From ‘Industrial Worker’, June 22, 1911, Spokane, Washington
Can you see the city’s slum
From your mansion where you dwell?
Then with me to the window come,
And I will show you hell.
Have you seen the busy street
Where men of commerce buy and sell —
Where millionaires and beggars meet?
That, my friend, is hell.
Have you seen the well-named “pit,”
Where men pretend to buy and sell —
Where the worst of gamblers sit?
That, my friend, is hell.
Have you heard the horrid roar
of musketry and screaming shell —
Seen brothers bathed in brothers’ gore?
That, my friend, is hell.
Does your conscience now condemn
For some deed the world called well,
Some wrong you did to fellow man?
This to you, my friend, is hell.
Have you abused the poor, dumb brute
That served you long and well?
Then this truth you’ll not refute —
You’re well deserving hell.
Hades is not beyond the tomb,
As some people gravely tell —
The human heart that’s filled with gloom
Is also filled with hell.
Resource links
About Face: Veterans Against The War
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
Also
Suicide, by Anna Strunsky (1915)
Straight to Hell by Talk is Poison