Rebel Voices
Page 19
As he tramps the world about.
At night he wanders beneath the stars
With the mien of an ancient seer,
And often he’s humming a few sweet bars,
Of a Rebel song soft and clear.
Yes, he’s one of the breed that never fits,
And never a dollar can glean,
He’s one that a scornful world requites,
As simply a might-have-been.
But deep in the heart of his hungry soul,
Tho’ the smug world casts him out,
There burns like the flames of a glowing coal,
The fires of love devout.
Of a world in which all may live,
And prosperity be for all,
Where no slave shall bow to a parasite’s greed,
Or answer a master’s call.
14
T-Bone Slim, whose real name was Matt Valentine Huhta, was one of the most famous and popular of I.W.W. writers. Captain of the Hudson River barge “Casey,” he was drowned in 1942 while on duty for the New York Trap Rock Corporation. He was a member of the Barge Captain’s Local No. 933-4 A.F.L., as well as of the I.W.W. His obituary account in the Industrial Worker (October 24, 1942) comments: “While there have been few working-class writers in our time better known than T-Bone Slim, little was known about the man himself, even to those with whom he worked or who crossed his trail and stopped for a chat with him in his frequent tours of observation about the country…. Having lived almost a full life of anonymity, Fellow Worker Huhta died that way and was buried that way. We have an idea that’s the way he wanted it to be.” The nickname “Slim,” which Huhta took as part of his pen name, was a common “moniker” for hobos. Several Wobbly poems and articles refer to Christ as “Jerusalem Slim.”
“The Mysteries of a Hobo’s Life” appeared in the seventeenth edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
THE MYSTERIES OF A HOBO’S LIFE*
By T-BONE SLIM
(Air: “The Girl I Left Behind Me”)
I took a job on an extra gang,
Way up in the mountain,
I paid my fee and the shark shipped me
And the ties I soon was counting.
The boss put me driving spikes
And the sweat was enough to blind me.
He didn’t seem to like my pace,
So I left the job behind me.
I grabbed a hold of an old freight train
And around the country traveled,
The mysteries of a hobo’s life
To me were soon unraveled.
I traveled east and I traveled west
And the “shacks” could never find me.
Next morning I was miles away
From the job I left behind me.
I ran across a bunch of “stiffs”
Who were known as Industrial Workers.
They taught me how to be a man—
And how to fight the shirkers.
I kicked right in and joined the bunch
And now in the ranks you’ll find me,
Hurrah for the cause—To hell with the boss!
And the job I left behind me.
15
“The Popular Wobbly,” which first appeared in the I.W.W. magazine One Big Union Monthly (April 1920), continues to be one of the best known of T-Bone Slim’s poems, as well as one of the most popular I.W.W. songs. It was printed in the seventeenth edition of the I.W.W. songbook. The song has recently been adapted by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in a collection of civil rights sit-in songs, We Shall Overcome, edited by Guy and Candy Cara-wan (New York, 1963).
“THE POPULAR WOBBLY”*
By T-BONE SLIM
(Air: “They Go Wild, Simply Wild Over Me”)
I’m as mild manner’d man as can be
And I’ve never done them harm that I can see,
Still on me they put a ban and they threw me in the can,
They go wild, simply wild over me.
They accuse me of ras—cal—i—ty
But I can’t see why they always pick on me,
I’m as gentle as a lamb, but they take me for a ram:
They go wild, simply wild over me.
Oh the “bull” he went wild over me.
And he held his gun where everyone could see,
He was breathing rather hard when he saw my union card—
He went wild, simply wild over me.
Then the judge, he went wild over me,
And I plainly saw we never could agree,
So I let the man obey what his conscience had to say,
He went wild, simply wild over me.
Oh the jailer, he went wild over me,
And he locked me up and threw away the key—
It seems to be the rage so they keep me in a cage,
They go wild, simply wild over me.
They go wild, simply wild over me.
