﻿EVEN MONEY 
 
There is a popular misconception among the people that they have homes. How they ever came to get that notion in their heads is more than I can say (off hand) without consulting with a lawyer. While I will concede they have shacks, lean-to’s, alleys and jails to sleep in, I must come right out in the open and say they have no homes. 
I Remember, I Remember 
The Barn where I was born, etc. 
Most of us are renters either by night, week or month and if the landlord tells us to move out and stay out, we would be in one hell of a fix—without the usual access to higher temperature. But, happily (Hurrah) the landlord permits us to remain under his roof, so long as we continue dishing up the coin, the same which comes real handy to him in the purchase of “binnanos” and whipped cream. 
Years ago we used to be slaves on a piece of land and, dammit, we had to work so many days per year for the landlord. Now, thanks to the great strides civilisation has taken, we are free to go (if not to come). Hurrah, fellow workers, hurrah! 
FREE! Hip, Hip. .. . 
Under our present system we can rent a home if we want to raise a family limited only by our power to earn, beg, borrow, or find money. No longer are we compelled to stay in a man’s house if we don’t care to. 
If we are a family man, the rent generally costs us $25 per month, for a shack—and as our earning power alone brings us that much per week, it is clear we work only one week per month for the landlord. Less than one-quarter of our time. Of course, you understand, this is in ordinary cases — I’ve known old men who work for rent, heat and light alone; trusting his son and son-in-law occasionally to bring home a piece of bacon and sweet potatoes. 
The usual procedure in this homeless, landless (yet slaveless) age is about as follows : 
Wage, $10; rent, $10. 
Wage, $20; rent, $20. 
Wage, $30; rent, $30. 
Therefore: 
One week per month belongs to the landlord. 
One week pays the butcher. 
One week pays the grocer. 
One week pays the clothier. 
We’ve got two days left—they will pay for our pleasures—and such pleasures; street-car-joy-rides, “hootchlegger,” preachers, etc. 
For our charities: 
Back door swindlers and stemmers— 
That makes it even money. The month is up. And yet, praise God, we are not also slaves. We don’t have to do this or that. We are better off, much better than the feudal slave who worked so many days per year for the feudal lord. We work by the month and get paid in the nevt world. 
Why? 
Because we have no control over the amount the boss gives us— (the size of it). 
Isn’t it funny? The landlord knows precisely what you will pay him. And, he knows three months ahead that you will pay him more beginning May 1—he’s organized. - 
The grocer knows to a penny whtt he’s going to charge per pound for your living. Yes, and he knows to an ounce how big his pound will be—he’s organized. 
The butcher is organized. 
The boss tells you distinctly what he will give you and he tells you how much work you must do—he’s organized. 
And you—ain’t you getting tired of this gimme, gimme stuff? Don’t you think it is about time to organize? Isn’t it about time we organize and try a little “you tellem” on on the boss? 
All it takes is organization. 
 
The bosses won’t let you organize? Is that so? Well now, isn’t that sad? Was there ever such a calamity? He won’t let you organize? Alas, alas, such luck!! 
Do you not think, Mr. Workingman, if we went to the boss and said, “Please, please Mr. Boss, let us organize in the I. W. W.,” if we would drop down on our knees and kiss his shoes, he would give his consent. “Sure boys, go ahead and as far as you like”—don’t you think he would do that? 
If you think so—h’m—h’m again. 
He’s not going to take his figurative foot off of ypur figurative neck until you quit “this gimme, gimme” and TELL him something. By all means join US. 
Came a cry from their brave captain. 
“Look boys, the wage is down, etc.” 

SE REPARTE GRATIS 
AN ELEGY 
We were reading a cartoon today, in the El Constructor Naval, an Argentine paper. We were compelled to read the cartoon because the words were Spanish to us and had no meaning . . . strange, isn’t it, how words are meaningless unless given interpretation by the reader? This I could not give, so I read the cartoon that spoke in a universal tongue: “Ancordaos!” 
Outside the prison walls a little girl is picking flowers; a little farther a mother is holding high a child and the child is passing the flowers, picked by the little girl, to the father behind the stone walls. Civilization. 
 
How is it possible for an Argentine paper to picture so accurately persecution of workingmen by a roting society —by a misguided clique of parasitic employers who rule with more ruthlessness than, any ruler, outside the despotic Czar Nicholas who, happily, is no more; more ruthlessly than the Caesars in the “Glory of Rome—that was.” 
More ruthlessly than any Power ever before plunging to its fall. Oh, what a pity. 

“DeFoe lay long in Newgate,’ 
Raleigh went to jail; 
Shakespeare, Dante yielded 
Under sorrow’s flail.” 

And the Argentine paper prints a picture the world may understand — though the “brave” and the “free” may never know . . . “Man’s inhumanity to man.” 

And but a thoroughly rotten society could hear even with the mental infirmities of those who win disrepute in front of the throne. I’m afraid ours is too far gone to be reclaimed for Reason. 
Do not expect too much. Organize.