Marie Fortelka, widow, mother of Josef, Now seventeen, an invalid at home In a house, in Halstead Street, his running side Aching with broken ribs, read in the _Times_ Of Lowell's death the editor, dressed herself To call on William Rummler, legal mind For Lowell and the _Times_. It was a day When fog hung over the city, and she thought Of fogs in Germany whence she came, and thought Of hard conditions there when she was young. Then as her boy, this Josef, coughed, she looked And felt a pang at heart, a rise of wrath, And heard him moan for broken ribs and lungs That had been bruised or mashed. America, Oh yes, America, she said to self, How is it different from the land I left? And then her husband's memory came to mind: How he had fled his country to be free, And come to Philadelphia, with the thrill Of new life found, looked at the famous Hall Which gave the Declaration, cried and laughed And said: "The country's free, and I am here, I am free now, a man, no more a slave." What did he find? A job, but prices high. Wages decreased in winter, then a strike. He joined the union, found himself in jail For passing hand-bills which announced the strike, And asked the public to take note, and punish The corporation, not to trade with it, For its injustice toward the laborers. And in the court he heard the judge decide: "Free speech cannot be used to gain the ends Of ruin by conspiracy like this Against a business. Men from foreign lands, Of despot rule and poverty, who come For liberty and means of life among us Must learn that liberty is ordered liberty, And is not license, freedom to commit Injury to another." So in jail He lay his thirty days out, went to work Where he could find it, found the union smashed, Himself compelled to take what job he could, What wages he was offered. And his children Kept coming year by year till there were eight, And Josef was but ten. And then he died And left this helpless family, and the boy Sold papers on the street, ten years of age, The widow washed. And first he sold the _Times_ And helped to spread the doctrines of the _Times_ Of ordered liberty and epicene Reforms of this or that. But when the _Star_ With millions back of it broke in the field He changed and sold the _Star_, too bad for him-- Discovered something: