What Shall We Fight it With?

MR. GRIFFIN: Members and Guests of the Canadian Club of Canada: Our speaker today, Mr. Charles L. Burton, is one of Canada's outstanding men. He is the personification of the great North American ideal-the boy from the country who first saw goods sold in a rural general store and today is Chairman of the Board of a mighty retail organization which last year sold over two hundred million dollars worth of merchandise. Mr. Burton effected this classic transformation by his own combination of ability, foresight, hard work and, of course, "A Sense of Urgency". His book of that name, published last Autumn, has become a byword in Canada in only four months and has provided material for countless discussions over innumerable dinner tables. Perhaps you haven't heard this story: It seems that shortly after Mr. Burton's book was published one of his grandsons was called on for recitation in class. When his answer was a little slow in coming his Master is reputed to have chided him with, "Come, come Burton, show a little "Sense of Urgency".

Great as Mr. Burton's success in business has been it alone would not have earned him the esteem and affection in which he is held by his fellow cititzens today. But our speaker is a man who has never spared himself in the service of the community in which he lives. He has always been aware that Right implies Duty and Power confers Responsibility. Over the years he has served on and acted as the Head of many of our most important Civic bodies. His latest but I am sure not his last, service to Toronto is the magnificent job he is doing as General Chairman of the Women's College Hospital Fund. I think it is a generally accepted axiom that great charitable campaigns like this can succeed only when presided over by a man of great prestige, wide influence and genuine public regard. The success of this speaks for itself and for Mr. Burton.

Gentlemen, my youth forbids that I should take any liberty with our distinguished speaker but our dear friend, Past President R. A. Stapells has used his Christian name so often in speaking to me that I find it springs easily to my tongue. I am going to combine it with a paraphrase of the widely-known slogan of the Robert Simpson Company and assure you that "You'll enjoy listening to Charlie Burton".

MR. BURTON: One cannot be indifferent to the reception which your two great Clubs-The Empire Club of Canada and The Canadian Club of Toronto have jointly accorded me. Your reception, gentlemen, is beyond my fondest hopes.

My subject today was announced more or less in a spirit of self defence.

It is "What Shall We Fight It With?"
We have one common enemy-Communism.

When I was younger and proposed ways and means for solving problems which were obviously quite beyond satisfactory solution, I was accused of giving a "counsel of perfection" and I am afraid that in dealing with my subject today I may be guilty of similar fault.

We have a tremendous fight on our hands. It is a fight that will have to be waged, as always, by the young men; at any rate men younger than I and many of us here.

About all we can do is to offer our counsel and the experience of our years to the men who must face an almost immediate future filled with conflict far more profound than any we your elders have gone through.

For this is a conflict of faiths.

Whittaker Chambers in his great book "The Witness" wrote in the portion devoted to his children

"In this century, within the next decades, will be decided for generations whether all mankind is to become Communist, whether the whole world is to become free or whether civilization, as we know it, is to become destroyed or completely changed".

Most of you to whom I speak today are to be faced with this situation.

Geoffrey Crowther, Editor of the London Economist, delivered three lectures in California upon the theme of The Economic Reconstruction of Europe. His subject was dealt with under three heads

The Vitality of Europe Freedom and Order in Europe America and Europe

Mr. Crowther pointed out that the frightful dislocations in European countries were not as hopeless economically as might appear. Yet, these lectures were delivered in February 1948 at a time when the seizure of CzechoSlovakia had just been accomplished, the speaker not realizing at the time that a civilization was about to be destroyed or completely changed.

We are now aware that our early hopes for the solution of international problems through the United Nations are not soon likely to be realized, for the reason that the Communist group seizes every opportunity to block all efforts to resolve such problems.

The threat of Communism is upon us. Shall we fight it and what with?

I well remember in my early days we used the feather duster-all that happened was that the movable dust was stirred up, only to settle over a wider area-so the feather duster is no longer used.

Not long since we considered wide civilized areas of the world were safe from the dreadful thrust of Communism, spreading its destruction of faith in God and introducing orgiastic materialism. Every day from behind the Iron Curtain, we get a passing glimpse of purges, slavery, threats and pressures. Everywhere we find within our free countries, schemes, machinations, infiltrations and propaganda.

We have joined with the United States, at great expense to the Canadian taxpayer, in the organized defence of Western Europe against Communism.

Commonwealth Conferences seem to lose their meaning. We wildly call for trade agreements, exchange settlements, and all the time we are baffled on one hand and the other.

We are prepared to think that our "Way of Life" stands as a self evident bulwark against the materialism of Communism, but such passivity of mind on our part is no weapon with which to fight such a relentless enemy. Our political life fails us in this surprising emergency. Our religion has caught us napping.

Our educational systems are inadequate.

So we must add something to our armour above a good standard of living and improving social conditions.

I have said no political party can meet the threat. I suppose no place on this earth is there better government or better men leading our political life than we are blessed with in Canada. Canada as a country, its provinces, its counties, its townships and municipalities, are on the whole well administered.

May I give a couple of personal illustrations to show what I mean when I say that under our present political practices we can not and do not meet the threat.

