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On July 27, 1918 Albert (Ginger) Goodwin stared into the
barrel of Dan Campbell's shot gun and in a second, it was all over. The bullet passed first through Ginger's
wrist, then through his neck, killing him with a single shot. Ginger lay on the forest floor, choking on
his own blood. This was the end of the
life of Ginger Goodwin, but the beginning of his legend. Ginger Goodwin's murder sparked the first
general strike in Canadian history and he remains a source of inspiration for
revolutionaries and labour activists to this day.
Ginger
Goodwin the Trade Unionist
Albert Goodwin started working the
coalmines at the age of 15 in Yorkshire,
England. Though this may seem young to many, it was
actually rather old to start work in those days. Ginger's parents kept him out of the coal
mines long enough for him to learn to read and write. This must have been a great financial
sacrifice, but it would help shape the rest of his life.
Little is known about Ginger Goodwin's life
before he set sail for Canada,
but it is almost certain that he was involved in the struggles of the
time. According to one theory, he was
blacklisted in Yorkshire and for that reason he moved to North
America. The only thing
that is really certain is that in August 1906 he stepped on to the SS Pretoria
and set sail for a new life.
Ginger arrived in Halifax
on September 2nd and found work in the coal mines around Glace Bay. In
August of 1909 the United Mine Workers of America called a strike for better
wages and working conditions. It was a
bitter strike that lasted well into the next year. Ginger Goodwin was forced from his home at
471 New Aberdeen. This was company housing. It was a common tactic for the bosses to
evict workers from company housing during strikes. The military was called in to help break the
strike and scabs were brought in from far away towns. The Riot Act was invoked. The strike was eventually defeated. There were many arrests on a long list of
charges including assault, obstructing police officers, preventing a man from going to work and calling a man a "scab".
Ginger headed West along with hundreds of
other miners; blacklisted and broke they had no choice but to move on. Many found work in the coal mines at Crow's Nest
Pass and Drumheller in Alberta. But in 1911 another strike called by the UMWA
met the same fate.
Ginger Goodwin however, was already in Cumberland, British
Columbia by that time. The coal mines of Cumberland were the most dangerous mines in
the world. Even so, coal mining was one
of the best jobs available. Ginger had
to first work in the lumber camps around Comox Lake
for a few months in order to save up enough money to bribe a manager. This was the only way to get work in Cumberland's mines.
In Cumberland Ginger Goodwin met Joe
Naylor, a radical socialist and union organizer who would become his life long
best friend. The Cumberland mines were organized by the United
Mine Workers of America in 1911 and designated local 2299. Although this was one of the more
bureaucratic unions at the time, Cumberland
had a militant tradition. They only organized with the UMWA after the more
radical Western Federation of Miners was banned following a failed strike in
1903 (William Lyon Mackenzie King called the WFM a "socialist conspiracy"). All of the activists in the union (including
Ginger Goodwin) were members of chapter 70 of the Socialist Party of
Canada. This set the stage for what is
still known on Vancouver Island as "the Big
Strike."
"It was way back in 19 and 12
Our gas committee was put on the shelf.
First we walked out, then we were locked out-
Then by a foul we were all but knocked out.
Our union miners faced guns and jail,
Hundreds of us were held without bail,
But by August 1914 our labor they were courting,
But they blacklisted me-"
-From the song, Are You from Bevan
The big strike started just as the song
said. The UMWA called a "one day holiday
to discuss working conditions". The
meeting was a massive success with all of the mines shutting down. But the next
day as they went to work they found themselves locked out and on September 15, 1912 the big
strike began.
Ginger Goodwin did not lead this strike,
but it is certain that he played an important role as an activist. Ginger was known as a capable public speaker
and he certainly would have put his skills to use. The main leaders of the strike were Joe
Naylor, John McAllister, William Greaves, James Smith, Peter McNiven, Barney
Farmer, Oscar Mottishaw, Robert White and Chas Walker. At least that is according to the lawsuit
filed by the company against the union activists for urging employees to break
their individual contracts. The strike
would rage on for two years and bring Vancouver Island
to the brink of an all out class war.
