﻿HOT CAKES AND HONEY 
(By T-Bone Slim)

All it takes to govern some countries is a pillow—and a pail of tar. 
Next to impossible to pronounce the word “revolutionary” when your face is full of pie. 
If you switch from halibut to hash you are conservative. 
But if you switch from hash to halibut you are revolutionary. 
If you switch the government to Wall Street you are conservative—yes, I might say, benevolent. 
But if you switch it back to the people you are un-American—pro-Norwegian—a Bolshevik or a 
Banshee. 

Gorky says in Minne. Journal: “Invaluable men, men with the keys to Russia’s future in their hands, are dying prosaically of hunger.” Dying “prosaically” is sure the acme of misfortune. But such is life. I, the illustrious T-Bone Slim, have been negotiating with hunger right her in Skandianapolis, without any “keys”—not even a buttonhook; and as far as being “invaluable”—well, the word simply does not do justice; “invaluable” is entirely too prosaic. Why should our conseit [ßindistinct] make “any” concessions! The master class “depends” on us. 

To show to what extent “special privilege” will go to “jimm” the working class it is necessary only to say they have attempted—that is, tempted—me with a “bribe.” They offered me thirty cents an hour to work on a steel gang. I resisted with all the force of my honest nature, thinking the figure entirely too low. 

I’ve been criticized for not having a theory. Here’s one on relativity: No man has a right to liberty while one single innocent man is in “can”. Their joys are our joys; their pains are our pains; their triumphs are our triumphs. 

The employer aims to (and does) pay only so much (so little) as he is forced to pay. From this it develops: A slave entertains and idea (for a wonder!) that the living wage is always a little (or much) more than he is getting. 

In Russia a trainload of workers were sent to the Hot Springs (of Russia) in the Caucasus by the Soviet government—not to work. Some government! 
 
They also offer free (compulsory) movies to workers. Money seems no good. 

Man is the architect of this own misery, in the sense that he HIMSELF lowers his own standard of living. It is optional with him whether he has hash or porterhouse; he has a perfect right to eat—TO EAT THE BEST. If man is hungry today, he is hungry because he CHOOSES to be hungry. There is no law compelling him to eat. Stores carrying full lines of the BEST foods; warehouses are full of ham and eggs. If a slave’s belly is empty (and maybe it is), it is because his head is also empty.