Lumberjack

"Whistling girls and crowing hens shall always come to some bad end." That is what the old rural American proverb says, and likewise with beat up, wore out lumberjacks. The "bad end" we come to is the next-to-the-last stop in the lumber industry, namely, pond monkey at a sawmill. As a general rule the last stop is night watchman. Of course a quite a few young backs are pond monkeys too.

Ran into old Wind River Bill Taggart the other day, and he was hopping mad. (He is an old timber, about 75 now who used to be a riggin' slinger up Columbia River way in the big logging camps, and before that, was a river pig back in Minnesota). It seems as though he turned into kind of an extrovert on account of hollering at the whistle punk and the choker setters. Like that time over to Carson, Washington back in 1916.

I submitted an article for publication in the Humboldt Forumon December 15, 1961 when I was editor of Lumberjack News at Eureka, California. The article was printed under the following statement:

"The opinions reflected in the following article are not necessarily those of the Forum staff. Its inclusion represents continued effort on the part of the staff to give equal representation to all views. The Forum welcomes articles in answer to this one and will consider publishing one or more, depending upon their merit."

Web Editor's Note: This chapter is not included as originally presented in Scribbner's original text, because it's an excerpt from James Rowan's book, The IWW in the Lumber Industry, which is featured elsewhere on this site. Instead we offer a link to that work, here.

By T-Bone Slim (Matt Valentine Huhta) - early 1920s
Tune: Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow

I pray dear Lord for Jesus' sake
Give us this day a T Bone steak
Hallowed be thy holy name
But don't forget to send the same

Oh hear my humble cry, oh Lord
And send me down some decent board
Brown gravy and some German fried
With sliced tomatoes on the side

'Short Log Gabriel' and yours truly had just unloaded off a manifest freight train in the yards at Eugene, Oregon along about June f 1957. She was going a pretty good clatter, and when we unloaded old Short Log had to go and stub his tow on the end of a tie on the roadbed, In the first place he is kinda short coupled and sway backed, like one of them percheron horses, and his feet ain't able to keep up, so he comes a cropper.

In order to bear me out on what I said of Imperialism i.e. that it is, "the export of capital to the sources of raw material." Let us review a statement by Major General Smedley D Butler, former commandant of the US Marines, as quoted from the magazine, Common Sense November, 1935.

Major General Smedley D Butler.

Here is an excerpt from the Redwood Ripsaw that I wrote in May 1965. The next chapter contains a quote from the works of Major general Smedley Butler, former Commandant of the US Marines.

There is a lot of talk these days of American Imperialism, Freedom, Democracy, Socialism, Free Enterprise, etc.

It seems to me that Big George told me that it happened up in Portland on the skidroad, but I won't vouch for the exact spot, but dad gum it, he told me anyway, so I will try and set it down. Also, Big George and I were lapping up a beer or two up in Aberdeen on the Harbor when he told me.