Bill Pritchard Interview: Socialist, politician

SPFC_3803_U54_N_5_6_Side 1_2 Bill Pritchard 2025 07 06.mp3

Interview c. 1964

Transcribed by Donna Sacuta, July 2025

Interviewer [00:00:01] Talking about the connection between the OBU (One Big Union) and the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation).

Bill Pritchard [00:00:05] There’s no obvious connection between those who were prominent In the OBU movement and the formation of the CCF.

Bill Pritchard [00:00:27] CCF was of course, brought out by Woodsworth, his son-in-law, Angus MacInnis. They were members of the Dominion Parliament, mostly from Alberta. They came from the Commonwealth organization. I forget their names now, it was Bill Irvine, and the chap who was a graduate of Dublin University. I rather liked him. These were the elements that constituted the CCF.

Bill Pritchard [00:01:03] Now that there were, in some instances, the same people from one to the other, it doesn’t mean that necessarily they were connected. I think Ernie Winch, at that time of the formation of the OBU was president of the Trades and Labor Council in Vancouver, and I was a member. The documents will show you the conditions under which the CCF arose, the differences, for instance, between the general labour movement west of the Great Lakes and what we consider to be the domination of the East, and it sprang from a convention held in the East in which they demonstrated their domination, and there was an outcry against it. From that came a call for a Western Conference, which was held in Calgary.

Interviewer [00:01:56] Can I ask on this domination issue, was it just a matter of the domination, or was it the fact that it was the domination combined with a very conservative attitude?

Bill Pritchard [00:02:08] You’re correct there, yes. And then taking in condition the economic conditions, not in the middle of this country, but of our big brother, will I lay them out? Europe. A complete collapse of economies following the First World War with an organized thrust by the employers to make their imprint upon labour, there would be no more challenging us for improvement of conditions and a raise in wages. The labour market was to be flooded. In the meantime, of course, democracy had been saved. But the roots of democracy, the people, the workers, were to be made the target of this attack. There was that spirit to fight this thing. The fight at that time, too, was for an eight-hour day, which now is ever action. The fight was for a five-day week. Now these were revolutionary. Not so on the go. They’re accepted now. The fight also was the right of collective bargaining against injunction, and the political aspect, the fight against dictatorship in government, that is to say government by council, in which the parliament had no say, just a directive. And the trial in Winnipeg proved that there was orders-in-council and the learned judge agreed with me that if they had been statutes and they’re supposed to have the same character and effect as a statute, they would have been declared bad law. I don’t want to go into instances because that’s past history, but they are fresh in my mind today. Now that caused the, what was called the rump organization, there was no idea when the convention, or conference made in Calgary to establish an OBU. There was also a rebellion against officialdom, the American Federation of Labour (AFL) officialdom. There was no CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) then. The AFL was addicted to the organization of craft workers or skilled workers, no attempt to organize the unskilled or even the skilled, such as the loggers, of which we had many in BC. They missed all this. Since then, of course, they have developed industrial kind of organization where they consider it necessary. Now all those things that were frowned upon, were termed to be revolutionary and what not, and tied up with other things, are now established. Now basically that is what produced the OBU.

Interviewer [00:05:29] Why was this feeling not carried over in the East? I mean, why was it so much of a Western organization?

Bill Pritchard [00:05:36] Even businessmen at that time in the West felt the weight of Eastern finance, Montreal and Toronto. Today, in the United States, it’s still there. A revolt of the West against New York, the financial East. This election will assure some of that coming up. I’m glad I’m not there for the Democratic convention. I had enough watching. You know, but I’ve got a holiday here. Those were things that existed in Canada then. Now if I can make a digression, things have been established in Canada in the matter of social reforms, of measures of social welfare, that today in the United States are being fought against tooth and nail. Old-age pensions, for instance, which in this country is a federal matter, in that country is a matter of the State.

