﻿Don’t Stop To Rest on Dead Center 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
The IWW doesn’t need pushing. It’s the idea that occasionally needs a hearty shore. Sometimes it gets on dead center. 
There is no consolation like activity. Action cures a world of sorrows––even broken hearts and busted suspenders. And action begets action. 

Some activities are off-color. As (in war time) whenever the past, present or future profits of the industrialist-bankers are threatened, war ceases almost instantly. Whenever the lions’ share begins to shrink their representatives in government suddenly discover a basis for peace “profound and perpetual.” 
Hence, it follows: Any concession the workers make in the way of speedup, longer hours, and abbreviated pay (with increased cost of living) can only prolong the war, for the duration of the war is predicated on the inviolability of the employers’ profits. 

Economists assure me that British industrialists have not so far lost a farthing in this latest “slight misunderstanding,” and I suppose the same holds true of German employers. 
Only the workers can lose, be they Russian, Italian, or Spanish––and they do lose. They lose life, limb, and lebenraum, to say nothing about liverwurst. 

Sometimes when we say “parasites” it seems just as if we had liver trouble. But when we consider there are only a scant 40 million industrial workers in this fair land of 130 million people, we must realize that there are more parasites than you can shake a stick at, and the number is increasing like a quartermaster’s crabs when he runs out of larkspur. 
Does that look like liver complaint? It does not, I assure you.  
Parasites to the right of us, parasites to the left of us and now, according to latest reports, millions of unemployed have entered politics and tossed their hats into the ring. 
In other words, where war now reigns, one-sixth of the people support the rest––true, wealth is going into fewer hands but the number of parasites is on the increase and, mind you, even busted parasites have a soft spot in their heart for fellow parasites . . . 

We are capable of feeding the world, but we can’t feed ourselves. Maybe we are a little “tetched”––goofy, or something like that; there’s a middleman between each producer and his consumer. 

Alas and wurra wurra, the alarm clock manufacturers got caught with their pants slightly down! 
So many of the workers were dispossessed of their jobs and put on relief that the sale of alarm clocks fell off tragically. Manufacturers discovered alarm clock production terrifically over-expanded –– and there they stood, fingers, hearts and legs crossed. But they hope to recoup the price of brass by high-pressure advertising. 
They now offer a first class dollar alarm clock for 54 cents. That would seem to indicate that about half of the early risers are idle or on the government payroll. And, they swear by all that’s pure and holy that these alarm clocks will actually coax you out of bed and find your shoes for you, even if you left them on the porch last night. 
That’s what I call service, and if I had the 54 cents I would buy me one of them; if for no other reason than as a memento of the days when I too had a job, so long ago. As it is, I get up too early, for I cannot sleep, thinking about where’s the breakfast coming from.  

When Finnish regiments returned from the Russo-Turk war of a distant yesteryear, they brought with them an urchin that had joined the regiment “without permission.” Being nameless, the Finns washed him and called him Apostolo. Apostolo turned out to be a musical genius and a great conductor. 
Today, Finland sends her boy prodigy, Heimo Haitto, 15-year-old fiddler, to the United States for safety. They say “he and his Guarnerious can do wonders to music.” 

Trench-Fried Potatoes 
Exportation of planes from this country, if any, should be according to plan: “One for you, two for me.” We haven’t the slightest idea who those bozos are over there––Communists, Nazis, Fascists, or what have you. And what have we? 
There is no famine in Europe and probably will not be. However, we already have over 20 millions suffering from scant rations. 
I think it would be a good idea to evacuate our children to a land that has a better system of distribution––meaning no harm. Unless we improve our system those children will never be men and women.  

Unquestionably, children should be moved out of the area of man-made danger in war zones. I doubt, however, that warring nations can come to an agreement on the methods to be used. Therefore, to help the thing along, I suggest each mercy ship be examined at sea, coming and going, by interested belligerents to verify that no politicians or plutocrats are aboard disguised as nursemaids.