﻿Was It Like This? 

By T-BONE SLIM 

The hign nan of prohibition appears to be Lowman—and he says in effect that gunmen and killers of the “noble experiment” shall be tried before the infallable federal courts and not by state courts. 
I suppose “everything is arrangeed” as they say in legal circles—but why go to the bother of trial? Why not just hand a medal or a mackerel on their chest, give them a bonus, a couple weeks’ vacation, on double pay (to garner a few L. L. D’s from universities, or B. V. D’s from clothes lines) in recognition of faithful service in the extermination of “suspicious” citizens! Many people are aghast at the horror of it all—which attitude, I consider, a lot of high grade agahstness going to waste. 
Those same killers, if they were not killing folks for pay, for the United States government, would, no doubt, be free-lancing in a far more murderous way without hope of other reward than what they could find on the person of their kill— It’s their nature. 
There is a certain shrudlu about government employment that seems to stay their trigger finger and, as a result, many a perfectly good target is allowed to continue paying taxes and drinking hair oil in the noble experiment of trying to raise fuss in their belly . . . From this it can be seen the government is not, in reality, paying those men to murder people but puts them on the payroll to reduce their output of corpses— the government knows it’s natural for the likes of them to slow down the minute their porkchops are protected by conference of a little authority and honorarium coupled to responsibility; and what little killing they do can hardly be classed practice for greater blood-letting to come. 
I have heard considerable criticism of congress for letting Vostead “act like that” but, fortunately, it all comes from shallow-minded people who can not understand that were it not for the brainy legislators finding workless employment for those gunmen they soon would have been running amuck in each city, town and hamlet—mebbe kill off a bunch of our best parasites, heaven help us! 
Yessirree, many, many, wouldn’t be able to keep their urgent engagements, but would be compelled to report to St. Peter without further ado, or dido; against their will and, in many cases, without proper knowledge of the approaching event. 
On the other hand, (not counting myself) many of us have seen all there is to see (or enough to convince us that the rest isn’t worth witnessing) and it wouldn’t make a helluva lot of difference whether we serve as a target for bullets or target for exploiters. Damn me if this article didn’t sour on me!—hot weather, hot weather—violent voters throwing away their stove pokers.