Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/280



(American lawyer and lecturer, 1883-1899)

Whoever produces anything by weary labor, does not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing produced.

Labor

(A parody upon a poem by Rudyard Kipling; author unknown. The poem is frequently, but incorrectly, attributed to Mr. Kipling)

We have fed you all for a thousand years, And you hail us still unfed, Tho' there's never a dollar of all your wealth But marks the workers' dead. We have yielded our best to give you rest, And you lie on crimson wool; For if blood be the price of all your wealth Good God, we ha' paid in full!

There's never a mine blown skyward now But we're buried alive for you; There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now But we are its ghastly crew; Go reckon our dead by the forges red, And the factories where we spin. If blood be the price of your cursed wealth Good God, we ha' paid it in!