Fred Hoppe Interview: Electrician and socialist

SP FC 3803 U54 N_5-10-trk1_Fred Hoppe.mp3

Recorded c. 1964

Transcribed by Donna Sacuta, 2025

 

Interviewer [00:00:08] This is an interview with Mr. Fred Hoppe, H-O-P-P-E, and you’re in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, isn’t that right? Which local is it?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:00:27] 213, Vancouver.

 

Interviewer [00:00:29] 213, eh? Could you tell us what places you’ve been in BC? Did you come right to Vancouver and when?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:00:39] In 1909.

 

Interviewer [00:00:41] 1909.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:00:42] 1909.

 

Interviewer [00:00:44] And, uh—

 

Fred Hoppe [00:00:46] Always worked in Vancouver.

 

Interviewer [00:00:47] I see, so you haven’t really moved around.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:00:50] Not outside of Vancouver.

 

Interviewer [00:00:51]  And what are you, an electrician by profession?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:03] Yes.

 

Interviewer [00:01:04] Well, and you’ve been a member of the Electricians for —

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:08] 61 years.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:11] 61-year-old member. That is card age, not my age. I’m over 81 now.

 

Interviewer [00:01:22] So you’ve been a member since you were 20 and since 1903.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:30] 1902, I joined.

 

Interviewer [00:01:32] Where was that?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:33] Rochester, New York.

 

Interviewer [00:01:34] Pardon?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:35] Rochester, New York. Where the recent riots were.

 

Interviewer [00:01:43] Well, I was wondering whether you could tell us what kind of executive positions you’ve had in the union in your years?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:01:54] As far as executive is concerned, I was on the executive board once or twice, I just forget, and maybe delegations, but I never held any office like president or anything like secretary or anything like that.

 

Interviewer [00:02:12] What about the committees? Bargaining committee?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:02:14] I’ve been on different committees, like agreement committees and so on.

 

Interviewer [00:02:24] You were delegates to say, were you a delegate to the Trades and Labor Council in Vancouver?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:02:29] Yes.

 

Interviewer [00:02:30] What years were you?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:02:32] 1931. Well, oh, the Trades and Labor Council?

 

Interviewer [00:02:35] Yeah, I mean—

 

Fred Hoppe [00:02:36] Yes, but I’ve forgotten what years.

 

Interviewer [00:02:39] You don’t remember roughly when?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:02:41] No, that was the — that’s the way. That was this convention here.

 

Interviewer [00:02:55] 1931, you were at the 47th annual convention of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada. Right?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:03:09] Right. Now, I just wanted to call your attention to back when I first came here, there was, this was our local number, the Electrical Workers 621, not 213. Then later on, 1914 we was well, I called it ‘bought out’ by the 213. We went broke. [laughs]

 

Interviewer [00:03:39] Went broke. Well, this is actually, what is this? Is this a membership badge?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:03:46] Yeah, yeah.

 

Interviewer [00:03:49] What did you do, wear this at banquets or something?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:03:51] In parades. Labour parades and things.

 

Interviewer [00:03:55] Labour Day parades and so on?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:03:56] Yeah.

 

Interviewer [00:04:00] Local 621. That’s quite a thing you’ve got here.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:04:09] See, at that time, today we have a mixed local, see? All local electrical workers belong to one local. In those days, they were divided. Inside wiremen one local, linemen another local, so forth. Today it’s all one local.

 

Interviewer [00:04:28] Did you go to any political conventions, like some of the old labour parties?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:04:39] No, I didn’t belong to any of them.

 

Interviewer [00:04:48] Well, were you unemployed at all for any period of time?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:05:00] Most of my life.

 

Interviewer [00:05:01] You’ve been unemployed? Unemployed?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:05:04] Yes.

 

Interviewer [00:05:05] Is that right?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:05:07] The first in 1912, I think, the bottom fell out. That was during the big oil boom in Calgary. There was a bucket shop, you might say, or a real estate shop selling stocks about every other door along Hastings Street in those days. Then the bottom fell out. Everything went to— I could say ‘to hell’ but I won’t say that. There was no business, no building. I had followed lumber trucks, pulled by horses them days, not trucks. I have followed them to see where a house was being built, see if there would be a chance to get a job out of it. That’s how tough it was. I went around with a blowtorch and a soldering iron, trying to get some tin pans to mend around in those days.

