Jedinstvo, November 10, 1961

              Yugosl a v s in
(ORIGINALY PUBLISHED IN THE PROGRESSIVE
Slavic- - Canadians, who
were compelled by difficult
economic conditions to leave
their native countries, have
written many Important pa-ges
In Canada's history. This
is the case with all the Slavic
people who settled in Canada
and adopted this country as
their new home. The Ukrainian-C-anadians
in particular
ли'1ш began to settle in thU
country as early as 189C, un-deniably
made a constructive
.aiulan admirable contribution
.In transforming Canada from
.a chiefly agricultural land In-to
a mighty Industrial giant.
Of great significance is their
pioneering work In 6penlng up
the golden wheatflelds of We-stern
Canada.
Under difficult conditions;
of the English language, Slavic-Ca-nadians
spread throug-hout
our vast country, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Tor miserably low wages they
toiled from dawn till dusk on
the Canadian Trades, in the
factories and mills, on the
railroads and In the mines of
Northern Ontario.
Approximately 1,250,000 Yu-goslavs
left their beloved natl-v- c
country and settled beyond
the seas. About 1.000.000 of
them live In the United Sta-tes,
£0,000 In Argentina, 12,-(0- 00
In Australia and approxi-mately
20,000 in Canada.
The Yugoslav Immigrants In
the United States are usualy
refcred to as the "New Immi-gration"
which reached Its
amazing proportions during
the two decades just before
World War I. The majority of
them reached America bet-ween
1885 and 1911, before
they were collectively known
as Yugoslavs (South Slavs)
and before Yugoslavia came
Into existence as a state after
the collapse of the Austro-Hungari- an
empire in 1918.
According to Louis Adamir,
a prominent Yugoslav-America- n
author, who wrote "A Na-tion
of Nations", the Yugoslav
chapter In American history
begins with the very birth of
America. In his book, Mr. Л-da- mic states that little doubt
exists that on Columbus' ships
were Croatians from the Dal-matian
city of Hagusa, now
known as Dubrovnik. The sai-lors
from the Dalmatian coast
arc traditionally known as
fearless and seafaring people
and there exists a posibility
that some of them accompa-nied
Columbus in his Journey
in 1492.
In his popular book the au-thor
further mentions that in
about 1510 a fleet of ships
from Itagusa — now called
Dubrovnik — left for America
hoping to settle In the New
World. A number of them ap
parently were shipwrecked off
the coast of North Carolina.
.Some of them who were res-cued
mixed with the inhabi
Ш I Ib-aw- S
tants who since then have
been known as the Croatan
Indians ( note the similarity
between Croatan and Croa-tian).
The Yugoslavs, who experi-enced
bitter physical difficul-ties,
along with the people of
other nationalities making up
the "Nation of Nations", pla-yed
a first rate role In buil-ding
America. Today New Yor-kers
admire the great structu-re
of the Empire State Bull-din- g
but few of them realize
that the stonemason work was
performed by master crafts-men
from Dalmatia. In Ame-rica
the names of Michael Pu-p- in and Nikola Tcsla, both of
Serbian origin, are well and
widely known. Today practi-cal- y
everything motivated to
turn by electrical energy is a
result of Tcsla's invention.
Dr. A. П. Bchrend, an Ameri-can
scientist, in speaking a-b- out Tesla's work, said: "Were
we to eliminate from our in-dustrial
world the results of
Tcsla's work, the wheels of
industry could cease to turn,
our electric trains and cars
would stop, our towns would
be dark, our mills and facto-ries
dead and Idle. So far re-aching
is his work that he
has become the warp and
woof of Industry."
Many Yugoslavs also arrived
in United States after the
first world war. Some of them
crossed the border into Cana-da
and settled in such cen-tres
as S. S. Marie, Welland
and Hamilton. They were the
first Yugoslavs to reach this
country and were later joined
by new immigrants who came
directly Into Canada from Yu-goslavia.
Today there are approxima-tely
20,000 Yugoslavs In Cana-da.
They settled in this coun-tr- y after World War I — be-tween
1924 and 1930. The ma-Jorlt- y
of them — 12,000 —
arc Croatians; about 5,000 are
Ky S i m a c
- YOUTH IN 1918.)
Serbians and 3,000 Slovenians.
Without any knowledge of
the language or industrial life
they came from the farm-lands
of Yugoslavia as
and unqualified in-dustrial
workers. They gained
their livelihood by doing
labour in the indus-trial
sections of Canada, in
the mines of Northern Onta-rio
and in the forests of Bri-tish
Columbia.
Since the labour movement
in Canada at that time was
not very strong, the immig-rants
had to accept difficult
jobs and starvation wages.
They were exploited and
All of them today
arc workers with the exception
of an number
of small businessmen.