Bill Pritchard [00:06:58] Help for medical business. All these things were questioned. That is what is happened in Canada, and this went into the formation of the OBU. Again too there was rebellion among certain parts for the high admission fees. Now there were reasons for high admission fees, I’ll grant that, but the workers had a kick against that, and they wanted the uniformity. If a man had a union card in one craft or industry, and by circumstance he was compelled to change, the transfer of that card would be good to the next. That was impossible in the AFL at that time. I don’t know about the present. There must be somewhere. [Break in tape]

Bill Pritchard [00:08:03] We would have gone with either the possibility. There’s one thing it did. I got an hour, right? It produced some writers from the Commonwealth [unclear] now went. Now [unclear] in advertising, the Sun took him. Brodie, Bill Brodie. I developed Barry Mather, and Barry, if he’s in town, that’s where he wants to see me. I’ve got to go around the News Club, and I would chat with him, meet all those fellows. Barry Mather. Then there was a fellow, and I don’t know what became of him, but he was pretty clever as a writer. And I have a notion that he kind of went with these front, I can’t put my finger on front organizations, but I mean, he went to the Commies. Name of Griffin. But he was very clever. You know?

Interviewer [00:09:04] He’s editor of the Communist newspaper.

Bill Pritchard [00:09:06] Of the which?

Interviewer [00:09:07] Of the Pacific Tribune.

Bill Pritchard [00:09:10] Whatever it is. I think he’s got a daughter or something going through— Well, you know these fellows. I’m not sure that I developed Griffin because they had it in him, but he was certainly active. And there was nothing for him to get. Barry Mather just used to write that column. He came in— That’s him, that’s him. I actually knew him, but I met him on the streetcar here on previous visits. He’s very nice to me.

Interviewer [00:09:49] You can get it at the Co-op Bookstore.

Bill Pritchard [00:09:51] One minute.

Interviewer [00:09:56] Well, what was the split in the Commonwealth over?

Bill Pritchard [00:10:05] Oh, well. That would be digging up corpses and then somebody would come along and —

Interviewer [00:10:11] We’re gonna have to write about it.

Bill Pritchard [00:10:14] Yeah, it’s perhaps better getting from someone else because I could be accused of bias. Well I’d say on not as concerned a paper, all around I’ve had—time, time has an influence, you know. Well, there is a satisfaction, I mean, someone tells you, “You were right.” You know this, now, I don’t know whether I was or not, because I like them to think too. Now, when they come to the conclusion that they fought bitterly and didn’t have to wreck it, but that I was right. Now, there’s one thing that they missed, that I had in mind, and I’ve only said to one or two. The old Commonwealth always stood at a certain point in this city. I would like to have held that, for the movement or not.

Bill Pritchard [00:11:17] For the sake of that and those interested in it.

Bill Pritchard [00:11:20] And what stands there now? Do you know?

Bill Pritchard [00:11:27] Stands in our old place?

Bill Pritchard [00:11:29] But not many years ago, Her Majesty’s general post office stands on that block, they’ve got the entire block. Times are tough. I said, “Hang on, because even the amount of property, you can always move a press to some other place.” But, you know.

Bill Pritchard [00:11:57] That’s very nice tea. I can make good tea for myself, but you don’t get any in a restaurant there, down below.

Interviewer [00:12:11] Well, do you have any questions, Bill?

Interviewer [00:12:15] Well, you resigned from the CCF, now was it on, I’m not quite sure in my mind, was it on the paper, or was it on the expulsion of the leader, then?

Bill Pritchard [00:12:28] It wasn’t that I agreed entirely philosophically with the Reverend Connell.

Interviewer [00:12:35] That’s right, that’s what struck me, because it seemed to me that you would be at more or less opposite poles, ideologically.

Bill Pritchard [00:12:44] We agreed, I mean personally, we’re very close friends for that matter. We talk. But you see, if things to be done, you agree on those things that are to be done if you’re interested. I might be in here and I would disagree with you on a great number of points, but if they interfered with the common work in which we’re engaged, then you have a fight. But there was that movement. The bulk of those people that raised all this ruckus lined it up in one way or another with the Commies.

