Bloody Sunday (1938)
Encyclopedia

Bloody Sunday was the conclusion of a month-long "sitdowners' strike" by unemployed men at the main post office in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. It was depression-era Vancouver's final violent clash between Communist
Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...

-led unemployed protesters and police that provoked widespread criticism of police brutality
Police brutality
Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer....

.

Background

The Relief Project Workers' Union (RCPU) was the successor to the Relief Camp Workers' Union
Relief Camp Workers' Union
The Relief Camp Workers' Union was the union into which the inmates of the Canadian government relief camps were organized in the early 1930s. It was affiliated with the Workers' Unity League, the trade union umbrella of the Communist Party of Canada...

, which had led the 1935 strike that culminated in the On-to-Ottawa Trek
On-to-Ottawa Trek
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a long journey where thousands of people had unemployed men protesting the dismal conditions in federal relief camps scattered in remote areas across Western Canada. The men lived and worked in these camps at a rate of twenty cents per day before walking out on strike in...

 and Regina Riot. After the earlier strike, the maligned federal relief camps run by the Department of National Defence were replaced by "relief projects" operated by the provinces
Provinces and territories of Canada
The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...

 and funded by both levels of government. The pay-rate was similar to the earlier camps – five dollars a month compared to the twenty-cents per day offered by the "slave camps". The work was primarily seasonal work on farms. As in 1935, unemployed men from across the country drifted to British Columbia because of the milder climate, but also because relief projects in forestry camps paid as much as three times as much as farm placements. From the perspective of the government, the main difference between the earlier camps established under R. B. "Iron Heel" Bennett
R. B. Bennett
Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett, PC, KC was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, politician, and philanthropist. He served as the 11th Prime Minister of Canada from August 7, 1930, to October 23, 1935, during the worst of the Great Depression years...

 and the relief projects under Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...

's Liberals
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 was that the men were comparatively isolated from each other making it more difficult to organize. In both cases, the throngs of disaffected unemployed men were kept out of urban centres.

In early 1938, the Prime Minister cut grants-in-aid to the provinces, effectively killing the relief project scheme. Premier Pattullo
Thomas Dufferin Pattullo
Thomas Dufferin Pattullo was the 22nd Premier of British Columbia, Canada from 1933 to 1941. The Pattullo Bridge is named in his honour as well as Prince Rupert's Pattullo Park....

 closed the projects in April, claiming that British Columbia could not shoulder the burden alone. Unemployed men again flocked to Vancouver to protest government insensitivity and intransigence to their plight. The RCPU organized demonstrations and tin-canning (organized begging) in the city. Under the guidance of twenty-six year old Steve Brodie, the leader of the Youth Division who had cut his activist teeth during the 1935 relief camp strike, protesters occupied Hotel Georgia
Hotel Georgia (Vancouver)
Hotel Georgia is a historic hotel located at 801 West Georgia street in Downtown Vancouver. It was opened on May 7, 1927, as a 12 story building. The architects were Robert T. Garrow and John Graham, Sr....

, the Vancouver Art Gallery
Vancouver Art Gallery
The Vancouver Art Gallery is the fifth-largest art gallery in Canada and the largest in Western Canada. It is located at 750 Hornby Street in Vancouver, British Columbia...

 (then located at 1145 West Georgia Street
Georgia Street
Georgia Street is an east-west street in the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Its section in Downtown Vancouver, designated West Georgia Street, serves as one of the primary streets for the financial and central business districts, and is the major transportation corridor...

), and the main post office (now the Sinclair Centre
Sinclair Centre
Sinclair Centre is an upscale shopping mall in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. It is located at 757 West Hastings Street between Granville and Howe streets. The centre comprises four buildings that were restored by Henriquez Partners Architects in 1986 at a cost of $38 million. The main post...

).

