Our annual town meeting came today.
And all the voters gathered in the hall-
The males who constitute our little town,
So much like other little towns up here
Among the hills, or elsewhere through the land,
They tell us we Americans are soft,
Unnerved and flabby with luxurious life,
And War's the thing to harden us, of course.
I looked around the room and had to smile.
Down front a Tory sat (we have them still,
And they are loudest in the cry to arms),
And he was soft, I must admit, and fat,
In spite of Plattsburg drill six months ago.
I counted five, among three hundred strong,
Who pay. I know, a federal income tax,
And all of them were soft-and all for War.
The rest-the thing's a grizzly joke the rest
Have never had a chance at luxury,
You can't grow soft if you are cutting wood
All day upon the mountain side, in snow
Above your knees, or feeding it against
The snarling, singing. hungry saw; my fat
And warlike Tory friend would be a wreck
If he pitched cord wood for an hour. You can't
Grow soft by milking fourteen cows a day
Nor holding true a plow in broken sod.

Nor filling gravel teams, nor hauling mail
In storm and shine, in sleet and cold, four times
Each day against our winter winds, nor yet,
By rising when the world is dark and chill
To shake the furnace for our Tory friend,
So he may find it warm at breakfast time.
It's true, our workers in the mills are few-
We haven't many soft with linty lungs;
I fancy they need War to harden them
(It's such a pleasant recreation, too);
But we have carpenters with dainty hands.
And station porters stale with wrestling trunks,
And gardeners who've never dug enough,
And other workers at the world's slim wage
Who will be glad to know that luxury
Has made them soft in vicious idleness!
They sat there in this crowded hall-against
The five, the hundreds who by daily toil
And hard economy make both ends meet
And once a week take in a picture show.

If they are soft, the only reason is

That meat now costs so much they're underfed

But do we need a War to alter that?

Perhaps we do but not the sort of War

Our puffed, portentous Tory has in mind!