"collective bargaining". The
real issue was direct action in the form of the sympathetic strike. By
its expected control of urban centres the Soviet organization aimed to
throttle big utilities, finance, shipping, railroads, telegraphs. The
United Grain Growers were to be but a helpless giant in the hands of
Jack Proletariat. Parliament was to be superseded by Direct Action.
The A.F.L. was to become obsolete. Trades Unions were to be taken over
and painted red. Citizens in starched collars were to become comrades
in shirt sleeves, or enemies. Political parties would be
reconstructed. The "workers" would own the country. The British
Empire would be shaken into Soviets. The Army and the Navy would be
internationalized. The real Capital of Canada outside of Winnipeg
would be, not London, but Moscow. The International would supplant
national anthems. Public opinion would be exterminated except as
revised by the Red leaders on the Red River at its junction with the
Assiniboine.

In the unfolding of this Great Adventure we pause here to observe that
it was a newspaper which behind the Citizens' Committee administered a
black eye to this attempt to make Winnipeg the Soviet headquarters of
North America and 120 millions of people. The name of the paper was
the _Manitoba Free Press_.

And the _Free Press_ was seeing Red. What business had the Red Flag in
a city like Winnipeg at all? If anywhere in Canada, why not in the
industrial, big-interest East--in Montreal or Toronto?

"One revolution at a time, please," we almost hear the _Free Press_
saying. "Now the war is done the West has to settle the fate of
Government at Ottawa in its own way. And the way of the West is not
with the Red Flag; not with Direct Action. This city is a headquarters
of evolutionaries, not of outlaws. You people of the Strike Committee
are trying to get the spot-light when you've no business anywhere
except right at back stage."

A perfectly straight argument, though not couched in those words.
Dafoe and his associates were profoundly busy with what to them was a
ten times greater issue than any form of Soviet anywhere in Canada. As
a matter of record the paper did admit that the metal workers had a
right to strike for collective bargaining.

"But no other Union here or elsewhere," it thundered "has any right to
a sympathetic strike to help the metal workers. This city is not going
to be throttled by a thug minority, who want