Dawn Fraser: Echoes From Labor's War

Hey, Jim and Dan

The year 1923 was a stormy one for labor and labor's champions. Hardly was the Bruce incident closed when the steel strike came on, followed quickly by the sympathetic strike of the miners. The Cape Breton industrial centers were overrun by soldiers, provincial police and other invaders, which greatly aggravated the condition. I make the statement here, and will undertake to prove it, that these provincial police did assault innocent people who were not strikers, and as my statement is probably not sufficient, I refer the reader to the findings of the Royal Commission that sat in the city of Sydney. A railway employee, who was not a striker, testified under oath before that commission to having been beaten or assaulted by these so-called police. Yet when Jim McLachlan and Dan Livingstone published these facts, they were arrested for what was at first called "spreading false news." The same news was spread by everybody—the press of the province featured it. It was chiefly through the medium of the press that the information became general. If one citizen was guilty, all citizens were guilty Yet, of thousands that discussed the incident, only two were arrested, Dan Livingstone and Jim McLachlan, and only one was tried and put in prison Jim McLachlan. The ridiculous charge of "spreading false news" was inspiring. How can any-one guarantee the absolute accuracy of news? We depend largely on the press. How do we know that there was an earthquake in Japan? How do we know old King Tut is dead? Spreading false news? We may be guilty of it every day. But it happened in this case that the news was not false.

Hey, Jim and Dan, we are coming too,
For spreading news the same as you;
We talked about these holy ones
And how they hid behind their guns;
Yes, right up in the grocery store
We talked the matter o'er and o'er,
One fellow told us what he saw,
But I suppose he broke the law.

Say, Jim, you know the widow Hughes
And how she loves a bit of news
It will take more laws I fear than one
To ever stop the widow's tongue.
The same as me, the same as you,
She can't swear anything is true,
But, true or false, she will have the news—
Make room up there for widow Hughes.

Let's make the company refined—
It happens we recall to mind
That it was in the highbrow press
We read of all this dirty mess;
When Armstrong sent his hoboes down
To take possession of the town;
So if there's room up there for more,
We will send you up an editor.

What d'ya think, hey? Jim and Dan,
The boys are with you to a man,
And from their talk, Jim, I can tell
That everyone is red as hell.
Inform O'Hearn that Sunday morn
At least ten thousand reds were born,
And if he don't decide to free ya,
Maybe we'll be up to see ya.

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