﻿Epistola 
 
On single cussedness. 
Proof of the pudding is in the eating; if it kills it is bad. If we want to prove that a working man is robbed, all we need do is “take on some labor, in a “prayerful” spirit. Work a week, save your money, then quit your job and start spending, i. e. living. If your week’s earnings outlast the week, you have done well. At the end of a week you won’t have anything left to brag about— and, in all that time, you haven’t been off the Earth. 
How is it then that a single man like you can only earn enough in one week to “live on” next week. Begins to look as if you were robbed, doesn’t it? The wages you spent were wages the boss gave you—the identical same wages—and they “only lasted” a week. 
Your wife, if you had one, could have lived on them same wages; (that means that you must work 52 weeks a year without spending money), and you so fond of poolball games, too. Begins to look as if this “crime wave” is more extensive than we thought. I wonder who is going to support Willie— for it is reasonable to think there will be a Willie—if we follow Roosevelt’s advice and raise a big family. 

Begins to look as if some one was putting his hooks into a part of our wages before they go into our envelopes. 
“But,” you say, “I’m getting enough to live on and I an save a little besides.” 
Then the capitalist system is O. K., according to your ideas. Millions of men are receiving less than marrying wages. But you are single, saving your wages to marry with, and you don’t belong to a one big union? You are doing nothing to put a stop to this exploitation of the millions? You are a party to the robbery! The system suits you. I most seriously question whether you belong to the working class, the class that is trying to discourage the “syndicate of criminals of broadcloth,” who are making wealth out of human misery. 
Fer Christ sake get next to yourself—join the I. W. W. for a better world, or a softer one.— (T-Bone Slim). 
A STUDY IN SPUDS 
is a great dish for hot weather diet and it “seems to be” all the rage just now. It seems that there is a great public demand for it. And, you know, whatever the people want they shall have. If they want the moon it is theirs. 

Now, it seems strange the people do not demand potato salad in the winter time. This fact alone goes far to prove that it is a hot weather dish. Another thing: In the summer time the potatoes get sour of their own accord and can’t be used except as a salad. So you see it is the craving for sour potatoes that generates the demand for salad in the summer time. Whereas, in the winter time potatoes do not sour, consequently the demand runs heavy to pure food. Inscrutable are the ways of nature. 
Read “Starvation Amidst Too Much,” coming out in July, a pamphlet by T-B-S. 

There are four kinds of people in the world, says a modem poet: 
First. Those who work not, never did work and do not propose to ever work. Keep your eye on ‘em; they are parasites. 
Second. Those who work not, have worked before but cannot now find work. Organize them; they are the unemployed, 
Third. Those who do work and kill themselves working. Teach them; they are thoughtless. 
Fourth. Those who work, combining comfort with work. Follow them; they are wise. 

The ethics of silence and ignorance should be severely condemned.— (Baron Van Reuben).