﻿T-Bone Slim Says In One Big Union Is A Bigger Life

Even as one worker is one life, so a married couple is one life—a family life. And even so is a labor union one life-—an organization life. And One Big Union is One Big Life, and its members are Live Guys.
There’s not much hooey in that.
But people are satisfied with a small life, a dinky little life that hardly reaches to the next payday; a puny little union that has to holler to be heard, whereas One Big Union has only to lift its eyebrows to make the boss jump.
Life is funny. A blade of grass is a life, even as the giant redwood that frowns over it; and even as the life of an orgianization is the aggregate of its members’ lives, so is the life of each member that of the myriad lives of his component parts. But why fritter away our time as a “minny” when we can be a whale? There is life so small that it takes a microscope to see it, and when I look at some of these unions I wonder are our good people trying to masquerade as microbes in honor of Karl Marx who said: “The capitalist system contains within itself the germs of its own destruction.” (Karl and I ain’t schoolmates.)
Personally I am in favor of a bigger and better life; life so clear and bright that you can’t look at it without smoked glasses; a union so big and strong its wish is complete achievement. If this can be visualized, it can be realized, and than—O what a world ! Wotta world !
“Life results from organization, not organization from life,” is good Hoyle. So, if you want to die, don’t organize; but if you want to live, you had better.
Life gets tough in direct proportion to the lack of organization; the better the organization, the thicker the steaks. A man’s cupboard is a good criterion of the condition of his unionism. A scissorbill’s cupboard is empty at least two days a week. By organizing he can keep it full at least fourteen days a week and twenty-four months a year.
We can build life by organizing. You are organized of millions and billions of lives. As an organization those lives are your, and you are you only because of those lives. Why not go a step further by organizing One Big Union Instead of a bunch of small ones? Don’t be two by four—let is be the biggest union on earth! A trade union, even with a fish hatchery or banking for a sideline can never be the biggest union on earth. (The side-line is a confession of its weakness—it will be selling razorblades and load pencils next.) Only the Industrial Workers of the World can be the One Big Union.
“Boys,” says the boss as he raises his foot democratically upon the chair and puts his hands together in a restful manner, “I can’t give you the raise because as you can see for yourselves that robber baron across the tracks would compete me out of business and I’d have to close up my shop—mebbe have to let the junkman have it.”
There, now, didn’t I tell you? He belongs to the alibying class. He’s good!
Now why not help the poor devil out of his misery by organizing a One Big Union and get ‘em both— put both on the carpet at once? Get two feet on the chair instead of one. No alibis would issue from their throats. Lasting peace would be built up between them. They might even hug and murmur “my pal”, as they tapped each other on the back, and the workers could double their wages in less time than nothing flat—if they had a One Big Union.
Fantastic? Well, yes to a guy that has no more unionism than a jack-rabbit that is chased by every yellow cur that comes along—but there is nothing impossible to the I. W. W.
We do not have to believe yon behemoth’s alibi. We can well classify it as deception—and if there’s anything that gets my goat it is to see a six footer trying to crawl out by way of an alibi. One would naturally think that an outfit that is in the business of chiselling would be cute enough to do it without blaming another stripper. The alibi they both use is hooey. It’s a confession that they are up a tree. We don’t believe it, but it’s a confession just the same. It’s a confession that we’ve got idiots trying to run our industries.
But we’re doing that ourselves—he’s down in Miami. In other words we are robbing ourselves for the boss. We rob ourselves blind, stiff and penniless for the boss so that he can divide our wealth among his progeny and give them top starts in life. Workers do all the work and the boss collects the change. For what? Because he owns the works? Owning doesn’t hurt $50,000,000 worth every year.
Let’s organize, to run industry properly.