﻿T-BONE SLIM DISCUSSES STUCK ON THE JOB 
 
The decietfulness of the capitalist press can be discerned in the propaganda they are putting out exhorting you to “stick to your Job” “A rolling stone gathers no floss” etc. what happens? 
You hang to “your” job like a child to a mudpuddle—you hold it, you dream it, you talk it—you sing it’s praises —you stick— and then the boss puts in a machine to take your place. 
You’re expected to stick to your job at least until the machine relieves you— after that you can go home and live happy ever afterward —it being understood that you can’t compete with machines, in getting a job. Why you can’t even compete with horses—as the following timetable will show: 
Santa Fe R. R. reports “ average cost of moving dirt with the DITCHER-OUTFIT is 21 cents a cub yard, compared with 50 cents to 75 cents per yard for moving dirt by teams and $1 to $1.25 for moving by hand.”— 
There! I quess that will hold you a while. 
The railroads would be tender hearted indeed under the circumstances—and soft headed—if they hired you instead of the ditcher. 
They would be no less soft headed if they hired a team and gave it an opportunity to earn its uncrushed oats. . . . . 
The very fact that they don’t use teams to have their locomotives, is with machinery—and I cannot see proof that horseflesh cannot compete for the life of me, why they want you to stick to the job— why they don’t starve you right off the bat. 
A “rolling stone” has nothing to do with it. 
A man may roll and toss and throw or turn summersults, like a “tidewater grey hound” off Sandy Hook, but that has nothing to do with machinery taking a man’s job. 
The remedy. Ah, the r’remedy— I knew you wanted to hear that.  
It is noy “poultice.” It is not “the juice of six lemons taken spiritsually.” It is not religion—or pagan experimentation—it is none of these. 
There are only two remedies for this “malady of machines taking men’s jobs.” The first is “physical-culture”—exerzise your mucles to the point where you can lift just as much as steam shovel. 
The second remedy is more popular because you do not have to go into training for that: 
Join the I. W. W. — and be in numbers one billion times as strong as a steamshovel—and don’t “shake before taking.” 
Note.no 1. Author has not misscalculated the “one billion strength”—”strength” compounds like “interest.” 
Note No. 2., Santa Fe has given labor a position next to horses. 
Note No. 3., Santa Fe has a position open for a mathematician (no experience required). It has been able to find the average cost of moving dirt with ditchers, 21 cents per cubic yard, but has not been able to determine the average cost of moving it by teams 50 to 75 cents a yard isn’t an average. 
Although it’s a foggy morning. I would like to guess —just once—that the average cost of moving dirt by teams is half way between 50 and 75 cents, just 62½ cents a cubic yard — that is if the “Santa” figures don’t lie, and if equal amounts was moved at both figures. 
The average cost of moving it by hand is given as $1 to $1.25—take your pick. I s’pose. 
Note No. 4., if Santa Fe gets its “expansion” as close as it gets it’s “average” it’s locomotives will certainly scratch gravel between rail ends, or bump the bumps over lapping rails—even so, the “calculating” Santa Fe will come out in the Christian Science “Dove of Peace” and call all such “laps” and “lapse” “average joints,” or I miss my guess. 
Note No. 5., these notes are not for the purpose of missdoubting readers comprehension, and insinuating same. 
All the materials should have been carried along with the tale, in front and not in the “rear,” as I have it. 
Author apologises for his frailties and foggy morning. 
Note No. 6. Truly we are “stuck” on the job, right on the point of production and, truly, if we want to roll a little, like a stone and wear off a little mold and polish up the rough spots, we find that we can’t very well do so because the point of production is like a fishhook that holds suckers and bullheads and has a barb on it that was [parts missing] the bologny used for [parts missing] have swallowed the bait [parts missing] some of the yarn. 
Indeed our stomach is [missing] the job and we can’t [parts missing] leaving our stomach—The [parts missing] us. “stick to your job.” 
Aye aye, sir! We will [missing] -til we get that hook loo[parts missing] 
Why, it’s just like te[parts missing] swinging by the neck [parts missing] of a tree at the end of ro[parts missing] on, pard, a rolling stone [parts missing] moss.” HOW TRUE [parts missing] SEEMS” —T-Bone Slim.