﻿A One-Eyed Guy Sees the Point A Bit Too late
By T-BONE SLIM

The blacksmith was one-eyed—but that should not be held against him. His helper was two-eyed but, unfortunately his eyes were not mates and he didn’t always hit where was looking. That’s bad; very, very bad!
Mindful of the loss of one eye, the blacksmith got kinda nervous and put in a kick to the man with the bronze hat. But the helper was a favorite nephew of bronze hat so nothing was done.
So the blacksmith worked himself into a huff and took the matter up with his union—the A. F. of L. The union immediately declared a strike of its members in that factory the blacksmith walked off the job; for he was the only A. F. of Lite present.
This kinda left the screw-machine hands and the shaper boys standing in open mouthed wonderment—”a one man strike,” they said.
“Heluva damn industry,” sard the Dutchman on the boring machine. “I’d go out with him but I belong to the Socialist Labor party and, Daniel De Leon might think I’m crazy.”
“He was a good man,” said the lathe hands, a damn good man, even if he didn’t have but one eye.”
The planer boys took time out from burning 3-ply leather belting to hold a period of mourning for the blacksmith and also let the belts cool off But that’s as far as they could go despite the fact that the cutter-tool steel was rotten and they had grievances of their own. Sympathetic Strike was out of the question because they had no permit from the executive board; and for that permit they’d have to send to the middle west some place.
The kids on the drill presses were the more rebellious of the lot and when the company sent out and got a lead-burner to glue iron with a blow-torch, the kids had the lead-burner on pins and needles in no time flat. He gave up in disgust and pigeon-toed his way out of the factory. And the kids went back to their job of breaking twist drills and haunting the millwright.
The company had to send all its blacksmithing out to the village horse-shoer. By the way, that horseshoer used to put horse-radish on horse mackerel, when he could get the mackerel.
The boys could not strike because—oh yes, I forgot to tell you. Finally, finally we heard the blacksmith had starved to death and the A. F. of L. called the strike off. But be it said to the everlasting credit of the blacksmith, he saved his remining eye and it was through that eye that he gave his last lingering look at the foolhardiness of craft unionism; “They ought to be in one union only,” he said and those were his last words.
The boys could not strike because they all belonged to separate unions and were tied down with separately-ending agreements. A few workers in this and that industry spread out broadcast over the country and in as much as each union hews only to type of toil only a one-man strike is possible, in many cases—as of blacksmiths or shaft-compressors—in a thousand industries simultaneously; the rest remain working. So what does it amount to? A one man strike in each of a thousand industries!
We want an industrial union that takes in every worker in every industry.
We want a One Big Union composed of workers in all industries.
That is the only way we can have a One Big Strike. That is the only way we can win our rights as freemen and workers, and that is the only way we can eat pie a la mode regularly. Let’s be regular guys; the I.W.W. becons.

When the cupboard is empty, when there are no more grounds in the coffee pot and the alderman’s icebox is locked, your greatest concern is: Who shall be our next president. But when the full value of your production is in your pocket, you little care who is in Washington and who is in Skowhegan—you also are somebody! And your wife won’t even think of looking at another man . . . Join the I. W. W.
Don’t let me have to tell you again—I don’t want to have all those women sizing me up.
