If you are glancing through this paper for the first time, a quick perusal of the titles of the various articles will be sufficient to demonstrate to you that this is not an ordinary paper carrying the latest scores of the hockey or baseball, the goings-on of important people, the details of the third divorce or fourth marriage of this or that actor, shootings in night clubs and gory accidents along the highway. Nor is it a mere catalogue of the best goods at the lowest price for such big concerns as T. Eatons, Simpson,Sears, The Hudson Bay Co., etc.
No. That first glance through the paper will leave you with the impression that politics, or something very similar to it, is involved in this publication. And what is your reaction? Are you one of those people who are bored or disgusted by politics? Or, are you at the other extreme a political-party friend, who makes politics, and one particular party, the hub about which his life revolves, swearing by the party, admitting only what appears in the party publication and condemning, a priori, all which does not bear upon it the party seal?
We don't think you are in either category. Since the title of this article, "To the new reader..., has aroused your curiosity enough to get you this far, we feel sure that you belong neither in one camp nor the other.
No doubt the name of this paper, "The Union of Electors", aroused your interest. What does it signify? Well, if you read these few pages, and if you continue on to read other issues, you will begin to see that it is inspired by the hope... of a better world, a new civilization brought about through the education and the activity of ordinary individuals, men and women, young and old; a new world which will be as different from the present society, beset with contradictions; instability and chaos, as day is from night. "The Union of Electors" but is this not surely the essence of a political party? What party will this "union of electors" call itself? Will it be "just one more party"?
Don't let this question of "parties" disturb you in the least. Are you a Liberal? The Union of Electors won't try to lure you away. Are you Conservative, CCF-er or maybe just an independant? The Union of Electors has no quarrel with you. Hang on to your political party, if you so desire."
But, you're a Socialist. Oh! now that is another question entirely. You see, The Union of Electors, this paper, is the official organ of a cause, a political and economic concept -- and this concept is the very antithesis of Socialism. Moreover, the principles which it propounds will result in a bettering of life for all with security linked to freedom which would far surpass any remedies put forth by the Socialists or any promises made by our most brilliant savants to date."
That is something you will learn bit by bit from our movement and our publications. But for the moment, you must get rid of the idea that The Union of Electors is the voice of any political party.
To have some notion of how this new civilization will be brought into existence by the "union of electors", read, for example, the article in this issue entitled, "Is this really charity?". Towards the end of the article we speak about the "monthly dividend for each and every citizen, young and old". What is this dividend, you will ask yourself if you have no conception of Social Credit teachings, that is. The periodic dividend is, in brief, an issuance of a certain amount of credit (or purchasing power) to each citizen (regardless of age or financial condition) every so often (e.g. monthly) with which the citizen is able to draw upon the abundance of our production system. It is, in effect, the cultural heritage of progress; that is, it is the result of all men's progress down through the centuries, a progress which has made it possible for man to produce what he needs in a superabundance with less and less intervention by human hands (employees).
Does this sound like getting something for nothing? Giving away money free? Does it sound like a bit of financial lunacy? And yet when you will study this principle in the light of the Social Credit philosophy, you will discover that it is emminently sensible and the cure to the real financial lunacy under which we live and by which men and women and children are condemned to live in want and insecurity even though we are producing so much that our governments are in a quandary, not knowing what to do with the surpluses.
But supposing that you do find the idea of a periodic dividend both logical and appealing, perhaps you fear that such a distribution of money would be impossible in a society where both individuals and governments find the flow of credit reduced to a mere trickle. In our last issue there was an article entitled, "There is no problem concerning unemployment, but there is one with the dividend"; in this article, we say:
Money is nothing more than a system and a rather simple system of accounting. Money is nothing more than figures, Once you have understood how money comes into existence; what is its real function, (to reflect the facts of our physical economy) you will be surprised and wonder how on earth there can be such a shortage of these "book figures" with which to produce and distribute all the wealth of production needed today.
When the two factors of the dividend and the true source and function of money, have begun to become part of your thinking, you will have no difficulty understanding articles dealing with the shortage of schools and hospitals and roads, or the problem of men being without work when there is still need for so many kinds of improvement in our land.
But even supposing you have read faithfully each article in a great many issues of this paper, and have come to have a fair comprehension of the basic policies which follow upon the Social Credit philosophy, do not for a moment think that you have uncovered all the possibilities opened up by the application of those Social Credit principles which this paper seeks to install in the hearts and minds of men. There are Crediters who have been reading our French-language publication, "Vers Demain", since it first appeared 20 odd years ago, and they are the first to admit that they are always learning something new from this Social Credit philosophy. Even the directors of our movement, and the editors, confess that they find its doctrine an inexhaustible well of new ideas, new lights, new ways of viewing man and his terrestrial life. For The Union of Electors is not only an organ for sponsoring and promoting financial reform. Our movement looks for economic security for each and every citizen. But that alone is not enough. Even the prisoners in jail have economic security. It is unlikely that a "lifer" will ever know want or cold. Is this then the kind of economic security which Social Credit wants for the individual? Not at all!
We insist upon economic security with the greatest degree of personal liberty and independence consistent with the normal laws and regulations governing the society within which we live.
