﻿U. S. History  
By T-bone Slim in Ind. Solidarity  

In my presidential race I was advised by all the wise heads to work up from the bottom, “take a job as a fish salesman, like Al Smith, and harden yourself to the responsibilities of the great office”. This advice appealed to me and I got me a basket of fish and proceeded to sing the praises of perch and herring to the attentive housewives. 
This noble profession although not very lucrative, kept me in milkshakes and Dukes Cameo cigarettes and certain phases of it worked to my advantage, I fear, because of my faulty memory: it was imperative that I select the fish all one size in order that I would not be accused of favoring any of my customers and naturally to protect my own interests the fish had to be of a small models. Thus it was that the most economical housewives could paw through my basket and never find a big one. Unfortunately the practice taught me how much a basket of fish should weight and being conscious of the weight I’m afraid I neglected to escort my basket to the scales for verification, but marched out on my route fully convinced that the formality of paying for the fish had been accomplished, and, many times I was astounded at the profits derived from a single basketful––which all led me to believe my memory had played me a dirty trick just as I had quit stealing. 
Oh, well, mistakes like that will happen in any business.––I know I shouldn’t confess to a weak memory as a presidential candidate, and I wouldn’t, but I feel confident the good people will discern that such a memory is really a blessing disguised as a flaw should I ever be bribed as president to do so and so, for so much: I can proceed to forget all about the bribe and give the people a fair break. With such a memory I can get up with a clear conscience, a blank soul and swear I never received a red cent and that all that money in the bank is something I can’t remember a thing about––let’s see––that probably one of my rich relatives died and left it behind him. 
“That ought to go over big with the population.” 
My slogan: Not one single dishonest dollar do I remember and not many honest ones. 
All right. I will have to run, the demand is so great, so I may as well start laying down my platform: First of all I am for FARM RELIEF––the farmers ain’t been relieved of their farms yet. I’ll attend to that the first year I’m in office. (That offer ought to swing every farmer vote in my favor and I’m good as elected right now.) 
No. 2: I will have a law passed making it a penitentiary offense to offer or pay a workingman less than four dollars a day if I have to bulldoze every millionaire in Congress––mind you, it already is a penitentiary offense in so far as it incites workingmen to riot, but the law isn’t enforced. 
But you just wait till I get in there, I’ll run some of those two-by-four employers ragged. We will not build more of this platform just now; the flies are so darn bad we might hit our thumb with the hammer and cripple ourself just when we need both hands in good shape.