﻿T-Bone Slim Offers A Pension Program Get It in Paycheck

“Ford Says Relief Makes Us Lazy,” says the headline. I quite agree with Henry. And therefore I suggest that Henry and his kind quit weeding us of our loose change so that we can become industrious once more.
In looking over my books I find that if all the other business men wrung as much from us as Ford, it would amount to a grand total of $2,000,000,000,000,000 and we would all be on relief.
My dear fellow worker editor: Lots of people have not been able to give their kids enough schooling to enable them to pronounce that figure, so let me do it: two million billions. Lucky it is for us that some of Ford’s competitors are kind of shy or thin skinned compared to the encrustations of the flivver functionary.
To sum up, I think a jolt on the relief rolls would tame Henry as it has us—he and his kind are altogether too industrious, and we’ll have to run herd on them sooner than later.
An old age pension for 8,000,000 “has beens” would cost us only 19 billion at 200 bucks per month per head!
But that word old-age pension has a fatal taste. At best it is a substitute, subterfuge—why not instead release to them the balance of their past earnings, the unpaid wages, or capital, with-held from them by the employers.
Ford did not impoverish these—it took million like him to do it. But Henry was a big help!—one billion dollars’ worth. So why degrade the poor devils by putting them on a pen-ion when they have it coming?
We have done well by Henry, and now if we will only cool down and do something for ourselves, it will be okey dokey with me. There is no balm in politics, because the politicians say: “Aw, let em die first and then we’ll soak ‘em with an inheritance tax.” Trouble is, we die first without a nickle, and then the litter of inheritors take what’s left and do it all over again.
Truly those industrial omadhauns have taken their and our pension too soon; they did not wait for old age and feebleness to creep up on them.
I see it all clear as the noonday sun, now that I am almost blind from weeping for bread, that we must all join the I. W. W. in order to protect ourselves from those chiselers and get our old age pension right in our pay envelopes. (That’s direct action and it saves time, labor, and lost motion.)
Forget the leaders. Forget me. Forget politicians. Forget “Share the Wealth. Forget Social Justice. Forget Townsend Plan. Forget Epic. Forget dictators. Forget New Deal. But — remember yourself! and the Industrial Workers of the World!
We must live on the production of this country and the machinery thereof, so why not share the work equally. Twelve to fifteen million workers are unemployed and live without work, from the production of our industry, and will continue to do so regardless of all preventatives, so why not let them help out in production? Shorten the day. You won’t starve. I won’t starve. They won’t starve—regardless of how the industry is mismanaged by politicians or industrial behemoths. But I’m telling you the straight goods; We shall not get a fair break from our industrial overlords or their agents without industrial unionism.
Maybe you want to take another “flyer” into the intricate mazes of politics? More power to you! You have my best wishes and—if you get stuck, just holler, and I will rush over and pull you from the muck (once more).—T-bs.