﻿Barely Moving 
 
Introducing myself I will say I am also a great “hiker.” My magnificent strides (making due allowance for water on the knee) carry me over the ground in a most marvelous manner. I have been known to cover several miles in an ordinary standard day. 
The other day I went out walking with a fellow worker—just a small hike—and the miles were soon merrily slipping by, under our feet. Pretty soon she says, “Slim, let’s walk slower.” I was surprised—in fact, I was startled. 
“Young lady,” says I, “are you quite aware of what you are saying? Are you fully conscious of the preponderance of that remark? 
“Are you aware of the terrible suggestivencss of those three words, ‘Let’s walk slower?’ Change two letters in the middle word, substitute O for A, and R for L and your thoughtless sentence reads: ‘Let’s work slower.’ 
“Now, do you see the blunder you have made? You have advocated slowing down, which is contrary to the unwritten addenda in the constipation of the several states. 
“Young lady, if you keep on distributing English that way a bull is liable to hear you, and have us both in the cooler on the grounds of conspiracy to obstruct traffic, giving lemonade and comfort to the enemy, or one of the many charges they keep on hand in case they catch up with us. Don’t slow down now or we are lost! Make them head us off. Remember we have no right to slow down. Others behind us may desire to go faster. We must not retard them. 
“Yes, my dear young lady, you can’t do as you please now days and so your innocent remark is a crime in the eyes of the law.” 
And so—on and on we surged, straining every nerve, far into the distant night, until exhaustion overtook us and then, of course . . that is we turned back. Damfine if we busted any laws or not and I was too tired to give a damn. 
In this connection editor, I would like to discuss slowing down on the job, but being still all coked up with quinine I am rather thick-headed and it may be necessary for you to give me a send-off. 
It is being said (recklessly) that efficiency means abundance and the insinuation is left that abundance means something—always has there been abundance in the United States of America. Warehouses have groaned with food and clothes, but it has meant nothing to those in the souplines. Panic after panic has been the result of super-exploitation which in turn resulted in an abundance of everything — (not to be had). 
Speeding up created an abundance, but it does not benefit its creator, the working man. An abundance means glutted markets where our “directors” must underbid every foreign country; thus furnishing a subsidy to the hungry nation that buys our food, the product of our sweat. Abundance means free lunch for all Europe and starvation here. 

What does slowing down on the job mean? It means comfort, ease and no glutted markets. It means the boss will not be able to retain so many “hangers-on” on the payroll. It means comfort, case and no glutted markets. It means that every unnecessary man will be made necessary. If means that the boss will not be in position to donate extra steeples to the churches, monuments to himself nor libraries to posterity. (Let posterity, do the work for its libraries.) We’re Here, Now, and we want Ours! 

Our trouble is not in slowing down, nor is it in speeding up. Our troubles all lie in the fact that we do not get what we produce. Our troubles lie in the fact the boss has 60 servants whom we support, 7 automobiles that we provide, 400,000 lawyers who dine at our expense and so on —all this is made possible by speeding up (efficiency) but it isn’t necessary —many of these can go to work same as we . . . There’s too much glory and not enough victuals. 
No, we do not get what we produce. No, we do not get half of what we produce. No, we do not get a third of what we produce. No, we do not get a fourth of what we produce. We get something less than a quarter of what we produce 
Slowing down reduces the profits taken from our toil—when we work . . . Getting nowhere, I quit.— (T-bone Slim.)