﻿“All things will continue to disappear, till perfection appears and reality is reached.”—Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. 

Fragment: 
Lack of knowlege grieves me more, 
Much more than I can tell; 
I have no information, 
No one thing I know well — 
But this I know my heart is wrung 
And Gods are turned to clay 
–––All because the wagon tongue 
Displaced the one horse shay. 
 
‘Pie and Coffee, 10c.—Chicago, III., in the year of the Full Soup Pot, 1931.— 
No ketch to this except the 10 cents; if you have the ten cents the deal goes thru like nobody’s business. 
At first, it would seem the capitalist system is not so bad at heart and were it not for the missing dime I would hurrah my head off. That dime is the rub! 
How come these cut rates pies, hooked onto a mug of exquisite coffee? 
Ah ‘tis a long story: 
Mr. Rhurbarb Cornstarch, the great patriot and president of Inter-Hemispherian Pie Corp., is on a still hunt on West Madison St. and lamps the sign, “Pie & Coffee, 10c.” 
Chilled to the marrow by this horrible discovery he lurches into his Benz Buggy and yells; “To the plants, Caleb, and don’t spare your horses! Once in the plant Mr. Cornstarch wipes the good old honest sweat from his brow, throws the dripping handkerchief in the waste basket, jerks down his vest and goes into a huddle with Mr. Crustfiller, his trusted activator: 
“Mr. Crustfiller,” says he, “today I discovered that some dirty sucker is underselling our pies on West Madison St. and it is up to us, Crust, to meet those prices and, if possible undersell them. Now I want you to notify the women and children working for us their wages are cut in two, to take effect from last Monday—we can’t date it back any farther, the poor devils have spent it—notify them the public has suddenly grown pie-conscious and it is up to the Inter-Hemispherian Pie Corporation to do everything in its power to serve the people with steaming pies at reasonable prices, at least while this panic is on. 
“Don’t forget to mention the panic, that’ll scare ‘em senseless. 
“Also notify the Embossed Pie Shell Company that we are making an effort to gain supremacy in the pie industry and would value their co-operation to the end of a reduction in their quotations—we’ve got to run different bull with those people and for heavens sake, crust, don’t mention the word monopoly. If you put this over big, I’ll raise your wages. 
“Yea, and I came near forgetting it, notify the Immitation Pie-Pulp Filler people that we have received very encouraging quotations from the State Fruit Bureau on several trainloads of surplus fruit in good shape for meat and in view of that flattering offer it would be almost criminal insanity for us to accept Imitation Pie-Pulp products at such exorbitant figures last past quoted.”— 
It seems that “dirty sucker”, the Poverty Stricken Pie Co., had succeeded in underselling the Hemispherian by cutting the wages of its workers, and the acceptance of the cut was equivalent to wishing a cut for the workers of the Hemispherian Corporation. Lots of workers don’t seem to have realized that. They seem to imagine that when they wish a cut in wages for themselves nobody else is affected. Nothing could be farther from truth—a cut in wages in Portland, Ore., is felt around the world. 
Workers should be very cautious about grabbing wage-cuts—it sets a bad example. On the other hand, increased wages is felt around the world, likewise. 
The best known preventative for cuts is the I. W. W. The best known leaven for higher wages is also the Industrial Workers of the World.