﻿Better Stay Home and Fix Our Own Fences 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
If this is to be the last war why not side-step it and mark ourself one war ahead? 
If this is to be the first of a series, why not skip it and take on the next one? 
Why defend freedom by destroying it? That’s left-handed pitching. 
Our defense lies on deep water, in the military sense. England is no criterion. Ruth Elder, I gues it was that swam that channel. 
Our navy could domesticate any navy that Europe feels like sending over. And our boy-scouts could mop up on the few that finished the trip. 
We do this by keeping our navy intact and adding to it; not by handing any part of it to any foreign power— no matter how sweetly they sing. 
The point is; England, not the United States, is under attack. Attack on the United States is purely speculative. 

Despite the fact that a short 20 per cent of the population are pro-British, and in swing position, I have retained my pro-Americanism and will not step out to do battle for any foreigner, be he clean as a hound’s tooth or sweet as a lily. They’ll have to sing better than that. 
Point 2: English and German are both chesty people and I believe in letting them trim each other down to a common level, without interference—if but to prove chiseling doesn’t pay. 
No sense in preserving either wing of the iniquity. They won’t put their house in order. Neither will we, for that matter. 
We will gaze soulfully at imaginary world markets and get a great mental kick out of it—$10 worth of battleship to protect a penny’s worth of trade. 
Honor? There’s no honor in question; it’s lunacy. 
Some of my countrymen, my own countrymen, mind you, toss out their chests and say “we ought to have 10,000 planes.” Ten thousand? I guess that’s as far as they went in school and think they are talking big. 
Another wants 100,000 planes. 
Gosh almighty! What can you do with a mere 100,000 planes, mountains being what they are and so tough to track? 
I say, a million planes or nothing. 
We have 130,000,000 people in this country and we can well spare 1,000,000 to defend it or to carry “law and order” to any country that gets the best of our businessmen. 

Churchill probably can hold his own with Hitler, but it would be a great joy to him if we went over there and did the scrapping for him . . . They must think we can’t read. 

The hoggishness of some people indicates their forebears were no better. 

When Britain started in to civilize the Boers (Note: Johnny Bull civilizing Hollanders), could it have been possible that British entrance into the Transvaal was predicated upon those diamond mines? 
As I remember it, sordidness proceeded Britain’s entrance and did not lessen with her presence. The other day riots occured in that neck of the woods and I gather the stripping has not set well with the populace. 
In those days we were all for Oom Paul. 
How hath the mighty fallen. 

It is conceded that we now can support our millionaires in grand style with fewer workers. 
Well, how about the workers? 
Why worry about them? They are unorganized, except to collaborate with those that they support .That makes it unanimous. 
Well, how about more equal distribution of wealth? 
Why bring that up? They have not been able even to distribute the work evenly, to say nothing about letting the workers get hold of cash money. 
In other words, I describe them, not as “yes-man,” but as “can’t-boys.” The best they can do is get all the money for themselves. Distribution? Pooh, pooh—you must be crazy, a red. Or just plain subversive to always thus try to disrupt our bigshots just when they are busily engaged in barreling up the shekels.
