﻿CONSISTENTLY SPEAKING 
 
Since the day Vanderbilt first uttered the historical ultimatum, “the public be damned,” the public was, is, (and will be) damned. 

Since then the public has been damned most mercilessly and unmercifully—almost anybody could step out. any day, and damn the public and get away with it—not so today. 

Since the money pirates began to feel solicitude for the damned public, the public-damners have restrained, and contained, themselves—and the public has not been publicly damned since. 

Since this altered attitude, curbing the latitude of our most fluent and eloquent damners, we feel it no more than right that we should assure the damned-public, (both private and public that we have never damned the public, in private or public, and that damning the public is one of the last damn things we would think of . . . . Since we feel that when the public is damned we are dinned too. 

First, let me say that when organized labor wallops the boss with an increase in wages for themselves, the boss sinks down to his knees and yells, “spare the public, for gawdsake men, be reasonable. Break me if you will,” he says, “but spare the public.” So you see, the boss [uncelar] not the public. 

Labor is not the public. Because, didn’t we just now see that when labor was about to receive higher pay the boss feels sorry for the public. 

(If increased pay comes from the public, what business has the boss with it in his possession— how did he obtain possession of the public funds? 

Where did we leave the public? Let’s see. Oh, yes —if labor is not the public we must try to find out how the public came to be the nominal owner of that particular piece of money that labor demands for service rendered. 

(If the public works for a living, it is labor; if it works labor for a living—then, it is a parasite, and deserves no consideration.) 

Are professional men the public? 
A doctor is not the public because it’s to his interest to have labor get higher wages. When labor gets high wages the doc. can put in a pill, and a bill — in fact, the missus lets the family doctor fondle the family pocket book in a way that seems sacreligious to say the least. 

A lawyer— Is he the public? 
No. It is to his interest to let labor have enough wages so that he can hire a lawyer to lose his case in capitalist courts. 
No use talking— the public doesn’t exist. No use beating about the bush, this way—There isn’t any such animal. 

No use wasting any space discussing it—the public being non-existant is capable of taking care of itself in this competitive commonwealth, w[it]hout the hypocritical solicitude of the exploiters of labor? 

But if it develops that there is a public, then it also develops that the public is unorganized. If this be so, then our sympathy is waster!— let the public organize themselves into a big union of publicans and let them enter into the economic arena (with the proper competitive spirit.) 

I would suggest that public hunt themselves a job and become wage-earners, thus qualifying for membersip in the I. W. W. 

Whether you succeed in getting a job, or not, is not material since “intent” is generally accepted the equivalent of “accomplishment” in such things. 

I might mention in closing that labor is the only public worth mentioning, the rest all are labors’ servants, and for this reason, it is necessary for labor to organize into a one big union in order that they may keep their servants in their proper stalls. 

Everything that exists has been produced by, and of, labor— labor is entitled to the best of everything. 
Organize, and then some. 
T-BONE SLIM.