32 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
32 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
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I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB
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I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
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Do you know that all the great work of the world is
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done through me?
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I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
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world's food and clothes.
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I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
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come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
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then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
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I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
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for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
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I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
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I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
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makes me work and give up what I have. And I
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forget.
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Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
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drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.
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When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
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People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
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forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
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a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world
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say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
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sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
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The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.
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Carl Sandburg 1910 (?)
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Transcribed by FW Allan Thurrott
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