﻿It was the railroad lobby that, in a good many cases, get the law passed that makes it all but criminal offense for an automobile driver to pick up a hitchhikers and various responsibilities were imposed upon the doee, in case he does. It simply broke the great heart of the railroads to see so many potential paying passengers negotiate great distances simply by crooking a thumb in the general direction their heart was set upon. Bloodcurding tales were started, telling the world as to how double-dyed-in-wool robbers and hi-jacks masquerade on the highways dressed in hikers clothing. Poker players got a good alibi: “Robbed!” they scream, “by a hitch hiker; by the old mill stream”––and I know of one such actual robbery wherein the culprit was captured, in all these years, and made to suffer the penalty for not letting the car owner lose his money in the regular manner, peddle the car and tell the good woman, “ a hitch hiker drove off with it”––all the others made good their getaway, if any. 
Well, the railroads got their law but, unfortunately, they got the hitch-hiker, too. Now, what are they going to do about it? I’ll tell you. 
Do some more like that; I love to see brainless function. 
(I’d like to see how the RR’s make out). Be it noted the potential paying passengers still wield a wicked thumb and ride other’s cars, law or no law. It is only those that can’t pay that are thus relegated to the making of goo-goo eyes at box-cars. 
There are many these owing to the fact that a standard of wages has been set by the good and willing workers that for ever prevents those proud beings from making the acquaintance of work or transportation fees. Similar conditions was the origin of gypsies. 
To prevent such men from sleeping in box cars the cars are saturated with sulphuric acid––I do not know did the roads issue the orders for same––but I do know it is not advisible to change clothing or take a bath in box cars so treated. 
In later years, in an emergency, a sack of sugar shall be shipped in such car, a candy eater shall get sick and die (the acid shall eat a hole in his stomach and vitamins shall drop thru and miss the intestines entirely) the candy company shall be sent to San Quentin––only recently a bunch of Eagles or was it Elks, 100 or so, got ptomaine poisoning from some mysterious source. Could it have been caused by sulphuric acid in their caviar? Who can say? 
This is written in Sacramento on the day the papers give it out the Gov. Rolph endorsed Sharkey “oil-control bill” went under 5 to 1––this indicates Rolph better fix his political fence, the mavericks are stampeding to the opposition––his position with regard to Mooney-Billings case may have the same elements of poor guess-work. All in all, this latest fizzle disqualifies Rolph in any future capacity to serve, anybody. 

One-hundred well-to-do San Franciscans do not want a bonus from Uncle Sam––for “war work”. This raises the question shall the soldiers get it? 
No matter how much I favor it, they shall not (economic grounds): The minute they get their fingers on that twelve-hundred dollars they shall quit working for nothing, as a present, and wages shall go up. The “powers that be” are not sufficiently in favor of higher wages t ogo on record for a bonus––so ticklish is the economic situation. In other words, they’ll get the bonus when they use economic purpose––for verily I say unto you: if economic power can keep the bonus and doughboy apart it also can bring them together. 
All those who oppose the paying of it do so because they do not wish to disturb the low program in particular and “pay-less” days in general. The principle is: HOLD EVERYTHING. 

We are not short of presidential timber, there’s Buggs Baer, just to mention a few.––It’s in the vice-presidential forest the timber is kinda scraggly. 

STILL LONGER 
Buggs: “A friend of mine worked six months to finish one book.” 
Juggs: “That’s nothing. I know a guy who spent his whole life finishing one sentence.  

Capitalist society is organized, legalized robbery. The policeman defends it, the solider dies for it, the professor apologises for it, the liberal tries to keep it patched together and the priest sprinkles holy-water upon it. Only the real rebel damns the whole proceeding. 

Depression is the normal, sober state of capitalism. War and inflation merely mark the high spots of its orgiastic drunkeness.