Songs of the Workers (15th edition)/Solidarity Forever!
SOLIDARITY FOREVER!
By Ralph H. Chaplin
(Tune: "John Brown's Body")
When the Union's insipration through the worker's blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.
CHORUS:
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
But the Union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might
Is there anything left for us but to organize and fight?
For the Union makes us strong.
It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade.
Dug the mines and built the workshops; endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand, outcast and starving, 'mid the wonders we have made;
For the Union makes us strong.
All the world that's owned by idle drones, is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skywards, stone by stone.
It is ours, and not slave in, but to master and to own,
While the Union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn.
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power; gain our freedom, when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand fold.
We can bring to birth the new world from the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong.
The present is distinctively an industrial epoch in world history. There can be no democracy in a world ruled by industrial despots. The I. W. W. stands for the only REAL democracy—Industrial Democracy.
One worker on the job is worth a dozen in the jungles.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1961, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 62 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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