To All Friends of Democracy:
CANADIANS have done much to assist the Spanish people beat
back the fascist attack was launched on July 18th last
year. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen at once
sensed the dire threat to world democracy in the rebellion of the
grandees and reactionary landlords in Spain, which has already cost
the lives of 1,000,000 Spanish people, massacred by the Spanish fas-
cists and their German and Italian allies.
Five hundred of our sons are today fighting in the
front-line trenches, proud members of the Mackenzie-
Papineau Battalion of the International Brigade. Some
have made the supreme sacrifice, so that ”democracy shall
not perish, from the earth”, as the bereaved father of
Adrian Vanderbrugge of St. Catherines., Ont., has said.
THEIR precious blood. has forever sealed the bonds of unity be-
tween the youth of our Dominion and the gallant young people
of Spain and world democracy.
Canadian people have maintained the Bethune Blood Trans-
fusion Unit, which has saved hundreds whose bodies were broken by
German and Italian explosives.
Food and clothing have been shipped to nourish and clothe des-
titute women and children.
BUT ALL THIS IS NOT ENOUGH!
MILLIONS of Canadian people are willing to help if they are
told the facts about the invasion of Spain by the fascist hordes.
Catholics and Protestants alike recoil in horror at the story of
the bombing of Guernica, holy city of the Basque Catholics, where
800 aged folk, women and children were Wantonly destroyed by
Italian and German bombing planes.
Our French-Canadian brothers will see the glory of Basque and
Catalonia, fighting for their culture and their national and religious
freedom in the face of Franco and his foreign mercenaries.
Farmers can throb with sympathy for the Spanish olive and
fruit-growers, whose lands have been made desolate by invading
Moors.
Industrial workers’ hearts will beat with pride when they know
of the mighty working-class front of parties and trade unions which
formed the solid squares against which the fascist lance was broken
at Madrid.
Writers, artists, teachers, professionals—will see in their col-
leagues in Spain the devoted spirits who have stood shoulder to
shoulder with the workers of field and factory, in the government, on
the battlefield, to drive the fascists from their country, to save their
country’s noble culture, to preserve Cervantes. and Goya for the
people and from the fascists’ destroying hands!
Yet, much more remains to be done! We have but touched the fringe of possibility.