The strike spread like wildfire. Within only a few weeks, every coalmine on Vancouver Island was shut down. The Industrial Workers of the World partially
shut down the railroads in solidarity with the strikers, refusing to ship coal. The UMWA brought organizers from all over North America to help with the strike. Even Mother Jones herself addressed a crowd
of striking workers at a rally. As the
strike heated up there were a couple of attempted bombings, one at a railway
bridge and the other at the entrance of a mine.
Neither of the bombs detonated. Although
the company blamed the strikers for these attempted bombings, it is more likely
that they were staged provocations. The
miners denied any involvement with the simple explanation that they worked with
dynamite everyday and if they planted the bombs they wouldn't have been duds.
The strikers were immediately evicted from
their homes. Nearly all of the houses in
Cumberland were
owned by the company, even the houses owned by workers were on rented company
land. Those who would not leave
willingly were forced out by company thugs. Many families tried to resist the
evictions. The wives of the miners were
particularly hard to deal with. The
women of the town would surround the company's henchmen and poke at them with
umbrellas. One woman refused to leave
her seat and she was carried out, chair and all.
Strike breakers were brought from all over North America. The
BC government sent in over 100 special police constables to "keep the
peace". In reality they were mostly
hooligans and thugs. The men patrolled
the town on horseback armed with clubs and pistols. There were regular brawls between scabs and
strikers and one instance known as the Cumberland
riot saw hundreds of men clash in the streets. When the strike got out of
control, the government sent the military into every mining town on the
island. The Seaforth Highlanders, the
Victoria Fusiliers and the Royal Canadian Artillery all occupied the island.
The Cumberland Riot took place on August 19, 1913 - already a
year into the strike. Although the
leadership of the strike was not involved, it was used as a pretext to arrest all
of the union activists and hold them without bail. Even a sympathetic socialist MPP, Jack Place was
arrested in Nanaimo.
At the time, Ginger wrote a letter of
protest (designed more as an agitation piece) complaining "Strikers are given
the maximum penalty while those who are helping the masters to defeat the
strikers are let off with the minimum... Stop appealing and praying! Line up in the great world wide movement of
socialism and use the concerted action of all workers to wrest from the
master-class the means of wealth production."
Joe Naylor and the other leaders of the strike
were held for four months, but the strike carried on. It wasn't until August 1914 that the strike
was dealt a major blow. The United Mine
Workers of America were growing tired of the dispute. They had already poured over one and a half
million dollars into strike pay for the workers and their bank accounts were
running low. But what came next was not
expected by anyone.
The UMWA not only withdrew support for the
strike, but they disbanded district 28 of the union. The entire Vancouver Island district
(including Cumberland
local 2299) was severed from the international union and from any further
financial support. Though the union
activists continued with their strike, without any support it withered. The strike was eventually completely cut
across by the outbreak of WWI. The main
union activists were blacklisted.
Most left Cumberland, but Joe Naylor stayed
behind. Big Joe was a well known figure
in the labour movement and knew he would not find work anywhere else. Joe Naylor went to the number four pit mine
every morning to ask for work. Every
morning he was told "No work for you today Joe, come back tomorrow". This lasted for years. Although Ginger Goodwin has been glorified as
a labour martyr, the real hero of Cumberland
was Joe Naylor. This outstanding comrade
deserves much more attention than history has given him.
Ginger
Goodwin the Socialist
"Wherever you go you see the same revolt implanted
into the workingmen, and as this thing is gradually increasing why soon things
will have to come to a climax.
If we study the condition of the workers it is only
logical that this spirit of revolt is existing among them, for wherever we go
we see the same miserable conditions and the same competition for jobs in order
that they may live.
