﻿Pay too Low To Justify Expenditure 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
These radio jokes are getting real good— nobody laughs hut the radio. ‘Twon’t bo long now till the audience lets out a hoc haw —which reminds me: when the people see me weeping in a subway, how could they guess that I had just thought of a good joke? 
No, I don’t think we can be of the same opinion . . . Here’s a man who says, “a debutante smells like a fish market.” Another says, “a debutante smells like a candy factory.” My old friend Elmer Buddinger once said, “a debutante smells like a fertilizer factory on fire.” I accept Elmer’s position for Elmer is a man of great truth and is known to have gone hours at a stretch without lying, when he slept. He never talked in his sleep. He could say all he wanted to say in his waking moments. 
Again: When the baker makes the pie, it looks like a refugee from the seven lean years; but when the baker’s staff artist paints the pie it looks fat and rosy, like a . . . (censored) . . . etc. 

Militancy doesn’t always consist of tile ability to advance ones ideas in face of attack—it sometimes consists of ability to “stand your ground,” or in the transfer of one’s attention to another form of defense. To be steadfast, in other words. 

Taxation: (it takes many forms). We are taxed 10 cents for a box of Copenhagen snuff (some call it a calamity), 37 cents for butter, 40 cents for eggs and so on, taxes upon taxes; 10 cents for sox and two-bits for toothpaste, etc., ad nauseum. 
Now, in view of the fact that workers get very little of the coin of the realm (scarcely enough for an old-age stake) it is my fervent opinion all these accessories and sundries should be tax-free, with an occasional planked steak and a Sunday-go-meeting front thrown in for good measure. (I’m tired of walking around in rags and rubber boots.) 
Wages are so low that they do not justify any expenditures whatsoever—at this time. Proof of the thing lies in the vast undertakings for old-age insurance, state and federal social security, unemployment relief, home relief, etc. In other words, a system that is priceless is desired: abolition of the chaos that is the profit system. (Not so nuts at that.) 
Just leave me unemployed a while and you’ll hear something— maybe be seeing things, too. 
For further proof witness the guy who begs- if he never spends u cent, in the end he will be rich if he isn’t robbed or struck by a horseless carriage. 
Cut the price down to the bone—zero. 
That reminds me, our horseless carriages executed more men than all the German armies and all the French armies on the West Wall front. 
The fight over there got so gosh shang monotonous some of the boys darted hollering for more worlds to conquer. 
First force them in; then, bore them; finally, hold them. Like leading the water away from the calf. 

Recently un electrical disturbance cramped the cables, telephones and radio. 
Some said it was due to the that Roosevelt and T-bone Slim have a cold. (Roosevelt was holed-in in his room for several days; Slim, however, wasn’t holed-in because he had no room.) Flu, probably? 
Others averred it was due to sun-spots. 
Nothing of the kind. 
A current of “hot-air” came in head-on collision with “gas” and the resultant splintering of the atmosphere caused a vibration so violent that even the $9.75 radio set started turning handsprings on the varnished bureau. We can expect this every presidential year when the spellbind-era start out into the tall grass country to gas the boys. 
This same atmospheric pressure probably is the cause of the two colds that are afflicting the two national characters hereinbefore referred to. 

Dream on! Last night I was looking for my coat—couple pair of specs in it. But what is one night 
 or one mare in a young man’s life? When realization finally caught up with me in part, I discovered I was wearing the coat. With the fulness of my returning consciousness I found the coat under my head serving as a pillow with my well known and honored Florsheims; spectacles carefully distributed in strategic positions upon the floor. Only a lunkhead would sleep with his eyes in his pocket. 
Many men have been looking for their coat the past 10 years when they weren’t looking for a pot of gold al rainbow’s end. If they will look real sharp they will find they are wearing it — the coat, not the pot—in working class solidarity. 

Workers in the USA are distributed into so many different organizations that it would take a champion statistician to name them all. War is going on between these, though the tomahawk is burried and spirals of smoke are curling from the pipe of peace. 
In the seafaring industry MTW 510 retains the loyalties of the most substantial seamen— not a small accomplishment in itself and which reacts to the benefit of both. Seamen should take note of this condition and associate themselves with the workers that get things done and are not forever slipping mid trying to regain the lost log. 
Thousand and one different kinds of unions, all outfitted with Grand Rapids furniture—landlords, too, are deeply grateful for these small tokens of working class interest in their wellbeing. Many unions us there are fitted to the variable needs of the workers, there is hardly a place he can duck in out of the ruin—it is all pomp and splendor and labor pays the bill. 
Labor is not getting anywhere subdividing itself that way. Improved as the wages are on the waterfront, they are still out of all comparison with the war profits the shipowner rakes in, in the form of “direct take” and governmental subsidies— not even camouflaged with “profit sharing” or war-risk bonus. 
Was there ever a greedier employer?