For all you Elitists out there

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of this world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food & clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. 
The Napoleons come from me & the Lincolns. 
They die. & then I send forth more Napoleons & Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. 
Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out & wasted.
I forget. 
Everything but Death comes to me & makes me work & give up what I have. & I 
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself & spatter a few red drops for history to 
remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the people, learn to remember, when I, the People use the lessons of 
yesterday & no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a 
fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: 
"The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far off smile of 
derision.
The mob--The crowd--The mass--will arrive then.


— Carl Sandburg

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