  Nearly all of the animals go in herds, Fishes, mammals, bees, ants, and even birds. The snakes are not so socially inclined; They had rather with none combined, Slip cautiously alone and snap from behind. Man has always a social animal been, To get his food and commit his sin. He has always stood for organizations, Municipalities, states and corporations, Made to protect him against depredations. Whenever new thoughts take form in his head, He is sure to try to have others into them led, By his talks and whatever by him is said. Man has made laws and written them down, Telling the good people all not frown; That by their consent these laws are made: “The consent of the governed,” Is exactly what they said. That is true as the law-makers by your vote, Are elected your welfare to promote. Laws are rules laid down for our control, Pointing out paths where we may not stroll, Marking the lines in which our rights are defined, Commanding and forbidding the multifarious kind Of the things we must do or leave behind. Some laws are on natural justice based; That might be speculatively traced To the dealings of man in his beginning; Starting out in the races he was winning Over his ancestors, those animals called “low,” He might have come upon one not so slow; Who singly could not be brought down with a blow; So with his likes he combined the swift one to get For their food, and their appetites to whet. Now when this animal combined they took, The question was up, and not a law book, By which to decide who should take the hide; And into what and how many parts the rest to divide: So they naturally counted the number of their gang, While this juicy meat did before them hang; And number parts equal to the number of them Was equally cut off the beast from stern to stem: The meat thus divided the hide could not Be usefully carved up, so they gambled for it by lot: In the hand of each a pebble to throw at a spot, They took to try who closest to the mark got; And the one it who did the nearest hit, Took away the hide for his skill and grit. The idea of justice thus received Is about as good as has ever been achieved, By reading all the books in every case Where the law is defined for the human race. Life might be likened to a game of chance And the laws, the rules by which we advance Our men upon the board or throw the lance: When people together their business transact, Follow the rules, and courts will solve the contract. When our forefathers made this Republic of ours, They established a constitution limiting the powers, That the government itself could exercise The best to preserve our liberty they could devise. Even before this fundamental law they did make, Which of necessity did part of our liberty take, They prefaced all our laws for me and you With certain inalienable rights kept in view: “That all men were created equal,” they knew; “That life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Were set out in plain view, our land to bless. Now every law since that date passed by the state, To that extent our liberties infringe, even though we scringe; And feel the distress, without redress, Of many iniquitous acts, even by Congress. If men were actually well-behaved, Much useless trouble and expense could be saved: Laws being hobbies our liberties to restrain; Some barely holding us, even with tight rein. The socialist man, if I do not mistake, Would all restraint from our law makers take, So that the state might feed and regulate All the peoples who come within its gate, And all others’ properties appropriate, To the general good as by them understood. The titles to your lands and everything good That on them stands, they would concentrate Into public hands whom they would nominate. The labor and the work, the leaders would shirk, Would be done by some one or his clerk. So that we all would have a good time, In our day, should we adopt their line. “Every man has a right to work and eat”; And such clap trap of verbiage we meet, On every hand as we go over our land. They jabber, but their sense I can’t see. How can this come in the land of the free? They produce arguments hoary with age, Used by many a high-class sage, That the ownership of property—especially land, Never had a foundation on which it could stand. That the whole idea was a fiction once, And not to see it now one is a dunce. That all your vested rights on paper, Are unsound, no matter what caper Folks may cut their supposed rights to hold, With all their power and hoarded gold. If they can unite the working man on their side, They hope into power to gloriously slide. The men who labor with their hands have all United into bands. Feeling that the little work there is to do Must pay the most to the ones who pursue Trades of all kinds and of every hue. That the work for men to do with hands Is constant, regardless of supply and demands; Never once observing that the cost Of production many jobs them have lost. So even if they do get more out of that they do; The valuable time lost in the trades they pursue, Will more than compensate for th’ advanced rate They obtain from the fewer jobs that remain. Why it does not occur to them while they dream What a big world this is with all its demesne, Is a matter beyond explanation by what I ween. That work is not confined on this big earth, But spreads out to give us all a wide berth. Against trusts and monied corporations, Men in their stations might form associations Their rights to demand and their wrongs to reduce, But against th’ individual there is no excuse, Why unions upon him should heap their abuse. If one build a house to cover up his head, Why should union labor try to kill him dead, By making the cost so high that none can buy, Houses building now far and nigh. But all these perplexing questions are upon us; And the merits and demerits we must discus
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