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DETROIT: The Labadie Shop, I9IO
I WELCOME DISORDER.
\X7TIEN confined to the need of defense I welcome disorder in the Held of work!
Why cry " Peace, peace!" when there is no peace?
When the very air gluts with the clash of interests?
Until my opportunities for making goods
shall equal thine, Until you cease shading the sunlight of joy
from my life, Until you stop siphoning the flow of my efforts into your corrupting coffers, Until you release your grip from my throat and let me breathe the air of freedom— The freedom to live, laugh, love and be
happy in my own way, So long as my way does not barricade
your right to your way, I shall raise the hue and cry— I shall startle the dreamless slumbers of the
spoilers of Toil! Under present vogues, industrial peace
means humiliation, slavery, death! %
It means the gelatinous bones of our babes shall l>e molded into money for mau-raudcrs,
That the mothers and daughters of Toil shall be driven to shame as the price of subsistence, That mud from the wheels of the wealthy
shall scornfully splash in our faces And blind our eyes to the splendor of our
own work, which they enjoy, And the squallor of our own environs, Of the meanness of our own estate. It means that I may work only when you let me,
And you let me only when you may take more than you give.
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It means that I cannot look into your eyes
with the frankness of friendship, For how can the flowers of friendship grow
in the gloom of dependence? How can love linger in the lap of luxury and share its joy with bitterness and woe?
So long as idleness and privilege revel in
unearned ease I shall raise the hue and cry, I shall shriek into your unwilling ears, I shall shout with a fanatic's voice until your deadened conscience is aroused * to sensibility, I shall clank my industrial chains until you are driven to remorse and restitution; And then I shall take you in my arms as a lost brother returned to the home of righteousness, Where you may know the joy of owning
only what you earn, Where you may feel the dignity of a useful worker with no spurred loafer goading him beyond his strength and reaping no gain for its expense, Where you shall give measure for measure, Where you shall be no man's master or no
man's menial. I shall work with yon in making the kingdom of heaven on earth, Where the art of free lingers may equal the dreams of Aladdin,
Where even the meanest who wills may, without let or hindrance, make material comforts in plenitude,
Where the plague of money madness will not deaden the conscience or sear the soul.
The sunshine of peace can gladden our hearts only when the blackened clouds of injustice roll away.
Pleasing progress ordains that the fashioners of the world's wealth shall not bow in meek assent to the power of privilege;
And nature says the under dog in the fight may bark, bite, bruise, damage, hurt, tear, injure, lacerate, aye, even kill if necessary!
The end indeed justifies the means, and the cause of the workers is defensible indeed.
Therefore, for those who toil and tire,
Who work and sweat and produce,
Who are denied the fulness of their efforts,
I have no protesting frown when they strike, vote, fight, appeal, struggle, contest, agitate For the right to life, liberty, property,
happiness, Be it by individuals, by mobs, by unions,
by brigades, by armies; Or strive with bluster or passivity or embattled warfare, With winning words or moral suasion or abuse or satire or argument or lies or truth,
With fists or clubs or ballots or bullets or
cannon or dynamite To throw off the deadly load of industrial
spoliation. Think not we dare not when we do not. It is war, and war is hell, and hell is disorder,
And disorder is the boiling of the industrial
caldron that purifies. It is death to those who falter, to those who hesitate, to those who are weakest;
And the world's story says the workers were weakest because less bloodthirsty.
The robbed were never so desperate as the robbers.
Ah! brothers and sisters, arc we eternally to have a clash of arms, a clash of classes, a clash of interests?
How I pray and plead for the milder means.
How I appeal to the man in men, to leave off the cruelties of the beast.
How I urge that, tho the ravaging storms of violence may purify the air ior a time, they leave ruin and desolation behind.
And that justice and freedom radiate social warmth for every human heart.
How 1 insist that reason and patience and persistence, like growing plants that move brave boulders, may displace the rudest wrongs.
How I strive to show that as warmth from the sun brings forth flora brilliant with beauty and ladened with nourishment from most repellant soilure,
So may the glow of love and kindliness and gentility
From even the bitterest of enmity, the most unyielding grudge, the greatest animosity, compel A sense of justice as tough as oak, A sympathy as balmy as a summer breeze, A fellowship as strong as the ebbing tide, A friendship as tender as a mother's love.
But—
When milder means cannot avail, When stubborn oppulence persists in
ignoring the rightful meed of Toil, The blame for turmoil must rest, As the fall of the angels, upon the powers
of darkness; And then, when within the realm of defense,
With open arms I welcome disorder in the
field of work! November, nineteen two.
This Lobar Song was printed at the Labadie Shop,
74 Buchanan StM Detroit, Michigan, where they may be had for the ashing, 25 cents a dozen, $1.50 a 100. The Red Flag and What is Love? beautiful, handmade, Labadie (printed and bounds
the cuts made with leather, blocks of wood and a jack-knife by the author), among The Labadie Booklets,are
75 and j00 cents, according to binding. J/" jy^tf haven't the price it'll be all right. Birch bark Baskets, leather Handbags, Printing, at cost. Done nonprofessionally by the family, a/ hours.
SOME CRANKY NOTIONS.
Poverty makes cowards of us all.
Vanity is the overestimation you put on yourself.
Each human soul is autocrat in his own domain.
Wisdom consists in knowing how little you know.
Generally people love you because you scratch them where they itch.
It is wonderful what effect dollars have in stiffening one's backbone.
Your efficiency depends largely on what the other fellow deems efficient.
Tell me of what you approve or disapprove and I'll tell you what you are.
Show me a person seeking power over his fellows and I'll show you one who will abuse it.
Don't imagine you're the whole thing. There are so many pebbles on the beach the ocean hardly knows of your presence.
There are two general ways of accomplishing results:—To muscle them out and think them out The more the world thinks the less muscle it needs to achieve a given result.
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