Now, then, we know that all this misery is the outcome
of someone's carelessness, and that someone is the capitalists, those who own
the machinery of production. Now, as
this class of parasites have been living on the blood of the working class,
they are responsible for the conditions existing at the present time.
... This tool-owning class are the masters of the
situation, for in order for you to gain access to the means of life you have to
go to an employer and sell yourself.
Now, as you go to the boss and say ‘How are chances?' he will retort in
this manner: ‘Come around in a few days and I might have a vacancy.' He means
by this that you will have to wait until he can hire you and make a profit of
you.
In order to throw this system over we have got to
organize as a class and fight them as class against class.
And so I say we have got to back our forces against
them, and our weapons are education, organization and agitation, and read and
study up on the principles of Socialism, for it is necessary that you know when
to strike and how to strike, and if we have not these weapons when the time
comes, we shall not be able to predict the outcome of the fight.
All I know is this, that in every phase of society,
whenever a change took place, it was the outcome of force which determined the
winning side, so what we want is to educate you to your power, Mr Workingman,
and when we realize it we have the power and the lever to overthrow the
existing society."
-
From Ginger Goodwin's article
"The Iron Heel"
Goodwin emerged from the big strike as a
veteran trade unionist, but in October 1914 he was hospitalized. Ginger was in the hospital for three weeks
with what was probably an ulcer. He
returned to the hospital in January with the "white plague". Goodwin, like many other miners, developed
tuberculosis from the squalid conditions they were forced to live in during the
strike.
Ginger Goodwin left Cumberland in the spring of 1915. He found work in Merritt's coal mines, then
later in the year at Crow's Nest Pass near the town of Fernie.
Though he kept working the mines, Ginger was also an organizer for the
UMWA and the Socialist Party of Canada.
He traveled around the region giving fiery speeches to groups of
workers, barely paying his way by passing the hat at the meetings. He spoke tirelessly against the war in Europe and the working conditions at home, advocating the
overthrow of capitalism.
He wrote for the Western Clarion, the paper
of the Socialist Party of Canada. In a
later letter to the SPC Ginger wrote:
"War is simply a part of the process of capitalism,
and it needs money in the carrying out of the exchange of the commodities
essential to its prosecution. The old
saying that ‘you pay to learn' is evidently correct, whether it be with lives
or with money. The Morgans,
Rockefellers, Rotheschilds and other big financial interests are playing the
game and it is they that will reap the victory, no matter how the war
ends. It will be the law of the
concentration of capital into fewer hands strangling the life out of the
smaller capitalists in the process of creating a smaller number, but a more
powerful master class, than before.
Whether the capitalist system can survive this cataclysm remains to be
seen. It is the hope of the writer that
capitalism will fang itself to death, and out of its carcass spring the life of
the new age with its blossoms of economic freedom, happiness and joy for the
world's workers."
Ginger's passionate speeches and articles
raised his public profile considerably.
After moving to Trail in early 1916 to work as a smelterman, he was
unanimously declared the candidate of the Socialist Party of Canada for the
Ymir riding in the 1916 election. The
socialists of Trail fought a hard campaign in a conservative stronghold. Goodwin traveled around the region organizing
meetings and speaking to anyone who would listen. The bourgeois press slandered him
ruthlessly. Even as far away as Victoria, the papers
denounced Goodwin as a traitor. As
expected the Conservative's James Schofield was re-elected. He won 558 votes out of a total of
1,275. Ginger came in third with 254
votes. This was a very strong showing
for the Socialist Party of Canada. No
socialist had ever received such strong support in this constituency.
In December of that year Ginger was elected
secretary of the Trail Mill & Smeltermen's Union,
Western Federation of Miners Local105. But
before he could get into his new role, Ginger and others were off to the annual
convention of the BC Federation of Labour.
The convention had a strong anti-war mood. Joe Naylor was elected President of the BC
Fed and Ginger Goodwin was elected Vice President for the West
Kootenay region.
