Solidarity Forever
(tune: John Brown's Body)
When the union's inspiration through the workers blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the union makes us strong
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might
Is there anything left to us but to organise and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
CHORUS
It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops; endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving, 'midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong.
CHORUS
All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations, built it skyward stone by stone
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own
While the union makes us strong.
CHORUS
They have taken untold billions that they never toiled to earn
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn
We can break their haughtly power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
CHORUS
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand-fold
We can bring to birth a new world in the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.
CHORUS
By Ralph Chaplin, January 1915.
