16
PARTISAN REVIEW
The immense teeth and spectacles of Teddy.
We know only the third republic, the Roosevelt
Who flashes treacherous promises through a cataleptic grin.
We remember, gentlemen, the great strike of Thirty-One
When we marched to the factory of Sanchez y Haya,
And on the water tank high above Ybor City
Nailed the red flag with hammer and sickle.
We remember, too, the terror, the cops who wrecked
The face of our leader Hy Gordon, cracked their pistols
Through his wrist-bone, broke our Union.
Let us go, then Comrades, to the Communist meeting;
Go in silence; the forgotten man is forgotten,
The Reds remembered; they are here illegal,
Foregathering secretly in privllte homes.
Tiptoe up the stairway one by one.
Order, companeros; Comrade Lopez has the
floor:~
Tpe terror grows, we have no work, we starve;
Our wives and children hunger; those who still
Labor aridly in the factories (robbed
Of the traditional readers) face new wage-cuts;
The cops ravage meetings; jail, beat, deport
The braveilt, wisest workers, those
Who know the road to freedom from this hell.
The factory gates are closed to Negroes:-
Let the black bastards die, let them all die,
Let the blessed Blu£' Eagle devour' these rebellious worms,
But let it Preserve our profits I
Companeros, we shall not die; our ranks are but
A platoon in that vast army throughout
The world which carries high the proletarian banner
Fighting through blood and terror toward the goal.
We who once raised the red banner over Ybor City
Shall do our part indeed, striking the needed blows
For an America of work and thought for all,
Where soil, factory and machine; art,
Philosophy and science; love itself
Shall be with bread the portion of the people.
JOSEPH FREEMAN
