﻿Cheer Up. Worst Yet To Come! 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
F. W. Ed:— 
Have been overworked repeatedly past few weeks which culminated finally in 62 ¼ hour shift without sleep and that is why I have not been writing lately—not fully recovered yet. I had my own reasons for putting up with it. Indeed I have worked so much that I am beginning to think I am the sole cause of all this unemployment we hear about. 
T-bone Slim. 
Upon this institution of new production, it is not labor that is at loss for next move; it is “brains” that chews its thumb and it is there and there only that deliveries are delayed. When once production is started and rate of compensation set for the boss, according to requirements of experimental production, then the profits of mass production react to the benefit of the boss in a long row of clear velvet. It follows then, there is deception and the original subsidy to the boss should not be continued a moment after the wheels go round––either that or the boss is free game for a strike in order to maintain equilibration of economy, a balance of power, so as to say, and lots of other things; and without benefit of army or navy. 
In other words, me lords and fellow workers, within 30 days after the machines start working the “tooling-up” (that was such a bug-a-boo) is paid for in full and, after that, special rating is unencumbered milk and honey to the employer until contract is filled, if not until hell freezes over. 
Lots of workers think the boss is doing that in spirit of fun as a practical joker but I pretend to see much sobriety in his method of madness. Why the employer has this special privilege is more than us dumb ones can understand. It cannot be for the sake of patriotism, either stolid or hysterical, because government is not in jeopardy, but the employer racket is under fire . . . 
This applies in the main not so much to infant industry employers, cockroaches and gardening gackwars as it does to darlings of mass production. 

Organized men will strike for pay increases; unorganized men suck their thumbs . . . 
Monarchy waited two years after Cromwell’s death before it returned to England, and there are those that say “they wanted to be sure Oliver stays dead.” 
I don’t suppose they’ll stick up a monument for me until I am few years gone? “Safety First” originated that way. 
First they wangled from us all our aluminum pots and pans, and then Stettinius prances out and declares priority on steel––guess we’ll have to fry our eggs (six bit a doz.) on wooden pans?  
I tremble to think what would happen if the government put in a yodel for our can openers. 
Greatest surprise of these wars is yet to come, the double-cross, (I’ve groaned before on this). 
Empress of Asia staggered into port listing to port-side––she looked as gloomy as the tale she bore 

They tell me IWW is dead; that we––all us paid-up members in good standing––are but relicts of that grand organization.” 
Fine in theory or wishfull thinking, but that is not our experience and it was not the IWW’s funeral. Note: experience surpasses all the booklearing since time began––freighted down with experience you need no flashlight; you can go by the feel . . . 
They all are such wonderful liars we hardly know whom to believe . . . 
Russia economy, as a world-trade competitor, is now fully disorganized––scortched earth just about puts a finishing touch to prospect. 
It is Time that shall lick pal Joey. 
State capitalism has no better chance of survival than private capitalism. 
Feed the nation; not the Kitty! 
Saw a sign on the side of a gondola car––”Elliot: Make me a captain. I know lots of nothing, like Willkie.”–– 

Steel Trust must be loosing its cunning, it can’t seem to get its Isthmian Line ships past the nazi-fascist bombers. 
Russia could not properly defend her way of life in Spain, (geography was against her). Germany and Italy and their way of life had the mileage in their favor. Other nations democratically washed their hands of the fight for freedom, somewhat after the manner of Pontius Pilate when Christ was hung. And in the meantime Russia shouted with all her lungs, “Long live the soviets”––they quite forgot the Worker’s Republic. 
It is said, Time was against Russia (our servant). But I rather think it was sincerity that was missing. Today half-baked democracy is fighting for her very existence as a finished product of a way of life, but finds it difficult to stir up proper enthusiasm. 
Possibly the Spanish bid for Industrial Democracy was the better way of life after all and the Battle for Bosses was ze one grande delusion on all fronts.  
It might also be harangued, our own WPA has taught workers that there is more to life than darkness and toll. 
A grizzly seaman tells me that owing to heavy freshets in the hills the Atlantic has risen so much that the mean load (plimsol) line had to be raised couple feet to take care of it.  
Seamen have many enemies other than belligerent governments. 
Greer says sub shot first; sub says Greer started it. 
Which came first, egg or rooster? 
Eastern seaboard says “no gas”; oil companies say “we are going to build an 1800 mile pipe line from Panhandle to Bayonne N. J.” 
Which one of these is the father of the other? 
Railroad say they have 20,000 idle tank cars. (Melt them up and lay a pipe line across the Atlantic…)  
Ickes modestly claims the victory. 

We should not tear the form sheet and our hair just because the horse didn’t run. We should remember the lost dollar goes to pay the winners. Win, place and show––no place. 
We can bankrupt ourselves by free-will offerings but entrance into the war makes it more orthodox and certifies it. The hill has been removed from in front of the poorhouse and the bunks therein are triple-deckers. 
Our way of life will survive this war but it will not survive the armed peace that follows.