﻿BETWEEN THESE TWO 
 

A man smiling in the midst of his misfortunes is either witless or a . . . . philosopher. A broken leg is nothing to smile about. An empty pocketbook is no giggling affair. A cell in a prison is nothing to get comical about. An ingrowing stomach is hardly a suitable subject for laughter. A suit of B. V. D.s in February is nothing to grin over. Carrying the “banner” these cold nights is no occasion for great and prolonged mirth. 

Adversity may be a “valuable experience” but it isn’t marketable— I’ll sell all my misfortunes for less than face value, right now. 

A death in the family may be attended with situations quite humorous— the joke being on the spectators—but, I fail to see, why friends of the departed should utter shrieks of satisfaction. 

Having your household goods thrown out on the curb is no excuse for jollification—or jubilee. 

Being run over by a flat wheeled street car may be delightful as an experience, but the celebration should necessarily be short and to the point. 

The star boarder running away with one’s wife may, at first, create a pleasurable feeling— novelty! But a certain amount of proper dignified sorrow should be exhibited in front of neighbors. 

A wife deserting an unprotected man is considered a calamity— therefor, any merrymaking, glee or hilarity, is seldom associated with this misfortune. 

“Adversity Is the Acid Test of Character.” You betcha! Yes. 

And the fortitude of the working class is the veneer, impervious to heat and cold, dry or damp, hard or soft, acid or no acid—adversity or adipose perversity of those whom it may concern. 

But there is such a thing as riding a good horse to death.—The American working people have been rode to death; proof of this lies in the fact that the manufacturers Association is hollering for a certain “net” immigration” over and above any exodus of foreigners making their “get away” from our ideal conditions of servitude. 

Immigration is, and truly, a remedy but not an ideal one from the viewpoint of the present masters of our industries. The horse that has been rode to death still remains—remains. 

Full grown foreign workers, raised at foreign expense, are naturally beneficial to our industrial life if properly introduced to the machine and further: It gives our Industrial Kings an opportunity to put to pasture the horse that has been rode to death. 

Even today the masters are begrudging the pasturing of played out labor and I have no doubt but that their ultimate, ideal conditions call for importing fresh labor to replace stale labor and, to deport stale labor to make room for fresh ones. 

But, even now, somehow or other, there is a “slipup” in the program. —This is sad. 
Last year 40,000 Italians came to this country—53,000 went back. Fifteen thousand Americans, in the same period, had the temerity to commit suicide and dodge all this prosperity, incidently a pile of work. 

We are the horse that is to be pastured. All our lives we have worked for “living wages, and no more.” Now we can start to earn dying wages.