Bill Pritchard [00:13:31] This man, there may be a difference of opinion, this man was elected in the convention as the leader. I wasn’t there.

Interviewer [00:13:43] Was it that Ernie Winch wanted to be leader?

Bill Pritchard [00:13:46] I don’t know. But there might be some suggestion that.

[Segment repeats]

Bill Pritchard [00:13:53] I wasn’t there.

Interviewer [00:14:03] Was it that Ernie Winch wanted to be leader?

Bill Pritchard [00:14:06] I don’t know. But I might —

Interviewer [00:14:12] There was some suggestion that, Ernie wanted to be leader and said —

Bill Pritchard [00:14:16] No, Ernie didn’t want to be leader. He wanted his son to be leader. I would put it that way. And you may be wrong, I may be wrong, but [unclear] in that. And every little trick and what is this maneuvering of the same kind of maneuvering you get in all political parties. Now what’s the use of having another party if you’ve got the same moral attitudes? Why have another party, it’d be different? And apart from that, right or wrong, a convention that elected him. In the British institutions of Parliament, a party that is elected, the majority party selects its leader. Well, this was a matter of a convention, and then the elected members confirmed that. Not satisfied with that. No, I wouldn’t be satisfied with Connell’s general position, philosophically, and he would admit that I would tend to go further than him, but I stood with him on that.

Bill Pritchard [00:15:31] I’ve been told him I made big mistake, but I did it. And mistakes can be made, by Jesus, If you don’t make one you haven’t lived. It’s when you repeat them that they become your wish. I would be a blowhard if said I had nothing to regret. I’ve got all things coming to regret. If you want to put this down, it’s alright too. I remember a very fine fellow coming to see me in Winnipeg jail and he’s on the other side and I’m talking through the bars, and he said, “You know Bill, If we had known what we know now, we wouldn’t have done what we did.” That’s good, isn’t it? I said, “Listen fellow. If we hadn’t of done what we did then, we wouldn’t know what we know now.” (laughter) So, everybody’s telling me, I mean, I watch the movement around Los Angeles, but I’ll go back in the old days.

(Break in tape)

Interviewer [00:17:22] You were with the Socialist Party right up until it joined with the CCF, were you?

Bill Pritchard [00:17:28] No, because the old Socialist Party was split by this, and the guys were carrying money. I had never known them in the labour movement or socialist movement. A new breed of commissars grew up, and what they wanted was to grab the machinery of the existing Socialist Party, and particularly members who could write and blow, and they said I did both, I don’t know. But I know they came to get me and Harrington there. They had, this is history too, they had 21 points, and this Party, first of all, must adhere to the 21 points. The first point was that this party should be called the ‘Communist Party of’, and so on. I didn’t go any further than that. So I said, “To me, socialism means democracy, and that means democracy not with any strings on it.” I don’t even mean the democracy of the United States where the father thinks he votes for the president and then it comes out of the electoral college. He’s only being fooled. There’s no direct democracy there. I object to dictatorship. That’s democracy. I don’t care whether it comes from Jerusalem, London, or Moscow.

Bill Pritchard [00:19:18] Now, I have to live in Canada. The political problems of Canada as they arise would, should be, and can only be settled by the people of Canada. Now even people in Britain who may have the same outlook as I do as socialists wouldn’t tell me in Canada what to do because they don’t know the country to start with. If it’s a matter of propaganda, they can go around the City of London and hold 20 meetings without going two miles. Here, what do you do? I can’t. Fifty miles a day behind horseflesh in the middle of winter, 45 below zero. That very difference alone, that geographical difference, climatic difference, means that the way you tackle these things, even a conservative party has to tackle them differently than the Conservative Party of Britain, it’s different countries. So, well, that was enough. Well, they made enough noise and they had enough votes. It subsided, the old party subsided. I think it has been resurrected or renewed.

Interviewer [00:20:33] I’d like to ask you a question on that. Was there a poll of the membership on whether to adopt these 21 points? On affiliation.

Bill Pritchard [00:20:52] Means local, yes, I think so. But they did the same thing in Winnipeg, you see, and they smashed it bad.

