"Halt the trek"

The Trek begins

By the end of May the strikers had reached a dead end. Their resources had run out. They knew they could not continue in the same way much longer.

All their efforts aimed at compelling Ottawa to negotiate their demands had failed. City and provincial authorities refused to finance a delegation to Ottawa to see Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. Although they had received tremendous support, both financial and moral, from trade unions and the public, they knew this could not continue indefinitely.

A ballot on "Do you wish to continue the strike?" resulted in 623 voting to continue, 272 for ending it, with 16 spoiled ballots.

Then out of necessity arose a brilliant new tactic. The proposal was that all the strikers go to Ottawa in an organized body via freight trains and place their case directly before the prime minister.

"I put the idea before a full meeting of the strikers," said Arthur Evans. "The response was very enthusiastic. If applause could do it, they would have taken the roof off the building."

Arthur Evans was the unanimous choice for Trek leader. George Black was his second in command, and Jack Cosgrove was appointed Trek marshall.

The plan was to stop off at various cities on the way to Ottawa for much needed rest, for meals and to win support for their cause.

In the discussion that followed it was made clear that self discipline would be the key to gaining public support along the way. They decided to leave on June 3. An "On To Ottawa" steering committee was elected with Art Evans as the leader. The Vancouver media was notified and wires sent to the labour press throughout Canada.

It was decided that twenty would be sent ahead as advance parties to organize welcomes in the cities they would visit. Evans agreed to go to Kamloops and Golden, their first scheduled stops, to organize receptions for the Trekkers.

An unauthorized tag day was held on June 2 to which citizens contributed $1500. Twenty of the taggers were arrested. A picnic was held the following day. Evens drafted a leaflet, 30,000 copies of which were distributed. It appealed for support and asked citizens to gather at the rail yards on the evening of June 3 to give the Trekkers a send-off "in their determined fight for the right to live as human beings."

The response on the evening of June 3 was a large crowd of over 2,000 well-wishers.

Singing labour songs the Trekkers climbed up the iron ladders of the box cars and seated themselves as best could on the tops of box cars for the long overnight cold ride to Kamloops. A second group was scheduled to leave the following morning. In all over 1600 Trekkers were on their way to Ottawa.

Their favourite song while on strike in Vancouver and as they left this evening was the old labour battle song "Hold the Fort", which they were to make famous at all their subsequent stops:

Hold the fort for we are coming
   Union men be strong!
Side by side we'll battle onward
   Victory will come!

The Trek was on!

more .....On to Ottawa!