﻿Worth the Workers While 
By T-BONE SLIM 

Maybe it is expecting too much, that an organization (wherein “it’s membership” has a voice) should be allowed to prosper in a country whose affairs are such that its highest law-making body, the Senate, must needs investigate government officials; when a condition obtains wherein the nations chief “solemnly warns” that some things are too delicate for even the ears of those hardened law-makers? 
Maybe an organization dedicated to “rank and file rule” should not marvel if it is rebuked for its presumption? 
Maybe it should go the route—instead of building a new society in the shell of the old — maybe it should build a new shell around the rotten whole? 
Every man thinks he is a natural-born leader of men—but the chances are they could not lead four horses to water and those are the men that do not think it necessary to take the people in their confidence— with the result that it is necessary to investigate their leadership —often to the sorrow of the leaders —periodically. 
The most, common individuals, not infrequently, find keen satisfaction in their abilities, with the reslt that they learn to underestimate abilities of their fellow sufferers. Surprised with the discovery that they could think, they find it not difficult to consider themselves especially gifted — equal, or over and above their fellow men. But somehow, or another, this great thinking power seldom appears in print, unchallenged. 
I respectfully submit here that the “Daily Worker,” editorially, professes to have confidence in the working class but qualifies said confidence by stating a proviso: “Under communist leadership.” In other words THEY have confidence, not in the working class, but in leadership. And we might say we have yet to find a leader that isn’t in full possession of superlative confidence to the extent that he will continue to lead even while no one follows.—The American working class has a full opportunity to distribute itself into such organizations as it desires. 
The Workers’ Party, loyal to leadership, has made every bid for the support of the masses, nevertheless it has not grown. Its advances have been declined with thanks and its theory on leadership discredited by such leadership as prevails at present in other political parties. On the other hand, the I. W. W. dedicated to practical maximum rank and file rule has recovered from the attacks made against it by united capitalism — and by the various liquidators; attacking simultaneously— and is on a high road of service to those that must toil voiceless today —today when the darkest pages of history are about to be written. It may not be out of place to mention a few other aspiring leaders that would no doubt obligingly consent to guide the workers if they know not where they are going: Voliva, Gompers, Eva Bramwell Booth (the latter stands a show of being elected to succeed Mr. Gompers in case the old gentleman should meet premature death, which heaven forbid I), and Lewis are fair samples of leadership extensiveyfollowed. But it seems that the I. W. W., the leaderless, is rapidly displacing “leadership” and uniting the workers in a One Big Union. That’s why I say let the I. W. W. continue to give its members every opportunity to express their desires as fully as it is possible; let us at all times determine what the many want (and let us procure it for them) ; finally, let us remember: The I. W. W. is the only organization dedicated to rank and file rule —let us preserve it. Surely sufficient people “want to rule” to make it worth the workers while.