﻿May Be Possible 
 
We crave your sympathy. 
We hired out for six bucks a day, sixty cents an hour, ten hours a day — we crave your sympathy. Nothing was said about belt time, wrist time, daylight time; cylinder, blower or lunch time. — We crave your sympathy. The thresher has deceived us, and we are about to sue him for breach of etiquette. 
After manfully tussling with bundles “bound” with a wheelbarrow — for six and a half long hours— the thresher tells me I have 4 hours and 51 minutes machine time due me. (Sympathize here; the sad part is over with). 
I was working for a Company, alas. 
The company was threshing for its members, alas, by the hour— alas. 
Alas, the company was not over-charging its members—companies are that way, alas. The company’s hours had 78 minutes.—Touching, isn’t it? It was. 
I tried to tell the company that I wasn’t working machine time; that I was working elbow time, heel and toe time, pitchfork time; strong-back time, skill time and “all the time.” I explained that I wanted full credit; that I expected pay for driving; loading, unloading and resting; (I cited have charged for their services) that owing to speed-up work I was entitled to pay for rest time and that I expected pay for boosting bundles as well as for the time the fork was returning empty from the load; that the mere fact that gravity returned the fork was no excuse for docking me a half a day’s pay * * * 
Dutifully next morning, 3:50 a. m. (ten minutes to four) bed time and Ingersol time, I arose, in answer to the whistle, to begin operations; to see how “Dobbin” was getting along with that half ton of hay I “fed” her earlier in the evening, and to harness “them.” 
Twenty minutes to five we adjourned for breakfast. 
The boss fired me * ** 
In pitch darkness he fired me, he might have fired the wrong man! He can’t do that, can he? Can he can a man before daylight? I believe its against the law! 
He steps up to the “ray of light” coming from the cook car window and writes a check — I took the check but couldn’t see the figures, I had to take his word for them. It’s bad enough to work in the dark but its still worse to get fired in the dark. 
It was fully one hour later that I discovered he had paid me five hours pay for six and a half hours work. Paid in Full, alas! Yes, at Almo, N. D. Uh, huh, 1924. 
A youth assures me “there are ten-hour rigs here.” (I demurred). He avers he is “getting paid for only ten hours.” Maybe possible May be possible. 
Beat the hoosier up? 
You’ve got to get up pretty early to beat him * * * but I’ll tell you how to beat him: 
Organize this year, and next year, to take an Eight-Hour Day, (manure pile to manure pile). Take the eight-hour day by incidents to show that teamsters before me working seven hours and 60 minutes. Organize for that purpose! 

The farmer has muddled the ten-hour proposition — its too complicated to fight for. Let us have a clear issue — eight hours. 
Belt time. Barn time, bockage for Moving time and Daylight time (Twilight time) has utterly ruined the ten-hour day — let’s have a brand new objective— I nomnate Fellow Worker Eight Hours. 
Eight Hours will bring 10 hours. 
Eight Hours will bring 9 hours 
Eight Hours will bring 8 ½ hours. 
Eight Hours will bring 8 ¼ hours. 
Eight Hours will bring 8 hours and 7½ minutes, but that is all it will do. 
It will clarify the issue. It will give us a clear-cut program. It will once again put us on the aggressive. 
Aggressive we stand, defensive we fall. 

I am pot stuck on harvesting— 
Of this I’m sure, and set; 
I undertook the cursed thing 
To win a dollar bet. 
I can’t afford to lose so much. 
It would destroy my health. 
And I’m a’thinking I’m in “dutch” 
For risking too much wealth.