﻿THE “GET TOGETHER” By T-BONE SLIM 
 
LOS ANGELES, Cal. 
Caution: 
The employing class is class consious. 
The working class is class cautious—just a small flaw in the spelling. 
Some editor probably got the “n” upside down. (Some of ‘em as spellers are fierce, worse than I am). 
The way to remedy that is stand the linotype on its head, the next time that “u” sticks out—make it read class cantious; that’s near enough and far better than having the working class crawl through the weeds like a nervous scatterpillar. 
In the Minnesota “Lumber” strike an aged stump farmer went to Micky O’Connel (?) and nervously inquired: 
“Is it safe for me to go home through Gimmel?” 
“Why, I think so,” returned the irrepressible Micky, “but be cautious, be VERY cautious”—the old gentleman, 85 years old, used every discretion and was soon among his loved ones. 
Had he tossed caution to the winds, he’d been home just as soon and just as safe—for Grimmel was not the home of harm. 
Spooks are persistent creatures—and still we laugh at a guy fighting imaginary snakes. 
Beverly Hills, Oct. 24. 
I don’t know anything but what Will Rogers told me in the papers; but I will say this much, this place needs more bums—the few here simply can not handle all this missionary work. 
I tried to meet up with Rogers and was told he saw me coming, jumped in an airplane and left no address—he’s getting worse than Harry Lauder. (I only wanted to take a pinch of snuff with him). We have several million men and women in this country who specialize in the art of gaining a living by the use of words in which pathos predominates over ordinary conversational accentuation (much against their will and volition) and not all of them are capable of passing it out as tuneful B. S. in the interest of preserving their manhood. 
Those people, too, are called “beggars”, involuntary though they may be. 
To those people has come the realization that race, creed, color, or sex is no protection for the intended victim of the “lug”. Thirty cents from a negro taxi driver is thirty cents good United States money and every bit as*valuable as thirty cents coming from Mary Garden, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, or Bishop Cannon. 
 
After I got my Compulsory Silence (sweat-pad) improved, so that it won’t slide off the mouth, so stranger coming to these states will get an idea the people are contented like ye even the cows of the pasture —believe or not. 

Parasites’ papers have stolen all our thunder while we were backing one another from the picture and throwing ourselves out of focus. 
“Six hoar day, five day week, no reduction in pay, pie five times a day, ice cream on Sundays and Hollowdays and less production those are all demands of the perfidious boss class on behalf of the workers— why not get together and make their dreams click? 
Verily (for our national ailment) 6 hour day, 5 day week, fat envelopes, no hi-ball, ice cream, pie and wine bricks, IS a cure, the whole cure and nothing but the cure—soelpmegod! 
(That’s three moldy ones I dusted off—I’d like to see somebody else try that and not get deported.) 
Gentlemen of the offended class: 
You’ve got a historic mission, but damn me if you’ve got a historic position. You are out of position completely. You could not be more out of position if you did not exist . . . What’s the matter, don’t you know your stall? Your place, I mean? That you must be steered? Shoved around? Pulled around? Hauled around? 
You can’t find your position because your fellow slave has a theory that emancipation depends on the truism of the quantity of Rocquefort cheese in the moon, whereas your idea is the streak of green is a row of surface- brass; because he thinks emancipation can be attained only by vaporings of super-mentality radiating hi-pressure energy at the nozzle, whereas you pre a confirmed believer that the power must be centrifugal force popping off at both ends of the hub and squirting sulphur and blue-vitriol in the middle. 
Even I can’t tell who’s carzy. 
You take off your hat to the same boss. 
You bend your knee to the same boss.  
You kiss the toe of the same boss. 
Mebby that’s your place. Mebby you are in the same boat, and didn’t know it. 
Some of you believe a pop to the jaw from the left wing is all that’s required to start birdies singing in the bosses’ ears (that’s five old ones). Others think the right wing far superior as a sedative— why quarrel over it? Why not hold a star chamber session and try ‘em out—the party that remains standing has the right dope. 
“An endless quarrel is the most disgraceful thing I can conceive, the most needless. The quarrel is now so extended (over theories, not over facts) that every opportunity is given every argument to settle it—theoretical arguments never settle themselves, they are in the abstract. That’s where the rest of us will be, if the quarrel holds out till the boss gets us dressed in our new uniform of slavery—hold tight, boys! the moon sure do look like mouse-bait. 
Don’t give up the quip! 
After all, mebby the salvation of the working class lies in the muchly despised epsom salts—the boss to take the salts (to clean his system)—the Youngs, the Graces, the Schwabs and Gugglingheims . . . 
After all, our lot is a REfind way of burning at the stake—that’s something, and should take the edge off our piercing screams. But it’s still burning at the stake, ain’t it? 
Is it? 
As to the merits of the recent squawk for free trade, I won’t say. It is propaganda for the removal of tariff from the oldest profession—the theory must hold good all the way down the line, free trade or protected industry. In connection I shall sacrifice my prestige for point and probably be run ragged and ostracized the rest of my days: The good people are pre-occupied with their social sexual and intellectual attainments to the exclusion of all economic demands other than that a modest, aromatic hamburger grace their board and the pre-occupation is for to gain strength to carry on a quarrel that has no foundation in fact. 
The grabbing of the Lovestone Temple, the snaking-in of the Daily Worker, the race for position, are not the activities of struggle on the part of the workers. It is not a race for political preferment or strategical position. I see it merely as a move necessary to generate a smoke screen of confusion—to delay benefits—to put something over that should be put under. 
Do not try to affix any of these remarks to local affairs. Mentioned material serves as my leaning post. Should I say it is imperative the I. W. W. publications maintain a high standard of reading matter, point out the freedom of readers to read what they please and that H. L. Mencken has said 10,000 new books come out every year, Henry L. is my leaning post, the figure 10,000 is my argument regardless of whether or no Henry said so. I have complimented Henry and tossed the idea in plain sight). Limelight for the purpose of carrying fuel to a quarrel is waste of lime—let us find our defeat in darkness. Electricity costs money and spot lights are too expensive to flood on bickerings of this nature wherein the objector is at loggerheads with even his dear self and could just as well step aside, address his remarks to a lamp post or a bronze statue and surrender the floor to the workers— 
The workers are the majority, count ‘em or fight ‘em, anyway you take ‘em—the good of the many is paramount. 
And should they, the majority, demand all the evils, all the ills, all the pains, death itself, it is their privilege and they shall be served—they are the majority. 
They know best. 
Working class organization has reached a situation in this country where it is merely “a weak excuse” for the power dormant in the class. Official jobs in the organizations have been abolished to the point where a few are rattling around in the work that required a small army of “trained” men and women years ago. 
It has not been, as many suppose, a mad struggle on the part of office seekers to perpetuate themselves on the jobs. Because why? Because the jobs have disappeared one after another and we are not ready to concede office holders would jeopardize their so-called pie with actions so manifestly maniacal. We must conclude potential office seekers have failed to enter into organization programs with proper spirit, failed to generate the necessary pie necessary for their own consumption and for which the working class stood ready and willing to pay. 
“Only organize us”, was their great cry. The action taken, gentlemen, by the bickerers supreme was a defense of their own Disability—the working class stood ready, able and willing to remove The Class Struggle from the shoulders of every last man that showed the slightest sign or smattering of intelligence. It stood ready to employ every ounce of brains in the country, at top prices—is so today and will be tomorrow—but it stipulates: “Pipe down on that bickering—I don’t want to see a circus every day.” 
Action is what the great class craves—you either produce, or get in discard.