 

Interviewer [00:06:20] That was in?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:06:21] 1912, 1914.

 

Interviewer [00:06:23] And then after, were you—

 

Fred Hoppe [00:06:25] Well, then the war came out in 1914  and seemed to build up again.

 

Interviewer [00:06:30] Did you go overseas during the war?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:06:36] No.

 

Interviewer [00:06:36] And what, were you unemployed during the thirties again, is that right?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:06:39] Yes, see when the — after the 1929 crash and even before that, there was another Depression along about 1922 wasn’t it? Of course I was married then and had family and I worked here in Burnaby on the streets for relief.  We were given not cash, but we were given script. So I think it worked out somewhere around $3 a week you could get your groceries off. And later on —

 

Interviewer [00:07:20] Did you have any trouble cashing that?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:07:22] No, you just— certain grocery stores had all the advantage, see, and there’s [unclear]. So then the municipality decided, or the government decided, to pay it in cash and you could spend at any grocery store. But this is always marked to certain grocery stores like I said.  So the merchants got to get their stuff.

 

Interviewer [00:07:48] Well, you were going to go on with — you were unemployed during the thirties were you?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:07:54] Oh, yes, yeah, all during the thirties.

 

Interviewer [00:08:01] Well, um.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:08:06] I could add some more along here, but —

 

Interviewer [00:08:09] Go ahead.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:08:09] Well, if this isn’t —

 

Interviewer [00:08:15] It’s confidential.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:08:16] public.  You know, I was going to say this. Along in the thirties, it gets so tough, see. I was on a job. This is when we first got $1 an hour wages. For that, when I first came here, the rate was 50 cents an hour. Then we got up to 75 cents. I think it was 60-some cents in the shipyards during the First World War. We built up to 75 cents. Then we got up to $1 but you didn’t know who was being paid $1 an hour. See, your rank and file were scabbing on you, you see? That’s an actual fact in our own organization. Suppose we getting $1 an hour, they’d come, they wasn’t getting $1. They’d lay down and take it. Well, I was on the job, a theatre job where there’s no reason in the world why they shouldn’t pay the scale, because all you had to do with a theatre job, the stage employees and the musicians would back you up. You HAD to be a union man on a theatre job, see, they were strong. Well, if the contractor didn’t pay us off at $6.50. Well, I quit right there and went down to the hall, raised hell with the business agent [unclear] to see this, you know. Of course, I was out of a job. Couldn’t work for that contractor any more. There’s three other men followed me out of about 20, I guess, around that time. So I just, I said, “There must be another way to make a living.” So it so happened that I was interested in outdoor life, just hunting, trapping, all that. So I decided to go into the fur business. So I established myself around here in [unclear]. That was about 1938, the last time I worked at the trade when I was in there. I did the odd job, enough to carry on, if you could build this up, build it up, see. I quit then and I built up to what you call my time. And I quit, but I didn’t drop my card. Yeah, I took up my card, I never knew when I’d got to go back to the trade. You can have each guy and drop his card. I didn’t. So I hung on to that, and of course as a result today, I get a pension from the international. We get a $50 a month pension from the international. So, from about 1938 on I never worked at the trade.

 

Interviewer [00:11:30] Well, I was wondering how you were paid if you worked. Did you get paid on a piece basis or a contract, or an hourly rate right from the start? .

 

Fred Hoppe [00:11:47] Well, as long as you were working under the jurisdiction of the local, hourly of course.

 

Interviewer [00:11:52] Right from when you started?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:11:52] Oh yes, always hourly. So, as I say, when I first came here, it was 50 cents an hour.

