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The industrial magnates won the civil war,
in cahoots with the government.
Mass production reduced our nation
from
a society
of farmers, artisans,
merchants and skilled
professionals
with some industry in the north
and the abomination of slavery in the south
to
swarms of
exploited
workers
starving
to meet
the demands of rich employers.
1877
A date to remember.
A year
and a century
after our country had won its independence,
the people rose again, to strike for their rights
and their lives.
1877
In that year,
after all attempts at organized
resistence were thwarted,
a nationwide uprising
of the working class erupted
spontaneously.
Beginning
when some Weat Virginia train men took over their station
and refused to allow any more freight trains to pass. When
they brought in the state militia the townspeople sided
with the train men. When federal troops
arrived to provide escorts for the freighters, the country
came down to the tracks to stop them.
Meanwhile
the strike rolled on from West Virginia,
eastward through Maryland
and westward through Pennsylvania,
on through Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
up and down the Mississippi, through New York, New England,
and all along the coast, people took over the railroads,
the factories,
the mines, the cities
and the very reins
of society.
And they kept possession until the government
formed up hardened troops
enough to take back the railroads
and put down the rebellion.
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