﻿DROP THAT JIT!! 

Drop a nickel on the drum, 
Ye depraved bum, bum; 
Drop a nickel on the drum 
And be saved–– 
Drop a nickel on the drum 
And salavtion’s sure to come, 
Drop a nickel on the drum, 
Ye depraved. 
 
Drop a nickel on the drum, 
Ye enslaved––bom, bom; 
Drop a nickel on the drum 
And be saved–– 
Drop a nickel on the drum 
And we’ll fill you full of slum, 
Drop a nickel on the drum, 
Ye depraved. 

BUCKING THE “BOARD” 

One of the chief reasons why the railroad man is respected is that he has succeeded in impressing the eating houses that good food and better coffee keep his dander from rising and put him practically on a peace footing.  
Lunch room after lunch room has tried to make him eat swill and drink slop only to “pack up” and head for the poor farm. Any man that can perform miracles like that is entitled to every regard, respect and gratitude.  
There is no gamble about it––the element of chance is eliminated: It has to be good! 
Millionaires have for years been trying to establish a uniformly high quality of diet for themselves––and failed.  
Failed because quality does not dwell in the “toadying” class; nor in him, for that matter––he should give the superior people a trial. 

Let’s not run off with the idea the railroader is a man with a perpetually sore ear––his ear is sore only when there is good reason for it to fester. As a rule he is amiable, sociable––but the life he lives makes him eminently fit to formulate startling views as to the shortcomings of the cook and to express those views with dramatic vigor. (I wish there were more railroadmen––then the pigs would “get a break.”) 

Times are very difficult for the railroader and he is getting into a jam with his seniority rights. Many of the younger element have gotten into the notion it is not well to let the good starve young and that the older, and equally good seniors, should take pot luck in this game of “missing” meals––mutton, mutton who’s got the mutton?  
No, I’m not kidding, I see the displaced “rails” at each eating house listening to the sincere and comforting words of their brothers as yet not in distress or “off the board”––much good that does them.  

Time was when seniority was the very last word in attainment; once arrived at, a man was immune to all cares and worries––not so today:  
Forty-five years employment today is but negligible security against unemployment. Instance a man who worked in the “cement gang” originating, say, Council Bluffs division; later carried valves, castings and, on the strength of that complex work joined the “machinists” and advanced in that “profession” to all but utmost heights of honor, prestige and pecuniary independence.  
Today he is displaced by a machinist whose pedigree rates 35 years only, but whose years were all spend in “machinists” and exceeded the record of the other by many months.  
Terrible awakening to the man with forty-five years of security––all behind him. 
I have here in mind also a division point on the Great Northern, Cass Lake, Minn., whose roundhouse used to simplify the bread problem for 14 to 15 men––today only one man does the honors to the iron-horses and the windows are boarded up like a house of ill-repute suffering business reverses.  
(I do not like to mention P. O. addresses of places as I speak of them––the other facts are sufficient.) 
Today I passed a “rip-track” that used to employ 140 men; now it was deserted but for 4 men, and so it goes.  
Having traveled much lately and seen much I could go on reciting instances such as those three––every place it has been the same story: men deprived of opportunity to earn a living.  
Now my object in writing this is to give railroad men fair warning as to what they are about to face; for this thing has not yet run its limit. More men will be displaced, as time goes on, and the seniority question will become more and more acute. Railroads already are on record as looking kindly upon a man who has less years to contend with––that position taken, in fact, is enough to scramble the detail and turn brother’s hand againstt brother and “the fun will commence.” 
Railroads will get a great kick out of it! The thing cannot be solved by jumping into another industry, for, verily, in every industry the workers are having their ears knocked down.  

Business men are making dire threats: “Everything must be sold to the bare walls.” Financiers are doing the “Steve Brodie” from sky-scraper windows. Bums are living on the by-products of the incinerator plant. Jungles (too many times) are located near a garbage dump––why?––which is it, the food or wood? Hungry men and women dot the land like towns on the Christ, Moses, St. Peter and Paul R. R. (last night a girl was looking for “a flop” in the Northern Pacific freight yards, St. Paul)—(last seen going into a lumber yard) children, gods bless ‘em, always did miss their meals and are used to it. The well-to-do hesitate about giving a hungry man a full meal for fear he may get healthy and rush for a marriage license––license to multiply the unemployed––can this be America?  
The press has it 600 communists tried to lift Pres. Hoover’s crown yesterday in Cleveland, Ohio, where he went to yawn for the bankers––if Herb thus disdains to use caution and flaunts the very fates, it might be good policy to store him for the duration of this lop-sided prosperity––no telling what those starving commisars will do.