﻿Uncle Sam Is Short of Skilled Labor? 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
“There’ll come a day . . .” 
It is not a question, “will we defend Britain?” It is a question will we defend the United States, the shape she is in—10 million beggars, more or les, including myself. 
Shall we defend beggary? Or shall we defend our elan against the encroachments and dissipations of the employing class? 
It is a question: Shall our efforts be allowed to degenerate into a long row, not of Punic wars, but puny wars— every man for himself? Or shall we organize the shebang and attain peace, plenty and pabulum? 
Or shall we forever be a pack-animal with an empty gut? It is a question. 

Best that statesmen can offer is “if we do not help Britain we will have 25 million beggars instead of 10.” That seems to prove the falsity of the masters’ economics. 
Other statesmen aver, “if we do, we will have weeping widows, bewildered orphans and poppies, row on row.” Prophets all? 
It follows then that it is up to us rational human beings to determine, are the words of statesmen words of liars. 
INGERSOLLIA: “I want America to produce everything that Americans need. I want it so if the whole world should declare war against us, so if we were surrounded by walls of cannons and bayonets and swords, we could supply all human wants in and of ourselves. I want to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the American man in everything from hats to bools produced In America by the cunning hand of the American toilers.— Col. B G. I. 
Note: Col. Robert G. Ingersol has told you about the depression of 1873-79—six long, miserable years, streets full of mendicants, row on row, through no fault of their own, and highways full of tramps. I’m telling you about this one. You have experienced the Cleveland panic (1907) —and lesser panics in 1911 and 1921. 
Methinks the economy of aristocracy is faulty. If it’s faulty, it’s wrong; if it’s wrong, it’s no good—N. G. 
Verily. I’d rather see 25,000,000 able bodied beggars on the streets than see a single widow or single confused child questioning our sanity. Happily, neither one or the other is necessary in this land of reason.  
Join the IWW. 

That which is destroyed in war was produced by workers and if workers take part in its destruction they are sabotaging their own production—paid or unpaid. 
Employers of labor and their sons are conscientious objectors. They object to the whine of a steel-nose bullet. They are never so happy as when they wear a bulletproof vest and have their feet upon a desk. Airial bombs are taking the joy out of oven that. They want us to go out (all out) to intercept those “layers of steel eggs.” 
Panics have not played any favorites in the White House—good man, bad man, democrat or GOP was all the same. Before and after the “Great Crash.” 1929, we had lesser panics, buffer depressions. Now they want us to step out (all out) to save the capitalism that spawns panics, fears, depressions and surrender. 
I don’t think it can be saved, nor is it worth saving—its garment is checkered with panics. Its leadership is mediocre and, consequently, not a credit but a debit. A discredit to the nation it pretends to serve. 
Why was the condition of unemployment preserved until came the question of war or no war? Is there a connection? 
Was unemployment established and maintained for that purpose? Why was the gold (unpaid labor) put back in the hills? 
These occurrences and many others accumulated over n long period of time and here is a nation that expected to become prepared by practicing unemployment. Sounds fishy. Ten long years standing guard over the dead, dry corpse of non-production! 

In the last World War we gave the allies hamburgers and firecrackers on credit. They never paid for them. Now they want hamburgers and firecrackers agani and insist that we throw in the dishes and table-cloth. And or, how we did pour sweat, selling liberty bonds to raise the dough for the allies’ free board and pyro- technics. 
Note: They have Fourth of July 305 days a year over there. 

Now with Knudsen production chief we hope to catch up on that 10 years of idleness. Which indicates autocrats of industry are reformed, if not repentant. 
They let the skilled workers sit on the park benches until they drop off—then they holler, “we’re short of skilled labor.” 
They raise the young workers in poolhalls, reformatories and pens—then they holler, “We’re short of skilled labor.” 
That isn’t all you’re short of. You’re short of brains! 
What would you think of a freeholder that would allow his house to go into disrepair year after year until the roof is a sieve, floors drop, walls cave and fences are flat or burnt up as firewood? 
Well, thait is precisely what our industrial overlords have done by maintaining a condition of unemployment. Now they holler, “Unprepared.” 
This country is short of preparedness by the same number of years that we were unemployed, wasting our time looking for work or boondoggling. 

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