Interviewer [00:20:58] What was the result of those votes?

Bill Pritchard [00:21:00] Oh, I couldn’t tell you that. I don’t know.

Interviewer [00:21:02] Well, did they go—

Bill Pritchard [00:21:04] The physical result was that they were able to pull out and they didn’t get the library. They got some people that could talk and some people that could write, I suppose. But we got the ones that were active.

Bill Pritchard [00:21:18] Well, did they get a majority of the votes?

Bill Pritchard [00:21:24] No, we had a majority in the Vancouver local, and there wouldn’t be above 40 people, and that was the local, that was the vote.

Interviewer [00:21:36] Tell me, what happened after the split? What happened to the people in this old Socialist Party? What happened to them? The people who didn’t support—

Bill Pritchard [00:21:46] Well, then they went back East and they had a conference, an organizing conference. That’s where they organized the Communist Party.

Interviewer [00:21:57] Yeah, what happened to the other people?

Bill Pritchard [00:21:59] Well, we just went home. I went home, stayed home. Let the world roll by for a while.

Interviewer [00:22:04] You didn’t get involved in any of the other labour parties, or?

Bill Pritchard [00:22:09] No, no. I got to the CCF.

Interviewer [00:22:12] Tell me, it seems to me, reading over the history of the Socialist Party, that as time went on you started becoming more and more concerned with keeping the party pure. You know, you turned down members right and left because they didn’t know— Like, for instance, to give an example, Arthur Turner. He tried to join in Vancouver, and he got turned down, and that was, what—

Bill Pritchard [00:22:43] You mean, how long ago?

Interviewer [00:22:46] Well, this is about 19—late 1920 or—late 1919 or early 1920, or somewhere thereabouts.

Bill Pritchard [00:22:55] Oh, I don’t know, I wouldn’t know that.

Interviewer [00:22:57] But I mean, you were turning down guys all the time and people would split off and get more and more pure, you know what I mean? Do you have anything to say on that?

Bill Pritchard [00:23:09] No, but I don’t know whether that happened or not. If it happened to him, then he would know, but I wouldn’t.

Interviewer [00:23:16] No, what I mean is the whole business is becoming more—

Interviewer [00:23:20] The Socialist Party became more and more exclusive.

Bill Pritchard [00:23:24] Well, that could have happened, you say, from 1919 to 1921?

Interviewer [00:23:31] Probably, I don’t know exactly. But it’s —

Bill Pritchard [00:23:36] Well, while I was only, the sentence was 12 months, I was really messed around for two years. I wasn’t back to it, so I don’t know. I’d have to see about the OBU, I don’t t know.

Interviewer [00:23:48] Who chose you as the delegate to go to the CCF founding convention in Regina?

Bill Pritchard [00:23:54] I think it was the club. Where the club organized.

Interviewer [00:24:00] You got in on that side rather than coming through any of the other organizations?

Bill Pritchard [00:24:09] Yeah. There were all kinds of clubs sprang up, you see, and that’s the funny thing about these things. They’ll grow faster than people with interest can really look after. I noticed that in the Winnipeg strike when they just came up to the Labor Temple, unorganized workers. The newsboys peddling newspapers, candy makers.

Interviewer [00:24:41] Another thing, was Harold Winch, was he an appointed leader or was he elected by convention? Do you remember that?

Bill Pritchard [00:24:50] I don’t, I don’t, I wasn’t there.

Interviewer [00:24:52] Was Telford in the running for party leadership?

Bill Pritchard [00:24:56] Well, he was a member, wasn’t he elected, but he was elected too, I think, after I left this country. I think he was elected when he was mayor of Vancouver.

Bill Pritchard [00:25:10] I met, I met [unclear].

Interviewer [00:25:11] Well, I mean, he was active in the party right at the founding. He was organizing CCF clubs, uh, right during the founding years, after 1933.

Bill Pritchard [00:25:23] Yeah, yeah, because he had radio things and all those things going.

