The Ballad of 411 Dunsmuir St., Vancouver, BC

Abstract

Its four stories still feature large windows,grey marble cladding at street leveland, above that, tan-colored brick. The structurecould be any downtown commercial buildingconstructed in 1912. Yet the place is a cenotaphwith an illegible inscription, is a union anthemdrowned out by traffic. The first fist hitsVic Midgley: pain explodes from his right ribsand before he can parry more, a punchslams into his jaw from the left.A constable has gunned down Albert Goodwin,evading the draft after he helped leadthe struggle for the eight-hour day at Trail's smelter.This while people still rememberhow some years before, the policeshot and killed Frank Rogers on picket dutyat the CPR yards. Midgley dodgesbut a swung chair legconnects with his face. In response toGoodwin's killing, the first civic general strikein Canada is underway this August afternoon.A fist plows into Midgley's stomach. He gaspsfor air, collapses forward. Throughout the buildingwindows are being smashed, records and filespulled from desks and cabinets and scatteredor tossed along with furniture onto the pavement.The strike is a protest, too, at four yearsof the pointless War to End All Wars in France.Once the streetcars stopped running,chamber of commerce membersorganized a mob of veterans to attackstrike supporters, directing them here tothe Trades and Labour Council's six-year-oldlabour temple, the largest west of Chicago. Midgley,Council secretary, has curled himself on the floor.A boot ploughs into his right side: twelve-, fourteen-,sixteen-hour work days. Another kick: subsistencewages. A rain of boots: no government charity—you find employment or starve. No safety standards.If injured on the job and can't work, your only recourseis sue the boss, as if you could afford that,let alone pay a doctor. Make him kiss the flag,someone shouts. The banner is slapped againstMidgley's face. Blood from his nose andthe sockets of his broken-off teeth stain the fabric.The building is lost to the Council in 1920but its song endures. Why should we who work,the lyrics proclaim, have no sayin how the wealth we create is spent?Why does democracy cease at the factory gate,the office door? Because of our jobs, the city livesanother day. Yet authority wants us invisible,productive, obedient. For now we are nothingto them. But we shall be free. We shallbe all.