Dorothy G. Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel: Ernest E. Winch and His Times (1960), pp. 117-118 (excerpt)

Excerpted in the BC Labour Heritage Centre's lesson "Bloody Sunday," read 10 Oct 2026. Steeves was a CCF member of the legislature and the biographer of Ernest Winch, father of Harold Winch; the account is sympathetic to the men. It gives:

• The sit-down: about 1,200 men "marched into the Georgia Hotel, the Art Gallery and the Post Office in orderly fashion, sat down and stayed there." "Most Vancouverites were intrigued and sympathetic. Women took in food for them and the Mother's Council which had 17 women's organizations as affiliates supplied many needs." The post office men edited a gazette, "not published or paid for by the department of Labor or the Government of British Columbia," whose "Post Office Flashes" ran: "The commissar department is featuring the Pattullo sandwich this week. Two slices of bread jammed together." "People brought in radios, blankets and books. Lines of washing were strung up and it was all very cozy."
• Why no arrests: "They couldn't arrest the men, because no crimes had been committed, as Police Chief Foster pointed out. So they planned secretly for a police raid and eviction by force."
• 19 June: Harold Winch, "tipped off," "implored the strikers to come out quietly" at the Art Gallery; at the Post Office, "a scene of frightful violence"; Steve Brodie "almost battered to death, before he was rescued by an RCMP sergeant"; at the police station that afternoon Winch, on a car: "We've had one riot this morning - we don't want another one."
• 20 June: "Mr. Pattullo was in town and met leaders of the Relief Project Workers' Union, CCF MLAs and a group of pastors from city churches. But nobody could be as adamant as Duff Pattullo once he had made up his mind. He refused all pleas for emergency food rations and further action. It was up to Ottawa, he thought. To the ministers he said: 'There comes a time when too much sympathy can be shown the men. That time had come in Vancouver'." The meeting broke up after twenty minutes.

The "too much sympathy" remark is known from this account; no 1938 newspaper giving it has been found. See Duff Pattullo, 22nd Premier of British Columbia: what did he get right, and what did he get wrong?.