﻿T-BONE SLIM DISCUSSES MARTIN TABERT 
 
Rumor has it that the Fargo Chamber of Commerce has a handle : When I first heard that, my eccentric old heart started going potato potato potato in a moat fetching manner and, if I hadn’t been sick and looking like an Aultman Taylor rooster I would have dispatched myself from the salubrious climate of “Sowdakota” to that proud and concieted suburb of Moorhead—to feel with my own hands the ears of that useful body.  
Fellow workers sitting by my side—those of mechanical turn of mind—called my attention at that moment to the desperate efforts of the [E]lectric Power house engine and exprest keen sorrow that an engine should be allowed to pound that way—here it was my heart all the while . . . . but they wouldn’t believe me when I informed them that they had been listening to & criticizing as true a heart as ever bobbed into a man’s throat—I was so deeply moved that I turned pale (and my back) and a cold chill ran down my feet. . . .When I lookt up I discovered myself trying to throw catarrhal shadows on the zig-zagging burning strand—40 miles away—that deeply moved was I. 

When I came to, I heard that Fargo bad pulled a geuine Martin Tabert by arresting and beating up some of my fellow workers. 
I was not surprised because for some time I have been aware that Fargo’s menlallity leaves much to be desired and, it may be, that Jamestown will have to take charge of her in the two next dry years. 
Fargo hasn’t advanced any in the past 15 years—even today the Emerson Brantingham is peddling its great building recognizing that the citizens of the state of North Dakota are tired of throwing money away to Fargo’s grasping profiteers. 
A few years ago the N. P. railroad gave up Fargo as “impossible” and installed its division point on the safe side of Moorhead. 
A few years ago the Skandinavian American Bank was squeezed to the wall in that city by the faithful flunkies of the powers that be—”huh, the nerve of the Swedes to try to enter the sacred precincts of business.” And so Fargo droops like cow’s tail, dirty and disordered. 
Is it then strange that the black-sheep-burg institutes a system of strongarm government; assaults its prisoners; clubs them; beats them befor trial—a la Martin Tabert? Florida stands horrified!—T-bone Slim 
Job Note:—Work is hard to get just now. Bosses appear to be in sublime ignorance as to our need of heavy exercise—but the workers need not worry: Since there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the proper amount of exercise, let me suggest that, in lieu of something better, they can keep in trim by winding the Ingersol cautiousfully evenings before retiring.—T-b S.