T-Bone Slim

Matti Valentinpoika Huhta (1880 - 1940), better known by his pen name T-Bone Slim, was a humourist, poet, songwriter, hobo and labor activist in the Industrial Workers of the World.

He was born in Ashtabula, Ohio to Matti and Johanna Huhta, Finnish immigrants from Ilmajoki, Finland. Matti Huhta grew up in his parent's boarding house in Erie, Pa. He no doubt learned of the labor struggle at dinner everyday. Huhta married Rosa Kotila and left Ohio and his family around 1910, travelling the northern tier of the United States as a migrant worker, at which point he became a member of the I.W.W.

Huhta had one surviving child at the time of his death, Edna Huhta. Huhta was buried in potter's field NYC.

IWW lore likes to picture his death in 1940 in NYC as mysterious, but the coroner's office firmly states that they found nothing irregular in the manner of death. Huhta slipped off the docks in NYC where he lived at the Seaman's Boarding House and worked as a barge captain.

Huhta was employed for a period as a reporter for the daily News-Telegram in Duluth, Minnesota, and the Finnish radical newspaper the "Industrialisti", but quit after an editor "misquoted him and balled up his article"^[1] about an I.W.W. mass meeting. He later contributed numerous articles and songs to the I.W.W. press and is widely regarded as one of the union's finest columnists and songwriters.

^[2] He was a regular columnist for Industrial Solidarity and, later, for the Industrial Worker and Industrialisti until his death in 1940 in [[New York City].

T-Bone Slim's best known works include "The Popular Wobbly", "The Mysteries of a Hobo's Life", and "The Lumberjack's Prayer". Later, his work would become a source of inspiration for the emerging American surrealist movement and many of his songs were revived during the American Civil Rights Movement.

In an interview with David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky cites T-Bone Slim as one of his favourite "Wobbly Singers".^[3]

Quotes

• "Wherever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack."^{[citation needed]}

• "Always keep yourself fit to serve mankind. Watch yourself, do not watch the boss. Never exhaust yourself—there is nothing more disgusting than a man staggering home from work 'dog-tired,' helplessly falling into a chair to have his child remove his shoes; then grabbing a hasty feverish supper; saying good-night to his family and rolling into bed half-washed, to repeat the same thing three hundred and twelve times per-year, or until sickness puts a stop to his mad career." (From "Recipes for Health" in "Starving Amidst Too Much")^{[citation needed]}

• "Tear Gas: The most effective agent used by employers to persuade their employees that the interests of capital and labour are identical." (From "Dancin' in the Streets: Anarchists, IWWs, Surrealists, Situationists & Provos in the 1960s)^{[citation needed]}

See also

Poetry portal

• Little Red Songbook
• Wesley Everest
• Joe Hill
• Frank Little
• Utah Phillips

References

1. ^ Rosemont 2006 p.234
2. ^ Damron, 2005 http://www.iww.org/en/culture/biography/TBoneSlim1.shtml
3. ^ ZNet Commentary

External links

• I.W.W. Biography page of T-Bone Slim
• Lumberjack's Prayer

Persondata
Name	Slim, T-Bone
Alternative names	Matti Valentinpoika Huhta
Short description
Date of birth	1880
Place of birth	Ashtabula, Ohio
Date of death	1940
Place of death	NYC

Original family research by Jennifer Trask Ripley, using source material from the family and birth and death state archival records.