﻿IN WHERE SLIM ALMOST GETS CONVERTED By T-bone Slim 
 
The recent week of unexampled hot weather in Minneapolis, Minn., (104 degrees) unbalanced the reason of Hub Freisinger, the great chief special agent of the Northern Pacific R. R. (pronounced, Nothin’ Specific)—North Town Junction. 
We find him in flesh prowling around the ovenlike yards, mopping the broad expanse of his noble brow and adjacent clearings from which hair had retreated years ago in those arduous days around Little Falls when he tried, oh so hard, to impress the hoboes with the importance and general all around immaculate conception of Jim Hill’s favorite road. Sweat slashed around in Hub’s shoes, on that day, as he labored manfully to keep the unemployed off the train and, although he did all that was humanly possible, he succeeded in discouraging only about 60 of the would-be travellers—20 were so steeped in depravity the exhortations of Hub fell on closed eardrums. 
Be it said in favor of Hub, when he saw the futility of it all he fired a salute of six cannon in honor of the determined “twenty” now happily on their way to Staples, Minn., and harvest points beyond. 

In former years wheat prices flunked only after such miraculous conditions as bumpper crop or a train in Argentina; this year, with no crop to speak of, the wheat droped from force of habit. 

Women usually do their house cleaning in the spring of the year; robbers do their bank cleaning in summertime and fall. 

The robbery in Staples, Minn., effected the people deeply. The once proud citizens who were rapidly growing to be a good deal better than the average run of humanity pulled in their horns and are out in numbers greeting the more downtrodden social outcasts as equals and the tone of voice clicks with a sincerity that leaves no room for doubt or suspicion as to the genuineness of their change of heart. 
This would indicate the Lord Almighty had a hand in planning that robbery, for, verily, the devil would cut his throat before he would transform the Staples transgressors into such outstanding examples of the good, the true, the pure. 

“Why don’t you work?” 
In theory your question is proper; in practice it is haywire—I do not work because of two high-power preventives: 
No. 1., I’m too sick to work. 
No. 2., There is no work available. 
And I’m saying right here if an old man, I or a sick person, or a cripple, or schoolboy can’t get work in these United States, times are tough. 

Floyd B. Olsen, governor of Minnesota, attacks Stillwater pen. “silent system” as “unnecessarily cruel”. He has ordered an investigation. Olson is the first governor in many, many moons on capitol hill to have experienced lucid spell— may he feel many of them. 
Why do so many of his Stillwater charges grow insane? 

SILENCE!!! 
Market report runs something like this: Buying September and selling December. July opened unchanged. September ⅛c lower and December ⅛c higher. All futures reacted about He below the previous closing level. Liverpool, unchanged to ¼c lower where due ½ @ ⅝ lower. 
Buenos Aires, closed ⅝ @ ¾c lower yesterday; noon today was ⅛ @ ¼c lower. Ho Hom! 
Now if you want to read something, take another look at the I. W. W. Preamble. 
It is the meatiest piece of literature written since man quit writing with his hind feet. 

Lincoln freed the negroes. One Lincoln today would be insufficient; the job is twice as big—he would have to free both the light and the dark. 

Our author reports an improvement in his health—his sins which yesterday appeared in staggering proportions are today shrunken almost to the infinitesimal. 
Sinful as he was, he did not fail to take careful note of the many startling sins of the capitalist system and mark the general trend toward the hot place. Realization of the company he was to have, almost caused him to reform. An old Swede in Minneapolis suggested I go to this pastor and the good man would fix me up with liberal application of prayer and case-hardened faith. He had me converted for a moment, but when he arose to depart he could not walk and complained bitterly about the stiffness in his venerable shanks. 
It seems prayer helps the other fellow only like the baldheaded barbers’ hair restorer. 
I’m sticking to calomel! 

Robins in Bemidgi are not big because they are in Bemidgi; they are in Bemidgi because they are big. 
Rumor has it four combines exploded in Minot, No. Dak.—I have received no report from my chief operator in that district, Mr. Billious Alum Pinkherringbone—I suggest his pay be stopped, till he sobers up.