The Popular Wobbly

"With switchblade wit, the great IWW provocateur T-Bone Slim skewered injustice and uplifted the working class."—Tom Morello

"T-Bone Slim was a really impressive person who should be much better known. This anthology shows that his words and ideas are still relevant today."—Noam Chomsky

"This is lost wisdom."—Billy Bragg

"[These writings have] the force of Hemingway plus the sting of Swift."—Lee Taylor

"It remains impossible to reproduce T-Bone Slim’s matchless wordplay and invention of language. . . . We believe his madcap humor and sober truths because his brilliance hews so closely to our everyday experiences."—David Roediger

"T-Bone Slim wrote the way an arsonist sets fires."—Franklin Rosemont

"T-Bone Slim lived his life in North America, but he created a world of his own. This world was rooted in the harsh realities of migrant workers’ lives, but at the same time it was a world of fantasy, black humor, and language play, free from time and place. This world is just as alive and recognizable today as it was in his time."—Kirsti Salmi-Niklander

"[T-Bone Slim] was the laureate of the logging camps."—Harvey O’Connor

The first critical edition of the writings of the prolific radical workers’ newspaper columnist and musician who rode the rails during the Great Depression

The Popular Wobbly brings together a wide selection of writings by T-Bone Slim, the most popular and talented writer belonging to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Slim wrote humorous, polemical pieces, engaging with topics like labor and class injustice, which were mostly published in IWW publications from 1920 until his death in 1942. Although relatively little is known about Slim, editors Owen Clayton and Iain McIntyre coalesce the latest research on this enigmatic character to create a vivid portrait that adds valuable context for the array of writings assembled here.

Known as “the laureate of the logging camps,” Slim also composed numerous songs that have been performed and recorded by Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips, and Candie Carawan, who in 1960 updated Slim’s song “The Popular Wobbly” with Civil Rights–era lyrics. Slim’s witticisms, sayings, and exhortations (“Wherever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack”; “Only the poor break laws—the rich evade them”) were widely discussed among fellow hobos across the “jungle” campfires that dotted the railways, and some even transcribed his commentary on boxcars that traveled the country. Yet despite Slim’s importance and fame during his lifetime, his work disappeared from public view almost immediately after his death.

The Popular Wobbly is the first critical edition of Slim’s work and also a significant contribution to literature about working-class writers, the radical labor movement, and the history and culture of nomadism and precarity. With this publication, Slim’s rediscovered writings can once again inspire artists and activists to march and agitate for a more just and equitable world.

T-Bone Slim (1882–1942), born Matti Valentinpoika Huhta, was a Finnish American humorist, columnist, poet, musician, hobo, and labor activist who was a prominent writer for the Industrial Workers of the World.

Owen Clayton is senior lecturer in English literature at the University of Lincoln in England and author of Vagabonds, Tramps, and Hobos: The Literature and Culture of U.S. Transiency, 1890–1940 and Literature and Photography in Transition, 1850–1915.

Iain McIntyre is honorary fellow with the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne; researcher at the Commons Social Change Library; and author of Environmental Blockades: Obstructive Direct Action and the History of the Environmental Movement.

David R. Roediger is Foundation Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas and author of The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History of Debt, Misery, and the Drift to the Right.

Contents
Foreword, David R. Roediger
Introduction: Mysteries of a Hobo’s Life, Owen Clayton and Iain McIntyre
Editors’ Note

Selected Writings of T-Bone Slim

1919–1921
Only a Mouse in Jail
The Popular Wobbly
An Earfull
Just before the Panic, Mother!
Twenty Years
My Respects—Apology
Soup Lines
Mysteries of a Hobo’s Life
Half-and-Half
Headin’ In
Headin’ In

1922
The Lumberjack’s Prayer
Lots of Sympathy but No Help
An Experience
Sulphur and Molasses
Overalls
The Stuff Heroes Are Made Of
Normalcy Has Arrived
Das Kapital
The Power of These Two Hands
Consistently Speaking
Nosebags

1923
Best People
T-Bone Slim Discusses
Between These Two
Unfinished Business
Speed of the Tongue
War
T-Bone Slim Discusses: The Off-Set
Golf
T-Bone Slim Extends Himself to Discuss Education
T-Bone Slim Discusses: Sample Camps
Off Colors
Odds and Ends
All I Know
The Whole Hog: Of Emotions Raised by Charity
Prepare for the Worst
Must or Not-to-Must, or Freaks of Nature
Sweet Charity
Walking with the Dead
Stand without Hitching
An Eighty Year Boy
Early History
Starving amidst Too Much

