﻿HISTORY 
 
Concrete: 
O how labored is the speech 
Of those who labor would miss-teach. 

T ruth is homely — more’s the pity — as homely as a side of a barn. 

Voltaire, garrulous Voltaire, when he wrote the History of the World used seven words: “Men are born, they suffer, they die.” Anatole France wrote them for him—(I’m writing this). 

Why so many words? Why not more? Why not be accurate, thus: men are, born, laugh once and croak. The lone “laugh” presupposes torture. Hence, amended, “Men are born, are tortured, are murdered.”—”Happiness is an accident.” Huh! Nothing of the Kind. It is something the Managers of Misery overlooked—Carelessness that’s what it is—or something “the cat” dragged in. 
Apology * * * 
I’m the pump that is daily drained—and then, along comes a native of distant lands and says: “Water my plugs.” 
Take ‘em down to Bad Medicine lake, sez I. 

“The women thronged to look 
but never a one 
Showed sorrow in her 
eyes of steely blue; 
And little lads, lynchers 
that were to be. 
Danced ‘round the dreadful 
thing in fiendish glee.” 
 
Poetry, what! Claude McKay, ace of spades, said it. “Eyes of steely blue? H’m. No hazel-eyed “wenches” were present. Oh you Poetry! 

A distinct “atmosphere of optimism” (hot air) prevails on the slave market in Chicago and all points east, west * * * 
The optimism is all in the air—the slaves are unaffected by it. 

Frail ladies, propelled by powerful legs, hurry to their employments through the doldrums of unemployed men. 
Unemployment, therefore, is as masculine is it is real. 

Frozen meats turn black in 15 minutes, when thawed. Labor is “liable” to turn black this spring. It is waiting for the “Chinook.” On the level, my masters, I’m afraid you are over doing it. 

If this keeps on, the Wobblies, despite their organization, will find themselves out of work—so far, more mutts than men have suffered. 

But, even THO—There is no cause for despair! Livings can be made in 17 ways. * * * Let us remember the 17,000 times we didn’t starve; the 963 times we didn’t freeze; the 19,370 times we didn’t sweat and the 16,000 times we never “carried the banner”— ingenuity, gentlemen, ingenuity. Keep the upper lip stiff. 
Atmosphere of optimism! Count the times you didn’t die, nor cry, nor lie down—or do any or all these things * * * 
Read the signs (no shipment today). 
No, Not on the boards! Ain’t you ever gonna learn? Keep your face away from the boards. Pass through the crowds and gaze into the eyes of the unemployed—it is printed there in big letters, “No shipment today.” You don’t have to look at the boards. Gaze at the faces of your fellow men! 
Read: 
Want, Doughnuts, Sickness, Despair — the history of Capitalism in four words. 
And then * * * 
Go out and organize. 
P. S.— Mch 25th at hand: 
To liquidate the I. W. W. is like spreading concrete on bread—it will tear your “bread” all to Helmar’r’r’r. “But if we should, as a result of the internecine struggle, go down into defeat before the combined onslaught of the Communist party and the Capitalist class, it will be the blackest spot on the blackest page of treachery and crime in the American labor movement.” (My sentiment precisely). But, it will not be. The base for future resistance is already laid and the “comrades” will be spared the odium of being successful traitors.