﻿T-BONE SLIM DISCUSSES “OUR MEETINGS” 
 
The surplus of workers in the harvest field would seem to indicate that the managers of industry have laid off men, in the shops and mills, out of consideration for the poor, poor farmers—poor farmers; that the managers have suddenly grown tenderhearted—kind-hearted. 
That is not so. 
The men in the field are squeezed business men (I see their stores empty) carpenters (whose work is being done by dairy farmers) and other men who have been displaced by improved machniery, speed-up system and reorganized work—besides the regular harvest hand, etc. 
Of course, it is wrong for the various industries to unload their displaced men onto the farming industry, that in itself is displacing “hands” and owners. 
Each industry should take care of all its workers, regardless. 
Each industry will do so—when the workers organize industrially. 
Not, before. 

The modern locomotive has done away with 29 railroad crews. Therefore, if the 29 unemployed crews were to be employed, we would have to have 29 times as much export trade, or, we would have to consume 29 times as much as we do—an impossibility. Clearly, the fault is not “in the markets.” 
Clearlyl the remedy for railroad unemployment lies in putting the 39 crews to work by shortening the day of the one crew working. 

But fellow citizens, workers and parasites: Compose yourselves. Keep cool even if it is 102 ¾ in the shade. Our author has solved the problem. 
The other day I went out looking for a fifteen cent, shirt . . . . cortainly, I found one), why, it costs hardly nothing to live—to dress up, I mean—and, gentlemen, consider, if you are without a shirt in September, it will rain soft collar shirts from heaven like it did manna for the adults of Israel in the wilderness. 
The ladies, too, will be protected by the weatherman. His forecast will read: Increasing cloudiness followed by cloudbusrt of traveling gowns— take your pick. 
But the unemployed ladies, sisters, wives and grandmothers, of unemployed sons, hubbies and grandpas need not wait for the cloudburst. With a few cents, (which they can pick up), they can purchase a few yards of mosquito netting, wrap it around themselves, “step” in well-dressed society without tossing a stitch or buying shave. 

Something to bear in mind: .J 
Construction is slower’ than destruction. 
One shot will sink a ship—-it takes two years to build one. 
(Knocking is destruction; praising is construction). 
It is knocking (chopping) that makes the tree fall. 

Praising individuals helps individuals; praising organizations helps organizations—individuals hate to ,be viewed as needing help; organizations admit they need help. They plead and demand it. 

Now, here I will recite an occasion of organized “assistance,” to point out the power of praise and its use: 
A small bunch of us used to gather to hear a speaker, a good one—indeed, really a great one—but we could get no crowd. (Never mind the speaker’s name—I’m bragging for myself). 
I consulted the bunch of listeners, one by one, and got them to swear by all that is “holy” that they would make it a point to pass the word around that “the speaker is the greatest talker in the world” (he was, too) and to boost him till Hell wouldn’t have it. This was done. 
The next meeting was a mob. All could not hear the speaker—who was better than ever—but that made no difference, for had we not told them that he was a great speaker? Did they not know that the speech would be the exact truth? And so, in turn, they had a good word to say. 
Meetings, to be successful, need organization from beginning (before) to end (and after). Smothered like. 
Finally, remember: A speaker will not ask you to maneuver in his favor. Therefore, I ask you to view every meeting not as Fellow Worker So-and-So’s meeting” but as YOUR meeting, and I ask you to see to it that no slip-ups occur. The mere fact that I must point this out proves that I have not done my share. Hence my early bragging loks bad). 
—T-Bone Slim. 
P. S.— The I. W. W. is growing.