Occupation

By 1938, Communist organizers had a wealth of experience in sidestepping police spies. On the afternoon of 20 May 1938, approximately 1200 men left from four different halls in the East End of Vancouver, most of them believing they were headed to Stanley Park
Stanley Park
Stanley Park is a 404.9 hectare urban park bordering downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was opened in 1888 by David Oppenheimer in the name of Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor-General of Canada....

 for a protest rally. Only when one group arrived at the corner of Granville
Granville Street
Granville Street is a major street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and part of Highway 99.-Location:Granville Street runs generally north-south through the centre of Vancouver, passing through several neighbourhoods and commercial areas, differing appreciably in their land value and the...

 and Hastings
Hastings Street (Vancouver)
Hastings Street is one of the most important east-west traffic corridors in the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and used to be a part of the decommissioned Highway 7A...

 streets did it become evident that their destination was the post office. Over 700 men flooded into the recently renovated building. Police reinforcements were called from Granville and Georgia Street
Georgia Street
Georgia Street is an east-west street in the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Its section in Downtown Vancouver, designated West Georgia Street, serves as one of the primary streets for the financial and central business districts, and is the major transportation corridor...

s, leaving the way clear for a second column of 200 to enter Hotel Georgia, while a third group of 300 entered the art gallery.

The owner of Hotel Georgia refused to call the police and risk property damage that would likely result from a forcible eviction. This was the reaction anticipated by organizers and a reason these sites were selected for the occupation (as the museum had been in 1935 and Hotel Vancouver would be for a 1940s sit-in.) Instead, the hotel owner negotiated for the men to leave for $500.

The other two groups of protesters, however, maintained their positions for weeks to come. The art gallery closed for the duration of the occupation, probably more because of the spectacle of shabbily dressed homeless men juxtaposed against the opulent exhibits of high art than for any logistical reasons. The RCPU emphasized discipline among its members in order to win rather than alienate public sympathy, which was evident at the other two locations that remained open to the public. Chief Constable Colonel W. W. Foster
William Wasbrough Foster
Major-General William Wasbrough Foster DSO CMG VD was a noted mountaineer, Conservative Party politician, business man, and chief constable in British Columbia, Canada in addition to his distinguished military career....

 attempted to persuade the men to leave, telling them that they had made their point and should now go home. Brodie responded that if they had homes, they would be in them, and invited the colonel to arrest them. They offered to submit to arrest peacefully, and continued to do so for the duration of the occupation. Foster refused, and instead sought to manage the situation rather than clog the local prison with 1000 demonstrators and giving them the publicity they sought. The attorney-general agreed with Colonel Foster that the strikers would likely vacate on their own in a matter of days. But even as the strike dragged on from days into weeks, the police stood by awaiting orders before proceeding with an eviction. Colonel Foster had earned a reputation for diplomacy with the unemployed during the 1935 strike, which he appeared to be cultivating again in 1938. Behind the scenes, however, Foster was plotting with politicians and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

 to evacuate the post office and art gallery.

Eviction

Zero hour arrived at five o'clock on the morning of 19 June 1938, presumably timed to surprise the strikers and to minimize the number of onlookers. Colonel Foster enlisted the services of Harold Winch
Harold Edward Winch
Harold Edward Winch was a Canadian politician active with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its successor, the New Democratic Party ....

 of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, who had acted as a liaison between the unemployed and the police during the 1935 relief camp strike. His task this time was to ensure that the treasures of the gallery went unscathed during the eviction. Along with police tear gas canisters, Winch successfully negotiated the withdrawal of the unemployed.

The post office was a different situation. Because it was a federal building, the RCMP led the assault, and the leader of these protesters, Steve Brodie, was reputed for his infectious militancy. The men responded to the first round of tear gas by smashing the windows for ventilation and arming themselves with whatever projectiles they could find. The RCMP entered the building and forcibly ejected the men, who were subjected to a cordon of police armed with batons upon leaving the building. City police outside assisted the Mounties. Of the 42 hospitalized, only five were police and all of those were Vancouver police
Vancouver Police Department
The Vancouver Police Department is the police force for the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several police departments within the Metro Vancouver Area and is the second largest police force in the province after RCMP "E" Division.VPD was the first Canadian police force...

 constables.