Interviewer [00:25:27] Yeah. Was he not a candidate for the leadership?

Bill Pritchard [00:25:33] He may have been. He wasn’t elected in 1933. That’s when they first, any of them took office. At that time there was quite a number, a fellow from Powell River, Connell in Victoria, and so on, you may know the names.

Bill Pritchard [00:26:04] That’s where the parliamentary leadership was set, you know, at that time. Now, what happened after that, I don’t know.

Bill Pritchard [00:26:12] But Harold Winch now, I think he’s in Dominion House, isn’t he?

Interviewer [00:26:19] Yeah, resigned in 1952.

Bill Pritchard [00:26:25] Resigned from the provincial House.

Interviewer [00:26:25] In 1952 when Bennett came in, that was too much.

Bill Pritchard [00:26:29] Well, see, those are the things. I read about them, that this happened, but why, I’m not close to it, you can’t figure it out.

Interviewer [00:26:41] It’s too much to take.

Interviewer [00:26:42] Well, after being a leader for so long and coming so close, we came within one seat of winning, 1952, and lost it. I think the guy just — I think —

Bill Pritchard [00:26:55] Well, I don’t know, I’m stuck there.

Interviewer [00:27:00] Oh well, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Bill Pritchard [00:27:02] And I still don’t know why he did it, unless it was to some way of going up the ladder a bit.

Interviewer [00:27:10] His health broke down.

Bill Pritchard [00:27:13] I heard he’d been there quite a while.

Interviewer [00:27:15] Uh, did you say anything in the loggers, the loggers’ union?

Interviewer [00:27:21] You said you were going to, you said when the OBU started, you were active. Oh, you just organized their papers.

Bill Pritchard [00:27:31] Well, the Longshoremen’s constitution was such that if you went away from the waterfront and anything else, you took out a withdrawal card. Right at that moment, when they sent over word they would like me to come in there, I went to Longshoreman’s executive and said, “These brothers want me to start a paper for them.” So I had to take out a withdrawal card, and with that card I go to the Loggers and they gave me a card there. I was neither one of them. That’s how that happened.

Interviewer [00:28:03] Was that a full-time position with the loggers?

Bill Pritchard [00:28:06] It would have been, but like, things happened so fast, it would have been as far as you know, as far the thing went, and until the organization also went down the chute of history. That’s why I went over there, but they sent me then to this convention and there was nothing doing that day. The powers that be stepped in. And when I came back, they were— I’d accomplished things but they were in a state of disorganization, and I don’t know if they had a paper or not, but I couldn’t have gone to it. I didn’t want to go back to the waterfront, but I had to. So that I would come out of jail for being messed up with the Winnipeg Strike, I had nothing to do with the strike, I went down there like Woodsworth did, to have a look at it, and that was enough. This is a wide concern, of all the fellas that were arrested with the Winnipeg, except me, I’ve got that distinction. One man from Vancouver, there’s all kinds of guys blowing off their mouths around here, doing things, they didn’t pick them up.

Bill Pritchard [00:29:29] But I went to Winnipeg.  And I went, there was a fellow he was a labour man, he was elected, and there was Bill Miller, a plasterer. He went down to Los Angeles. He died of cancer. I buried him down there, and officiated at his funeral. One of the fellows shared a parlour car.

Bill Pritchard [00:30:09] I was just going to go in, see the officials in the Labor Temple, have a look-see them come back and report to Vancouver. What did I get? Headlines in the Winnipeg Free Press. BOOM! He’s going to ride me out on a rail. So I thought, well, since they know I’m here, and this is the reception, I’ll let them know. So I went in Victoria Park the next day, about 10,000 people, and called a meeting. That was enough. They were looking for me in Brandon. And they admitted, boy, afterwards, that that was the greatest political mistake they made. It cracked the Conservative Party and Arthur Meaghan. It took Bennett to get them back from the wilderness. No, I don’t regret it. An experience. I don’t want to do it again. That’s all. After all, when I look at the calendar, I’m older than I was then. The way I feel? No.