Judge — February 21, 1903 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT THE JUDGE BUILDING, 110 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORE, Terms to Subscribers. UNITED STATES AND CANADA IN ADVANCE. One copy, ove year, oF $2 numbers = $5.00 One copy, sx months, of 26 numbers - "30 One copy; for thinees weeks = et > ay "Prctoding the Crasstuas jooce. FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS—To all foreign countries nthe postal unos, $5.00 a year. Wasteax Orrce—828-829 Marguctte Building, Chicage. Evnorean satis-actocrs—laternational news coupany, Breas building, Chancery lane, fC. Vanton. Brentanes, atone de COpera: Parte, Saarkach's newt tichance, Mains, Germany The contents of JUDGE are right in both the United States and Great Britaia. T usly prosecuted. self-addressed envelope with all manuscripts, jaranteed. Id have the sender's fall otherwise retur DRAWINGS id fo insure safe and prompt return of material not accepted. HE TOBACCO PIG is still in evi- dence, and his loud |. rision at the expense of the small dealer is heard in the land. He is waxing fatter than fat, and the fat that he is putting on is the result of this laughter which seems to be a sovereign anti-lean remedy. The tobacco pig, in purple and fine linen, capers from shop to shop and feels a unique joy in putting the small dealer on the sidewalk, surrounded by his family and his various goods and chattels, that he may crawl in and gather the premises unto himself. With the tobacco pig dis- Possession seems to be the nine points of the law so essential to subsequent victory, and shows he enjoys a positive appreciation of music by the self-satis- fied manner in which he grins the grin that illuminates his entire anatomy when he hears the bravura of the tin- pans and kettles of his victim as they rattle and bang on the cold, clammy curb. Some day the last may be first and the first last, and the tobacco pig may realize in time that the last laugh will be that of the small dealer. He js now so thoroughly and comfortably wrapped up in his feeling of security that he may not realize the actual significance of the last laugh in all its wild, iridescent beauty. When he does hear it he will be practically cold, cold ham from head to foot, and his guffaw will congeal and hang from his fangs in icicles of gloom. Just at present the tobacco hog is on top, and probably is not aware of the imperial nickel-plated fact that, although it is very dif- ficult to reach the top, it is still more difficult to hold it, and that the drop is much more swift and hazardous than is the weary climb. These imita- tion pearls of wisdom, gathered at random from the papier-inaché shells of the bric-a-brac shop, are hereby cast generously for what they are worth before the pig of tobaccodom. We fancy that they will not be appre- ciated by the porker, who may shortly come to grief, as it seems impossible for him to see straight or to understand the writing on the dead walls about him while his feast of the small dealer is in progress. OF ALL the unions on the face of the earth the labor union stands first as an all-round failure. The labor is all right, but the union is all wrong, inasmuch as it means a combination of skill and incompetence. Probably the most heavily handicapped bread-winner to-day is the skilled laborer, inasmuch as he is pulled down by the toiler who practically rides him as if he were a mountain-climber with a chair on his back. The skilled laborer does not look upon his brother in the vineyard as the aver- age self-respecting, hustling bee looks upon a drone. On the other hand, he champions his cause and welcomes him to his class, and comforts him in every way, thereby putting a premium on his shortcomings while discounting his own supremacy in the useful field he occupies. Six- minute horses are not often seen trotting in the two-minute class. They stick to trucks and other vehicles that are still operated by the frisky equine. It might be well for the workman who does not know the art of handling his tools to make a study of the truck-horse, and in so doing gather a line on his own limitations and thereby gradually sink to his proper level, if not too arrogant and self-sufficient. A leather apron and a paper cap do not make an ideal mechanic, any more than long hair makes a poet or white whiskers a sage. The capitalist has been familiar with this malodorous fact these many weary moons, and it is almost time that the skilled laborer should wake from his mental lethargy, assert his rights, and make matters lively for the weaker brother by driving him to his proper sphere of usefulness. It would be better for the latter in the end to corus- cate as a rural furnace impresario than to pose as a purple-plumed knight of labor and have contumely cast upon him, even as the effete egg is said to be cast upon the Thespian. The only kind of labor agitation that is now worthy of intelligent recognition is that which should result in the relega- tion of the incompetent laborer to the oblivion in which he would do well to wrap himself and lie down to pleasant dreams of that kind of prosperity that is known vernacularly as graft. He grafter pure and simple, and is the prime cause of all the trouble that exists to-day between capital and genuine labor. He belongs in the class with the tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit, and should therefore be cast out. This dishonest laborer and the honest knight of toil are fastened together like the Siamese twins with achain that means literally a union in which there is destruction and not strength. The breaking of this chain would mean a survival of the fittest, for only one of these knights can survive in the field which they now oc- cupy in common. When this operation has been’ performed the day will not be far distant when the capitalist and the laborer will lie down to- gether and thus provide a happy suggestion of the joy that belongs to the millennium, HOW COULD THEY QUARREL WHEN THEIR INTERESTS ARE SO INTERWOVEN? comicbooks.com