﻿T-BONE SLIM DISCUSSES THE CRAZIEST THING YET 
 
Is the farmer robbed at the point of production? Is he robbed? Is He the robber? Three questions—we’ll answer four of them: 
Well, fellow workers, I’m not going to take sides, nor will I search the interested parties. Instead of that; I would like to speak a kind word for the little red song-book: 

Is there anything you want to know, turn to page so and so. Do you want to quote unquestionable authority, or precedent, (to win an argument) turn to another page, and there it is in black and white. Says the song-book, in regards the farmer being robbed, (in the chorus of Harvest Land song) “Old fossil of the Feudal Age” . . . “Ah haa, chattered the judge, then he certainly cannot be robbed at the point of production—if he still flounders around in the almost prehistoric Past.”—It will be remembered the point of production is peculiarly and distinctly an institution of modern capitalism, a distribution point for wages, wages in turn being an installment (payment) on the commodities you have produced; capital is back-pay coming to you ‘way up high,’ or in the Workers’ Commonwealth. 

The farmer has not yet reached the point of Wage-Distribution. He is running a little system of his own, half capital and half feudal . . but he has problems. And capitalism is preparing to solve his problems for him!—It is generally believed that the farmer, with his feudalism, will be defeated in the coming struggle with capitalism and the keenest observers (including ourself) predict that John will soon be working for wages, and for American Agricultural Company— this will shortly precede I the overthrowal of the Wages-System. 

How could the farmer be robbed at the point of production, (where wages are offered and accepted) if he is not a wage earner, if he is a business man (or an employer), attempting to use a feudal bean-blower in modern warfare—attempting to obtain, and hold, the right-of-way (on hard-road hiways) for his safety-bicycle? He’ll be distanced. 

To all intents and purposes the farmer is a manufacturer, even when he is not an employer —his raw material are mud, fertilizer, formaldehyde, paris green and seed; his factory the farm, rain, sun and wind; his commodity a crop—not labor-power. 
He does not sell labor power. He sells beans, corn, grass, ‘grain,’ seeds—he is a feed-store; he sells spuds, rutabagas, roots, cabbages—he is a provision-wholesaler; he sells apples, tomatoes, water-melons, eggs— damit he’s a fruit-merchant. He is pretty much everything—a jack of all trades man—master of none. He sells turkeys, ducks, chickens— he’s a bird store; he sells cows, calves, sows, rabbits—he’s a stock, fur, wool and feather trader—a trapper. Barb-wire, corrals and fences are his traps. Barns. Now fellow workers, bear witness that his status as a business man, dealer, merchant, trader, has been established; bear witness that I’m not taking sides on the question and watch me discuss, briefly, “Is He the robber?”: 
First, he undersells his goods for a period of years and dam near bankrupts himself; then, in 1924, with a bumper crop on his hands he says “A good crop this year does not justify high wages. Wages should be governed by the profits on a ten year basis” and organizes against those that are at the point of production.— Here he presents himself as an employer of “labor.” And all that That means. 
But, at times, he foregoes the formality of employing “labor”. By the virtue of his marriage certificate he can prevail upon his wife to take the hired-man’s place. The matrimonial knot entitles said wife to scab on the Cow-milkers’ Amalgamated of the Gomperation of Labor. No doubt the simple soul has been deluded into such a position by the man of affairs—her husband. His family, (girls and boys) too, are employed without pay and without money, and are making heroic efforts to keep the feudal program afloat in a sea of capitalism—a heart-breaking job. 
There is no chattel slavery on the farms, of course— I said, of course, that’s what I said—and the mere fact that John works his loved ones sixteen hours a day (without paying wages) on the strength of his service—that of marrying their mother, her Iabor power and ministrations—to humanity to the end of perpetuating his kind, should not be classed as a form of chattel slavery. Is he merely embezzling their wages so that he may further speculate and plunge in his wild orgy of “defeating” capitalism with half-soled feudalism and patched?— (Can you keep a secret?) Is he the robber? No. Merely irresponsible.