|
|
Workers' Liberty Bond issued
by the Workers' Defence Fund
1919
Canadians were able to show their support for those
who partook in the Winnipeg General Strike by buying
bonds to assist in the "fight for liberty."
The Workers' Defence Fund, backed by the Winnipeg Trades
and Labour Council and the One Big Union, used the bonds
to help defray the legal costs of those strike leaders
and workers who were arrested.
[more]
Across the country, thousands of workers raised monies,
marched, and staged sympathy strikes to show support
for the strikers in Winnipeg, while Conservative Prime
Minister Borden and other members of his cabinet became
even more convinced that the Red Revolution was at
hand. They believed that the strikers intended to
build up the One Big Union, destroy craft unionism,
and foment revolution. The federal Conservatives,
along with Winnipeg's anti-strike forces within the
Citizens' Committee of One Thousand, proclaimed that
the labour disturbance was largely the cause of "aliens"
and "foreigners" who should be deported.
Accordingly, the federal government intervened in
the strike, and Prime Minister Borden authorized the
Royal North-West Mounted Police to arrest 11 of the
strike leaders in the very early hours of June 17,
1919.
|
