Poems for Workers (Gomez 1925)/An Administration Delegate Reports
An Administration Delegate Reports
By Jim Waters
(Ted Miller―that isn't his name, but it will do just as well―is a rock-ribbed reactionary, a defender of the American Constitution and protector of the sanctity of the home. He is down on all Reds. So the bureaucrats in the central labor body picked him out to represent them at the A. F. of L. convention at El Paso. This is what Ted reported when he got back. It is not fiction. Ted is a real person, and the story was taken down pretty nearly verbatim.)
"Well, brothers,
I got back from the Texas Convention last night,
And I sure want to thank you for the trip.
The convention was called on the Seventeeth
And adjourned on the Twenty-fourth.
We all had a good time.
Most of the boys spent their time in Juarez.
That's sure some town . . .
They don't have keys in that town . . .
Whisky . . . two dollars a quart . . . good stuff.
Plenty of beer. The Mexicans make a drink
Called pulki . . . it would make a man kill his mother.
We sure had plenty to drink. . .
Now I've seen lots of bull thrown around here,
But down there I saw them killed by the car load.
And cock fights! . . . Christ, them long-legged birds
Can fight like hell . . . never seen anything like it.
We sure had a good time . . .
And women . . . a man's a hog that wants better variety;
And nationality, color, size, any age from twelve to sixty.
I was too drunk to see good, but they looked pretty clean.
Well, brothers, I don't know of any more to say,
Only, I sure want to thank you for the trip.
"Oh, just another word, brothers.
You remember the big schooners O'Sullivan used to put out?
Them two-handled ones?
Well, that's how they serve beer in Juarez."