Scrawled in spite across the envelope
With all of our conviction.
In only took a few hours for his peers
To find him guilty in a trail too fair,
A wobblie, immigrant worker has no place among the living.
“My body if I could choose to ashes it reduce.”
Murdered by the capitalist,
November 1915 be careful of what you wish.
Who is wrong and who is righteous?
What was stolen from us we will replace,
Off with the head on the body we feast,
Who is wrong and who is righteous,
Will never be our own decision.
He yelled fire to the squad with guns, they stopped his heart from beating.
Every word he wrote, he spoke, he sung, we are still singing:
“My body if I could choose to ashes it reduce,
And let the breezes blow my dust to where some flowers grow.
Perhaps some fading flower then would come to life and bloom again”.
If the workers take a notion,
They can stop all speeding trains,
Every ship upon the ocean.
They can tie with mighty chains
Every wheel in the creation,
Every mine and every mill.
Fleets and armies of all nations
Will at our command stand still.
