﻿Edison had F and F (Firestone and Ford) on his trail much of the time. They wouldn’t give him peace, rest or chance to draw a full breath. “Rubber” they wailed, in an unholy duet”, synthetic rubber’.. Edison, an inveterate joker, pretended to be deaf so as to shake them off his trail. “How was that?” he would how, “gentlemen, you’ll have to sing that a little louder.” 
“Rubber,” they screetched, like a dry axle’ “we want vegeterian rubber.” 
“I’ll give you rubber”, said Edison to get rid of ‘em, “I’ll make it from morning-glories and chrysanthenums.” 
Can you blame him—an old, old man deserving if every rest, the worlds softest cushions, the tendered of homage, attention and service, dignity of respect, and those two “gogetters” crash through the placid serenity of his last and sacredmost yars, in the interest of selfish, unequal, commercial competition, violating natures arrangement and the feelings of a mind deserving the harmony of restrospetion. 
No wonder he died. 
He is dead! I tell you, let him lie in peace—or it means a pop on the schnozzle. 
A tear: (Colorado) 
Oh those gloomy, sodden shadows now 
from grave stones they are gone. 
What a blow to rampant superstition, 
flight— 
Freedom’s merry, fairy children scurry 
carefree on and on 
In the scintillating sheen of Alva-light- 
I never did believe, in sentimentalism, but 
— Kinds crude, but— 
It was only the surrounding ignorance turned solid (semi-petrified) that made it possible for Thomas Alva Edison to last as long as he did and escape hanging—his greatness lies in that: he kept his mouth shut. 
Had the hypocrites known what Edison really was doing, his body would have graced a lamp-post (coal-oil) in the morning—they never, never would have suffered the laying of so many ghosts. 
Blessed ignorance. 
(Note: I’m giving this merely as proof to show the defeat of ignorance is a forgone conclusion—it can’t think.) 
With my puny intellect, am wholly incapable of estimating the number of ghosts that grabbed one-way tickets—my mind staggers around in the maze of its magnitude. We won’t count ‘em—we’ll content ourselves by mulling over the strange fact Edison combined mental and mechanical agency in destroying the hiding place of billion devils—and made the devils like it 
Some mechanic! Some mechanic! 
Million to six: 
	 
Alone, bowlegged man can tote on his back his living for ten days to a distance of one-hudred miles, using shanks-mare for transportation . . . 
A railroad carrying a load that would require one million bowlegged men to pack, steps to the front and says it can’t afford to hire six men to run that train... 
It admits it can’t compete with bowed-legs. 

	 
In the past year the American Legion pulled a gigantic “Osman Pascha”. Osman, you will remember, in the siege of Plevna drove all his oxen atop the wall for Gen. Skobeleff to admire and to convince “Skobe” the beleaguered Turks have lots of porkchops. 
Next day Osman surrendered. 
The Legion has beep boasting on the billboards, as much as to say, ask our advice—many otherwise hard-headed men have been carried away by that show of tinsel and accepted their advice in good faith, a dangerous procedure. The low-down of The Legion’s prestige does no comform with those trappings in the least. 
Of recent date they have been criticized even by the reactionaries that hold a warm place in the Legion’s heart. In the bay-district, San Francisco, the Legion complained it could not hold Its May Day celebration because of lack of funds—that looks like prestige lost. 
I shall not give a full list of my proofs, the two cited shall convince the Legion I know what I am talking about and that is all that’s required. 
I am not here to antagonize them and won’t—I would reason with them and preserve my own and their prestige: The loss of their prestige is due to such stands taken that sum up “immaterial” and hint of spite. 
I will mention one: the Centralia Case. 
What difference does it make to the Legion whether or no Governor Hartley frees the remaining four victims of that mutual hysteria, at this late date? None. 
We must remember they did what every Legion man would have done in similar case. Legionaires are not cowards. Niether were those men. Why be vindictive? Is that brave? 
“As Gen. Rosecrans said when he dislodged the enemy, pell meH, and the colonel exclaimed “the cowards”: 
“They are not cowards, but he who respects not bravery IS a coward.” 
I can’t dicide—Rosecrans can’t get up and call me a liar and woudn’t and I ain’t. 

Mystic 1932— 
This year, as I said before, is “the year”. 
Half of it is shot to hell. 
The momentum we gather in the last half determines the thickness of the frost on freedom’s pie. and quality. No other years will follow. 
Hence, if you feel you are going to act nevermore, so notify the headkuarters right away—so they won’t stand there like a dummy waiting for you to show signs of life. I’ll tell you fellow workers, we’re not going to starve to death like a chained dog; our bones are not going to punch holes through our strained burlaps—there’s going to be action, the right kind I hope, but action anyhow.