﻿It’s Baseball Writers Who Play Fast Game 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
A nation that countenances slave driving is not democratic in any essential. 
If a country’ cannot be self-sufficient, a continent cannot be self-sufficient; if a continent cannot be self-sufficient, the whole world cannot support itself. 
I am self-sufficient—given a summer and an early start—millions are likewise. 
All it takes is organization. 

To me it is but of little moment whether cross or crescent runs the swastika is the mystic sign of our degradation—or whether one of the politer hypocricies rules the roost. 

A baseball president must find a dumber man than himself for baseball manager; manager, in turn, scouts up a still dumber captain. They have to do that in order to hold their jobs. The whole spells, not baseball, but mediocrity. 
How about the stars? 
A few’ screwy goofs that shine in the darkness. The baseball audience has already selected itself through the same screwy procedure and goofily considers it baseball. 
There is more baseball in baseball writers, however, and even without being present they can spin a yarn that makes our basebail hair curl. All they need to know is: was the game played. 
The whole adds up to a beautiful row of deception and all concerned are happy. 
The same holds true across the railroad tracks in the political field. 
The leader surrounds himself with a bunch of graduated lunkheads, no man to outshine the man immediately above. By the time it gets down to the bottom layers, where action begins and ends, the light is so damn dim he can’t see a thing and has to go back home and consult his constituents. 

Some would say, ‘Ah, mediocrity.” 
Nothing of the kind; it’s a direct swindle. Civilized procedure in a world of special privilege. 

Acquisitiveness (profit motive or greed, as it is known in the higher seats of learning) has taken a terrible grip upon the vitals of our pillars of society. 
Recently, Otto Wolff, German industrialist, died, age 55. He controlled more than 30 metal, coal, and electrical companies, employing million men. 
Clearly a case of over-work, hey? 
Same as if I tried to keep 30 wheelbarrows warm all at once. 
Now that he is gone—a mere lad of 55— I can’t see how those industries get along without him. 
 
Lots of people try to lay their own carpet instead of hiring a technician. A technician is a genius who had the sense to back out from between the handles of a wheelbarrow.