Oh come, ye lords and ladies of the realm, Come keep the watch with me; this show is yours. Behold the source of all your joy and pride, The beasts ye harness fast and set to draw The chariots of your pageantry and pomp! It is their blood ye shed to make your feasts, It is their treadmill that moves all your world. Come gather now, and think how it will be When God shall send his flaming angel down And break these bars--so hath he done of yore, So doeth he to lords and ladies grand-- And loose these beasts to raven in your streets! A Sentiment on Social Reform BY EUGENE V. DEBS (American locomotive engineer; born 1855; president of his union, and later the best known of American Socialist lecturers) While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in jail, I am not free. The "Solitary" (_From "My Life in Prison"_) BY DONALD LOWRIE (The writer of this picture of prison life, after serving a sentence of fifteen years in San Quentin, has become one of the leaders in the prison reform movement in California) He was a thin young man of medium height, with long, straggly blonde hair and beard. He was garbed in a ragged suit of dirty stripes. His steel-gray eyes blinked as though the light hurt them, and yet they were very alert, and there was a defiance, an indomitableness in their depths. They protruded slightly, as the eyes of persons who have suffered so frequently do. The lines radiating from the corners bespoke mental as well as physical distress, as did the spasmodic twitching of his mouth. His skin was akin to the color of a thirsty road and his garments looked as though he had not had them off for months--the knees and elbows bulged and the frayed edges of the coat curled under. I was conscious of a warring within me. I had not yet learned who he was, and still I knew I was gazing at a human creature who had been through hell.... "Treat Morrell right," admonished the lieutenant as he withdrew from the room and left us together. Morrell! The notorious "Ed" Morrell, about whom I had heard so much, and who had been confined in the "incorrigibles" for five years! The majority of the prisoners, as well as the freemen, believed him innocent of the offence with which he had been charged and for which he had been subjected to such awful punishment. So this man was Ed Morrell! No wonder I had been agitated.... He arose from the chair and stood dejectedly while I took the necessary measurements, and then I led the way to the back room, where the bathtub was located. I started to return to the front room for the purpose of marking his clothes, but he stopped me. "Wait a minute," he urged. "Wait and see what a man looks like after five years in hell. I was a husky when I went up there, hard as nails and full of red blood, but look at me now."