Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker
of Wheat,
Player with
Railroads and the Nation's Freight
Handler;
Stormy, husky,
brawling,
City of the Big
Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I
believe them, for I have seen your
painted women under the gas lamps luring the
farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I
answer: Yes, it is true I have
seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my
reply is: On the faces of
women
and children I have seen the marks of wanton
hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to
those who sneer at this
my
city, and I give them back the sneer and say to
them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job
on job, here is a
tall
bold slugger set vivid against the little soft
cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action,
cunning as a savage
pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building,
breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing
with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a
young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a
battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the
pulse, and under his
ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth,
half-naked,
sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool
Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and
Freight Handler to the Nation.