With them the Yugoslav
immigrants brought debts and
worries about their families,
their loved ones whom they
left behind. Some of them ho-ped
to remain in Canada foi
a year or two, make a "for-tune"
and then return to
their families.
During the initial years,
they were unaccustomed to
the new conditions. In the
begining they had no
until branches of the
Croatian Fraternal Union —
an organization which today
has a of 100,000
in America and Canada —
estibilshcd. The Serbs, on the
other hand, organized clubs
of their Serbian People's Be-nevolent
Association. The es-tablishment
of these organi-zations
gave the new immi-grants
an opportunity to as-semb- ie and to discuss their
problems.
Slowly but surely the immi-grants
were getting accusto-med
to the way of life in Ca-nada.
Realizing that a fortune
cannot be made overnight,
they built halls where they
got together and organized
tUnoti Vijea Kanadskih Juhiih Slatena u Hamilton! 1915. godin.
brace u JugosUuji u oslobodilackoj borbi. L njemu su bili okupljenl
SKtftf -- irfllte mmt
w a H a
cultural activities.
The crushing weight of the
deep economic crisis, which
struck Canada in 1929, left a
deeply rooted imprint upon
the minds of the immigrants.
During the depression there
were no jobs; they had to join
the army of the unemployed
or worked for miserably low
wages which were inadequate
to keep themselves and their
families alive. They lined be-hind
the soup kitchens and
the bread lines. In the light
of these conditions, it is no
wonder that the immigrants
began to feci an urgent need
for an organization through
which they take part in the
day-t- o- day struggles for th;
advancement of their econo-mic
needs. Realizing that their
life was inseparable from the
life of other Canadian work-ers,
they joined the Canadiau
labour movement and serious-ly
began to tackle the job of
organizing their own societies.
During the depression the
first progressive Yugoslav
workers' clubs were born. In
the beginning, the clubs came
into existence in the larger in-dustrial
centres and they en-veloped
the Croatian, Serbian
and Slovenian workers. They
were called the Yugoslav
Workers' Educational Clubs.
The first newspaper printed
in the lan-guage
which the members of
these clubs were able to ge'
hold of was "Radnik", pub-lished
in Chicago. However
by the grace of the Yugoslav
consular authorities in Wash-ington
and Montreal "Had.
nlk" no longer reached Can-ada.
Following this, "Iskra "
appeared and it was soon de-clared
an illegal paper by the
Canadian authorities.
Following the ban on "Rad-nik- "
and "Iskra" measures
were taken to firmly establish
a paper in Canada for the be
ncfit of the Yugoslav immi
13 d a
Emcric
YUGOSLAV CANADIAN NEWSPAPER ADVANCE,
inex-perienced
back-breaki- ng
dis-criminated.
insignificant
organi-zations
membership Serbo-Croatia- n
grants' In November, 1931,
when the economic crisis was
at its worst, when hundred.
of thousands of Canadiau
workers suffered from unem-ployment,
misery, hunger and
destitution, the first issue of
"Uorba" appeared. —
During the hungry Thirties,
when Iron Heel liennet was in
power a vicious attack was
launched by reaction on the
young Canadian labour move-ment.
With the assistance of
the authorities from the Yu-goslav
consulate in Montreal
who feared the strength of
organized workers, Tomo Ca-ci- c, the first editor of "Bor-ba- ",
was jailed tor two years
because he fought for the
rights of labour. In this drive
against the labour movement
reaction found its assistants
in renegades such as Peter
Stankovich, editor of a pro-fasc- ist
sheet, "Hrvalskl Glas",
and adherent of traitorous
Мдбек who betrayed the peo-ple
of Yugoslavia during the
war of liberation and fled
with the Germans when the
Partizans liberated their coun
try. They also iound them
among the Serbian pro-fasci- st
elements who were edit-ing
the "Glas Kanadc". All of
them unsuccessfully launched
this attack against "Borba"
the organ of the Yugoslav
workers in Canada.
These attacks of reaction
did not succeed in destroying
the young movement of Yu-goslav
- Canadian w o rkers
which inspitc of this constan-tly
strcnghtcned itself and
continued to further develop.
In the beginning of 1932 "Bo-rba".
whose Edtior at that
time was Edward Yardas, was
published on a weekly basis.
During the month of Aug-ust
1932, the first convention
of the Yugoslav Workers Edu-cational
Clubs was called and
held in Toronto, Ontario. At
this convention the first na- -
flfe, . ЈШШР' SLOGAUBORBi '1Ш2: - ;l
Нгаг' 'ШвР? PROTI FASIZMA %
Olatna evrha Vija je bila moraine i malenjalno pomajjanjc моЈе
eii rodoljubhi Hrvali, Srbi, .Sloicnci i drujfi Jugclacni u Kanadi.