In the Spring of 1940 Canada was at war. Parliament was called upon to sit during the 24th of May and the following day, Saturday. I had been invited to a fishing party near Maniwaki. I suggested to a young man in the party, who was physically unable to serve in the Forces, that he should see Parliament in action in these two extra days during which the House would sit. Good seats were provided for us in the speakers gallery. Promptly we were in attendance at three o'clock in the afternoon to see Parliament open. We were full of anticipation. The two extra days were supposed to further the project before the House, which was the first war vote for World War II--a vote of $700,000,000. Canadian forces were already on the way to war-thousands more were in training.

The opening ceremonies were duly impressive. Exchanges between the leaders having to do with questions before the House were in good form. However, before we could realize it, the House had settled to routine business and speakers debating the speech from the throne were on hand and ready. What was our surprise to find a prominent Conservative member of the House on his feet. He was manifestly fresh from the barber's chair. He read most of his speech-which we understand is hardly according to Hoyle. What had his remarks to do with the 700 million dollar vote? Nothing that we could see. All the speeches which followed were routine. They followed none of the accepted rules of debate. That is no speaker's words had much if anything to do with the speech of the preceding speaker. The French speaking members were honoured to the extent of a score or more English speaking members retiring to the corridor for a smoke or to attend to some other business.

My companion when younger having spent a year in Switzerland could understand the drift of the remarks of the French speaking members, but they too had little if anything to do with the question before the House. None of the speeches seemingly had any reference to the $700,000,000 vote, to expedite which the members of the House had been kept in Ottawa and in extra sessions.

So we left--deciding to visit a picture show and at eight p.m. to return to the House. I will not dwell upon the evening session which was a travesty on decent usage or procedure. Yet we were seeing Canada's Parliament in forced session to discuss the first 700 million dollar vote in support of our boys on the way to the Front and in training. Presumably the speeches in the House were duly printed at the public expense, and sent free in Canada's mail to constituents throughout the country.

May I trespass upon your patience to give a further example.

In 1946 my wife and I visited the Canadian Pacific Coast and while in Victoria we met The Honourable John Hart, the former Premier, who was at the time acting in an advisory capacity to the Coalition Government. Thinking to acquaint myself with B.C. politics I enquired about the house sessions. Mr. Hart graciously obtained seats for us on the floor of the House.

Anyone who has seen the beautiful Victoria Parliament Buildings from the outside must have been impressed, as we always had been.

I am sorry to say the exchanges between the Government and the CCF opposition were anything but inspiring. Vituperation and invective were the order of the day. Anything approaching respect for an antagonist was noticeable by its absence. Party vied with party in promising new stars for the heavens.

Is it any wonder that in the recent elections a new unknown party was elected to office.

What did the Social Credit party promise--simply good government.

So I maintain no political party seeking selfish political objectives can meet the Communist threat.

Our religious life has caught us napping.

Our Protestant religious life has been too concerned with fundamentalism on the one hand and modernism on the other. Now that such questions have receded to the background we have found ourselves in a helpless vacuum in which paganism has often entered.

The Roman Catholic Church is still able every year to find hundreds if not thousands of young men and women who are willing to dedicate their lives to teaching, nursing and other forms of devotion, without regard to monetary reward.

The Jewish community is steadily building more and finer temples of their faith in our cities, and what is more, is placing in those temples rabbi preachers of a quality of scholarship, a gift of rhetoric and a tone of authority which cannot but profoundly impress.

Time was, not so far back, when Ministers of the Crown, Judges and more responsible civil servants as well as professors and teachers, were paid adequately. Not only were they attracted to such professions, but they took their places in the community with confidence and self respect. Economically it is difficult for them to do so today.

Fortunately our position in this fight is simpler than we have thought.

Let us each go about his daily duty. New "peace societies" or "arts councils" or "witch hunts" are unnecessary.

This is a time which does not admit of careless handling of any daily duty.

It is a time when we might properly call a moratorium on civic strife for strife's sake and when those who have responsibility for public services should on no account allow of their dislocation or failure.

It is a time for toleration and for forbearance toward each other.

In a characteristically frivolous vein the NEW YORKER, in a recent leader, says. "Coronations and inaugurations have gaiety and splendor, but they are preposterous backdrops for man's present adventure in nature. We are not travelling in golden coaches and open Cadillacs any more; we are moving rapidly upward in a space ship, and nobody understands the controls too well." "Everyone likes to imagine himself in high place, and we have been daydreaming about how we'd put in our first day as President in the critical year 1953. When they tried to catch us at a desk, we would shake our head and issue a statement: 'Sorry, got to go out today; got to call on a bayberry bush; got to see a pond about a man; got to find spruce gum, look under a rock, test rain for wetness and fertility; got to look for Life Everlasting'."

Communism allows of no deviation. You either believe or you are shot.

They call it the cold war. It is nothing of the kind. It is a war in which the two faiths are already locked in mortal combat.

Freedom is God's most precious gift.

And it is time all of us, in government, in education, in religion, yes, and on the plain, ordinary, everyday level of business, got it into our heads that freedom comes from God.

It is time we started to marshall our faith, and to take God into our councils at every level of our national life. Gentlemen--the weapons we already have--the weapons that have been handed down to us from centuries of human experience--are the only weapons Communism fears. And they are--faith in God and faith in democracy as the nearest possible approach to a political application of God's will, as we have been able to interpret it.

Finally gentlemen, of the Empire Club and and Canadian Club, I offer you Micah's words

"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by The President of The Canadian Club of Toronto, Mr. John Porter.