I’m referring to the bedbug and the flea—
They disturb my slumber deep and I murmur in my sleep,
They go wild, simply wild over me.
Will the roses grow wild over me
When I’m gone into the land that is to be?
When my soul and body part in the stillness of my heart,
Will the roses grow wild over me?
16
Nothing is known about the author of “The Outcast’s Prayer,” which appeared in the Industrial Worker (July 23, 1921), although in style and content it is very similar to “The Lumberjack’s Prayer” by T-Bone Slim (Chapter IX).
THE OUTCAST’S PRAYER
O Lord, we come to thee this day and seek thine assistance. We ask Thee to rectify some of the great evils that exist in this old world that Thou hast created, and to remove the causes of misery, starvation, privation, degeneration and poverty in the land of the free and the home of the brave. For the life of a workingman is burdened with many troubles and a large roll of blankets.
And we ask Thee to aid him, that he may connect with three meals a day and not have to eat yesterday’s breakfast for supper the day after tomorrow. Give him Thy protection, O Lord, that he may not fall foul of Judge “Humpty-Dumpty,” who dreams in gloating glee of the victims he has sent to the louse-infested cells of an unsanitary prison. Deliver us from the greed and graft that exist in this nation and from the parasites who neither toil nor spin, but bedeck their persons with finery until they glitter in the gloaming like a rotten dog salmon afloat in the moonlight.
O Lord, help us; for we have criminals, paupers and hordes of industrial cannibals, whom we call business men, who draw their salaries and convictions from the same source. Verily, our institutions are badly mixed; for we have thieves and theologians, Christians and confidence men. Also prisons and politicians, scabs and scallawags, traces of virtue and tons of vice. We have trusts and tramps, money and misery, Hoover and hunger, salvation and soup, and hypocrites who expect to pave their way into heaven by begging old pants, coats and hats and selling them to the poor, thereby helping to spread disease and vermin.
Rid us, we pray Thee, of the employment sharks that are licensed by our government to charge workingmen for a job and have contractors fire them the next day. Men are sent to jail for not having the means of support, and to the chain gang for not having the price of a job. Deliver us from a country where man is damned for the dollar and the dollar is deemed the man; where the press is paid for suppressing the truth and gets rich by telling lies.
Protect us, O Lord, and deliver us for the Grocer’s Association holds us up while poverty holds us down. Deliver us from those who make canned beef out of sick cows, mules and horses, and corpses out of those who eat it; and may the price of hamburger, beef stew, waffles and “holey” doughnuts come down and our wages come up to meet them, and may we be permitted to fill up on these luxuries three times a day; for to be without them causes great pain in our gastric regions.
And, O Lord, we do not understand why poodle dogs have private baths and are attended by
maids and valets, are shampooed, manicured and kissed, fed on choice steaks and drink cream, while thousands of little children live out of garbage cans. Christ never said: “Suffer little poodle dogs to come unto me.”
O Lord, we ask Thee to have mercy on the blanket stiffs, such as railroaders, loggers, muckers and skinners; and may they be permitted to make at least seven dollars and six-bits before they get fired; and may their mulligan be of better class and contain no more old shoes, gum boots and scrap iron; and contain no insects that might discommode and may their blankets rest lightly on their blistered backs. May the farmer plant his spuds more closely to the railroad track, and his chickens roam close to the jungles, and we will be ever grateful to Thee!
AMEN!
JESUS REPLIES
I’ve heard your prayer, O Scissor-bill,
It sounds like hokum and goulash and swill
You say that you pray and work like a mule
You’re not a worker but Henry Ford’s tool.
You thank me for working 12 hours a day,
Why blame it on me—I never made you that way.
You scoff at the rebel and lynch him ‘till dead
But I was an outcast and they called me a “Red.”
You call me Christ Jesus with intelligence dim
But I was a Rebel called Jerusalem Slim.
And my brothers: the outcast, the rebel and the tramp,
And not the religious, the scab or the scamp
And of all creatures both filthy and drab,
The lowest of all is the thing called scab.