Thus it is that you will find diverse articles in The Union of Electors dealing with such subjects as Communism and the gradual encroachment of Socialistic ideas and policies upon the field of democracy. There is an article in this issue entitled, "Mr. C. W. Carter (Burin- Burgeo) speaks up again". It deals with this Federal M.P.'s attack upon the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for allowing itself to be used as the medium for the propagation of Socialist ideas.
We battle Socialism and Communism because they would impose upon free citizens the bonds of political dictatorship or bureaucracy under the pretext of bringing economic security to the citizen. The "welfare state", it is known as. We maintain that with the proper application of Social Credit principles, such economic security could be granted to every individual without infringing upon his basic rights and liberties.
We have often featured articles revealing the dictatorial tendencies of the great labour unions. While not denying the right of individuals to form associations for the easier attaining of common goals, we nevertheless put the individual upon his guard against those organizations which entice the individual into its ranks and once having him, force him to obey its mandates under threat of losing his right to a living or some such other right.
From time to time throughout the year you will find in our pages announcements and reports concerning our Social Credit congresses. These assemblies of the Union of Electors demonstrate that our movement is in truth "a union of electors". For they are an assembly of all those who subscribe to the theory, a Social Credit theory, that government, in fact, should come from the elector, and not from polifical parties. That is why the movement of the Union of Electors is not a political party. It does not teach the division of the people through political parties, but rather the union of all citizens for the purpose of imposing the will of the people upon their elected representatives.
Teaching the citizen how to make his will known effectively to his government, is one of the primary objectives of our movement and of this paper. For the realization of the Social Credit ideal will never become a reality through party politics or through the formation of a new party, even if it bears the tag, "Social Credit". This ideal can become a reality only through the activity of an enlightened people. Know and act. This is what the individual must aim at. Our movement and its publications can teach the individual not only what he must know, but what he must do with what he knows.
How should a municipality finance those works so necessary for maintaining, improving or adding to the services which the individual citizen needs? Credit has been restricted, or the burden of debt already pressing upon the municipal taxpayer is too great. Where then, to find the credit.
The Union of Electors says:
Let the government at Ottawa give the order to the Bank of Canada that credit be issued, interest free, to municipalities, school commissions, hospitals and other public bodies, so that they may carry on the work which is essential to the community welfare, and which is feasible, without plunging the community into debt for that which it, itself, produces.
Or put in more general terms:
Whatever is physically possible, and feasible, should also be made financially possible.
These are principles completely in accord with Social Credit principles and truly sound financial and economic principles. They are the "know". What about the "act" or "do"? The Union of Electors teaches its members, and all who will listen to it, how to bring the necessary pressure to bear upon their elected representatives so that such ideas may be legislated into existence. By letter, by telephone, by telegram or by personal visit, the Crediter puts the pressure upon his representative, lets him know that he, the representative, is there in parliament to act for the people and not primarily for the party to which he adheres.
The late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is reported to have remarked: "It is the business of governments to yield to pressure". It follows then that if the people do not see to exerting that pressure, the government will be obliged to yield to the pressure constantly being exerted by private interests which are often inimical to the welfare of the people.
Fluoridation is another subject which the reader will see appearing often in our paper. What, he may ask, has fluoridating public water supplies to prevent children's teeth from decaying got to do with the principles of Social Credit?
We have remarked that the citizen must have security, but with liberty. Fluoridation, as its proponents are attempting to enforce it today, would give dental security by obliging everyone to submit to mass medication. More often than not water supplies are fluoridated without the citizen's knowledge. He finds out afterwards. Now, it is a basic principle of the individuals rights, that he may not be forced to submit to this or that form of medical treatment, under normal conditions. Fluoridators would seek to make him imbibe sodium fluoride whether he likes it or not. This we are against. It is an attack upon the individual's liberty. Let those who want fluoride buy it at the drug store or get it free from the government. But let us not force everyone to drink it. ́
Thus the Union of Electors seeks to protect another basic right of the individual.
The movement of the Union of Electors has many readers of its publications, not only in Quebec and New Brunswick, but in all the provinces across the land of Canada. We have held our annual congresses at the very feet of the Rocky Mountains and we have gone out to the Atlantic coast for others. Our papers go into as many as thirty foreign countries, as far off as New Zealand and Australia.
The Union of Electors is a growing movement. It is made up of people who have heard its message and found it good and wished to pass it on to others. If you have found this paper interesting, pass it on to others. You might even encourage others to subscribe to it (you will find a subscription blank on another page). This is how our movement grows. This is how the realization of the Social Credit ideal will be brought closer and closer to reality not through the formation of new political parties, but through the education of the people in the methods of shouldering their responsibilities as citizens not once every so many years at election time, and then only by casting their ballot for a man they may know very little about but by practicing true political responsibility twelve months a year.
The great law of charity demands love of God and love of our neighbor for the love of God. How better can we show our love for our neighbor than by seeking to teach him how he, through his own work, through shouldering his own responsibilities, can arrive at that ideal material status which will make possible his complete development as a human individual, not only physically and mentally, but spiritually as well which spiritual development, after all, is his true purpose for being here on earth.