After several months of organizing and
agitating in Trail, Goodwin had become a force to be reckoned with. Goodwin and his comrades were able to force
concessions from the bosses with mere threats.
The smelter had been garnishing the wages of its workers for the war effort;
one simple letter hand delivered by Ginger Goodwin threatening a strike was
enough to force them to stop. Instead,
the bosses set up a voluntary donation account that was run through the bank,
not the company, and promised no discrimination against workers who refused to
contribute. But in November 1917
Ginger's latest demand would hit the company like a bomb shell.
The union demanded the eight hour day for
all smelter workers. There was no room
for maneuvering. Ginger delivered a twenty-four hour ultimatum. Either all the workers of the smelter would
get the eight hour day, or they would all take the zero hour day. On November 10, 1917 1,500 smelter workers
walked off the job under the leadership of Ginger Goodwin. The strike took on special significance
during the war. The lead and zinc
processed there was used to make arms for the war and the strike was being led
by a high-profile anti-war activist. Goodwin
not only called for an end to the war, but the overthrow of the capitalist
system all together. The ruling class
was planning to crush Ginger Goodwin.
The
Assassination of Ginger Goodwin
On November 26, Ginger was called before
the Trail exemption board. He had
previously been declared unfit for military service due to his health
problems. An ulcer, bad teeth and
tuberculosis would normally be enough to get anyone out of the war, but Ginger
was a special case. He was reclassified
and declared fit for military service. Although
he would launch a lengthy appeal process, this was the beginning of the end for
Ginger Goodwin.
A mass meeting of over one thousand workers
was held the next day. They loudly
protested the persecution of Trail's most notorious socialist. An appeal was launched by the workers to have
union leaders exempted from conscription.
Their arguments were sound. They
used the same reasoning that was used to exempt employers from conscription:
they perform a valuable service to industry.
But of course this appeal was flatly denied.
In early December the smelter workers sent
an appeal to their international union for support. They were betrayed by their own
international. With the US
entry into the war, the leaders of the International Union of Mine Mill and
Smelter Workers had taken a position in support of the war. They asked their members not to strike for
the duration of the war so as not to hurt the war effort. This scandalous betrayal left the workers
without strike pay. They heroically
fought on, until December 20 when a mass meeting of workers faced the
inevitable and voted to return to work.
The smelter workers lost 36 days wages
without any strike pay. It was a
terrible end to the first strike for the eight hour day in Canadian
history. Union activists were
blacklisted. Ginger wrote publicly about
the blacklist:
"There is a number of men that will not be taken back
by the appearance of things, men who had the conviction to fight for the cause
of the eight-hour day and who at the time of writing have got it from good
authority that they are not wanted any more at the smelter.
Those that are taken back have to sign a pledge to be
of good behavior for the duration of the war (Why not life?)..."
Ginger focused on his appeal process. In his final appeal Ginger gave up arguing on
health matters and focused his appeal on agitation. He argued that no officials of labour should
be taken to war; they were needed at home for benefit of the population. He signed his letter, "Fraternally for
Socialism, Albert Goodwin". It was
finally decided on April 15, and his appeal was rejected.
Ginger failed to report for duty in Victoria. Knowing that sending a man with tuberculosis
to the trenches was as good as a death sentence, Ginger went underground. He fled back to Cumberland where a network of supporters kept
him supplied. He hid out at the far side
of Comox Lake
on the banks of the Cruikshanks
River along with a few
other men resisting conscription. Albert
"Ginger" Goodwin was shot dead on the banks of one of his favorite trout
streams where he had spent so many days fishing with his friend and comrade Joe
Naylor. These so called police
constables left Ginger's body on the forest floor to rot. It wasn't until July 30 that his friends were
able to find Ginger Goodwin's body and bring it back for burial.
