﻿Politicians Will Squirm After the War 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
There is no way of peacefully feeding a hungry Europe without aiding one or the other of the several proverbial enemies. A well-fed stomach does not revolt against its persecutors. (This is almost too deep for me––a siesta follows the repast––let the bombs fall where they may). 

Sheriff sales caused a decline in property values and real estate moguls tipped off the sheriff to “lay off.” Hell of it is, they can’t foreclose any more without wrecking the town. 

War production employers will weather the boom and the slump that follows it. The nation will be poorer to the extent of plant over-expansion, plus regular depreciation of commodity demand. Labor will be busted proper and pronto. 

I sorrow for the political party that must find in itself the acumen to disentangle the threads after the war––win, lose or draw. I would most certainly refuse the honor. I wouldn’t touch it with a fishpole. 
I can prevent an accident but will not remove the corpses or clean up the debris. I want the debris left for a moment––a gentle reminder. 
Once the employer is entrenched in any business, even if it is only a bootleg coal mine, it is difficult to jar him loose from his prospectus. 

Owing to the collection of bundles for foreign sufferers, the great American hobo is denied his customary finery and is far from being the fashionplate of the happier years. I would therefore suggest the government proclaim a national year-around summer so that my compatriots may pull a strip-tease and join a nudist colony. They haven’t much to take off. 
We have a shortage of paper and a surplus of cotton but we do not know how to make paper from surplus cotton. Yeah, our tears are genuine. Maybe some schoolboy can tell us. 

Let us not try to outdo Hitler by being caught without both cannon and butter. Give our butter to Britain, if we must, but keep the cannons ourselves. 
Got into Wrong Fight 
Mistakes will happen. Here’s Johnny Bull in the thick of the melee and he wonders how he got into it; he swears up and down: 
“This isn’t my fight; I’m only in here subbing for Uncle Sam, freedom, civilization and eternal peace.” 
Uncle Sam looks over and says: 
“Holy mackeral! Johnny Bull over there is poaching on my preserves.” 
I think both gentleman should pause for station identification. The war is simply a family quarrel between two blood-relatives. 

Necessity may be the mother of invention (sentimental thought, eh, Shorty?) but Test, Error and Disbelief are the fathers of it. For instance, we don’t believe pure water is a conductor of electricity; the answer is a new electrical process. 
We dont’ believe the employer is either useful, intelligent or honest; the answer is emancipation of the working class. 

“Coordination of collective action,” is the big word Harvard boys hung onto the neck of the One Big Union. You’ve got to be almost a contortionist to say it. However, it means the same as “Scat, capitalism,” or “Scram, privilege,” as Victor Hugo would say it. 

I started out to be an editor when I was young and foolish and I might still be in the toils were it not for a slight error. 
I was supposed to headline that “Rev. Bonso Celebrates His Fiftieth Year as St. Alban’s Pastor.” I ran it, “Rev. Bonso Celebrates His Filthiest Year,” etc. 
I didn’t notice it myself, or I would have said my prayers. But finally, after a couple of weeks, somebody accidentally glanced at a back number of the sheet I’m editing and the headline that I’d labored over so lovingly almost knocked his eye out. The words had too many vitamins. 
After that it was the talk of the town (Pueblo or Dobeyville) but I got 723 new subscribers before the can was tied to my tail. 
All my friends still insist, “Slim, you were positively correct in that headline and since you left that paper––that (cuss word) disgraceful sheet has lost all sense of civic hygiene and plenty subscribers.” 

“Canadian priests that first prayed for peace (that they didn’t get) now are praying for victory.––Quebec.  
I suppose if that fails they’ll pray for mercy. 
German people were promised “peace”; they got war. They were promised a short war; they got a long war. They were promised “victory”; they got . . .? 

The lower class, Labor, cannot be displaced; it can only displace. It cannot go down; it can only go up. It has nothing to give; it can oly receive. It has been directly and indirectly frisked of its change and it has long since reached the bottom of its pouch. But it is here and the rest of the world cannot get along without it.