﻿Stories and Songs of the Struggle 
By T-BONE SLIM
IS BOUND FOR CALIFORNIA AS SAFE PLACE TO WINTER 
 
Willows, Cal., Oct. 10, 1923. 
Hon. T-bone Slim, 
Sir: As the jails in California are filled to capacity, you might come back as we need you. If there is a shortage of t-bones around Chicago, don’t forget we are well supplied in California. If your clothes don’t suit other climates, come to sunny Cal.— Member-at-Large. 
 
Chicago, Ill., Oct. 20, 1923.  
Hon. Member-at-Large,  
Willows, California, 
Fellow Worker: 
I am in receipt of your kindly invitation to spend the winter in California, and being fearful of offending you by declining, I hereby do accept of your hospitable offer. True it is that t-bones are getting scarce in Chicago, so I figure that one more or less can have no bearing on the ultimate result. 
I am further persuaded in taking this step by the knowledge that California jails are full to capacity. I understand that no one is being admitted into them except for good cause, hence I not being fond of jails, will hasten to embark upon a fast rambler for the golden west. Not that I am not used to jails —that is one of the best things I do, time —jails are only a bugaboo the master class holds up to frighten those of us poor creatures who are unable to reason correctly. 
But I realize that the full object of California jailings has now been reached and hence your state is about the safest place for a Wobbly to put in a good winter. I further realize that the late criminal syndicalism agitation has cleared the state of the more cowardly and thus there will be a great demand for those of us that still care to take on labor, at so much per take. 
I am sorry you didn’t give me your address and enable me to answer you in personal way. This way, by the time you read this in the Worker, I will have been in California a week or ten days; sitting in under the strawberry tree denouncing the 2x4 statesmen and the petite-larceny-diplomats who use the working class as a plaything— a football — a pawn— a . . .  
The utter brainlessness of their proceedure is now plain to them as it has been plain I to us from its inception. They hoped by jailing twenty or thirty to scare 75,000 men, but developments have proven that they had to exceed their estimate —without scaring anybody. Now their jails are full and the state will be full of candidates (as it has been all summer) and the problem is for California to turn out these prisoners and still save the faces of her political performers. Every day they are held will add to the splash they will make when they do get out. Of course, they will splash even now but . . . hm . . . later, it will put us “over the top.” I see it coming and it will be demonstrated forever that these men were not in the can in vain. 
It takes just so much grief —that’s the pity of it—to bring about the final emancipation of the working class. But California was surprised the world with its idiotic and futile jailings of vast numbers. California voluntarily shouldered the burdens of the whole capitalist class and is, just about now, beginning to notice the magnitude of the task. Yes I think sunny Cali is through tinkering with the I. W. W.—Seattle had its session; Spokane its session; California its “canfest” and Chicago, no doubt, will be the next scene of capitalist persecution. Me for sunny Caland you do not need to show me around. 
I know all the trails and my spavined dogs have pounded the Macadam until a fill-up of figs tasted like prime-beef t-bone. My clothes do not suit this northern climate and my suit does not clothe me properly. Why should I forever be kicking snowballs when I can pass for a native son from Diego to Mendicino? 
I am yours for a better world.  
T-BONE SLIM. 
P. S. Never mind the inference that a I lack of nerve set me in a snowdrift—cold feet are not warmed that way. Consider that I have never bragged about my comprehensive bravery— industrial unionism is a reasonably safe “business.” 

IS MARTYRDOM NECESSARY TO ADVANCE HUMAN RACE? 