 

Interviewer [00:12:02] Now, did any changes occur in the industry that had a major effect on the way you worked, the way you earned a living, technological change?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:12:13] You mean speeding up? [unclear, both talking at once] Oh, by degrees, yeah, they’re gradually coming out with easier stuff to work with. The more scientists and material to work with. Like, you know, in the old days, when I first came here wiring houses was all, what they called, knob-and-tube work. Well, that’s all eliminated now. We don’t use that for sure anymore. Then they started using pipes, of course, on the big buildings. I had one at Georgia Hotel, and that’s how I run that job. Georgia Hotel. When was that, around 1929 maybe. Gosh, I forgot.

 

Interviewer [00:13:10] Well, how did you go about getting hired for a job, was it a union —?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:13:20] Getting a job?

 

Interviewer [00:13:21] Yeah.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:13:22] Always through the union, right? There was the trouble [unclear] they’d go around to the contractor. Always went through the business agent. Wait  my turn.

 

Interviewer [00:13:35] But what about the other ones? They went around to some—

 

Fred Hoppe [00:13:38] Pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:13:38] Some of the other ones didn’t, did they?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:13:39] No.

 

Interviewer [00:13:40] They just got the employer?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:13:43] Well, there’s some of them, especially some of our leaders are employed for the big firms, you see. They’re just going to [unclear]. Now lookit, I can tell you a little story. When the Second World War started around 1942, along in there and the United States got in after the Japs, and everything got so damn busy here. Contractors got short of help. So they called for men. So Jack Ross will tell you this. He told me he was business agent for 213 at the time. He gets a call one day, a contractor wants a couple of men. But he says, “Don’t send Hoppe or Pallen.” We were on the blacklist. Because we were good union men.

 

Interviewer [00:14:40] That was the reason why you were on?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:14:44] Why certainly, half the time I couldn’t work for that reason, because I was a union man.

 

Interviewer [00:14:50] Was this a widely circulated blacklist?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:14:53] I beg your pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:14:54] Did they circulate a blacklist, or just make it known?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:14:57] Oh no, they wouldn’t dare do that. That’s the way it worked out.

 

Interviewer [00:15:06] Well, how did they make up a blacklist?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:15:09] Well, that was up to the foreman of the individual firm. If he didn’t like you, well that’s it. He never called you.

 

Interviewer [00:15:28] Do you remember when your local was established?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:15:31] 213?

 

Interviewer [00:15:32] No, I mean 621.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:15:34] 621? No, I don’t know when it was established. It was established when  I was here.

 

Interviewer [00:15:41] How about 213?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:15:43] Well, let’s see now. 213 was in existence and another local in New Westminster. What was the number of that again? We had three locals here. And then eventually all amalgamated into one. Now, I can tell you how ours happened, 621. We had about 40 members all told. But out of that 40, it got to the stage where there’s only about six of us that were paid up in our dues.

 

Interviewer [00:16:25] When was that?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:16:26] That would have been 1912, 1914 along in there, see. So, our business agent, not Morrison, this was before Morrison’s time. He was a fellow by the name of Estinghausen, not Eisenhower, see, but similar. A Dutchman.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:16:53] How would you spell it?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:16:56] E-S-T-A-H-O-U-S-A-N I guess. Estinghausen. It’s Dutch descent. He’s from Cleveland, Ohio. But we called him ‘Esty’ for short, see? He was a great guy to drink beer, see, and a great guy to kid somebody, tease somebody, see. And the war broke out. Well, he’d get up to the bar, see in those days, it was the old rails. He stood in front of the bars, he’d put a foot on the rail. He had a face like the American Eagle with a great big beak like that (laughs) and he’d get up and he had a facial looking cruel as hell. And he would start to sing , “Hock the Kaiser” just to tease the natives. (laughs) He was as crazy as those Scotsmen getting mad as hell, see? So they turned him in to the authorities you see? So they was going to throw him across the border anyway, and of course he wasn’t getting enough dues from us to sort of feed himself, see. So he decided, he made a deal with Morrison, see, that 213 take us over. I always claimed Morrison bought us, for 13 bucks, which they did. I guess Teddy [Morrison] gave him a [unclear] and,  I still got a little grip downstairs I bought off him. I gave him three bucks to help him out, see, because he was broke. And he went back to the States and I never heard of him after. Well, that was the end of 621. We stepped right into 213. Those that was are paid up.

