﻿THREE BOTTLES 

I see by the paper Mrs. Herbert Hoover is suing her husband for divorce in Brooklyn, New York––Herb may yet have to eat store-hotcakes and carry his coffee in thermos bottles. This isn’t the Hoover you mean. 
When the kind and gentle master put up a factory in this country he inveigled a bunch of milkfed Irish and Finns to come here and grab a fortune for themselves. But when the Finns and Irish began to inquire for the aforesaid fortune, the master felt highly insulted and swore––swore he had been misquoted; that he never stole the baby’s milk. 
When the same master put up a factory in the “old country”, with the proceeds of the baby’s milk, he did not even suggest the Irish and Finns go over there and get skinned the second time (he knows a skinned ram cannot be shorn, after he has the pelt.) Our friend, the boss! The brains! Who has started more souplines than anyone before him or after him.  

The carelessness of the people is remarkable. I can walk along in my unemployed way and find enough money to keep me clothed like Jimmie Walker––better than Jimmie Walker, for Walker hasn’t overalls. In St Louis I picked up a pocketbook containing twenty-nine dollars and fifty-odd cents. Dozens of people saw me pick it up; but I had the presence of mind to turn around and go back the way I came before the dozens could lay claim to it. 
“I’m glad you found it”, murmurs an innocent bystander, eyes not at all avaricious or greedy.  
“If I hadn’t, I’d head for the poorhouse; why, do you know all my life savings is in that pocketbook (they were too, as I hadn’t saved anything) all my life’s savings, eight-hundred and thirty dollars hard earned money.” 
He gasped, and bummed me for a quarter. 
I could not refuse him, my heart is in the right place, left side . . . 
Right now I am two chews of snus ahead of the panic.––I’ll have to start finding. 
I do not mean to raise false hopes and say that you can do the same, for I am an exceptionally observant cuss. I’d advise you to organize in the I. W. W. and get your clothes in an envelope. 

An I. W. W. prides himself in his ability to win industrial disputes. Defeat to him is an unthinkable calamity and disgrace. He knows no defeat––never met the circumstance. Where and whenever industial unionism has been tried, victory perched on the shoulders of action and the boss jumped up off the pot, pronto. But persons of the toiling persuasion have persisted––may I say, perniciously––to use other unionism of the mixed breed craft type, benevolent brother and sisterhoods, death benefit and pie-in-the-sky outfits and most always they came to me limping and disfigured (out-figured) with a sad, sad tale: “We were sold out.” 
Why did they climb on the block? 
The I. W. W. isn’t an auctioneer and doesn’t auction off its members bread and butter. 
Right now, Bro. Green is calling on Jehovah to stop the wage-cuts, enlisting the aid of glossy-jawed Washington to plead before the employers and hints, if wages don’t quit sliding, communists will start a revolt (the other guy is gonna start it?) 
Hm, a slight flaw appears in that program: 
That prospective revolt is a threat; not worth two cents, if one. 
The communists never in all their history started a revolt and are not likely to change their habits. I’m not saying a revolt will not be––necessity determines the existence of all things. What I am saying is: the workingclass by enrolling in the I. W. W. can to a great extent avoid revolt and make its birth unnescessary––practically sterilize the grand emotion. 
Not enough peanuts per pint of gore! 
(I am indebted to the communists themselves for these few remarks––thank you.) 
Of course, if it is the desire of your heart to have revolt, unorganized as you are, you shall have it, plenty of it, enough to do you the rest of your life; but I cannot promise you any benefits. 
There shall be benefits of course, and I could tell you right now without looking in my book who shall benefit by your revolt. (You ought to hear me propheteer when I’m in good shape.) 
It is not in the program of the I. W. W. to keep you revoluting one, five, ten or eight hundred-years (like Ireland) only to reap the gains after you are dead as a matter of evolutionary graciousness. Such a program would be a deliberate swindle. 
The I. W. W. program calls for instantaneous benefits, beginning and continuing from NOW––something we can see with our own eyes and not have to grin at from the grave. 
P. S. These views are not so just because I say so, they are so only to the extent you accept them as such––the editor is obligated in no way; it’s a quarrel between my readers and myself. It’s counterpart is the quarrel between slave and master (I’m the slave). 

The one great trouble with “The Nation” is the need of one thoroly rotten article per week to kinda make its mediocre roll-top desk stuff stand out. Also, to add glosster to its well-written articles. 
When I woke up the other morning, I picked up “The Nation” and was surprised to learn I had read it in my sleep––this will not do; I can buy three empty bottles for fifteen cents. 

Control over liberalism is nothing short of complete-prescribed freedom and all. The dilemma is acute and were the goodly liberals to consult Dr. Heywood Broun, I am sure Broun, devilish for a moment, would advise obstetrics––a husky midwife and a strong pair of tongs or “come-alongs.”  
Some bright boys, you know, are of the opinion that liberalism is fecund and that some great good may be born of it any minute now. 
Proudflesh and blubber, gentlemen, and a midwife, armed with the obstretical forceps, would be perfectly useless. What the liberals need is a reducing diet. They’ll get it, too, if I read my aches and pains correctly. May as well toss your paint brushes into the bucket and hire a stonemason to throw a foundation under your house. 
Am thinking of starting a night school to teach George “Jess” Nathan and Henry “Elbow” Mencken to write English. What do you mean, George? Are you going to sit there with your ill-smelling feet in the fireplace and watch the parasites eat all our sandwiches? 

Before passing judgment on the Chinese you should visit Chinatown––take down the strange signs and you won’t know whose town it is. Passing out, you will notice deterioration in buildings, neatness and sanitation, as you, no doubt, were surprised by the cleanliness and orderliness when you came in. They wear good clothes, buy Ingersolls and eat hamburgers for all the world like great Americans. 

Ralph Barton, best cartoonist, bar none, is dead. He shot himself and didn’t miss. He was best, not because of execution, but because of ideas––he could almost cause “runs” in kinks and make straight hair curl. 
Reports have it he was in financial distress. He, himself, gives no reason for his act, but in his report he mentions several, suggests many and says, take your pick––that’s Barton. 
It is given to me to know why he did it. 
He needed one friend more––he admits he already had one. 
Finance had nothing to do with it. He could have stepped out at any time and robbed himself a plumber or a druggist, a man of unlimited means, for, if I remember rightly, he had a gun when he shot himself and it was loaded. 
But he could not step out and shoot himself a friend. So he shot himself and by that act, he shot himself a million friends he never knew he had––too late. 
Friends, like public opinion, always arrive after the ship has gone down––after a cross marks the spot where the body lay; and they weep bitter tears––(I wish to Christ they’d dry up!) 
In this age of mass production, mass transportations (sardine pack), mass assininity, mass this and mass that, it is impossible for a friend to exist––a friend is an individual––and many are Barton’s that are fingering their pistols. 
But we need not despair––we can use mass friendship. Join the union of your class and take your friendship by volume. 
The I. W. W. is the only friend man has now. 
Hear ye! Hear ye! The tardy friends now tiptoeing around the bier may as well come down on their heels––the coffin is empty. 
They may now take up their pens and draw their own cartoons––see if they’ll sell. 
Ralph Barton is dead.