1924
Mr. Hammond Deggs
T-Bone Slim Discusses a Peace Plan
Some Star! (The Solidarity of Desperation)
I See, Says I
Rights vs. Plights
Mostly Song
Indiana Moon
Don’t Threaten
Rock of Ages
T-Bone Slim Discusses: Safety First
T-Bone Slim Discusses
Bugs and Fords
True to Form
T-Bone Slim Discusses: Discrimination
Interlocking
An Earfull

1925
Oranges
To My Friend
The Passing Show
Cross Word Puzzle
Industrial Unionism
The United Affront
From Murder to Re-Action
Beseech and Collect
T-Bone Slim Says: Figures Lie
T-Bone Slim Discusses: Chop Suey
T-Bone Slim Discusses
T-Bone Slim Discusses: War
Shortcuts

1926
Hall of Fame
T-Bone Slim Discusses: Wry-Bread—
Go or Melt
T-Bone Slim Discusses the Laughing Dog
Information
T-Bone Slim Discusses: How Do They Do It
Reporting the Reports
Taxing Our Spirit
The Trend
A Restaurant Is No Stronger Than Its Weakest Coffee
Now-a-Days
Boneyard

1927
Boneyard
Concessionaires?
“Origin of Fatal Explosion Baffles All Investigation”
Boneyard
Rough Logic: Seeing’s Believing
Razzpectability!
Untitled
Untitled

1928–1929
Boneyard
That “Triple Threat”
Passing the Plate
Untitled
Junk, or Close Quarters
“Yes”—Men
How Poems Are Made
Work versus Ultra Violet
Psycholeragising Wealth—and Time
The Power of Tears
Long Island Sound
The Taste That Tells
Put a Head on It

1930
Where Lies Safety?
The Dizzy Race
A Ghost Story
Looking Things Over
“Sundownitis”
It Do Seem So—
A Peach of a Story
T-Bone Slim Takes to the Air, or Saved in the Nick of Time
Elastic Transportation
A Survey
Measured Tread
A Touching Story
On Popular Sanitation

1931–1932
Three Bottles
Say It with Flowers
Slim Is Dissatisfied with His Looks
Slim Gets Nervous
A Mosquito’s Lunch
“Will There Be Another War?”
Roosevelt Was Right
Raising a Family
What Was in the Wrapper?
The Hybrid
Thumbs Down
Untitled
Race Hatred
That’s That!
Side Door Pullman Philosopher

1933–1936
T-Bone Economics
Untitled Article
Untitled Manuscript Notes
Resurrection
Untitled Manuscript Notes
Chinese Wisecracks
Extemporaneous Bath
Extra! T. B. Slim’s Golden Discovery Cures Everything!
Untitled Manuscript Notes
It Should Be Labor Day

1937–1939
T-Bone Slim Takes a Look at the Show
Why Ask the Boss for Recognition
Sit-Down Strikes Too Good to Stop
The Movie Stars—and a Picket Line
Charity Covers a Multitude of Transgressions!
Put the Boss in Overalls, Says T-Bone Slim
The Purest Ray Serene
T-Bone Slim Calls for a Housecleaning
The Best of a Bad Bargain Is Plenty Tough
Supplying Arms and a Matter of Business Ethics
Street Beggars
Private Letter
When Privates Fight War by Telephone
One Man Show Would Please Our Parasites
We Don’t Want Dictatorship of Any Color

1940–1942
Nobody Is Shooting at the Rulers
Should Indians Have Registered the Foreigners?
How Slim Brought Peace to Frazee
Masters Start War but Won’t Stay to Fight
Don’t Stop to Rest on Dead Center
Politicians Will Squirm after the War
Warning of Cannon Fodder Shortage for War of 1960
Produce for Use and Peace Will Come at Last
I Didn’t Know It Was Loaded
Yes, Labor Is Partly to Blame
Responses to T-Bone Slim
To T-Bone Slim
George Baker
T-Bone Slim Ill
“Editor Worker”
Why No News from Our “T-Bone Slim”?
Sam Murray
A Reader Appreciates Our T-Bone Slim
Interviewing T-Bone Slim
Covami
Foes Recognize Power of Our Inimitable Columnist, T-Bone Slim
Hobo Poet
Anonymous
Work People’s College Youngsters Study and Frolic
O.K.L.
A Torch for T-Bone Slim
Floyd Hoke-Miller
Yours for the IWW
“Old Nick”
Slim’s Obituary
Homage to T-Bone Slim
Franklin Rosemont
A Man Called America
Ville-Juhani Sutinen
Themes in the Writing of T-Bone Slim

Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Index