 

Interviewer [00:18:52] That’d be five of you.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:18:55] Pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:18:56] There were five of you left.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:18:56] About six of us, you know, with paid up cards, see. The rest were all three months or more behind in their dues. And if there’s any excuse at all not to pay, they wouldn’t pay. That’s how much they cared about unionism in them days, see? They were all card men, just like today. Nine out of ten are not union men. They’re just card men, that’s all.

 

Interviewer [00:19:24] Well, was your local always affiliated to the Trades and Labor Council?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:19:30] As far as I can remember, yeah.

 

Interviewer [00:19:32] What about the BC Federation of Labor?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:19:35] Well, I imagine the same, and I don’t —

 

Interviewer [00:19:43] Do you remember anything about the American Labor Union? That was really early in the century they were organized, sort of an industrial union.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:19:53] You mean the AFL (American Federation of Labor)?

 

Interviewer [00:19:56] No.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:19:57] Or the Industrial Union?

 

Interviewer [00:19:58] ALU, American Labor Union.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:20:01] Well, the AFL, American Federation of Labor, was an American union.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:20:16] When I joined back in the east at that time, you didn’t dare tell anybody or any employer you was working for that you was a union man. You didn’t wear, dare wear a button or anything because you’d be called a socialist, see, and if they couldn’t think of anything worse. See, there was no term as ‘Red’ or ‘Commie’ in them days. So if they couldn’t think of anything worse, they’d call you an anarchist.

 

Interviewer [00:20:51] A what?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:20:51] An anarchist. Worse than an socialist. You didn’t ever tell them you belonged to a union, no sir, or wear a button.

 

Interviewer [00:21:03] I got a whole bunch of parties here, and was wondering whether you whether you supported any of. This is early parties. Whether you campaigned for any of them. Like the Socialist Labor Party.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:21:23] No, no, I never joined any of them, until this here, the party where I’m now, NDP (New Democratic Party). I’m a member of that now, but I never belonged to any of those organizations, or I’ve never. Pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:21:41] That’s the first party you joined.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:21:45] Yeah.

 

Interviewer [00:21:45] Yeah, well, I’m in it too.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:21:52] I beg your pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:21:53] I’m in it too. I’m in the youth side. Well, that solved that. Now, what about the anti-Oriental business?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:22:02] Well, when I first came here, this had happened before I came, when the fishermen, the Japanese, had their fights and they was dumping a few Japs in the drink. I heard about that. I didn’t see any of it. But I’d heard that it had happened. I know there was an awful, a big anti-Oriental feud at that time in organized labour. There was. Yeah, and of course I was here when the shipload of Hindus came in to try to land, I remember that incident.

 

Interviewer [00:22:42] Did you, were you down at the docks at all?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:22:46] No, no.

 

Interviewer [00:22:47] Did you see the ship? I just remember reading about it.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:22:50] Oh, I kept my nose out of that.

 

Interviewer [00:23:01] What about any of the anti-Oriental campaigns or demonstrations? You didn’t participate in that?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:23:10] No.

 

Interviewer [00:23:11] What about your union?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:23:12] I know, I remember they used to, well, just like today a bunch of hoodlums, see? If there’s an excuse to go down Chinatown and raise hell, they do it, see. They’re just anti-Oriental, pick on them, you see. Like maybe some Chinese night or something, I don’t know, parades or something. They’d go, a lot of them they’d just go in there and raise hell. A lot of those guys, the old grandpas, they’re the ones that think of themselves often as the ones who think of themself as the best. They do.

 

Interviewer [00:23:50] So your union as a union, you didn’t have anything to do with it?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:23:54] Not as far as American Federation of Labor’s concerned unions.

 

Interviewer [00:24:00] Well, what about your local?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:24:02] Well, our local belonged to AFL.

 

Interviewer [00:24:06] Well, which unions were in?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:24:08] Well, there was the anti-union movements, different ones like the — not the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World).

 

Interviewer [00:24:20]  OBU? (One Big Union).

 

Interviewer [00:24:22] OBU, sections of that, see? Well, the original Wobblies, remember? They were socialistic, well they’re beyond socialistic. They were further left than that.

