Discipline &
tactical brilliance

Arthur Evans

By this time Arthur Evans was actively involved in the leadership of the RCWU.

Arthur (Slim) Evans was released from prison in the middle of December,1934 where he had been serving an 18 month prison sentence for leading a strike of coal miners in Princeton, B.C. As District Organizer of the Workers Unity League, to which the RCWU was affiliated, he became involved in their struggles and was a leading figure in their April,1935 strike, and, subsequently, in the On To Ottawa Trek.

Evans, born in Toronto in 1890, already had a long record of labour and strike activity in the U.S. as well as Canada, which included the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the U.S., and in Canada the One Big Union (OBU), the United Mine Workers of America, the Workers Unity League and the Mine Workers Union of Canada.

He was totally dedicated to the welfare of working people and completely fearless. He had become immensely popular in the labour movement and highly respected as an excellent organizer, a rousing public speaker, a brilliant tactician, He was a Communist and proud of it. Evans had all the qualities required to lead the relief camp struggles and the workers loved and respected him.

As the District Organizer of the Workers Unity League, Evans had one seat of the executive of the RCWU and became actively involved in the April general strike right from the beginning.

more .....Strike!