﻿“OH YEAH!” 

If a mood comes o’er you stealing 
And you feel both dumb and weak. 
And you have that gone-dog-feeling. 
Go and hear Jim Thompion speak. 
 
Hear him reassure the witless, 
Separate the whest from chaff— 
Listen! and affirm the fitness 
Of Jim Thompson’s steel-grey laugh. 
 
Not ‘to be confirmed, converted. 
Nor in many matters minced, 
But to gain the cause deserted 
And to be just reconvinced. 
 
If a mood comes o’er you stealing 
And you feel so doggone weak 
And you have that dumb-weak feeling, 
Go and hear Jim Thompson speak! 

AS YOU ARE 
ARMSTRONG TRADING:— 
“Everything SACRIFICED! We are QUITTING! Everything MUST GO! THS DEPRESSION HAS GOT US! FORCED OUT!—come in!” 
Cupboard EMPTY! So is the PURSE! We are STARVING! Boss says we MUST GO! THE DEPRESSION HAS GOT US! FORCED OUT! FROZE OUT! FOOLED OUT!—come out 

Portland has been very fortunate this winter in having the truthful Arthur Boose disseminating information to its amazed citizens—the city is the better off as a direct result and our organization had much to gain, and did . . . labor had been struggling in the realm of truth, that truth overdone, underdone or embellished with strange tassels and fixtures which had to be knocked off. But why should I beat about the bush? The workers know the truth—I mean the whole truth—why is it then they are not satisfied with it that they must attach to it half-truths and extra truths. The truth of the matter is, workers are slaves and shall be slaves untill such a time as they have organized power sufficient to free themselves—it is illusion to think any part of the working class can free itself, or the class, by organizing itself; it must organise the whole class and free the whole class. 
They are enslaved at the point of production and are in fact industrial slaves as well as industrial workers and it is at the point of production freedom must be generated. It is useless to try to win freedom by a ballot—you can’t vote yourself free. (Exception noted); you cannot free yourself by hollering down the rain barrel, (there are no barrels); you cannot knock off the shackles of industrial slavery by shooting down a row of political pie-cards (new ones step up to be shot at, they’re like that); you cannot shed your slavery by praying, by singing, by dancing a jig, by standing on our head or doing a handspring—your slavery sticks to your person no matter how many times you march to the city hail or parade to congress—a parade hasn’t as much power as has a serenade—La Paloma or Humoresque. No. If you are going to free yourself you’ll have to cut out all those antics, take out credentials and organize the POWER—you wouldn’t think of trying to run an engine with a cold boiler, would you? Of course not. You’d get busy with the coal-scoop and watch the stream gauge: “Zero, Ten, Thirty, Eighty, One-hundred and Ten, Hundred and Eigthy-Five”—ah! that’s better; you have organized the power. The engine will now roll over. 
You would not think of cooking a cup of good java in the ashes of last year’s fire; no, you’d organize a fire of more recent date—last year’s fire was good enough in its age but will not do for present day culinary experiments. (By the way: this ill-famous writer is now working on a schem how to recharge last year’s worn-out “Coffee grounds” and make them as powerful as they were in their virgin purity—good to the last drop. By letting ‘em steep in the juices of an old shoe I’ve already produced a product that will pull a boil at three paces.) 
Yep, the organizing of power comes first, it supercedes everything—the question of ways and means is idle prattle in the face of that fact. It’s like talking of running a footrace with two legs broken off short. The answer is self evident.