So pray thou no longer for power or pelf—
I cannot help him who won’t help himself!
17
Many I.W.W. members, bumming their way from one job to another, were familiar with these signs of the road. An article “They Also Believe in Signs” appeared in the School Arts Magazine (May 1923). It said: “Possibly you have discovered that if your family is not averse to giving food to a hungry wayfarer, you are frequently visited by such men, while your next door neighbor may never be visited. Why is it? Jeff Davis, ‘King of the Hobos’ (and International President of the ‘Hoboes’ Society) has compiled the set of symbols seen [below] on the page. While the average person may not notice the signs, they are written on his fence, gatepost, or even his doorstep. To the knights of the road they stand out as blazing letters. Water-tanks, railway bridges, stations, and roadside fences bear the glad tidings and the wise wanderer always heeds them. If you have an influx of these visitors, look at your gate or fence post. You may discover one of your modern hieroglyphics and decide that the ancient Egyptians were not so old-fashioned after all.”
18
This anecdote, typical of those told around a jungle fire, appeared in the Industrial Pioneer (April 1924) and was reprinted in the Industrial Worker (October 25, 1961). It was also collected by folk-lorist B. A. Botkin from I.W.W. soapboxer Arthur Boose in Portland, Oregon, and included in Botkin’s Treasury of American Anecdotes (New York, 1957).
Arthur Boose (1878–1959), known affectionately as “Old War Horse Boose,” was a well-known Wobbly organizer and soapboxer. A bachelor whose hobby was painting mountain landscapes, Boose joined the I.W.W. in 1909 after attending lectures on economics at the Milwaukee Free Thinkers Hall. During the next nine years he organized Minnesota miners, Oklahoma oil workers, and Northwest lumberjacks into the I.W.W. He teas jailed for five years in Leavenworth Penitentiary following the 1918 federal trial in Chicago of I.W.W. defendants.
Boose spent his last years in Portland, Oregon, selling I.W.W. newspapers, pamphlets, and song-books. An essay about his life, “The Last of the Wobblies,” appears in Stewart Holbrook’s book, Little Annie Oakley and Other Rugged People (New York, 1948).
HOW HE MADE IT NON-UNION
On one occasion a non-union man entered a butcher shop to purchase a calf’s head. As the butcher was about to wrap it up for him the customer noticed the union shop card.
“Say, is that a union calf’s head?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir,” answered the butcher.
“Well, I am not a union man and I don’t want union meat,” said the customer.
“I can make it non-union,” said the meat man, picking it up and retiring to the back room. He returned in a few minutes and laid the head on the counter with the remark, “It’s all right now.”
“What did you do to make it non-union?” asked the prospective buyer.
“I simply took the brains out of it.”
19
Ralph Winstead (1894–1957) was the ablest of the I.W.W. short story writers. Born in Spokane, Washington, the son of a prospector, Winstead worked at odd jobs throughout his youth to supplement his father’s erratic earnings. At nineteen, he homesteaded by himself on the Queen Charlotte Islands and, later, worked in mining and logging camps and on construction jobs. About 1918, he was secretary of a coal miner’s local union in the Northwest, and shortly after became an active member of the I.W.W. Lumber Workers’ Union No. 120. He wrote his first stories at a logging camp outside Seattle.
Winstead worked on the editorial staff of the Industrial Worker, edited the One Big Union Monthly for several months in 1921, and soon after became the editor of a trade magazine, The American Contractor. He was employed by the N.R.A., the W.P.A., and the LaFollette Committee. In 1949 he came to Detroit to investigate the shooting of U.A.W. President Walter P. Reuther.
Winstead wrote a series of Tightline Johnson stories in 1920–23, which appeared in I.W.W. publications. In loggers’ language, the expression “to tightline” has two meanings, “to hoist” and “to harass.” Winstead invented the character of the Wobbly, Tightline Johnson, and wrote about Johnson’s experiences as a migrant and smelter-man, coal miner, and lumberjack. “Tightline Johnson Goes to Heaven” appeared in the I.W.W. magazine Industrial Pioneer (July 1923), signed with Winstead’s pseudonym.
