﻿CAMP INSPECTING 
 
“Well,” says a noted and successful camp-inspector, “I think I’ll have to go to work for a few days and get rested-up.” — 
Now, I don’t know a thing about camp-inspecting—I never did take to those technical trades—but I’m willing to. discuss the subject. . . . a man doesn’t necessarily need to know anything about a subject to discuss it, eh, editor— am I right? 
We learn from discussion—the hair is slit. I’ll play these— All set: 
You heard what the gentleman said at the beginning of this article— now, don’t get excited—it looks easy (in the blue prints), but it is it? Ah, is it? 
Too much of one thing is always bad. 
Walking is a good exercise if done with moderation; it is slow suicide, if overdone and work when done faster than “slow,” slower than “fast,” longer than “little” and less than “too much.” 
It is hard work at all times . . . proof for this lies in skis, skates, bicycles, wagons, automobiles, boats, ice-boats and airships—none of them would be in existence if walking wasn’t hard work—and railroads and trains; They were built not to haul freight, not to save sole-leather, they were built because walking is hard work— the first train was a passenger train. 
Well, discussion, too, is hard work (I can see that) since this article refuses to bend —I s’pose that’s because discussion, is scheduled thinking” and must be on time. 
Two paints are made. 

But there be one advantage to camp-inspecting. A camp-inspector “enjoys” every kind of filth, he is not compelled to associate himself with too much of one kind . . . point three (made twice. It seems all the same but really, at each successive camp, it is fresh filth —there because only the crews can remedy it, but won’t—the longer the crew stays the better; they like it (the less they hate it) the first days smell is worst, a case of “hate at first whiff”—after that nature takes its course and the nostrils become calloused, deadened and reconciled .. . you get used to it. (Is that a point, or two of them?) They’re made. There is filth. And men are used to it. 

Men could with less and pleasurable trouble get “used” to cleanliness. Cleanliness like filth grows on a man—he can go either way. Filth gets worse or cleanliness gets better. He can shine or pine and he can betwix’t one or the other.—This raises the question : 
Are men unclean from choice? 
No. Most emphatically, No! 
I remember a time when I was younger and had more resistance and more recuperative power, I stopped in a particularly dirty camp three months and some odd days—at Heisie Siding, Minnesota.— 
Coming in from the sunlight into the bunkhouse I had to stand fully twenty minutes on the middle of the floor—until my eyes got used to the gloom—before I could find a seat. My nose bothered me the first day only and on the second day you couldn’t tell me from an old timer. 
The bills, towels and crew were dirty. 
The floor was dirty. 
And wonders of wonders, the two cats were dirty—cats, you know, are cleanly animals. The two cats were the most sorry, disreputable looking creatures I ever saw. 
The bull-cook was dirty. (The cook was clean, the timber was clean—3 months). 
But it happened the bull-cook got sick, (because of too much of one thing) and went down. A new chore boy came and “swamped” the place from end to apex—washed and scrubbed it most thoroly. . . 
That night, when we came in, a miracle comfronted us— the two cats were busy cleaning themselves, instead of sleeping. 
Inside of two weeks, those cats were “a change animal,” apiece. Cleanliness had made them sit up and take notice.— (Point is made). 
“But,” you say; “some men wouldn’t keep clean even if the company cleaned its camps.” 
Not “some,” but one. One man wouldn’t. He is the exception. 
He is the man “who has known nothing but filth.” 
He is the orphan devil who has been frequenting strange hells. He has ‘xcuse, you have none. 
P. S.—To make dirty companies “come clean” organize with the I. W. W.— 
Are you on? 
Pss’t: Don’t expect anything from the Health Board—the health-board itself is lousy; too lazy to boil-up. 
Do it yourself.