﻿First Bag the Turkey, Then Return Thanks 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
Thanksgiving was moved away from Christmas so as to give the boys more time to save up the price of another turkey for Christmas—the assumption is, “the turkey is in the bag.” 
Then again, some are so well-heeled they need two thanksgiving days to hold down gobbler life expectancy. Finally, those that have not even one turkey and do not know where to get one (without great risk), to them it is all the same if Thanksgiving Day never comes. 

The Radziwill clan of Polish nobles (eight of ‘em) were despatched to the happy hunting grounds. They owned 70,000 perfectly good acres of Polish soil. “Firing squad,” they tell me. 
Princes Leon and Prince Charles were first cousins of Count Jerzy Potocki, Polish Ambassador to Washington. Years ago every thing looked rosy to the Radziwills. 
 
City of Flint is free to sail—like a prisoner whose cell door is purposely left open. The prisoner went only as far as the nearest saloon, got a quart and promptly returned. Such honesty! Such honor! 
I wonder if John Cheesebrew got out of the can already. I heard he got pinched. 

Censorship is for the purpose sparing our ears the truth and to classify all favorable mention under one head. Thus it is that nations at war do not report their own miseries, only the enemy’s. 
Their own joints may creak here s and there but, even so, they go into t long recitals about Aunt Tilda’s rheumatism. 
To hear the German censors tell it, “Great Britain and France are in a pretty tough spot.” To hear the British censor tell it, “It’s just too bad for Germany.” (It brings tears to the eyes.) 
And the French censors themselves invent the most encouraging yarns for the poilus—they’re better than Winston Churchill the best day he ever lived. When it comes to lying the United States isn’t in it. 
Adolph Hitler hints the best liers will win. 

We’ll get turkey twice a year now—if we get turkey. 
A man that doesn’t feel himself a sort of superior person compared to his government or parents, is slipping. 
Prosperity is still around the bend but debtstiny is right under our proboscis (spell it, nose) . 
Atroctiy (such as war) begets a litter of lesser atrocities. A good, healthy atrocity breeds faster than rabbits or bedbugs. Cease, then, maintaining an atrocity incubator,if you are not fond of atrocities. 
Close the witch-hunting season. 
Certain Americans have been getting pie a la mode all through the depression and they are the ones that will be the shouters for our entrance into war, as the propaganda grows more pointed—and they will be perfectly safe in doing so because they will have the same protection last that they had first. The unprotected will be on their own, last as they were first. So keep the shirt on. 
I’ve been trying to pick myself a job from the Death Notices. It seems no use. All of ‘em were so far advances and far ahead of my attainments—geologists, gumshoe men, and stuff like that—so I guess I’ll have to trust those politicians but remember, I’ve got my fingers crossed. 
Don’t the freight handlers never die? 
Great Britain has renigged on a good share of the publicized prerepeal war-orders. All she wants now is a few machine tools. My private opinion is war orders are a dud and once again we are dubs. 
United States industry was overexpanded at the behest of foreign trade now withdrawn. Oh when shall we learn to play the game or quit playing it? Oh when shall be learn to smile when we find ourselves in the cesspools of foreign machinations? 
Did you ever try to get your money back in a poker game? 
I would suggest: no more bottoms to be transferred to foreign registry. If they want good bottoms there’s the Normandie, Queen Mary, Western Prince, Monarch of Bermuda, and a raft of others now costing Uncle Sam and Uncle Butch thousands of dollars a day for care, plus the “jitters.” 

“Greek democracy (B. C.) was corrupt and incompetent and had to die.” That is the way it is described today. Not that monarchy or oligarchy has any greater life expectations. 
Phony democracy cannot last any more so than rule by inheritance or totalitarianism conceived in deceit. What then can be said of the hybrid ideology composed of political democracy and industrial oligarchy? Less said the better. 
Industrial democracy will remove much pain from the neck; thighten the belt also. 
I have it from Julian Huxley: (A theologian and a philosopher we[unclear] going to it hammer and tongs.) The theologian marveled that a philosopher “resembled a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat—which wasn’t there.” 
“That may be,” groaned the philosopher, “but a theologian would have found it.” 
That helps some. 
He continues: “It seemed obvious question to ask how animals inherit the result of their parents’ experience.” A sly dig, I suppose, at the fact that the same clique rules France interminably and the same ttitles rule England by tolerance of newblown titles (soapmolders and armorplate tycoons) and same misleaders of labor crack the whip over good and willing workers of America? 
But no, Huxley solves the problem: “No such inheratance of acquired character exists.” 
What! Then they engineer it? 
Time the workers did little engineering.