Dan Campbell claimed that he fired in self
defense, but this "official" story is now believed by no one. Joe Naylor oversaw the autopsy of his best
friend. The coroner's report showed that
the bullet passed first through Ginger's wrist, then into his neck. It was clear from the angle of the wounds,
that Ginger's hands were raised in the air in surrender when he was shot. Dan Campbell literally got away with
murder. He was never punished.
Goodwin's funeral procession in Cumberland stretched for
over a mile. Thousands came out to bid
farewell to their fallen comrade. In Vancouver a general strike
was called in protest of the murder. On August 2nd 1918,
thousands of workers in Vancouver and across
Vancouver Island downed tools in Canada's first General Strike.
The
Second Assassination of Ginger Goodwin
There is much debate over the life and
death of Ginger Goodwin. The reformist wing
of the labour movement has attempted to paint Ginger Goodwin as a pacifist and
a reformist. We believe that this
amounts to nothing less than a second assassination. There is an old saying in the labour
movement, "You cannot kill an idea". But
this is precisely what is being attempted.
The quotes already listed above are more than enough to show Ginger's
commitment to the revolutionary transformation of society and the overthrow of
the capitalist system.
Of particular note is the new children's novel
"Red Goodwin", a historical fiction by John Wilson. In the opening pages of the book it reads
"Lest we forget - Ginger Goodwin - Shot July 26 - 1918
- A workers friend. Apart the missing
apostrophe, there are two mistakes on the headstone. The hammer and sickle shouldn't be
there. The man who lies below the symbol
wasn't a communist - there wasn't even a communist party in Canada when he lived. It was added when the gravestone was erected
in the thirties and the communists were looking for heroes. The date is wrong too. Ginger wasn't shot on July 26. It was July 27, another Saturday."
Although John Wilson is right about the
error in the date and the fact that the gravestone wasn't erected until the
thirties, it is undeniable that Ginger Goodwin was in fact a communist. His whole life was a whirlwind of organizing,
writing and speaking for the overthrow of the capitalist system. True, there was no communist party in Canada
at the time. It was founded in May 1921 mainly
by members of the Socialist Party of Canada (which Ginger ran as a candidate
for), the One Big Union, the Socialist Labour Party and the Industrial Workers
of the World. The formation of the
Communist Party wasn't the beginning of communism in Canada; it was simply the first time
the communist movement achieved a truly national unified organization.
It is certainly true that the Communist
Party of Canada was searching for heroes in the 1930's when it erected the
headstone on Ginger's grave. But this
was only after the Stalinists had consolidated control over the CP. Ginger Goodwin's life was a model of the real
fighters for socialism. Those heroes of
the labour movement who built the early trade unions in BC's coal mines, organized
under the banner of the Socialist Party of Canada, formed the Communist Party
of Canada and fought against the Stalinists for the dignity of the Russian
Revolution. Ginger didn't live to see
the formation of the CP, or its deformation, but we think it is very clear
where he stood.
An article by Ginger Goodwin in the November 22, 1913 edition
of the Western Clarion read
"The time for revolution is rotten ripe, but the mind
of the vast majority is not ready and the struggle takes on the form of an
intellectual one for the possession of the mind of the working class.
The forces that make for this struggle are represented
for the capitalist class by the institutions of the pulpit, press, army and
navy, YMCAs and so forth. The
proletarians have at their disposal the teachings of Socialism, the materialist
conception of history..."
The words of Ginger Goodwin make it
perfectly clear where he stood. Ginger
was a revolutionary Marxist organizer.
We take it upon ourselves to rescue the name of Albert "Ginger"
Goodwin. The comrades of Fightback and the International Marxist Tendency
will fight for the real history of this outstanding comrade. The best monument we can build to Ginger
Goodwin is to achieve his dream: to "line up in the great world wide movement
of socialism and use the concerted action of all workers to wrest from the
master-class the means of wealth production."
See also:
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North America 
