This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on July 19, 1941.
It is a pity that good white paper should be blotted with ugly words. But children have to hear about the evils in the world, and liberty-loving people who have been taught the Golden Rule and the ordinary decencies of life have to learn that all these things are in danger of being swept away. The people of Canada have not all grasped that yet.
When I say “people,” I am speaking in general terms of the people who go to bargain sales, ride in streetcars, save coupons, listen to soap dramas and perhaps prefer Baby Snooks to Empire broadcasts.
But these are not their only activities. They are the people who keep the wheels of a country turning. They do the work of the country — till the farms, work in shops, pay taxes and help each other in time of need.
Their lives are cast in a clear pattern. They are loyal in an inarticulate way and can give fine service if they see a need; they believe that Canada is the best country in the world to live in, only equalled in opportunity by the United States.
But because they are decent people, who hate meanness or cruelty, they do not take seriously the menace that hangs over us. They can’t believe it.
I meet many of these people. I hear their comments: “Britain will never give in,” “Churchill is a match for any of the dictators,” “Hitler will never know what happened to him if he tries to invade England,” “When do you think this trouble will be over?”
“We get pretty tired of war news. I think we know too much these days.”
This last remark, heard twice in one day, is my theme for this week. I am convinced it reveals one of the weak spots in Canadian life. We do not want to be bothered. We are not ready to face the realities of this war. This is one reason for this slow recruiting.
Many of our people do not actually know the danger we are in, even here. They are like the isolationists in the United States who strut and shout: “The U.S.A. has always been able to hold her own with any country and we can still do it!” (Cheers and prolonged applause.) They forget that the danger that hangs over their country now is something more sinister and terrible than anything the world ever knew. It is as subtle as the blight on an apple tree or the rust on wheat.
In a book called Hitler Speaks, one of his former colleagues tells of conversations he heard in the councils of the Nazis. Ugly words they surely are, but not to be ignored. We must see clearly what the issues are. We must not be ignorant of the Nazi doctrine and how it works from within like a poison.
With Russia fighting the hordes of the Nazis, there is always the danger that more and more people will raise the cry that we must have no alliance — however remote — with the Russians, the godless. Letters are already appearing in the papers warning Britain and Canada that dire punishment will follow if we send aid of any kind to Russia.
But why discriminate against Russia in the matter of godlessness? Here is what Hitler proposes to do with Christianity, as recorded by Hermann Rauschring:
“The religions,” said Hitler, “are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future — certainly none for the Germans. Fascism may make terms with the church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch and annihilating it here in Germany. The Italians are naive. They are quite capable of being heathens and Christians at the same time. Italians and French are essentially heathens.
“But the Germans are different. A German is either a Christian or a heathen. He cannot be both. So for our people, it is decisive whether they acknowledge the Jewish Christ-creed with its effeminate pity — ethics or a strong belief in God in Nature, God in our own people, in our own blood!
“Leave the hair-splitting to others. Whether it is the Old Testament or the New or simply the sayings of Jesus — it’s all the same old Jewish swindle. It will not make us free — a German Christianity is a distortion. One is either German or a Christian. You cannot be both.
“The masses will never be Christian again. The tale is finished. What will we do then? Just what the Catholics did when they forced their religion on the heathen. Preserve what can be preserved and change its meaning. Easter is no longer Resurrection but the eternal renewal of our people. Christmas is the birth our saviour, the spirit of heroism and freedom of our people.
“Instead of worshipping the blood of a mythical saviour, we will worship the pure blood of our people. That’s the German religion. It is through the peasantry that we will really be able to destroy Christianity, because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and in their blood.”
This war is more than a physical fight and we must awaken to the need of more propaganda in the right meaning of the word.
Our own people need it. They unwittingly hurt our cause by repeating idle and malicious gossip that might be of Nazi origin. During the Victory Loan campaign, a woman told me the canvasser who called at her door told her, in the course of the conversation, that there had been 22 new millionaires created in Canada since the war began; also that the people in England are greatly let down over Canada’s poor war effort. We can all help in clearing up such misleading statements, which definitely hurt our morale. We must be rumour-stoppers.
Now is the time for a campaign in the realm of ideas. Lies are Hitler’s weapons for evil. Why can’t we learn to make the truth fight for us?
I had the privilege of speaking to a man this week who has recently come to Canada after spending a long term in a French concentration camp. He has had a hard and terrible time. I expressed surprise that the French would be guilty of such barbarism. He said significantly: “French Nazis are just the same as German Nazis. It is part of their philosophy. All Nazis are the same. Nationality has nothing to do with it.”
He spoke of the need of continuous propaganda from the democracies in German and Italian.
“Leaflets,” he said, “are not so effective as radio talks. People in the country may read a leaflet, but in the villages and towns, people are conscious of too many watching eyes and the punishments are swift and sure. But even the police cannot watch everyone’s radio. And all the people of the conquered countries and even some Germans are hungry for some word of hope. Depressed and hungry and frightened.”
He told us that Lindbergh’s speeches make great headlines in the Vichy papers, but even he did not know anything of American help to Britain until he got out of France.
The need at the moment seems to be for a great campaign for clear thinking here in Canada as well as in Europe. Dorothy Thompson, who is usually right in her conclusions, urges her country to spend money now on a great campaign for clear thinking based on common sense, logic and reason — a 24-hour radio broadcast to Europe, outlining a real peace offensive based on a complete Nazi-Fascist defeat and the building of a new Europe, where free men may live in peace.
In this, our new Department of National War Services may well join. Let the truth ring out over the airways in every language, every hour. The lie has surely had its day, and a dreary day it has been for millions of people. We must build back confidence into mankind, and this brittle moment seems to be the time to begin.
Some of McClung’s columns from the 1930s and 1940s have been collected in a book, The Valiant Nellie McClung: Selected Writings by Canada’s Most Famous Suffragist, by Barbara Smith.
