Montana labor news., 1932-07-21
TIMELY AND UN1MELY OBSERVATIONS
HAVE ANOTHER DRINK

we we're sitting IN MS room neal the top o. d skyscrapef notel over
looking Lake Michigan, discussing the dongs at the Stadium.
An awfuny bright fellow, that newspaperman. Harvard graduate, well
read, well informed, well versed IN tn ways Of thu world and an honest
mn to boot.
Have another drink" he says handing me a tumaer of gin to which
he had added a bit of ginger ale to take the curse off; "jwt a well get
drunk and laugh IS stay sober and go bughouse listening to those criminal
maniacs"
Criminal maniacs is a hard term to apply to the delegates of a sovereign
people engaged in the serious task of choosing a Moses. For nigh three
years, these sovereign people had wandered in the wilderness without chart,
compass and leaders. The fear of want stalks in their midst Anxiety
is written o. every brow. Their nights re troubled with memories If past
suffering. Their days are darkened with thoughts of what tomorrow may
bring.
They chased mirages until many sank dying into the burning sand of
despair. They prayer for mamma and quals and thrsted for the cooling
waters from the rock until the gnawing in their bellies drowned the hoarse
walls of their parched Threats And TO- they did all this in the middle
of the blessed land of Canaan, surrounded by mamma and quais, by milk
and honey and cooling waters. For the wilderness in which they are wan
dering is within themselves. 1t is the wilderness of their bewidered minds
even az the shrieking mob nut at the Stadium is but thu mirror of them
My newspaper friend is at his typewriter again. Soon the electric spark
will carry his words W. a thousand wires. Soon batteries of rumbing
presses will pour tons of damp newspapers into wagons, trucks and rail
road cars. Soon hoarse newshawks will rnd the air with the cries,
aAu about the Convention" Soon millions of suffering sovereigns will. scar
these papers for a ray of hope, a way out Of the Wilderness a Moses to
close my eyes,. The newspaper is propped against the sugar bowl
O. the breakfast table. Roses bloom outside of the cottage windows. A
canary splits his yellow throat. Children chatter. Mother smiles All
about is happiness, sunshine, love, and peace. Father did not tell them
of the notice he received yesterday, informing him that unless a certain
note il, paid at once, the Home Building and Loan Association will be com
PEELED to forecose the mortgage. Father is reading the convention re
pnt-for a way out.
The 1850 suburban train is passing. Each Of the bespectacled cOm
muters holds a paper before his eyes. The faces are uniformly sober rs
if cast in the anne sad mold. What thoughts IRE behind the faces of these
brokers, merchants, sales managers, bankers, bank clerks, accountants,
technicians, engineers, and what-not? Thoughts OF vanished stocks and
vanishing bonds and vanishing jobs, of vanished profits and vanishing
credit, of bankruptcy and busting banks. And they ar reading the on
venhon reports-for a way out
Pat Morary, one-time husky structural iron worker, now iobIss, shrv-
eld and wan, sits N a curbstone in St. Louis reading the convention
reports in a paper a passer-by had dropped-for a way out.
Two unemployed lumberjacks hoboing from Oregon to WhOtheHel-
Care sit in the shade of a water tank reading the convention report in a
paper flung from a train-for a way out
Walking Bones and Rags, former walking delegate of the HOdcariers
Union, is shuffing or the bread-lne, reading the convention report n a
paper fnched from a rubbish cantor a way out.
Farmer wheauy, out in Kansas, waiting for the neghbOs to gather for
the sheriffs sale, is reading the convention report in a paper he had just
fetched from the mail box-for a way out.
My friend, Colonel Hopkins, the best cotton planter in the Delta, who
ton, is sitting under the magnolia tree in his front yard, scanning the
ventin reports for a way out from fve-cent cotton.
Millions are reading the convention report for a way out. The whole
aMa haa +e two narcels If criminal maniacs sc INV ewsnan friend
calls them, to offer? Liaen-the radio is at it again:
"Laydees and gentlemen of the convenshu-u-un, l hail from bloody
Kentucky, boody is right-Harlan miners blood, the land of fast
head N the bosom of the Blue Ridge mountains and whose feet are
caressed by the impid waters of the Father of Waters as it winds
in majestic curves from the snow bound border of Canada to the seeth-
hs land whore the river shannon flows and flows and flows Ken.
lucky of song and glory, where the u shines on the cabin floor and
the goden-throated hooking birds sing we lays in thu moonshine"
At the word "moonshine' someone gives the rebel yell. The band plays
my Old Kentucky Home" my Old Kentucky Home" is drowned in din
and racket, lasting twenty-five and onehaf minutes by the watch of the
raphy, climate, temperature, topography, ethnoogy and foreign travel
"Iay-dees and Gentle lei of the convenshu-uun, the mn whose
name am about to present requires no introduction. He is a man,
a man of mn, a mans nan a male ma of the masculine gender Owe
whose sex there is n shadow of doubt, man who, while he IA not
raised on a farm Cab ha, 10Y we're going to hear something about two
bit wheat and fve-cent cotton), is the descendant of a family of farm
es. A family of those hard working, God-fearing, and law-abidng
pioneer farmers who conquered the wide per spaces between the
turbid waters of the Missouri and the n crowned Rockies with *
gun and prairie schooner"
At the word Schooner the band strikes up "How Dry Am" Tecum-
sch, Sitting Bull, Raininthe Face, and Geronimo saturate the atmosphere
with blood curdlng war whoops. The demonstration lasts thirtytwo min
ues. The farm problem is solved.
And so it goes on, day after day, night after night Abe Lincoln is
dragged out of his grave. Tom Jefferson is dragged out of his grave.
Washington is dragged out of his grave. Founding fathers and Pilgrim
fathers are dragged out of their graves utno n is at loss to know
whether it is IN Irish wake, Indian ar dance, a drunken brawl, Bedam
turned loose, OF a combination of all of them.
Behold, here are the representatives of a sovereign peOple-strug-
Cling in the throes of the greatest catastrophe that has ever befanen
them, in convention assembled seeking a way out or a Moses to lead
them out. And if these representatives represent the intelligence,
morale, and patriotism of the nation, then verify say unto you, the
only way out is through the Red Sea.
The typewriter is silent again. From the bathroom comes the blinking
of ice in glass. "Have another one" says my newspaper friend; better
be drunk and laugh than stay sober and go bughouse with the maniacs
ut at the stadium"
PETALUMAC al-(FP)-The Poultry Producers Assn. of Central Cal