﻿The Movie Stars–and a Picket Line
By Our Dramatic Editor 
T-BONE SLIM

Hollybush stars “sashayed” through the picket lines just as if their limbs were chafed hardly none at all. True it is though, they did look as if they had one foot in the poor house and one in the grave, vacant look, guilty look––so we cannot expect them to know anything about unionism, class consciousness or solidarity.
Skip that––but the stars should consider the day of reckoning when Time shall ask: Did you walk through the picket line?
People are still talking about the baseball player who failed to touch second base twenty-five years ago, so I would advise you stars: When you cross the picket line, take your shoes off, for you are walking on holy ground.
We learn the last moment of our lives; but toward the last “the flashes” grow increasingly farther apart (get that?), the mirror grows increasingly dim (from conditions) and it is then the artistry is gone with the wind. The farewell tour is on, and the public, fickle public, gargles no note of approval. Where is glamour then, the tinsel of “make believe”, when Time shall inquire: “Did you cross the picket line?”
When workers have gone to the trouble of establishing a picket line, it ill befits any man or woman to set his judgment and will as superior to that of the offended parties. One lone star can challenge the plea of 30,000, but the thirty thousand are still right. 

Emotionalism, whether it takes the form of sob action or running amuck is of the same substance––only difference is sob action, like broth, is greatly diluted.
Job action? Hm? That can be done nearer home and save Washington much heartfelt sympathy.
Sympathy? Did you ever try to smear sympathy on your bread? No, of course not.
Did you ever trade in a measure of justice for a pair of Rockford sox?
I’m betting the other way––it can’t be done. A man would stand a better chance of swapping the sox for justice . . . try it some time! Try to pass off an armload of justice to a bartender for a glass of McSorley’s ale.
No, we want markers––markers that will pass at face value in the marts of men.
Sympathy and justice make a poor windbreak.
A shorter workday is our right and heritage, but right and heritage won’t make the shorter workday hit the bull’s eye.
No need to work long hours. We don’t work the year ‘round . . . and one quarter of the working class have no work at all. All shall live . . . even if we have to fish 365 days a year.
Shorten the hours, and wages will take care of themselves.
How? How do they shorten the wool on sheep? Shear ‘em off.
Build your industrial union, and the One Big Union is built. 
That last crack is important––the bridle always goes to the forward end of dobbin. 
The workers don’t build a One Big Union––the working class builds it. 

We must not think that the I.W.W. was the only bunch that went to town for the marine workers in the last marine transport workers strike. 
Others did go to bat for the seamen, and right nobly they did, but inasmuch as action is peculiar to the Wobblies, “the others” may as well take out red cards and give their activity a name.
Gains can be made without the One Big Union, but it means continual struggle, strikes here and there, everywhere, and, in the end, the question arises: Can the gains be held?
The question never arises in a One Big Union.