TIGHTLINE JOHNSON GOES TO HEAVEN
By WILLIAM AKERS
Floppin’ is done by the best people. It is an institution highly developed by the human race and is frequently indulged in by tired business men, cow-eyed stenographers and loggers with stag pants. It is the one thing that every man, woman and child enjoys more of than anything else that they get.
Where does a stiff find any more high-class sensations than comes to him just after rollin’ in to a fine well-thrown together bunk, piled high with fluffy blankets, clean sheets, one of those double-ribbed, triple-plated, pressure-packed twenty-layers-rolled-into-one sort of mattresses,—all landed together on top of a fast feedin’ set of springs in a bugless paradise?
Echo answers—”Where?”
Herb Hoover has come out strong for standardization. Me and him are unanimous on this proposition. Of course, Herb has devoted a lot of attention to fields that never interested me. His idea for instance to make only seventeen kinds of bricks bloom where a hundred and ninety cluttered up the roadside before, never aroused any undue enthusiasm in my hyphenated Scotch-Irish-Scandinavian-American heart. Somehow I always felt safer with a little heavy confetti laying round handy.
But the principle is sound. Reduce the varieties. And right here is where Herbie finds Tightline Johnson ready to do a Horatius at the Bridge with him any old time.
There is too many varieties of beds, bunks and flops. My idea is this: let’s start right in and reduce the species down to about ten kinds, but all of these ten kinds to be built according to the best and most scientific plans and specifications.
I would allow skid-way to take care of any sappy notions as to outward appearance and the like. If anybody is goin’ to die happier because they have a bunk all faked up like a Louie Quince, help ’em along, says I.
And this pet idea of mine has sound practical points to it that would interest any profound capitalist in the market for elbow grease, providin’ these said employers had not been in the lumber business so long that the knot on top of their spinal columns had degenerated into punky butt stock.
I speak from practical experience. How is a good and willing slave goin’ to give his master his undivided attention when a lumpy flop and last year’s crop of fill-or-busters join hands to divert him from his proper rest?
I am with Herbie right down to the ground of his Native Oregon. I don’t believe in anything extreme. Far be it from me to hint that a gold decorated bedstead, equipped with the finest auxiliary box spring mattress, supplemented with Belfast linen sheets, brocaded Astrachan blankets and a hand worked and embroidered Irish lace coverlet, should be installed for every logger that ever threw a spiked hoof on top of a bit of round stuff.
No Sir! I ain’t one of these Kerenskies that want nothing less than a Czar’s bed to sleep in. Not that I am sayin’ anything against ’em, mind. I remember one time when I had the flop of a life time in just such a bunk.
* * *
It was down in the heart of the steel country during the early days of the renaissance of the Ku-Klux-Klan. Normalcy and the American Defense Society had the country by the throat. To be a foreigner was as popular them days as the corner bootlegger is during a general strike of the I.W.W.
When lots of these ignorant Europeans were asked the original question—”If you don’t like this country why don’t you go back where you came from?” it was surprising to find so few who could dig up a real convincing answer. The more they thought it over the more determined they got to follow the Goulds and the Astors over to Europe. So they were pullin’ out by the thousands every day.
Me—I came rollin’ into this vacation ground from Cleveland in the dead of winter. I was hooked up inside of a coal gondola on the Panhandle. Me and a couple of chunks of cast iron had been makin’ impressions on each other and on the shack all afternoon.
This shack was one of these temperamental cusses. Must have had an unhappy home life, he was that restless and nervous. He chased me off of that string about ten times into the snow rollin’ down from the chill breezes of Lake Erie.
The further south we got the colder the wind became. The exercise kept my blood flowin’ freely but my ideas of the human race was becoming more and more pessimistic. I thought to myself that Schopenhauer could have written a real masterpiece if he had taken that trip.