﻿ROOSEVELT WAS RIGHT —By T-Bone Slim 
 
How many times do I have to tell the working class to organize? That is hard to say––not many, I hope. I am still young and the working class isn’t old. In fact the working class is in its teens (the master’s last stand) and, unless I am mistaken, this very morning I saw a mother of working class persuasion pushing her brood of breadwinners to the factory in a baby carriage. (They should be made to use a wheelbarrow, pile ‘em in crosswise, five or six deep –– that’s all about those phoney barrows still stand.) All this racket about workers riding to work in Ford cars and motor vehicles is pure hooey of the most culpabull nature –– I saw no motors on those baby buggies and there’s no mistake; for I’m an engineer second only to Herbert Hoover himself and tight on his heels. From this it can be seen that every time one of those darling toilers learns to talk and understand English, I’ve got to write a thousand word article asking him to throw away his diapers and join the I. W. W. 
How many times do I have to ask the working class to organize? I don’t know. But this I do know: If they do not organize they will carry me along into the same prediction; and, I like myself––I’m stuck on myself––I sympathize keenly with myself and, therefore, to protect my own interest, I must request them to line up in the I. W. W. and help cook-up some soup for the boss. 
Some years ago Roosevelt, good old Teddy, came out for bigger and better families––people thought he was crazy, so did I. But now we see he was right. As early as all that, he saw a small family never would be able to support a pair of rawboned parents with good appetites and so he suggested bigger families, a condition where the doting parents could have a kid working in every factory in town. He wasn’t so dumb. How we misjudged the poor man! We had fair warning and if we ain’t got big families it ain’t Roosevelt’s fault. Wouldn’t it be nice now to have about thirty-six kids all of ‘em working and bringing home two or three dollars in their envelops? What a pile of rolled-oats that would buy! Now, let’s be frank, wouldn’t it kinda rest your soul and ease your mind, while you are pawing the garbage dump for rotten oranges, to be conscious of a raft of children working in the industries and bringing home the bacon on pay days? Ah, indeed! What a vision old Rosey had. Necessities, sufficiencies, luxuries, affluence all rolled up in a shack-full of child-labor––what a pity we did not think, act and knock out a few sets of triplets––and now it’s too late. 
Roosevelt was the first man to advocate mass production of slaves. We should have got in on the ground floor there and then, I see it all now. We should have stocked up on children of all sizes so that we could supply the boss with whatever size he wanted. In the morning we could glance at the bosses blackboard: “1 size 2½; 3 size 7; 6 size 13½” and go home and chase out the sizes required. Should the boss call for a couple teething babes, every well regulated family should be able to supply him. Should he want a six-year-old to play with a No. 6 coalscoop, we should be in position to let him have his pick of twins. Twelve-year-old and so on. Any damn size he could think of. But no, we have neglected our family duties. I see it all now. Where we should have been in position to offer the master “service with a smile”, many of us have not even a single kid to cuff around. How we gonna live? You’ve got me stumped. It all lays with the families. The old man, being unemployed, could take little Willie and lay him across his knees, after Wilyum comes home all tired out by the days toils, and paddle him for half an hour and every little while ask him “are you gonna join the I. W. W.”––a week of that ought to put Willie in a frame of mind to take out a union card. Not only that, but a great saving would accrue to the household in the fact that Willyums painful extremities would preclude the taking in of many picture shows, standing up, and the old man could buy himself an occasional quart of gin for his ailing kidneys. My position is that a man who makes a union man of his boy is entitled to a quart of good gin and a boy that makes a union man of his old man is entitled to two quarts of better gin.  
Not one word of exaggeration in this article, so far––and there isn’t going to be. The teething babies are working for the motion pictures and squawkies. The four-year-olds are working for the newspapers selling papers––a business in a sense but really a complex stint disseminating information and wisdom to the masses. Any more questions. 
The glory of the United States stands on child labor at present and although it will continue to stand it will not stand on child labor much longer. The master has few men producing machines that will take the children’s jobs away and give them to nuts and bolts. Ain’t you glad now you didn’t raise a big family? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to let the boss get away with it? You are handed a system; it will not work, never did work, never will work and you continue to use it––the capitalists’ system. Did it ever occur to you to try labor’s system? No? Is that so? Well! Well! Well! Strange! You have every confidence in the other fellow’s system. You are uneasy, nervous, frightened, worried, suspicious, miserly, hungry, sorrowful––yea starving, and yet you worship the capitalist system, cling to it, fight for it. You ain’t crazy. You don’t look crazy. What’s the matter with you? Are you hypnotized? For Christ sake come out of it! Get yourself a red card. —T-B. S.