the big guy learns something from first-graders

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022744053

Oh my.

Omaha Steve (35,535 posts)    Tue Apr 23, 2013, 09:24 PM

It took a class of 1st graders to teach me someting about the most dangerous woman in America!!!

Our granddaughter had a class singing recital tonight. The pianist explained the following children's folk song was based on union organizing. I gave the pianist a big hug and thanked her for teaching me something after the show.
 
http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A46378281

Snip: Mother Jones

Mary Harris was born in County Cork, Ireland, and went to the USA with her parents as a child. She trained to be a teacher, and in 1861 married George Jones, an iron moulder and union organiser from Tennessee. They had four children, but George and all of the children died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867. She then moved to Chicago, where she worked as a dressmaker until she lost her shop in the 'Chicago Fire' of 1871.
 
Over the next few years Jones became more and more involved in the union movement. She was involved in the rail strike of 1877 in Pittsburgh. In 1899, she was organising the coal fields in Pennsylvania. In 1911, she was in Mexico; she was arrested at Homestead in 1919; and was working with dressmakers in Chicago in 1924.
 
Her reporting of the issues was in a language ordinary people could understand. This is from an article originally published in The International Socialist Review in March 1901:
 
I visited the factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala., at 10 o'clock at night. The superintendent, not knowing my mission, gave me the entire freedom of the factory, and I made good use of it. Standing by a siding that contained 155 spindles were two little girls. I asked a man standing near if the children were his, and he replied that they were. 'How old are they?' I asked. 'This one is 9, the other 10,' he replied. 'How many hours do they work?' 'Twelve,' was the answer. 'How much do they get a night?' 'We all three together get 60 cents. They get 10 cents each and I 40.' I watched them as they left their slave-pen in the morning and saw them gather their rags around their frail forms to hide them from the wintry blast. Half-fed, half-clothed, half-housed, they toil on, while the poodle dogs of their masters are petted and coddled and sleep on pillows of down, and the capitalistic judges jail the agitators that would dare to help these helpless ones to better their condition.
 
She was described as 'the most dangerous woman in America' by Reese Blizzard, the West Virginia district attorney. Sandberg suggested this was the figure the workers sang about: the 'she' who was 'coming round the mountain'.
 
The identity of 'she', however, doesn't worry the countless adults and children who have happily sang along on journeys and round campfires.
 
http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/s004.html

She'll be coming round the mountain
When she comes

(Toot, toot!)

She'll be coming round the mountain
When she comes

(Toot, toot!)

She'll be coming round the mountain,
She'll be coming round the mountain,
She'll be coming round the mountain
When she comes

(Toot, toot!)

She'll be driving six white horses
When she comes

(Whoa back!)

She'll be driving six white horses
When she comes

(Whoa back!)

She'll be driving six white horses,
She'll be driving six white horses,
She'll be driving six white horses
When she comes

(Whoa back! Toot, toot!)

Oh, we'll all go out to meet her
When she comes

(Hi babe!)

Oh, we'll all go out to meet her
When she comes

(Hi babe!)

Oh, we'll all go out to meet her,
We'll all go out to meet her,
We'll all go out to meet her
When she comes

(Hi babe!
Whoa back! Toot, toot!)

She'll be wearing red pajamas
When she comes

(Scratch, scratch)

She'll be wearing red pajamas
When she comes

(Scratch, scratch)

She'll be wearing red pajamas,
She'll be wearing red pajamas,
She'll be wearing red pajamas
When she comes

(Scratch, scratch, Hi babe!
Whoa back! Toot, toot!)

She will have to sleep with Grandma
When she comes

(She snores!)

She will have to sleep with Grandma
When she comes

(She snores!)

She will have to sleep with Grandma,
She'll have to sleep with Grandma,
She will have to sleep with Grandma
When she comes

(She snores!
Scratch, scratch, Hi babe!
Whoa back! Toot, toot!)

Actually, this is my fellow Nebraskan's favorite hymn:

On a summer day
In the month of May
A burly bum came hiking
Down a shady lane
Through the sugar cane
He was looking for his liking
As he roamed along
He sang a song
Of the land of milk and honey
Where a bum can stay
For many a day
And he won't need any money

Chorus:
Oh the buzzin' of the bees
In the cigarette trees
Near the soda water fountain
At the lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
On the big rock candy mountain

There's a lake of gin
We can both jump in
And the handouts grow on bushes
In the new-mown hay
We can sleep all day
And the bars all have free lunches
Where the mail train stops
And there ain't no cops
And the folks are tender-hearted
Where you never change your socks
And you never throw rocks
And your hair is never parted

Chorus:

Oh, a farmer and his son,
They were on the run
To the hay field they were bounding
Said the bum to the son,
"Why don't you come
To that big rock candy mountain?"
So the very next day
They hiked away,
The mileposts they were counting
But they never arrived
At the lemonade tide
On the big rock candy mountain

Chorus:
 
One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
He said, "Boys, I'm not turning
I'm heading for a land that's far away
Beside the crystal fountain
I'll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain

Chorus:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain,
It's a land that's fair and bright,
The handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
The boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the sleet don't fall
And the winds don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Chorus:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain
You never change your socks
And little streams of alkyhol
Come trickling down the rocks
O the shacks all have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And ginger ale too
And you can paddle
All around it in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain

Chorus:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain
The cops have wooden legs
The bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The box-cars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the sleet don't fall
And the winds don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Chorus:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain,
The jails are made of tin.
You can slip right out again,
As soon as they put you in.
There ain't no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I'm bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Chorus:

It's also the Taverner primitive's wet dream.

[JohnnyReb]

About that Rock Candy Mountain.....the DUmmies have licked and sucked on that mountain until it's just about gone.

[BlueStateSaint]

At the risk of sending this to the Short Bus, I think of a song with the same music . . . and the first three words of the title (and the song) are "There's a skeeter."

[JohnnyReb]

At the risk of sending this to the Short Bus, I think of a song with the same music . . . and the first three words of the title (and the song) are "There's a skeeter."

Now what could possibly rhyme with "skeeter"....hmmmm....I know.....Derek Jeter.

[Vagabond]

Mother Jones was right, it was a damn shame the way those workers were treated.  The government should have been enforcing it's child labor laws, it's minimum wage laws, and it's workplace safety laws.  Those workers should have just packed their bags and moved on to a better employer.  Oh wait, those laws didn't exist back then, and mobility was still a huge problem.

There was a time that unions made sense and had a point.  Too bad that even back then, organized crime was so deeply involved in them.

[Karin]

I gave the pianist a big hug

And the same picture came to everyone's mind. 

I can't believe he typed out all those lyrics, as repetitive as they are. 

[USA4ME]

Do they know that Mother Jones believed employeers should pay a large enough wage to men so that wives could stay home with the childrem?  Probably not.

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