WHAT have they done to you, men of the masses,
creeping
back and
forth to work?
What
have they done to you, the saviours of the people, oh
what have they saved you from,
while they pocketed the money?
Alas, they have saved you from yourself, from your own
frail dangers
and
devoured you with the machine, the vast maw of
iron.
They saved you from squalid cottages and poverty of hand
to mouth
and
embedded you in the workmen’s dwellings, where your
wage is the dole of work, and
the dole is your wage of nullity.
They took away, oh they took away your man’s native
instincts
and
intuitions
and gave
a board-school education, newspapers, and cinema.
They stole your body from you,
and left you an animated carcass
to work with, and nothing else:
unless goggling eyes, to goggle
at the film
and a
board-school brain, stuffed up with the ha’penny press.
Your instincts gone, your
intuition gone, your passion dead
Oh carcass with a board-school mind and a
ha’penny newspaper intelligence,
what have they done to you, what have they done
to you,
oh what have
they done to you?
Oh look at my fellow-men, oh look at them
the masses! Oh, what has been
done to them?