Happy Labo(u)r Day Weekend

In Canada and the U.S., Labo(u)r Day is Monday, Sept 3rd.  For all celebrating, some music and poetry to get you into the mood:

Happy Labo(u)r Day!

Evan Greer - Never Walk Across a Picket Line

Fellow Citizens - Carl Sandburg (1912) 

I DRANK musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with

the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter

one night

And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,

he spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had

a peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere.

Then I heard Jim Kirch make a speech to the Advertising

Association on the trade resources of South America.

And the way he lighted a three-for-a-nickel stogie and

cocked it at an angle regardless of the manners of

our best people,

I knew he had a clutch on a real happiness even though

some of the reporters on his newspaper say he is

the living double of Jack London's Sea Wolf.

In the mayor's office the mayor himself told me he was

happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-

seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat.

Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with

his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache,

And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch

and the mayor when it came to happiness.

He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only

makes them from start to finish, but plays them

after he makes them.

And he had a guitar of mahogany with a walnut bottom

he offered for seven dollars and a half if I wanted it,

And another just like it, only smaller, for six dollars,

though he never mentioned the price till I asked him,

And he stated the price in a sorry way, as though the

music and the make of an instrument count for a

million times more than the price in money.

I thought he had a real soul and knew a lot about God.

There was light in his eyes of one who has conquered

sorrow in so far as sorrow is conquerable or worth

conquering.

Anyway he is the only Chicago citizen I was jealous of

that day.

He played a dance they play in some parts of Italy

when the harvest of grapes is over and the wine

presses are ready for work.

Billy Bragg - There is Power in a Union



A Pict Song - Rudyard Kipling (1917)

Rome never looks where she treads,
Always her heavy hooves fall,
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on—that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk—we !
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the Great!
We are the worm in the wood !
We are the rot at the root!
We are the germ in the blood !
We are the thorn in the foot !

Mistletoe killing an oak—
Rats gnawing cables in two—
Moths making holes in a cloak—
How they must love what they do!
Yes,—and we Little Folk too,
We are as busy as they—
Working our works out of view—
Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed ! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along,
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same ?
Yes, we have always been slaves;
But you—you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves.

We are the Little Folk, we ! etc.

Dropkick Murphys - Worker's Song



I Hear America Singing - Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn-ing, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie - Union Maid