Most of us have ancestors for whom the words might ring true.
Evan Greer - Never Walk Across a Picket Line
Billy Bragg - There is Power in a Union
Dropkick Murphys - Worker's Song
A Pict Song - Rudyard Kipling (1917)
- 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.
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.
End of Summer Rituals
by John Newmark ©August 2001
On September Third
Millions of Americans
Will celebrate the End of Summer
By having a barbecue.
Few know where the name
Of this holiday came from.
To most, it seems ironic
Since none but a few work.
Labor Day now means
The changing color of trees,
The start of the school year,
Or just another day off.
Any connection to unions
Or the forbidden word, "Socialism,"
Is obscured by the distance
From the First of May.
If we're to return to the roots
Of this annual worker's holiday
We need to barbecue Phil Knight
Over a bonfire of shoes
Or observe how Bill Gates
Changes colors
As we remove his tongue
And he can't speak a Word.®
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