﻿Settling the Matter of Old Age Pensions 
By T-BONE SLIM 

Such Is Married Life 
Boilermaker: “Why all the court plaster on your nose?” 
Blacksmith: “I called my wife ‘cutie,’ but she thought I said ‘cootie’.” 
Pensions 
“A pension for every person 70 or better.” 
“But some of those old jiggers have a million bucks.” 
“That’s all right,” we’ll treat all alike.” 
“But some of them won’t take a pension.” 
“Oh yes they will; we’ll ask them to throw the million bucks into the pot. They’re old and won’t need it. Then we’ll pay the pension from the pot.” 
“But it isn’t fair to give $22.50 a month for a million bucks.” 
“Hush! Someone might hear you and you’ll have your axe in the sling for first degree treason. Can’t you see you’re discrediting our pension system, the dearest thing we have, work of love and just enough surly remarks to make the venerated ‘old’ feel they escaped with their lives? Hush—maybe after a few old skinflints have hit the pot with a million dollars we’ll increase the pension to $23 even. 
“Being old and having no teeth they don’t have to buy no tooth paste.” 
“Good gosh, don’t the government supply them with teeth?” 
“There you go again. What in the name of good usage would they need teeth for on $22.50 a month—liquids, my friends, onion soup, gas, electric light, rent, hm—and they can save on the Brillo having no teeth to polish and they’re too weak to polish them anyhow. 
“But when we get this system working and a few billionaires have hit the pot with their quoits we’ll buy the old people a pund or two of mutton each week—it helps to pass the time. They can lay their toothless gums on a chunk of mutton and suck for hours at a stretch. Of course, if there be any who think that this isn’t the finest form of civilization we stand to be corrected.” 

Oh well—well-informed journalism assures me Sally Rand is the difference between sexxess and failure of the New York World Fair. 
Quiet Please! 
The furore of the fuehrer had subsided in a day 
And rumbling tones of douchey sounded flat and far away; 
The silences of commissars fell on our ear absurd 
And “ataturk” was searching for a real nutritious word. 
And East and West the silence rang; re-echoed North and South— 
And there stood thousand millionaires with finger in their mouth,  
And diplomats in whispers purred behind their snowy hand, 
And statesmen like an ostrich, put their bald heads in the sand. 
Aheluva note, what’s going on—how long has this been so? 
Why are the vested plutocrats apart from all their dough? 
Why are the book-learned parasites so tongue-tied all at once? 
And the business men performing like a 14-karat dunce? 
Why, don’t you know? The working class fell heir to all the Earth 
And started to remodel it to bring out all its worth; 
Replete with tools, machinery, they won it in a will, 
A million shops, a million ships, and every mine and mill. 
The whole wide world was theirs to have—yes every stick and stone 
And liberals admitted that slaves came to their own 
And that is why those social lions feel like worried sheep 
For now they seem to realize that workless-talk is cheap. 
Some Sons of Rest got nervous, reaching for their mop of hair, 
While other Giants of the Past seemed floating in the air— 
But everything was quiet, not a tocsin dared to sound 
And everyone felt certain that the jobs would reach around. 
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things, 
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.” 
“Quite right,” the noble penguin purred, “you’re stating but a fact, 
Not only should we wax our spiel but we should also act.” 
Note: Last stanza is half borrowed. Shall we skip it?—T. B. S. 
No, let her ride, Garroll won’t care. —Ed.