﻿Advise to Farmers “On How One Hires A Good Farm Hand”
By T-BONE SLIM
(Expert on Agricultural and Most Other Matters)

The attainableness of results is simplicity itself––”going out later and coming in earlier” brought the shorter day. The only hitch there was that it required organization. Lack of organization makes all things seem difficult. So the eradication of the parasite is dead simple: “Quit feeding him.” Just three words, and every seven year old kid can spell them––not hard at all.
Every member of the I. W. W. should consider himself or herself an organizer (with or without portfolio). There is no proof that our gray matter isn’t as good as any, or better. Each shall have a field to function in––and no other organizer can reach or function in that field, and that’s where the “betterness” comes in.

We’re not out to prevent the boss from getting his. We ignore the boss and concentrate on getting ours. The mere fact that we propose to get ours does not prevent the boss getting his. “Give the scissor what is the scissor’s” but it must not be anything of ours.
In Olivia, Minn., the farmers are all “het up”, not from the heat alone but because the grain suddenly turned yellow (golden grain) and the bankers, always Johnny on the spot, are ready to stretch out their “hands across the seize”. Farmers have an idea they are going to get something from that crop (how naïve!) and even go as far as to get “help” for a dollar less a day so that the bankers’ greediness doesn’t suffer from untoward shocks. (Business of double farming––one farms with a crocked stick, the other with leadpencil. Leadpencil is more profitable.
In [t]own the busted harvesters are steared to eat under the surveillance of the Recorder, so as to tie them down to work for skin and bone wages. The Recorder serves the same purpose as the two crows that were giving me the once-over and raucous “haw, haw” down in the Doon country. The Recorder racket is inexpensive for no man with good sense will approach him. As to the meal itself I suppose it is like the petrified do-nuts of further west, and I suppose there is not enough power in them to raise the wages. So it is that none but those in the last stages of starvation approach the recorder, and there the farmers pounce on him and nail him to a cross of gold (engrain) and add a crown of Russian thistles.
The reader must of course know that I have not suffered much. This is because I have supernatural farsightedness––I suppose that is what one calls it when he can make his dreams come true. Yes, indeedy, the farmer must change his approach in order to hire me. Instead of opening up with “Looking for work?” he says: “Slim, did you eat yet?” To which I will politely reply: “Come to think of it, I believe I did last week––you look kind of starved out yourself.” “I know it, Slim, and I ought to be shot,” he sez––”I know I’m homely, but you ought to see my wife––I don’t know how I ever come to get her––she’s as pretty as a picture and can cook like nobody’s business.”
“Your troubles are over, John. Pull no more hair from your temples. I’ll go over with you and grab a couple of sandwiches, and then I’ll go out with you and stick up those shocks . . . and, John, bend your ear to this: You’d better haul out some cash from the bank, for you’ll pay me part of my wages in cash––here’s the idea: you pay me at the rate of $4 per day by check out in the field (that goes on record and even the banker can’t kick when you tell him what a good man I was) and then you march me up to the house, pull out the old cigar box, and pay me two dollars in front of the missus . . .”
“Slim, you’re a life saver! She may despise my looks but she’ll have to admit that I have a good head for business.”
“Yes, yes, John you’ve got the idea, but we must not forget those sandwiches. Only a banker can draw interest from a dollar he ain’t got. We can’t draw nourishment that way; we’ve got to have a sandwich right on our togue.”