 

Interviewer [00:24:34] They were anarchistic.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:24:36] Well, I wouldn’t call them communists because — they hadn’t gone that far yet.

 

Interviewer [00:24:38] No, I said they were closer to anarchists.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:24:41] They was anti-AFL, that’s what I’d say, see. We’ve always had that with us. Always a bunch fighting the AFL. You have it right here, right now, all the time. I’ll tell you what I’d like to see [unclear]. There’s so much of this anti-American stuff, see. I’d to see this. I’d liked to see the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) in the States and the AFL tell all Canadian organizations, “All right, boys, we’ll give you your money with anything you’ve got in mind. Run your own show over there.” Like old Bill said in the First World War, “If you can find a better old, go find it.”  “Run your own show, see what you can do any better.” That’s what I like to see them do. And I’d probably be losing my pension by doing it, but I’d take that chance.

 

Interviewer [00:25:45] Well, I’ll tell you, what do you think, how many people in your local and in the unions in general participated in this anti-Oriental business, do you know?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:26:01]  Oh, my goodness, I wouldn’t know that. No, I can’t say that I know any of them that did. But I know that was a feeling in organized labour around.

 

Interviewer [00:26:11] But did they feel, most of them, that there were the —

 

Fred Hoppe [00:26:15] Well, they felt it was cheap labour.

 

Interviewer [00:26:19] And that was the reason, was it?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:26:21] Certainly, just cheaper labour. Undermined us. That was the only reason. Wasn’t because they’s a different colour or anything like that.

 

Interviewer [00:26:31] Well, when do you think it changed? I mean, it’s different now, isn’t it?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:26:34] Well, I think it changed after the First World War.

 

Interviewer [00:26:40] And why?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:26:42] I wouldn’t know why. Maybe because there’s more prosperity or getting more used to them or something like that.

 

Interviewer [00:26:56] That’s about it now. I want to go on to socialism. I was wondering, you mentioned there that you were, you first met, or you didn’t, you met Bill Pritchard because he was your bookkeeper, where you worked. Where was that, by the way?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:27:13] It was down on Pender Street, the firm’s name was —

 

Interviewer [00:27:25] You don’t remember.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:27:26] I can’t. I think I can’t think of the phrase.

 

Interviewer [00:27:28] Well, it is all that important.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:27:29] Wait a minute now. When you see Bill again, you can ask him.

 

Interviewer [00:27:38] Yeah, as a matter of fact, I’m seeing him again.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:27:40] You will be, that’s good. Give him my regards.

 

Interviewer [00:27:42] I will. I’m trying to find out just how, BC’s a pretty socialist province, you know, especially —

 

Fred Hoppe [00:27:55] How it started, you mean?

 

Interviewer [00:27:55] Yeah, how the whole thing got started, who spread it around.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:28:01] Well, it all started during the Depressions.

 

Interviewer [00:28:05] When?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:28:07] Well, the first ones were around in 1912, 1914, before the war started, you see. And of course it wasn’t NDP then it was the —

 

Interviewer [00:28:26] Socialist Party of Canada?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:28:24] Well, that was the old party element. Out of that came the CCF.  When we had Dr. Telford around speaking those days, he was as responsible for it as any of them of creating the CCF. He was darn good.

 

Interviewer [00:28:46] Did you become a socialist?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:28:48] Beg your pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:28:49] Do you consider yourself a socialist?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:28:50] Well, I certainly do. I’m certainly not a right-winger, but I’m not a left-winger either. That is the other side of things.

 

Interviewer [00:28:58] Well, when did you start?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:29:00] Everything I fought for all my life was socialism, in my opinion.

 

Interviewer [00:29:05] Well, when did you start becoming a socialist? Do you remember that?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:29:11] Well, I could go way back to when I first joined the Brotherhood. You see, back in my hometown, we had socialists, I had a good friend back there that was a socialist.