On the morning of November 13, 1919, two days after the Centralia tragedy, three “legionaires” were standing on the corner of Washington and Nicollet in Minneapolis, Minn. They were discussing the “mix-up” at Centralia and one of them volunteered a remark- that burned itself in my memory: 
“This will be the makings of the Legion.” 
They would build their organisation upon the tortured, mangled remains of “their” buddy and “our” fellow worker, Wesley Everest. 
Has it always been thus, that men demanded a human sacrifice that their undertakings may succeed? It would appear to be so—but let us not be carried away by appearances. The torture and murder of Wesley Everest was only an “incident,” to hide the real purpose for which the Lgeion was formed. The Legion was not organized for the purpose of subjugating the militant I. W. W. It was brought into being for the purpose of preventing labor bettering its conditions—they are only surface indications and not very conspicuous at that . . . for is it not true the Legion recruits its strength from the ranks of the workers, and the workers, as a rule, cannot be depended on to fight their own kind, indefinitely? The Centralia tragedy was not conceived for the purpose of occupying the minds of the legionaires; to furmish fighting for fighting men. Nay, it was conceived for the purpose of further hiding the purposes for which it, the Legion, was formed. 
The overseas men are organized in mere than three separate organizations that cannot agree on anything—including the bonus. This situation is very healthy and “satisfying” to the patriotic traitors that profiteered on the miseries of the people, the Wobblies and the life and blood of the men in the trenches. Generally when anything happens the cause for it can be found when it is found who benefits by the happening, i. e., bananas disappearing from the bunch might be explained if the innocent looking email boy standing under the bunch be searched. So, too, when overseas men find themselves split three ways it would be well for them to find out who benefits by it. Don’t tell me that the Legion organized itself. Don’t tell me that “an organisation had no hand in organising it.” Same in re. Klan: don’t tell me that it is not a subsidiary of a greater organization. Nobody benefits by the three-way-split of the ex-service men, but the profiteering traitors that jack-rolled the nation while the flower of its fighting manhood was in Bloody France. 
Time has now been gained and the ill-gotten gains — war gains — have been sequestered into “respectable business channels.” The returning war hero has been prevented inquiring into the “methods of strangling” used upon Uncle Samuel. True, the nullification of the overseas man (in three organizations) was done in self-defense, for the profiteers know that robbing a nation in war time is considered treason, not profiteering. To save their own necks, therefore, it was very desirable to have the returning fighters “split” into several factions; so that they might spend their time and energy in convincing each other that “I’m right: you’re wrong”—and in the mean time, the treasonable profiteers smiled their whole-hearted patriotic approval, and proceeded to “deflate” labor—which was done and which was so recorded. Who was the father of the idea of splitting the soldiers and who actually did the dirty work, who, even were the organizers that actually caused three or more organizations to spring into being is beyond me— I only know who profitted to the extent of an unsetretched-neck in the trans-action — the profiteer. And therefore, I am persuaded that the Centralia Armistice Day Tragedy was not a part of a program to make the Legion grow. The assassination of Wesley Everest, by his “buddies,” was not a preconceived plan to obtain “favorable publicity” for the Legion . . . such publicity can never be favorable. No, it was purely a local origin and had an economic base. Somebody’s interests were in danger and the Legion was “led” into the “breach” to up-hold the interests of the very men who had been doing a highly lucrative business during those maddening days of world war. It would be begging the question to say that the subsequent brutality and mutilation practiced upon the p e r s o n of Wesley Everest was the result of the depraved nature of the Legion— it was not so. Whatever may be the nature of a few of its members cannot be construed as the “consensus” of its membership-nature. 
Serious objections have been taken, by over half the membership to the action taken by the “mobbists of the Legion,” and the membership has dwindled until the Legion, too, has been nullified as a further factor in the affairs of men. This bears out my contention that the Legion was organized not to become strong and powerful, but to remain small and little (as such it serves as a dividing factor in the ex-service world) else they would not have alienated a great share of their membership from “honor rolls,” by participating in irresponsible night work against the men who are trying for a little of the democracy so plentifully fought for. But the buddies in Minneapolis said: 
“This will be the makings of the Legion.” 
The ill-gotten War gains are now safely and carefully tucked away—forgotten. The righteous indignation of the soldier can no longer burst forth. Time’s cooling hand has rested on the brow of the shell-shocked warrior. Wesley Everest, their buddy and our fellow worker, the bravest man that ever crawled out of a dug-out to face the enemy, Ilea in a very prosaic grave where the fringing timber frowns down upon a scene of peace and calm—where the grey-haired mother tenderly replaces the dead flowers in a neglected vase —on an almost forgotten mound. 
Can we forget? 

Not one profiteer is in jail. Not one traitor in the “can.” Poor blind justice is cockeyed and Miss Liberty has another miscarriage. Darn the luck. 

ALWAYS BE WHITE WITH THE BOYS IN THE CAN 
	 
Air (Why Should I Cry Over You?) 
 
Once on a time, Wobblies would climb, 
High on a shaky chair; 
Now, Rosalind, they ride the wind, 
Peddling their papers there. 
 
Chorus 
Now they have wings and they fly over you— 
Really they do — high over you: 
Dropping a call for the lumberjacks’ ball, 
Down from the azure blue: 
“Join in the fight,” so the message ran, 
“Dare to do right by your fellow man, 
Always be white with the boys in the can”— 
That’s why they flew over you.  
 
Time was when they “wended their way,” 
Nor did they travel far; 
Now, Rosalind, they ride the wind; 
Out where the big things are. 
 
Chorus 

MUSIC HATH QUALMS 
	
Would You Say It Can’t Be Done? 
Air (Down the Trail to Home Sweet Home) 
When you’re unaware of the troubles of those  
Whose burdens compare with worst of your woes; 
When you can’t behold all the great things they do 
And organization just hinges on you— 
 
Chorus  
Would you care to become a scissorbill? 
Would you dare to deny your brains? 
Have you the gall to “hit the ball.” 
While others writhe in chains? 
When you’re all but adrift 
From reason’s shore, 
And imagine you’re “only one,” 
Would you sit on your load? 
Would you block the whole road? 
Would you say —”It can’t be done?” 
 
When everyone else is a “traitor,” a “thief,” 
And no one but you seems to struggle with grief 
When nobody else “seems” downhearted and blue, 
And organization just hinges on you— 
 
Chorus 
 
When nobody else is unhappy, it “seems;” 
And everyone else has a “set of new dreams,” 
From ballots to pallets, from home-brew to glue. 
And organization just hinges on you— 
 
Chorus  
 
Just when you most feel every thorn in your crown, 
And believe the whole system is bearing you down; 
When your fellow workers are not coming through, 
And organization rests squarely on you — 
 
Chorus 
 
When everyone else is fit for a nurse, 
And you’re the dead center of the universe; 
Don’t get ye discouraged — you’re one of the crew 
And ORGANIZATION shall rest upon you! 
 
P. S. I would like to warn all fellow workers, musically inclined, to refrain from singing these songs in the bunkhouses— you’ll only be thrown out. I’ve already been chased three times by an angry mob. About 3:30 a. m. is the proper time to sing the second song—the lower it is sung the better it goes and the madder they get. Have your clothes packed. . . .