﻿We Don’t Need A Gift Horse To Pull Us Out 
By T-BONE SLIM 

By T-BONE SLIM 
I had been telling a railroad man that what I went through the past week on the road makes the hereafter look like a Methodist picnic in comparison. 
“Well, I dunno,” sez he, “it must be pretty good down there, seeing as we hear no complaints, none of them ever returned and,” he added, “I feel sure if everything wasn’t just exactly right some of the dear departed switchmen would be back here hollering their heads off.” 
We were all agreed on that, for the sake of peace and cheerfulness of the gathering—but nevertheless, I must point out, maybe they can’t come back and are held down there against their will and volition same as the foreigners that came to this country expecting to return home loaded down with gold and precious stones and silver and silks, etc. 
The best they could do was raise the price of boat fare from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty. 
Well, maybe the switchmen are in a like fix and can’t raise the ferry fare across the river Styx. 
I know the reader wants to hear all about my worse-than-hereafter (they just love to see me suffer and I get a kick out of it myself, so dumb am I—but dumb as I am, I’m not going to ask the overworked linotyper to mold those ashes and pains into imperishable print) —victories, success, pleasures and comforts, that’s what we want, and I think the IWW should have a special writer that could change every blow on the chin into a pat on the shoulder, garland every returning pilgrim with the myrtle wreaths of a conquering hero. 
In the last analysis, that is precisely what we are—conquering heroes. “ We’ve got somthing—we’ve got something most mortals lack. We can well gaze upon our ‘speeding grave” with an eye unperturbed, for—we have done something. 
Is This Progress? 
The whole world is in terrific ferment, and if the working class comes out of this latest massage unmangled it will be a miracle of miracles. 
Even so as million dollar refiners, Oil City-Franklin must be torn because someone elsewhere has put up a more efficient refinery, just so in world politics national costoms and doctrines are given up because someone elsewhere has adopted a more centralized command. All modernize, all centralize, and they are right where they started from—with a pile of ruins left behind. Progress? Hm, at what price! The dog had finally caught its tail? But didn’t it look comical for a while there the way it was going around? Hysteria, hey? 
The American racket had taken on proportions of a holy cause or sacred institution as early as 1910-11, when industry had reached its maximum growth or momentum, and devious ways were brought to bear on the separate “feeder” industries, interlocked in the “giants” embrace, to compel them to pay homage, for certain ‘consideration,” with the alternative of extinction. 
Harvey O’Conner in his “STEEL—Dictator” has this to say which seems apropos: 
“The financiers who had struck their stride in the flotation of the Steel Corporation, continued nevertheless to pile mountains of debt on the nation’s productive machinery. The machinery collapsed under the weight and plunged America into the economic crisis of the 1930’s. In 1932 steel lay at the bottom of the pile, the sorriest victim of the monopolistic system which its financiers had devised.” 
Hoist on their own petard, hey? Brains, what? 
Stuttertistics, however, are too dry reading so we will restrain our inherent enthusiasm and point out; Financiers have not the slightest conception of the meaning of the word production —and now it begins to look as if their knowledge on finances also stands at absolute zero. 
They know not both ends of their al-zebra. Did you ever see such dummox? Overloading a skiff with a cargo that would make an ocean greyhound groan on one hand and—”they throw cats and dogs together and call them elephants,” as Carnegie mourned . . . “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” Coleridge. 
Contradictions of capitalism were so numerous even then that the wonder of it was she hadn’t cut her own throat and Harvey O’Conner goes on to explain the faux pas in the Steel Corporation when “Morgan tried to give the cow an extra milking.’ 
Evidently nothing squirted into the bucket for as early as that labor’s pockets had been thoroughly frisked and buying power was failinig off. There is no doubt in my mind the great men overlooked that sad detail and screamed, “our cow is gone dry and we must balance the budget.” 
Great people, these economic brigands of another day! 
What I started out to say cannot, of course, be condensed after this loose start, so we will glance at the “hind end” of the book; 
Wisdom is rife in the working class. Progress is being made cautiously; all parts working to a certain end, panaceas are eschewed as not ermane to the errorless class. Writers and speakers are industriously carryin on. No mistakes are evident. Leislation, resolutions, words, tailormade rules of priority will not save the day, it takes action at the point of offense or indisposition. 
No one is going to tell us what to do. 
Be Yourself! 
Industrial oranization is a reasonable adventure and bas a place in it for every workers regardless of his skill, strength or mental moxie. To illustrate; Technician that finds not his place in such organization is but an individual, sovereign over himself and would-be sovereign over his fellow workers—his Utopia is technological autocracy under guise of benevolence—charity. (Chipping hot castings might, and probably will, improve his outlook on democratic principles and industrial solidarity). “Alms” should be beneath the dignity of supor-egoist-dlspensation, and “almoner” ill befits the grandeur of his high estate—technology. Altruism doesn’t bear; they sacrifice nothing. Nor is that our wish. 
We are reasonable creatures and rational beings and we do not need a gift horse to get out of this puddle—we will drain off the cesspool and toss a few roses in front of the pedestrians. 
Industrial organization is a reasonable adventure and we should not fear to probe the revolution wherein the worker shall hear a boss of his own choosing. Boss, then, will be known as guide or instructor; maybe technician, production technician; maybe just, “Hey, Tex,” or “tech,” for short.— But he shall be of our own choosing.