﻿Prosperity Turns Out To Be Fake 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
Boarding With the Public 
The “surplus” seamen on the lakes that are expecting jobs from lake carriers should be given a medal. They are doing stand-by duty in the assembly halls without pay, without vacation on pay and without hope for a hereafter. 
Of course they could go to the farms, for farmers are short handed, too, to the extent of having short twice as many men as they care to hire. 
In defense industries unemployed are hanging on the fence. 

What a farce prosperity turned out to be—although it must be said Hitler sure started America’s wheels rolling and pro-British feet war-dancing. 
Note: A couple of the waring cartels are on the verge of uniting presently. Hess busted an ankle. (Later report—”fracture,” still later “crack-rid toenail” and the final report was that he had artificial legs and one of the hinges zippered). 
If the cartels succeed in uniting and proceed to skin the world in cahoots, the bloodshed will not have been in vain, eh? 

Propagandists tell us dogs are forbidden to have puppies in France, because puppies, too, eat. That’s a good one. Never heard a better lie in my life. So, they’re going to expand their jurisdiction over the animal kingdom? How about the big fishes that eat the little ones and scorn our hook? 
Struggle for existence is growing keener and I have a report that latest model kittens are born with six toes on the business end. 

“Defense Industry Lagging”—and why not? What with all the high-pressure stepper-uppers in Washington running herd on professional politicians. And what’s that labor leader doing down that way? Shouldn’t he ooze back into industry and use his talent as cheerleader? 

Western Union messenger boys made their escape into better paying jobs in defense industry but the company was not neld back for long. It gave the boys’ jobs to women—any- thing rather than raise the pay. 
The company is exceedingly patriotic, and rather than tell the extent of is generosity (pay it would dummy-up for life. 

Today I saw seven ablebodied dill pickles on the pavement. From other evidence I deduced that a school-child had dropped its lunch. I don’t know how many dill pickles compose a balanced ration for flowing pains. 
Some towns are experiencing growing pains after being dead for a dozen years. Hitler sure rolled the stone from their graves. 
Gosh! How generous are our bigshots! They even promise us chili con killarney! 
It la said, “The people demand war.” 
No such vote was ever taken—anywhere. 
A scant 20 per cent are war-whooping, and whooping out of the turn. The emoluments make them whoop. 
We are loved for what they can get out of us. Our pot is their pot; their pot is none of our business. 

After economy has degenerated into two-by-four business it cannot be successfully defended, no matter how we try. Two-by-four economy can, however, be remedied, and then... Capitalism has been “done in” by its overly greedy beneficiaries. It is easier to raise it from the dead than to save it from dying. 
Labor never got a cent from capitalism and never will. (Had I started whitting with my horn-handled Barlow fifty years ago, I’d be further ahead—the pity of it. I could have whittled myself n house, including nails—everything. As it is labor dies penniless. 

No argument of the interventionists is water or air tight. Some have only one hole, others are full of holes, some are intermediate. Let us not base our action on any perforated pipe-dreams. 
I’d hate to ride a ship of that description on wet water, fully conscious that if the ship has no bottom the ocean has one, and I have one—and the twain may meet. 

“Sentenced to Church”—Spartansburg, S. C., May 17. 
So that’s punishment now, is it? 
That reminds me, people do not contribute “tenth” of their income to church any more. 
You see, since employers started paying workers a tenth of their production, a tenth of a tenth for the church would be small potateos—a lousy one per cent, hey? 
So the church had to go into business and organize entertainments, taffy pulls, sewing circles, rummage sales, numbers rackets, turkey dinners, motion pictures, concerts, pay-as-you-enters and what nots, and transformed the Lord’s temple into a high class market place.
