Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1905 — POOR MAN. [ARTICLE]

POOR MAN.

Beane in the coffee and dirt in the fruit, Peas in the pepper and epice: Sand in ths sugar, and plenty to boot: Chips in the flaked oats and rice. Beef doctored plenty with formaldehyde, Boracic acid and dopai “Smokes” made of cabbage, our woolen goods “snide,” Germs of disease in the soap. Dope in our catsupand paper in shoes, Yams in the pumpkins for pies; Cottonseed olive oil, poison in boose, Ptomaine in potted bam lies. Horseradish made out of turnips by day. Butter from tallow at night: Stone made of cement, and bricks without 'clay, Bread with vile alum made light. Strawberry jam made of timothy seeds, Quince preserves doped with glucose; Blackberry wine made of juices of weeds, Jellies—well, nobody knows. Fortunes built up on rank poison and gall, Offices won by deep craft: Clothing and medicine, food—in fact, all Subjects for greed and for graft. Paper soles tacked on shoes that we wear, Shoddy in all of our clothes; Nothing seems now to be made on the square— Craze for adulterants grows. Quarter-sawed oak desks are made out of pine, Cotton wove into our silks; Babies are fed till they mournfully whine On rank formaldehyde milk Poisoned at birth and then poisoned to death, Poisoned at morn and at eve, Lungs filled with poison at every breath, Everything made to deceive. Victims of greed from tbe cradle to tomb, Round us the trust arms entwine; Poisoned to death—and above us will bloom Wreaths of the rank poison vine. Bryan's Commoner.