- Hog Butcher for the World,
- Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
- Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
- Stormy, husky, brawling,
- City of the Big Shoulders:
- They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
- have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
- luring the farm boys.
- And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
- is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
- kill again.
- And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
- faces of women and children I have seen the marks
- of wanton hunger.
- And having answered so I turn once more to those who
- sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
- and say to them:
- Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
- so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
- Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
- job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
- little soft cities;
- Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
- as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
- Bareheaded,
- Shoveling,
- Wrecking,
- Planning,
- Building, breaking, rebuilding,
- Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
- white teeth,
- Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
- man laughs,
- Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
- never lost a battle,
- Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
- and under his ribs the heart of the people,
- Laughing!
- Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
- Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
- Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
- Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
