Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry,
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
Tie 'Em Up!
(Words and music by G. G. Allen)
We have no fight with brothers of the old A. F. of L.,
But we ask you use your reason with the facts we have to tell.
Your craft is but protection for a form of property,
The skill that you are losing, don't you see.
Improvements on machinery take your tool and skill away,
And you'll be among the common slaves upon some fateful day.
Now the things of which we're talking we are mighty sure about.--
So what's the use to strike the way you can't win out?
_Chorus_
Tie 'em up! Tie 'em up! That's the way to win.
Don't notify the bosses till hostilities begin.
Don't furnish chance for gunmen, scabs and all their like;
What you need is One Big Union and the One Big Strike.
Why do you make agreements that divide you when you fight
And let the bosses bluff you with the contract's "sacred right?"
Why stay at work when other crafts are battling with the foe,
You all must stick together, don't you know.
The day when you begin to see the classes waging war
You can join the biggest tie-up that was ever known before.
When the strikes all o'er the country are united into one,
Then the workers' One Big Union all the wheels shall run.
Walking on the Grass
(Tune: "The Wearing of the Green")
In this blessed land of freedom where King Mammon wears the crown,
There are many ways illegal now to hold the people down.
When the dudes of state militia are slow to come to time,
The law upholding Pinkertons are gathered from the slime.
There are wisely framed injunctions that you must not leave your job,
And a peaceable assemblage is declared to be a mob,
And Congress passed a measure framed by some consummate ass,
So they are clubbing men and women just for walking on the grass.
In this year of slow starvation, when a fellow looks for work,
The chances are a cop will grab his collar with a jerk;
He will run him in for vagrancy, he is branded as a tramp,
And all the well-to-do will shout: "It serves him right, the scamp!"
So we let the ruling class maintain the dignity of law,
When the court decides against us we are filled with wholesome awe,
But we cannot stand the outrage without a little sauce
When they're clubbing men and women just for walking on the grass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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