Aftermath

Following the melee, the sitdowners and supporters (who promptly arrived on the scene) marched back to the East End, smashing the windows of the Woodward's
Woodward's
Woodward's was the name of a department store chain which operated in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada for one hundred years, before its sale to the Hudson's Bay Company .-History:...

 and Spencer's
Spencer's
David Spencer Limited operated a department store chain in the province of British Columbia, Canada during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century....

 department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

s and other targets en route, causing $35,000 damage. As in 1935, the Ukrainian Labour Temple
Association of United Ukrainian Canadians
The Association of United Ukrainian Canadians is a national cultural-educational non-profit organization established for Ukrainians in Canada...

 served as a makeshift hospital for protesters with the assistance of volunteer doctors and medical supplies that had been collected as an aid package destined for China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. Steve Brodie was targeted for particularly brutal treatment by the police and was left with a permanent eye injury. Another man, former militia sergeant Arthur Redseth, slipped on the post office floor during the fracas. "Little Mike", a fellow Serb
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

, managed to drag Redseth out of the building to safety through the flailing police clubs but only after Redseth's eye was knocked out of its socket under the gauntlet of police clubs. Redseth was later rejected for military service in the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 because of his injury, after which he became despondent and committed suicide in 1942. Little Mike had only required five stitches to his jaw from an injury he received after asking a police officer to call an ambulance for his friend. He died the same year as Redseth at Dieppe
Dieppe Raid
The Dieppe Raid, also known as the Battle of Dieppe, Operation Rutter or later on Operation Jubilee, during the Second World War, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. The assault began at 5:00 AM and by 10:50 AM the Allied...

.

Despite the early morning timing of the eviction, supporters and onlookers were quick to arrive at the scene, as well as a photographer from the Vancouver Daily Province
The Province
The Province is a daily, tabloid format newspaper published in British Columbia by Postmedia. It has been a daily newspaper since 1898.According to a recent NADbank survey, The Provinces average weekday readership was 520,100, making it British Columbia's most read newspaper...

newspaper. News of what had happened traveled fast and that Father's Day
Father's Day
Father's Day is a celebration honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. Many countries celebrate it on the third Sunday of June but it is also celebrated widely on other days...

 afternoon, between ten and fifteen thousand people turned out to a protest at the Powell Street Grounds against the "police terror" of Bloody Sunday. Many thousands also turned out to the CPR
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 pier to see off a delegation to meet with the premier in Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...

. In what seemed like a replay of the 1935 political response to the unemployment crisis, Premier Pattullo refused any concessions to the unemployed, claiming these men had been shown "too much sympathy" already. Meanwhile, Pattullo used the incident as evidence that the federal government needed to restore relief funds to the provinces. Prime Minister King offered the same response as his Conservative
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...

 opponent R. B. Bennett had given in 1935: that relief was a provincial responsibility.

See also

  • Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years
    Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years
    During the World Wars and Interwar Years Canada experienced economic gain, more freedom for women and new technological advancements.-World War I:...

  • Great Depression in Canada
    Great Depression in Canada
    Canada was hit hard by the Great Depression. Between 1929 and 1939, the gross national product dropped 40% . Unemployment reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933...

  • Battle of Ballantyne Pier
    Battle of Ballantyne Pier
    Ballantyne Pier was the site of a docker's strike in Vancouver, BC, in June 1935. It was a federally owned dock built by the National Harbours Board In 1923, and named for the head of the Harbours Board. There were ongoing strikes on the West Coast of North America in the Depression and it led to...

  • Helena Gutteridge
    Helena Gutteridge
    Helena Rose Gutteridge was a suffragette, labour activist and the first female elected to city council in Vancouver, British Columbia....

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