﻿SIT-DOWN STRIKES TOO GOOD TO STOP 
By T-BONE SLIM

Sit-down strikes have given the courts plenty of rope to hang themselves––a couple of judges obliged, but the confounded sheriff’s wouldn’t pull the string.
(This sit-down has no reference to the steel companies’ sit-down against navy order.)
Note: Steal Companies’ sit-down was based upon presumption they could not produce steel economically in a 40-hour week. Labor’s sit-down was based upon the fact that they could not oscillate muscle economically for pennies from heaven.
 Walter Lippman recently sought truth and held his job. Here it is: Employers create an army of from three to thirteen million unemployed with malice aforethought, and deviltry afoot, for the purpose of using them as strike breakers in the event the current slaves revolt. To combat that damnable conspiracy the slaves invented a sit-down strike, recognizing how difficult it is to introduce scabs into a plant where the boys are playing marbles. No self-respecting scab would think of entering such a place, no matter how hungry.
So it is plain as mud that if we can outsit our parasite lords and masters, it is our duty to do so. This nation has ever respected squatter rights––only the farmers of Hershey, Pa., hadn’t heard about it.
Note: The sit-down (in general) is new, so the farmers pulled a new form of strikebreaking. Such a strike-breaking is ineffective and already carries reactions; all told a gain for the workers, and next time the farmers try it I hope the horses don’t run away with the widow.
What this country needs is a constitutional amendment to the effect that after a man has been robbed of everything he possesses he shall have the right to squat whenever he damn well pleases instead of turning robber himself, or committing suicide, and be it further resolved the words “wherever he damn pleases” be incorporated in that amendment. 

It is with heavy heart I offer this reminder:
A Race Does Not Prosper Who Sell Only Within Its Charmed Circle: It is then inadvisable to stir up animosities in neighboring races. Trade when ingrown is worse than an inbred toe-nail. Be the race Bulgarian, Hungarian, or a goulash of Malarians, if they deal only with themselves they soon become impoverished––business is not production.
By the same token, it is idle for an I.W.W. to talk industrial unionism to an I.W.W.––he’s already heard it. A pox on these stirrer-uppers that would destroy their own race to satisfy the spleen of their frustrations more imagined than true! Organize the workers. Forget race, creed and color. You’re not going to hell––nor is there a promised land. You make your conditions right in this world by organizing industrially and it may be that the fragrance of your performance will precede you into the next. The only promised lands are those that we can take or make or forsake with our organized might. Start your heaven right in this world, not by tearing down but by building up. (Natural selection will do the tearing down: if it’s good, it stands.) Hell? can’t you see we’re living in it? (As a jokesmith I would suggest it needs air-conditioning more so than asbestos . . .)
Verily, must I say, unorganized peace is war, and unorganized aspirations hell. Whatever you want, organize, and it shall be. Nothing is impossible to organization. The wildest of schemes is entirely possible to an organized people—so wild that ninety-nine out of a hundred would scream “impossible” and even as they scream the thing is done. 
We haven’t seen anything yet. 

Supreme Court Judges are not ruined “after” they go on the bench, but before. 
Immediately before they go, they lead a cloistered life (no name in telephone book) and consequently they suffer an increasingly ingrown viewpoint. The age of Supreme Court Justice should be between 16 and 46. We might lose an occasional good one, but the country could stand it. And the frustrated prospect can always go selling bonds or halibut. 
The parasite press in New York City hints strongly on sending Supreme Court to reform school—on account of second childhood, I s’pose? See how those darn things hook up? And I s’pose it’s because of the failties of the British language? Darn the luck, “reform”, “reform”, “reform” screams the press half bereft of balanced brain pan. 
(Note: This should not be contrued as indicating press prioly had balanced brain-pan—each morning that I relinquish two cents for their wares, I feel gipped a penny’s worth.)

Ho hum (Canada) —
Premier Hepburn’s hokum always did work before—that was before labor started thinking and acting up to its thought. Premier? (Pre-meyer, probably.)
His cabinetmate resigns and groans (in effect): “My sympathies are marching with the workers, not riding with General Motors.”
I’ll take ten yeas to laugh that one off, and Premier Hepburn will have to kiss a pile of babies before it fades into forgetfulness.

S’meller Drama: 
It’s an outrage the way these shops on the Bowery hang up only one shoe, outside. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks before you can get the other one. In the meantime every one-legged man is arrested and his residence searched. The one shoe (left) is no good to the dealer, so he puts it up for display. It disappears. Again the police swoop down on the portside cripples and haul them off to dungeons vile. 
“Grig. Gen. J. P. Hill Sued for Divorce” War’s hell!
“Mrs. Delafield, Social Leader, Shoots Herself”. What a noble example If this fashion “takes”, the social problem is all but settled—hours and wages can be set or abolished afterwards. 
Some one needed to handle workers? Well, why not at the same time handle a few parasites? “Handle ‘em gently”, exhorts Sullivan, “but handle ‘em.”
New York City is making a drive against subway spitters. The city fathers have seen the havoc caused by the overturning of a spitoon so they passed a law endeavoring to save the subway from floods. (Note: I never spit between Battery and Spyten Duviel—yes, I have no saliva to spare the subway.) Next case. 
Albany Assembly passed a no hitch hiking law. Walk or ride the milktrain, hey? That’s the same bunch that killed the Child Labor Law. And to think they get paid for it!