 

Interviewer [00:29:27] Which town?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:29:27] Rochester, New York. But they were old-type socialists, they weren’t rabid kind, I didn’t think so anyway. And I used to listen to him. And then, on the street at night you’d run across little groups of people, see? Say you’re going up Granville Street and one of the alleys coming out, see. There’d be a group of people there and you’d see somebody on a soapbox. And of course, in those days, the cops were on the beat walking on the sidewalk, see. See, that was their beat. Well, you’d be standing there listening to this, that wasn’t sheltered very well, see and somebody would say, [whispers] “Cops coming!” So you’d see them down to the next corner, they’re walking up your way, everybody would beat it. They’d wait until they got way back past and then they’d start again, see. Or go down to another alley, see? Well, that’s where I first heard Emma Goldman. I don’t think any of your socialists here know who Emma Goldman was. Goldman. She is one of the—

 

Interviewer [00:30:35] Can you tell us something about her?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:30:35] Beg your pardon?

 

Interviewer [00:30:37] Can you tell us something about her?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:30:37] Well, all I know is what I heard, hear or saw her there on the soapbox, you see. She’s very bitter, you know. She’s what I’d call a Communist today, see. Very, very bitter. Emma Goldman.

 

Interviewer [00:30:53] How do you spell her last name?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:30:54] Goldman, G-O-L-D-M-A-N, Goldman, she must have been Jewish, Emma Goldman. Yes, now I don’t know whether any of our old-time socialists, I’ve never heard them mention her name.

 

Interviewer [00:31:09] Well, I haven’t heard it, but she was pretty—

 

Fred Hoppe [00:31:12] Oh, she was rabid. And of course, to me it was amusing. I didn’t get all head up and want to fight like some. So I’d stand there, too, and make [unclear], and the cops come along and they’d chase them all, see? It was against the law, see. You didn’t. Sure, against the law, you mustn’t say anything like that on the streets. Tell people anything like that? Hell no. No free speech. That was my first—

 

Interviewer [00:31:47] Do you remember any of these other people that were around?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:31:50] Around at the time? Oh, I heard Eugene Debs different times.

 

Interviewer [00:31:53] Oh yeah, in Vancouver?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:31:53] No, back east. In fact, last time I heard him was in 1916 or 1917, that’s back there. When I got married, I went back there.

 

Interviewer [00:32:03] What about this Goldman woman, was she back, was in Vancouver?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:32:07] No, she was back there, I never heard of her out here.

 

Interviewer [00:32:10] Well what about Vancouver now, when you came here? Were you a socialist then?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:32:15] Well, socialism as far as being a union man and looking forward to socialistic trends and ideas, yeah, in that respect.

 

Interviewer [00:32:28] What kind of books or pamphlets did you read? Did you read any books that changed your mind?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:32:37] I read everything I get a hold of.

 

Interviewer [00:32:39] Do you remember reading any particular books that were pretty influential in changing you yourself?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:32:46] I read both sides of the fence for all that. Now, I get Saturday Night, I get Canadian Monthly, I get Time Magazine. I have both daily newspapers which I’m going to ditch next month when the new one comes out.

 

Interviewer [00:33:04] They deserve it.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:33:07] And I even read the office stuff.

 

Interviewer [00:33:12] What about, what about, did you read, for instance, did you read Progress and Poverty? By Henry George.

 

Fred Hoppe [00:33:18] No, no. No, I didn’t. I didn’t.

 

Interviewer [00:33:20] How about Looking Backwards?

 

Fred Hoppe [00:33:21] I read Looking Backwards and Equality. In fact that was the first socialistic book my sister, my older sister, read to me, were those two books, see, and the funny part was in her old age she was just as anti-socialist and anti-communist could be, gee, we had more goddamn battles, she and I had. She didn’t believe in this baby-bonus or anything like that, no sir. She’s strictly a right-winger.

 

Interviewer [00:33:52] Is she an American?

Fred Hoppe [00:33:55] She’s an American. She’s dead now, but I used to tell her afterwards, “Damn it all, you read me the first socialism I ever heard of.” She did, I must have been about 12 years old at that time, 14 years old. I always remembered that though, and, I don’t know, I think I got the book here somewhere.

Interviewer [00:34:18] I’ve read it myself. A lot of people read that, you know.