Page:Poems for Workers - ed. Manuel Gomez (1925).djvu/6

 quite arbitrary. It is, of course, by no means exhaustive. Readers will notice many omissions, some of which—like "The International"—were left out to make room for less familiar poems and others—like Arturo Giovanitti's "The Walker"—because they were too long to be included. It is true that Giovanitti's "When the Cock Crows" is even longer than "The Walker" but I do not think anyone will be sorry for its inclusion.

As already stated, I have thought it best to limit the selection to poems which belong directly to the class struggle. The majority of the authors have been themselves active in the revolutionary proletarian movement in some capacity or other, and many of them are active in the struggle at the present time. The following pages are thus commended to working class readers as a product of their own movement. Workers will see in these poems an earnest of the invincible sweep, the elemental necessity, the suffering and heroism, the sacrifice and courage, the bitterness and devotion, the steady persistence, the already dawning triumph, of the class struggle of the proletarians of all nations for the overthrow of wage-slavery and the establishment of a new society.

—M. G.