Robed with might on seas and lands, Lo, the conquering merchant-bands! Not a commerce so august But is mastered by a trust. Not a traffic second-rate But a trust has made it great. Whiskey, matches, ships, and meat, Things to wear and things to eat, Schoolbooks, ice, molasses, screws, Things to play with and to use, Common things and superfine, Each is in some vast combine. We shall make them, if we must, At the wages of the trust. We shall buy them, fall or rise, At the trust's imperial price. We may swallow for our food What the trust considers good, And obediently wear Just the clothes the trust can spare. This -- until the buyers learn To amalgamate in turn; This -- until we boldly choose To confederate those that use. Once, in Boston, men were free For a certain sport with tea. Better cereal coffee, then, And retain the rights of men! Naught is a "necessity," Bought with price of liberty. Men whose wills and hearts are stout Gladly learn -- to do without. Let us, mediocre folk, Break the chain and smash the yoke. Trusts and corners, low and high, All are naught -- unless we buy. Let us match their money-lust With a monster anti-trust. Let us quietly declare: "If the seller is unfair, If his workmen, underfed, Cry for justice and for bread, If his prices he shall fix Not by nature but by tricks -- Till his heart or courage melts, We will live on something else! And the money thus we save, His poor laborers shall have." Thus the rich whose wealth is made Worthily by worthy trade, Thus the toiling poor that lie In a hopeless slavery, Brothers, made of common dust, Both shall prosper from one trust! Crude? quixotic? juvenile? Call the notion what you will, Only know that not for aye Shall the few the many sway; Only know that brotherhood Is omnipotent for good, And that men may safely -- trust -- In the triumph of the just! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MOTHER by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE OLD MEN by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE LAST MAN: A CROCODILE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES SONNET: TO SLEEP by JOHN KEATS THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY DESTINY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |