﻿“Let’s Organize Hire Ourselves” Says T-Bone Slim 

Bugs hide under rocks, germs under fingernails and still other parasites under elm tree on country estates—garbage scow passing down the Thames stunk-out the House of Commons.
I am not overthrowing any of the boss’ servants whether they be presidents, kings or ordinary fishermen (that reminds hie froglegs come into the country duty free to help the poor people; O how poor!) I’d be an awful monkey, wouldn’t I, to go about knocking down the ears of the boss’ “good and willing”? I might just as well appease my outraged feelings by knocking down scare crows. And why should I when I can eliminate the evil (the boss), cut his line of communications and let nature take its course? Just because a few Russian thistles sprout in a field is no reason for me to “pick on corn” and knock its ears down; especially at 1.08 a bushel . . .
It is selfevident the boss is an autocrat and it is also selfevident he is an autocrat all the way up and down the line. So who would think that autocracy is permitted to thrive in a republic! (It proves itself, why argue?) When we stand before the boss applying for a job, tears glistening in our whey-colored eyes and he says, “no,” that is proof that he has job control over our lives, jurisdiction over our bread and butter—and when they all say “NO”, that makes it final.
What to do in such a case? Rope? No.
No, we organize industrially and hire ourselves.
After we are organized we shall do all the hiring and firing—and I’m afraid the boss will be the first to go. (We’ll put a man in his place that knows something.) “No Help Wanted?” Where in hell did he get that idea! Why it is contrary to all laws of human frailty. But when we are organized, “help will be welcome,” indeed to such an extent that we will wire the boss down in Palm Beach: “Come home instantly (stop) your work clothes await (stop) My Lord.”—We shall deny no boss the right to work—we shall even encourage him. And we shall emblazon on every cornerstone the motto eternal, “HELP I WANTED”, big and small.
Who then is the better, we who say, “jobs all around” or boss who says, “jobs all taken”? Jobs are not, however, “all taken”; and he is a liar. He wishes to compound his deviltry by creating an unemployed army for wage cutting purposes and, in addition, an army of strike-breakers for the same purpose. He does it wilfully, consciously. So long as he relied on simple deviltry he was bearable; but now, nertz. But even in our misery we have a consoling feature: We know the boss pays only as little as possible and corporations shave it closer still. We know fairness is not in him. That is half the battle. Once we know fairness is not present we know we must organize a union to get more of the good things of life, and less of the rotten deals. We know they despise us (they haul us to work in cattle racks—trucks.) But before we’re done we’ll make them love us.
Note: In mass production workers gets say $6 for 50,000 pieces of value; at lesser plant workers gets $4 for 10,000 pieces of value—in other words the $4 is higher pay than the $6—in still other words: the lesser plant pay $20 per 50,000 pieces of value. (Both are day work but the “speed-up” helps the Big Shot to exploit labor power the more thoroughly). No wonder the billions are piling up and no takers. Twenty dollars worth of work for six bucks—and even the Little Shot is rolling in wealth. Sound money? Phew! is like sound cheese with plenty rats around. Pegging the dollar is the adjusting of it to its deteriorated condition—but rats cannot control themselves and pegging means nothing to them (why send politicians to catch rats—it costs more to bait a cat than to bait a spring trap)—let’s do it by machinery, that is by organization.
Drones they are, our employers, but how did they get that way? Some would say, “seeing as how it runs In the family, it is hereditary.” Others say, “they are drones by choice”. Still others maintain, “they are drones from pure lazyness.” But I, always a little more penetrating, would give them the benefit of the doubt and say, “they were spoiled when they were young—they simply will not work. Even when convicted of overstepping the bounds of circumspect thievery and sent to a penitentiary, their antipathy for work is recognized and they are given jobs as librarians or pushing a pencil.” (Light exercises).— From this it can be seen they never will take kindly to work until we organize as a class and quit feeding them.
Brains? Dodging work is not a mental process, it is an habit. Not one of them can pass an intelligence test. They hire all their brains. Morgan’s reply to the question, what is the leisure-class, was, “those that have a maid.” School wouldn’t hurt him, for what is the sense of lunk-heads having a maid and, so having, does it not make for mediocrity? (Civilizing influence of maid-help can be better spent.) They can even argue their idleness—even on the grounds of frail civilization—and something really should be done to “get them to “git up” before breakfast. (They tell me the maid carries to them steak and mushrooms right into bed . . . That’s bad for the stummick!) — And hard on the maid —average maid can outthink and outtalk any industrial buzzard and I do most solemnly argue carrying food into their bedroom is most decidedly injurious to the maids’ civilization—especially so in view of the fact that it is the consensus of opinion to put those bedeaters on absentee-diet. When there is a “privileged princess in the industrial dynasties,” there must of needs be for that reason alone an underprivileged class. That should not be, in either case, and workers are getting heartily sick and tired of Iit—non-producers getting all the good things of life and shutting down industry rather than let labor gain a few things to match.