How to End War – T-Bone Slim (1939)

_{Matti Huhta (T-Bone Slim) in his older age in Erie, ©Westmoreland family archive}

From ‘Industrial Worker’, December 30, 1939, Chicago

The “doing away with war” must be predicated upon the presumption that it must be done outside the magic circle of overlords and their stooges — that only the working class can accomplish it.

War is futile. Even if the whole world were under one heel, we’d be slaves still. It seems impossible? That is because our slavish nature fails to look at it from the angle of One Big Union of the workers.

Final ending of war shall be when workers so ordain it.

The big boys? Never! The very nature of their undertaking makes for war.

You’ve been waiting sunrise long enough. How about joining the “wobblies” and producing sunrise? Make it jump into the skies like nobody’s business.

What Wouldn’t Do

Untitled excerpt from ‘Should Share Equally in All There Is’, from ‘Industrial Worker‘, January 13, 1940, Chicago

by T-Bone Slim

It wouldn’t do for Russia to thin out its working class by fighting Japan because, in the event of a victory, Japan might say, “Gimme Vladivostok.” Germany might have thinned them out in no time, but here again, Adolf might have demanded pay, and changed Leningrad into a beer garden or Turnverein.

Helluva fix — a first class dictator can’t thin down the population without risking his pants. A smaller nation had to be found. Finland, of course, cannot hope to do a satisfactory job thinning them out, but then — whatahell — Finland doesn’t expect any pay for helping a pal.

Mebbe this accounts in part for Russian armies firing on themselves.

Preparing For the War of 1960

From ‘Industrial Worker’, May 3, 1941, Chicago

by T-Bone Slim

Official spokesmen close to hindquarters intimate that if the folks don’t get busy right now and produce boy-children, the politicians won’t be able to rig up a war in 1960-65 — unless they adopt foreign children.

Adopting foreign children is out, because foreigners expect to sacrifice their children in the present fracas. (Thanks, professors, for the info.)

Scientists have already prepared a formula whereby parents can determine the sex of prospective offspring as much as a year and a half in advance. Now isn’t that nice? Doting parents can bend the column-gossip’s ear and whisper at the top of their lungs, “I’ve got a soldier on the way.” Or a Red Cross nurse, as the case may be.

The beauty of this arrangement is that if the birthrate of nursemaids outstrips that of armor-bearers, the doctors can switch signs on the bottles.

Is that goose-stepping or mere duck-waddle?