing panhandler; and of Davy Rait, the super bum. All the time we are reminded of the courage of ordinary people who survived these terrible years. Author Gray mostly reatsists the humor to his own experience h. But like old warriors talking of ‘wave! 2 lot of the funny things that happened are funny only in retrospect. This is a grim tale well told: To those who survived this dreadful period on the Prairies. The Winter Years will be of compelling interest; to those of us who weathered the decade elsewhere, it is educational to discover that compared to western Canada, our lot was com paratively easy, although misery is relative. Incidentally, to people who lived through the Depression, the current tight-money policy, together with the talk of recession, must send cold shivers down their spines. The publication of The Winter Years is timely. It’s lesson. It was an incredible experience, one that we hope will prove unique. NEWB POSTWAR BABY BOOM PROBLEM GOVERNMENTS AND THE UNIVERSITY; Macmillan; 98 pages; 62.95. The post-war baby boom has finally caught up with us. Canada's population is now almost 50 per cent under 2%. The demand for higher education is increasing. Costs are rising. Who is to foot the bill? That a regular infusion of gov ernment subsidies io essential no body questions. It is also recognized that ministers have a duty to control the manner in which public monies are spent. But universities, insatiable in their financial demands, are jealous of their autonomy and resent all outside interference. The question now arises should governments pay the piper without the right to call the tune?” This is the central theme of this book's four essays, which were the 1966 Gerstein Lectures at York University, Toronto. Poiiting up the universality of the problem, the lecturers represent three countries, Canada, Britain and the United States. Putting the university case are, Sir William Cooper, vice-chancellor of Manchester University; the Right Reverend Alphonse-Marie Parent, vice-rector of Quebec’s Lava Uni versity; and Professor Thomas R. McConnell, of the University of California. Speaking for government is Wiliam G. Davis, Ontario’s minister of education,E.D.W-H. Loggers and Their Union TOUGH TIMBER ... The loggers of Bridah Columbia, Reviewed by CECIL CLARK Kt had often occurred to me that the old-time logger in the Pacific Northwest, like the canvas borne sailor and the cowpuncher, needed wide screen for his action. All three were akin in battling the elemental forces of nature, where an occa sional false step meant death or injury. Dana, Lubbock and Conrad did well by the sailor, just as Owen Winter and others gave us cattlemen and rustlers. But as far as I know no one came up with a classic about chasers and chokermen. Probably never will, for with mechanization a lot of the original favor has departed from the tall timber. You get a hint that maybe Myrtle Bergren might have handled such a work for occasionally in Tough Timber she lifts the curtain to disclose some picturesque and inter esting characters. But then this isn’t fiction; it is more like a thesis on the rise of the International Woodworkers of America. Unless you are an avowed Marxist filled with hatred for camp bosses and all they represent, somehow you will lose interest in this shifting pattern of a 30-year management-labor struggle.
Newspaper Details
Victoria Daily Colonist
Victoria, British Columbia, CA
Sun, Dec 25, 1966
Page 44
Full Page
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